Текст книги "Hold On"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“Right,” Garrett muttered.

“Jake went through the footage of Bobbie’s parking lot cameras. They got an image of this guy. Isolated him. Jake’s doin’ what he can to give us somethin’ we can use. He’ll send what he’s got to your phone. Let us know if this is the guy who visited Cher, sayin’ he was Jones.”

“Gotcha.”

“And Feb wants you to know she, Jackie, Vi, and Dusty are with Rocky at Grace’s. Rocky decided it’s best that she took Ethan out of school. Since Jackie is on the list with the school to pick him up, she helped with that. She says they’re all hangin’ in there,” he finished.

Garrett thought of Ethan.

He thought of Grace.

Another spike of pain in his head.

“Thanks, Colt,” he forced out.

“More when we got it. Later.”

Colt hung up.

“They’re sending an image of the guy,” Garrett told Mike as they drove.

“Good,” Mike murmured.

A minute later, Jake emailed him an image.

It was the man who’d told them he was Walter Jones.

He confirmed that to Jake. Connie in dispatch confirmed it to everyone on the hunt. Jake sent out department-wide emails with the image.

Now they knew he was not the man he’d said he was.

And they had to hope he didn’t know about LoJack in rentals or how to disable it. Though, if he did his homework on the ex-FBI agent he was impersonating, he’d know LoJack.

So, other than knowing he was not who he’d said he was, they didn’t know dick.

Primary to that being where the fuck he was.

Which was where Cher was.

And where Garrett needed to be to take care of his brown-eyed girl.

* * * * *

Cher

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Shut up.”

“He’s bleeding a lot. What’s wrong with him?”

Walter Jones stopped frantically opening and closing my kitchen cupboards and turned, shaking his gun at me.

“Shut up.”

“He’s my friend,” I chanced the whisper.

“He’s an asshole,” Jones returned. “You don’t want me in your town, you ask nice. You don’t come and get up in my shit. You get up in my shit, I get up in yours.” He pointed the gun at Ryker’s body on the floor before returning it to me. “What’s wrong with him is I got up in his shit. And that means he’s got three bullets in him.”

Oh fuck.

Oh no.

Ryker.

Lissa.

Alexis.

Fuck!

“Let me go to him, please,” I begged, doing it not knowing what I would do even if he let me.

I just needed to be with Ryker.

I just needed to do that for Ryker.

And I needed to find out if he was still alive.

Jones resumed opening and closing cupboards. “Just shut up.”

I shut up and looked from the chair at my kitchen table that Jones had planted my ass into to Ryker.

I was too far away. I couldn’t see if he was breathing.

I jumped when something crashed.

Jones was shoving all my stuff from my shelves to the ground. Bowls, plates, pitchers, everything crashing on the floor, breaking, the shards flying everywhere, hitting Ryker.

Years of yard sale finds, estate sale finds, garage sale finds, antique shop finds, my kid’s cereal bowls, the plates Merry always chose for when he made us waffles or pancakes.

My life crashing to the floor, the jagged shards hitting my brother Ryker.

Fucking motherfucker.

“What are you looking for?” I snapped.

“Cameras,” he grunted.

What the fuck?

“Cameras?” I asked.

He turned on me. “That little weasel plant cameras?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That weasel. No, not a weasel. A rat. Did he plant cameras?”

It hit me.

“Ryan?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Jones bit out. “The rat. The rat who led them to Denny. Him. He likes to watch. He’d like to watch you. Did he plant cameras?”

I stared at him, breathing hard. “Is Ryan okay?”

“He’s as okay as that guy there.” He jerked his head to Ryker.

Oh fuck.

Oh no.

Ryan.

My eyes got wet.

“You shot him?” I whispered.

“Dead.”

Dead.

Ryan.

I stared at Walter Jones.

The tear fell.

I should have known.

I should have known, with my life.

I should have known there would always be room for tears.

* * * * *

Garrett

His phone rang.

He looked to it.

It was Rocky.

He drew in breath and took the call. “Honey, unless this is about Ethan, now’s not a—”

“Merry?” Ethan interrupted.

The pain spiked, scoring into his brain.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Rocky doesn’t know I’m usin’ her phone. I swiped it. But I had to…I had to…” He drew in an audible breath. “Can I go to the station? Maybe Tanner can come and get me. I just…I just wanna…sit at the station.”

Fuck, he sounded scared.

His boy sounded scared.

Pain skewered Garrett’s brain as he beat back the fury.

“Prefer you where you are right now, kid,” Garrett told him.

“I know, but—”

“Ethan, bud, I gotta be doin’ what I’m doin’. Tanner’s helpin’. Mike. Cal. Colt. Sul. My dad. Everyone. So I got no one to look after your gramma except you. Need you to look after Grace. Can you do that for me now? Look after your gramma?”

“Yea—” His voice broke and Garrett’s vision blurred. He listened to Ethan clear his throat before he said, “Yeah. I can do that. I can look after Gramma.”

“Good, bud. See you soon, yeah? I’m gonna see you soon, buddy. You hear me?”

It was weak and nearly inaudible when Ethan replied, “I hear you, Merry.”

“Suck it up, Ethan,” Garrett ordered gently. “Need you strong, okay? Before you go back to your gramma, suck it up for me. Go back to her strong. She’s probably scared. You need to take care of her, yeah?”

Ethan didn’t reply.

“You with me?” Garrett prompted.

He heard Ethan clear his throat again and his voice was a lot stronger when he said, “I hear you, Merry. Gotta get back to Gram.”

“Yeah you do. See you soon. See you both soon.”

“’Kay, Merry.”

“Love you, son.”

A sniff, then, “I love you too.”

“Right. Later.”

“Later, Merry.”

They disconnected.

Garrett drew a sharp breath in through his nose and kept scanning.

“You did right, Garrett,” Mike said softly. “Gave him strength, direction. Something like this happened when Jonas was Ethan’s age, a time he’s just beginnin’ to figure out what kinda man he wants to be, he wouldn’t wanna look back and remember himself fallin’ apart.”

“Right,” Garrett bit out.

“He needed a mission.”

“Right,” Garrett repeated.

“You did right.”

Garrett said nothing.

Mike drove.

Garrett’s phone rang again.

He looked to the screen.

It was Cal.

If Cal had something to say that wasn’t important, he’d text.

He was phoning.

Garrett took the call.

He didn’t say a word before Cal spoke.

“Burgundy Taurus, man, right in your woman’s goddamned driveway.”

The pain spiked.

He looked to Mike. “They’re at Cher’s.”

Mike turned on his blinker.

“You got eyes?” he asked Cal.

“Walked by. Sheers closed but movement in the kitchen,” Cal answered. “Otherwise, made no approach.”

“Distinct movement?”

“Yeah. One person. Couldn’t tell much. But it wasn’t Cher.”

It wasn’t Cher.

“Stay clear,” Merry ordered. “We’re on our way.”

“Got it.”

Garrett disconnected and ran his thumb over the screen.

“He took her to her own fuckin’ house?” Mike asked.

“Cal says car’s in the driveway and there’s movement in the kitchen, not Cher,” Garrett answered as he made his call and put the phone to his ear.

“Yo,” Colt answered.

“Cal reports burgundy Taurus in Cher’s drive. You and Sully. Mike and me. And I’m calling Tanner. We go in soft with no one else there to fuck this shit up.”

“You’re too close to this, brother. Let me call Drew and Sean there. Adam and Ellen,” Colt replied. “We’ll take care of her.”

“If I’m too close, you’re too close,” Garrett gave him the truth.

There was a pause, then, “Fuck.”

Colt knew the truth.

“You call cap,” Garrett ordered. “Tell him what we’re doin’, but do not let him throw everything we got at this so fifteen squads from all over the county roll in hot and tweak this guy to do somethin’ even stupider than abducting my woman. We don’t know what we’re dealin’ with here. We go in easy.”

“You got it. I’m on it. Meet you there.”

“Our ETA, five.”

“Ours, seven. But we’ll shave off two.”

They disconnected.

Her own fucking house.

He called her number. It was the fourth time he’d called since he’d heard.

She didn’t answer.

Then he called Tanner and gave him the news.

“Okay, keep your shit, man, but if this is about Lowe, her bein’ Lowe’s and now you bein’ hers, this could be about you. Goin’ to her place, he could be drawin’ you there,” Tanner warned.

“That thought crossed my mind,” Garrett replied.

“We’ll get her, brother,” Tanner assured.

They would.

They had to.

Because he definitely could survive losing Mia.

He could even survive losing his mom.

But he wasn’t sure he was capable of waking up and not seeing Cher’s pretty.

* * * * *

Cher

“You’re breaking all my shit,” I bit out.

He was also near to dislocating my shoulder, jerking me around while he shoved the gun in my shelves in my media center and knocked shit off, not to mention tore pictures off the wall.

“Ratted on him. Got him caught. Weasel fucker,” he muttered.

Things had turned.

He had turned.

It was like I wasn’t there. He was so focused on finding cameras that didn’t exist, I was an afterthought.

And I was fucked.

There was nothing I could do. My hands were still zip-tied behind my back.

I couldn’t run and get shot dead, making my son fatherless and motherless.

I couldn’t fight to try and get the gun away from him.

I couldn’t think of Ryker on my floor, hopefully still breathing.

I couldn’t think of Ryan at all.

I couldn’t do anything but get extremely pissed off that my life sucked so fucking bad.

I should have known.

Never hope.

Never want.

Certainly never dream.

Never.

If this guy made me dead, he’d set my kid on a path where he could learn that.

And I wouldn’t be there to set him straight.

Fucker.

Fucking fucker.

“Please let me go,” I whispered.

He didn’t let me go.

His head came up and he jerked me around so quickly, my head snapped on my neck.

I saw him stare at the door.

My eyes shot to the door.

Was someone there?

Should I cry out?

“You ratted too.”

His words in that weird whisper made me look to him.

He was looking at me.

“I wanted to make a video for them. A nice video they’d like. A video of you on his camera. A video of me cleaning up Denny’s business.”

Oh God.

Please let someone be out there.

“You,” he kept whispering, “the slut-stripper whore and the weasel. You got him caught.”

“He was murdering people,” I replied.

“In the name of love.”

I stared at him.

Fucking fuck this guy was whacked.

And there it was. Just my luck. Just the suckage of my life.

I missed it.

Again.

“It’s time,” he said.

Oh no.

Shit.

Fuck.

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Time for it to end.”

He jerked me to the door. He opened the door. He kicked the storm and the glass shattered.

He put the gun to my head and walked me out, our feet crunching on glass.

He held me in front of him like a shield.

I could feel the cold metal against my temple.

But all I could see was Merry standing in my yard.

His gun was up, his eyes on me.

He was there.

Of course he was there.

He took care of me.

“Lower your weapon!” I heard Mike shout.

It was just a flicker of movement, but I knew Merry’s eyes were now on Jones.

“Lower your weapon and step away from Ms. Rivers!” I heard Sully yell.

“Her first,” Jones shouted to Merry. “Then you.”

Gun still up, Merry’s eyes stayed locked to Jones.

“You got a bead?” I heard Tanner ask.

I swallowed.

He’d take care of me. He was there. Right there. In my yard.

He loved me.

We’d finally found happy.

He’d take care of me.

I had to believe.

He was Merry, my Merry.

I had to believe.

I stayed focused on Merry.

Merry stayed focused on Jones.

His head barely moved, but it did.

In an affirmative.

I braced.

“Hold on,” Merry said.

That was for me.

And I did what I was told.

I held on and believed.

Jones shifted minutely.

“Take the shot!” Colt roared.

Merry’s gun exploded.

I screamed when the blood spatter hit my face.

Jones fell.

Chapter Twenty-Six

People Like Us

Cher

Marksmanship trophies.

Oh yeah, my man was badass.

“I love you,” I called, standing on my stoop, a dead man at my feet.

Merry lowered his gun.

“No shit?”

I pressed my lips together because that was the least romantic thing a man could say in this situation (or any situation), just as it had been the last time he’d said it.

But still, I was this close to crying.

Because I was alive to hear him say it.

(Not to mention, he’d just shot a man in the head for me.)

I controlled the tears.

Then I turned and raced into the house.

“Cher!” Colt called.

“Ryker! He’s been shot!” I shouted back while I sprinted through my living room.

I hit my knees on a slide right through a puddle of blood toward Ryker in my kitchen. When I stopped, I twisted, doing it awkwardly to get my hands, which still were tied behind me, on Ryker to see if I could find a pulse.

“Please have a pulse. Please, badass motherfucker, have a goddamned pulse,” I begged, searching for it.

“Man down. Send paramedics to our position. GSW,” Merry said.

I looked to him to see him moving swiftly into my kitchen, his phone to his ear.

“Three,” I told him. “Three of them.”

Merry’s eyes flared.

“He’s been hit three times,” he said into his phone. “Unconscious. Significant loss of blood.”

I lost sight of Merry behind me. Then my wrists were lifted, I heard the snap of a knife cutting through plastic, and my wrists were freed.

I turned, going back for Ryker’s pulse as Merry shifted, crouching across from me, shoving my hand aside and reaching in himself.

Colt, Mike, Tanner, Cal, and Sully came into my kitchen.

“Shit,” Sully whispered, eyes to Ryker.

Colt got close and crouched.

“Pulse. Weak,” Merry muttered. “Cher, get some towels.”

Pulse.

Weak.

Thank God.

I moved out. Mike moved in. By the time I got back with towels, they had Ryker on his back.

Men nabbed towels from me, went for a wound, and pressed.

I felt a hand on my arm and looked up at Cal.

He had one of my kitchen towels. He turned into me and his eyes watched his hand as he wiped blood off my face. He didn’t take a lot of time doing it before he caught my chin with his fingers and looked into my eyes.

“You good?” he asked.

I nodded.

He studied me.

Then he grinned. “Tough chick.”

“You bet your ass.”

He shook his head and dropped his hand.

I started to move to Ryker, catching sight of Tanner as I did.

There wasn’t a lot of room, especially with Ryker’s big body sprawled on my floor, but Tanner was pacing what was left of it, eyes glued to his bud, movements agitated, face set in stone.

They were tight, Tanner and Ryker. And don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew that Tanner was fighting the urge to drill the body on my stoop with more holes.

I went to Ryker’s head and got to my knees. Lifting his head gently, I slid my thighs under it to act as a pillow.

“Merry?” I called.

Merry looked from Ryker to me. “Yeah, Cherie?”

“Jones said he shot Ryan.”

Merry’s mouth got hard and he looked to Colt.

Colt looked to Sully.

Sully pulled out his phone and stepped out of my kitchen.

I turned my attention to Ryker.

“You’re good, brother,” I told him, curling my hands around his neck. “You’re good. You have to be. Alexis is boy crazy and someone has to protect her from teenage pregnancy, and you are the walking, talking anecdote for any boy who wants to get in a girl’s pants, if that girl’s your daughter, that is.”

Ryker, unconscious, said nothing.

My fingers curled in tighter.

“You’re good, brother,” I repeated. “You’ve gotta be good. You got sugar in your bed. What man in their right mind would leave that?”

Ryker just lay there.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t Ryker.

Ryker didn’t just lay there.

He annoyed.

He got up in your shit.

He threw back drinks and spouted inappropriate crap that made you want to smile and punch him at the same time.

I leaned over him as far as I could get.

“You gotta be good, brother. People like us, Ryker…people like us, we can’t give up. We gotta show the world. We gotta show our kids. We gotta show ’em it’s okay. We gotta show our babies we can do it if we don’t give up. We gotta show ’em it pays off, it comes to you if you got it in you to wade through the shit. You’ll get the good if you don’t give up. You can live it if you just dare to dream.”

I heard the sirens.

I bent even further, my forehead to his.

“You got it all, brother. You finally got it all. Don’t give up,” I whispered.

Ryker said nothing.

He just lay there in a puddle of his own blood on my goddamned kitchen floor.

* * * * *

Ryan

He was trying to open his eyes.

All he saw was fuzzy. Blurred.

But he smelled weird stuff. Like he was in a hospital.

He felt nothing.

He blinked slowly, the only way his eyelids would move.

The blur was still there when he was done.

But he felt something.

His hand was squeezed.

Then he heard it.

“You’re good.”

Cheryl.

She was there.

As crazy as it was with all the shit that had happened to them, she was always there.

The best friend he’d ever had.

“You’re good, Ryan,” she whispered. “Rest, brah. Yeah?”

He tried to nod.

He didn’t succeed.

He fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

Garrett

Three Days Later

“Well, fuck yeah, of course. Because I am,” Cher declared loudly.

Garrett stood at the door, shoulder to the jamb, and watched his woman move away from the hospital bed. She rounded it and gave Lissa a hug. She went to the chair Alexis was curled into, bent, and kissed her cheek.

Then she moved to Garrett.

Garrett nodded to Lissa, smiled at Alexis, and looked at Ryker in the bed.

When he caught Ryker’s eyes, Ryker lifted his hand, tubes stuck in it.

It took him time, but he finally executed his badass salute.

Lissa ruined it when she grabbed his hand on its descent and tucked it to her belly.

Ryker shook his head on the pillow.

Garrett bit back laughter.

Then he mouthed, I owe you.

After which Ryker did not mouth, “I know.”

That was when Garrett shook his head.

Cher made it to him, grabbed his hand irately, and yanked on it.

He took that and the fact she didn’t stop moving as indication she wanted him to follow.

He held tight to her hand and followed.

He also bit back his smile as they walked and he watched her annoyed profile.

“What are you?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“What are you?”

“What am I?”

“You said to Ryker, ‘of course I am.’ Of course you are what?”

She rolled her eyes and faced forward, still moving.

He tugged her hand and stopped.

She had no choice but to stop with him.

“What are you?” he pushed.

“Mom and Ethan are at your place. It’s been three days. I bought ready-made Christmas cookie dough. I gotta bake that shit, then we got a tree to decorate. But before that, we’re going to the fucking phone store. I’m getting you a new phone and no back talk. It’s your Christmas present. You can use it between now and the big day. I’ll swipe it Christmas Eve, wrap it, and…surprise.”

He ignored all that, though they definitely were hitting the phone store on the way home. Cher just wasn’t buying his new phone. She could buy him something else for Christmas that didn’t cost hundreds of dollars.

Instead, he kept at her.

“What are you?”

She looked at him a beat then looked away. “Colt has a big mouth.”

He tugged her hand again. “Cher.”

Her eyes came back to him. “It was that dare to dream stuff,” she snapped. “Colt told him. Ryker thinks it’s hilarious. He called me a girl.”

He gave another tug on her hand until his girl was close enough to let her hand go so he could wrap his arms around her.

“And I am,” she declared. “I am a girl.”

“Thank Christ,” Garrett muttered, feeling one side of his mouth hitch up.

She lifted her chin.

“I’m also a girl who’s moving into your house. Invite or not. Crappy bathrooms or not. We can use my furniture, which is comfortable, even if half of it’s from a garage sale. If you say no, we’re moving in with Mom. But no way am I makin’ my kid egg goo in a kitchen where Ryker nearly bled out on the floor.”

“Babe, have you been anywhere outside my bed, my house, or my sight unless you’re at work for the last three days?”

“No.”

“You think I’m gonna let you make dude food in a kitchen where Ryker nearly bled out on the floor?”

Her lips started curving up. “No.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked back.

“Why wouldn’t I do that?”

It didn’t take long for the answer to come to her.

When it did, she melted into him.

“You take care of me,” she said softly.

“Yeah. And Ethan. So yeah. Ask for time off. We’ll pack up all Janis Joplin’s shit that lunatic didn’t smash and move it to my place. But first, tonight, we’re putting fuckin’ pink ornaments on our first Christmas tree.”

She drifted her hand from his chest up to curl around his neck and rolled up on her toes.

She did this, staring into his eyes.

“Thanks for shooting a man in the face for me,” she whispered, her brown eyes dancing.

It hurt a fuckuva lot, but seeing as they were in a hospital corridor, Garrett managed to force his roar of laughter down to just a chuckle.

“You’re welcome, Cherie.”

“I love you, Garrett Merrick,” she told him.

“I know you do and I love you too, but just to repeat during this gooey moment where you might think you can get in there, Ryan is not recuperating in our guest room.”

The warmth in her brown eyes turned partially flinty at the ongoing argument they were having about her friend who was recovering in a hospital in Indy.

He’d lost a lot of blood.

He’d taken shots to worse parts of his body.

And he’d been left longer.

He’d also been taken off the critical list that morning.

“His mother is a ball-breaker,” Cher told him.

“So are you.”

He had her there. It was written all over her.

It took her a few beats, but she finally found her comeback.

“She’s not the good kind.”

And she had him there.

He tried a different tack. “Babe, I don’t have a bed in either guest room.”

“You will if we use my old one.”

Fuck.

She had him again.

“Right. I don’t want a geek genius in our house, playing video games with Ethan, possibly teaching him geek-genius stuff, which would not be bad, but also teaching him Ryan-stupid shit, which would absolutely not be good.”

“Hmm…” she murmured.

It was a good call to pull the Ethan card. She wanted Ryan to teach her son to be stupid less than Garrett did.

So he dodged the bullet.

This, and looking forward to store-bought-but-home-baked Christmas cookies and pink ornaments, made him pull her even closer.

“It happens,” he replied.

“What happens?” she asked.

He dipped closer and held her tighter.

“It happens,” he repeated. “For people like us, baby. It happens, eventually. Just as long as we hold on.”

She liked that. She showed it with her pretty brown eyes. She showed it by pressing closer. She showed it by wrapping both arms around his neck.

Finally, she showed it by rolling up further and taking his mouth.

And he liked that.

So he showed her too.

While she was taking his, he took hers.

And with that—as they did and as they’d continue to do—together, Cher Rivers and Garrett Merrick successfully weathered yet another storm.