Hold On (The 'Burg Series Book 6)

by Kristen Ashley

  * * * * *

  Forty-five Minutes Later

  Before Garrett got in his truck to leave the scene and meet Mike at the station, he stood outside it, watching the ME van rolling away with Wendy Derian in a body bag in the back at the same time their tow guy was hooking up the Fiesta.

  He did this with his phone to his ear.

  He listened to it ring and he kept hold of his shit as it kept ringing until he got Ryker’s voicemail.

  “By now, you’ve probably heard that Jaden Cutler’s girl took three. She just rolled away in the back of the ME’s van. You also probably get that this does not make me happy. And I’m guessin’ you get that your continued disappearing act is making me less happy. You know dick about this, Ryker, you better fuckin’ come forward. You got friends. They give a shit. They’d cover your ass on a lot, and you know this because we’ve already done that. But now a woman’s dead.” He drew in breath and finished, “I think you get me.”

  He disconnected.

  Then he swung into his truck.

  * * * * *

  Cher

  I sat across from Ethan and watched him wolf down three soft-boiled eggs crunched in with saltine crackers, a touch of butter, and some salt and pepper.

  Something my mother made me eat when I was a kid that I detested.

  Something that I’d tried on my kid when it became clear he liked everything that could be considered food, as long as it had only so much nutritional value.

  He loved it. He called it my “breakfast specialty.”

  I could make it, but once made, I could barely look at it.

  “Kid,” I called.

  “Yo,” he said, eyes to his bowl, mouth full and getting fuller since he was shoveling bright yellow, slimy cracker goo in it.

  I made a face.

  He looked to me.

  “What?” he asked.

  We had important shit to talk about. I had to get past the egg goo.

  “You remember that conversation we had not too long ago about you growin’ up and me needin’ to have a mind to that?” I asked back.

  He slouched in his chair, fleeting panic racing across his face as he said, “God, Dad. What’d he do now?”

  I quickly shook my head. “No, kid, it’s not your dad. I haven’t heard from your dad since all that went down on the front walk. And like I said then, your dad is not gonna do anything you don’t want him to do, I’ll see to that. But I do have something to talk to you about, and it’ll require me trusting that you actually are growin’ up and I can tell you what’s gotta happen. Then we can talk it out however you need to do that.”

  He came right out of his slump, straightening his shoulders and keeping eye contact.

  My little man.

  “Hit me,” he ordered.

  I wanted to laugh or at least grin, but he was being serious and I had to give him that.

  “Right, okay, you know that guy who lives down the way that gives off a bad vibe, the one who was bangin’ on Tilly’s door?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Well, somethin’ is goin’ down. I don’t know a lot about it, but Merry doesn’t have a good feeling about him and he’s a cop, so his feelings are usually smart to pay attention to. Until he figures out what’s going down, he wants us to stay with him. So, today, we’re goin’ to his place where we’re gonna stay for a while.”

  Ethan just sat there.

  I did too.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  “Well, yeah,” I answered.

  He went back to eating, but before shoveling in another load of egg mush, he muttered, “Cool.”

  Cool?

  “Uh, is that it?” I asked his question.

  He looked to me. “Is what it?”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, how long we’re staying with Merry? And the answer to that is, I don’t know, but hopefully not long. Just until that’s sorted.”

  “Okay,” Ethan said, then went back to his bowl.

  I stared at the top of his head.

  Then I asked, “Are you worried about anything?”

  He looked at me again. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything,” I told him. “Merry and me haven’t been seein’ each other very long, but this isn’t like we’re moving in with him. And that guy freaked you out. I don’t want you to hold back if something’s bothering you or you have a question you want answered.”

  Ethan tipped his head to the side. “Are you and Merry dating?”

  I thought that was a weird question because he knew the answer.

  Still, I gave him that answer. “Yeah.”

  “No, Mom. I mean, are you dating or are you boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  It kind of freaked me out my ten-almost-eleven-year-old son knew the difference.

  I couldn’t focus on that right then. I had to focus on his question.

  Merry and me hadn’t officially had the conversation, but I did feel it was accurate to answer, “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “So, that guy is bad news. Merry heard about him. His woman is livin’ on the same street, and we’re movin’ in with him until he deals with it,” Ethan declared. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just Merry.”

  I stared at my kid again.

  Ethan must have misinterpreted my stare because he went on to explain, “If that guy lived close to Feb before Colt married her, Feb would move in with Colt. Same with Vi and Cal. Merry’s like them. So…” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Whatever?” I asked.

  My son didn’t elucidate.

  He asked, “Does Merry have a nice place?”

  I told him the truth.

  “No. It sucks.”

  “Bummer,” he muttered.

  “It has a decent TV,” I shared.

  Ethan shoveled egg mush in his mouth and asked through it, “Can we take the Xbox?”

  “That and a skillet,” I confirmed.

  Ethan mouth scrunched to the side in confusion. “A skillet?”

  “Merry’s been more interested in riding his Harley and catching bad guys than buying a decent skillet.”

  Ethan grinned an egg-saltine-salt-and-pepper-mush grin.

  My little man but still my boy.

  God, I had the awesomest kid in the universe.

  “You’re the awesomest kid in the universe,” I declared.

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you gonna get gooey?”

  “No. Except tellin’ you you’re the awesomest kid in the universe.”

  He shoved his spoon into his bowl and scooped up more mush, muttering, “Already knew that.”

  I grinned.

  Then I grabbed my phone.

  I texted, Ethan’s good with the extended sleepover as long as we can bring the Xbox with our skillet, and hit send.

  Considering my man was embroiled in a fresh murder investigation that involved a woman I’d seen once, in her nightie, having an argument with my dickhead neighbor, I was not surprised his reply took an hour and a half.

  When I got it, it was, Xbox affirmative. He get to school okay?

  Seriously.

  Totally.

  If we went the distance, I so was going to be able to talk him into more kids.

  Yes, boss. FYI, we’ve been accomplishing that difficult maneuver since the third day of kindergarten when he quit pitching a fit because his momma was dropping him off with bitches who made him take naps, I returned.

  Whatever. Come by the station. Need to give you keys. Leave the Xbox by the TV. No one touches my TV but me. I’ll deal with it when I get home. Be home before you go to work so I can see to Ethan.

  I stared at the text, wanting to take a screen shot of its awesomeness, print it out, frame it, and put it by my bedside so I could read it every day.

  Since I didn’t want to be a whackjob who would do something like that, I just experienced another boon Merry gave me.

  That being, me, n
ow a woman who had a man in her life who was a man who was in her life. Being there. Taking care of her. Being a partner. Being a part of her kid’s life. Taking care of her kid. Liking that. Wanting it. Going for it.

  After I let that goodness sift through me, I called my mom and explained the situation.

  Needless to say, Grace Sheckle was pretty fucking happy my kid and I were moving in with Merry. So much, she didn’t care there was a possible homicidal boyfriend living two doors down from my house.

  Not even a little bit.

  I packed my bags. I packed Ethan’s. I disconnected the Xbox. I packed some groceries. I grabbed a skillet. I loaded this all in my car. I went to the station, got the keys, and stole a quick, distracted kiss from my man who was on the phone the entire time I was there.

  While there, I also got a lot of greetings from a lot of friends, all of whom were busy, so I didn’t dally.

  I took our shit to Merry’s and put things away as best I could.

  His extra room was a junk room, not a guest room.

  I’d deal with that tomorrow.

  I went out to go to the grocery store to add to the seriously meager supplies Merry had in his kitchen, something I needed to do before I went to go get my kid from school.

  And I left the Xbox on the floor in front of the TV.

  * * * * *

  Garrett

  “Nothin’ here but girl shit,” Jake muttered.

  Garrett and Mike stood across the table in the basement were Jake did some of his work. Scattered on it were Wendy Derian’s purse, the contents of the same, and the contents of her car.

  “Yeah, except there’s no cell,” Garrett replied.

  Jake looked up to him. “Nope.”

  “We went through the room she was stayin’ in at her sister’s. Not one there either,” Mike noted.

  Garrett looked to Mike. “Twenty-eight-year-old woman’s gonna have a cell phone.”

  Mike looked to the table. “Shit.”

  Woman in a hurry to get where she’s going.

  Cell gone.

  Not good.

  “Got stuff to process, guys. You need anything else?” Jake asked.

  “No, man, thanks,” Garrett answered.

  They moved out of the room, but they didn’t move to the stairs to go back to their desks. They moved to the stairs to exit the building in order to do legwork. They had a list of friends and family to hit.

  But Garrett knew where they were gonna start.

  “Cutler’s?” he asked as he pushed the door out to the back parking lot.

  Mike nodded.

  They moved to the unmarked sedan they used on the job and didn’t speak, not even to discuss who drove.

  They’d been partners a while. They had that down.

  They took turns.

  Today was Mike’s turn.

  Garrett folded into the passenger side.

  Mike set them on their way.

  Cher’s house was quiet, her Chevy not in the driveway, when they hit her street and parked outside Cutler’s.

  They got out. They went to the house. They knocked.

  No answer and his truck was not in the drive or on the street.

  “We’ll come back,” Mike said.

  Garrett nodded and they took off. They went down the list and hit what they could—Wendy Derian’s employer and then her friends at home, some at work, ending with going back to the family.

  Most were home. They’d gotten the news and news like that translated to an instant personal day.

  But they got the same from everyone, which was the same as what they’d gotten from her sister.

  Wendy was well-liked. She was funny. She was sweet. She was a decent worker (she wouldn’t win awards, but she showed and got the job done).

  But she was stupid. Picked the wrong men. Never learned. Kept doing it.

  No one liked Cutler. Friends were wary of him. Family detested him.

  Even with that, there was a lot of shock. She might’ve picked the wrong men, but however bad they were for her, no one thought she’d end up shot three times because of it. Maybe banged up. Even beat to shit.

  Not dead.

  This read that whatever the men she picked did—whatever Cutler did—she wasn’t involved.

  She went to work. She spent time with her friends. She did not exit her life for her man or to cover up whatever he was wound up in or the fact she was tied up in it too. She didn’t seem to be hiding anything or retreating from life, work, friends, or family.

  She just kept getting mixed up with the wrong guys.

  Mixed up so much with Cutler, the only thing friends and family did get was her demeanor during the time after their breakup to her death.

  She was cut up by it. Told everyone who would listen that he was “the one,” the breakup came out of the blue, to her they’d been happy, and Cutler didn’t give her even a hint of a clue why he ended things.

  That’s all they got. Including them coming up empty with the fact that she’d told no one where she was going the night before. No family member, friend, coworker, not a soul. The only person she’d mentioned it to was Marscha when she left, but she gave no detail.

  At five fifteen that night when they went back to Cutler’s and found no truck with no response to their knock, they had dick. No witnesses to what went down in the cul-de-sac. No one liking Cutler enough to spend too much time with him to know anything about the other side of his life that he couldn’t show them with Wendy. And Jake coming up with nothing outside Cutler’s prints in the car, which were expected since she’d been living with him.

  “Not got a good feelin’ about this,” Mike murmured as he headed them back to the station.

  “Nope,” Garrett agreed.

  “We got dick,” Mike told him, something they knew.

  “I wanna hit that house again later when he might be home,” Garrett replied.

  “We can hit her hangouts in the meantime,” Mike said. “I’ll tell Dusty it’s gonna be a late one.”

  They hit her hangouts, which were not surprisingly the perfect places to pick up the wrong guy.

  This meant that no one said jack outside expressing their shock and sadness at the death of a sweet gal that everyone knew but no one knew who might want to kill her.

  She also had not been to any of these hangouts the night before nor did any of the regulars know where she’d gone.

  And at a quarter to eight, when they went back to Cutler’s, there was still no truck and no lights on in the house.

  “We’ll try tomorrow,” Mike said.

  “Right. Gotta get home so Cher can get to work and I can look after Ethan.”

  Mike grinned at the windshield. “Domestic bliss already?”

  “Don’t know, but you’ll be the second to know when I do.”

  Mike chuckled.

  They went back to the station, did what they had to do to end their days, and Garrett got to his place just in time for Cher to give him a kiss and rush out to work.

  Taking one look at Ethan on his couch, he shrugged off his suit jacket and installed the Xbox.

  Ethan went for it with some video game, but he did it jabbering to Garrett about his day. The sound of the TV and Ethan talking made his condo seem a lot less crappy-ass than it always did.

  Garrett listened as he went for some food, finding he had more of it in his kitchen than he’d ever had in his life, including the part of his life that he shared with his ex-wife.

  He made a sandwich.

  And later, he and Ethan polished off one of the three bags of Oreos Cher had stocked, doing this while watching sports talk shows before they both hit the sack—Ethan, because he was a kid and was supposed to go to bed early; Garrett, because he’d been woken up early by a murder and was glad to put the day behind him.

  But before he turned out the light, he made one call.

  “Was pissed at you. Now pissed that I’m worried about you,” he told Ryker’s voicemail, then ordered, “Call me,
Ryker.”

  He hung up, hit the lights, and stretched out in bed.

  He fell asleep.

  Ryker did not call.

  * * * * *

  He approached the car.

  It wasn’t a Fiesta.

  It was a blue Equinox.

  He didn’t want to approach, but his feet kept moving, taking him there.

  He stopped outside the driver’s side door.

  Shards of glass in her hair and on her clothing, sitting in a pool of her own blood, her top drenched with it.

  Cher.

  Garrett’s eyes shot open as his body jolted.

  He stared at the dark, feeling cold because of the dream and the slick of sweat on his skin.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, lifting his hands, pressing the pads of his palms to his eye sockets, forcing stars to shoot through his eyes in order to obliterate the residue of that dream. “Fuck,” he repeated.

  He got it.

  Finally, he got it. He understood.

  His poison was different from Rocky’s.

  He thought it was the same.

  It wasn’t.

  Now he understood.

  He just had even less of a clue what to do about it.

  But he knew who did.

  * * * * *

  Cher

  At quarter to four in the morning, I let myself into Merry’s.

  I shrugged off my jacket and silently put it and my purse on the dining room table.

  The Xbox was not on the floor but in one of the shelves that had been empty, but now was not, under Merry’s TV.

  My kid was sleeping on the couch.

  It was a pullout that Merry had pulled out and put sheets and a thick blanket on.

  But it was still a couch.

  Something had to be done about that, but Ethan didn’t look uncomfortable.

  He looked out.

  Tomorrow.

  I moved down the dark hall and saw Merry standing outside the door to his bedroom.

  A near-to-four-in-the-morning welcome home.

  Nice.

  I said nothing.

  He said nothing.

  But when I got close enough, he hooked me with an arm around my waist and pulled me into his room.

  The door catching barely made a noise.

  Merry shuffled me back as I lifted my hands to his chest.

  “Need to get my kid a bed, baby,” I whispered.

  “I’ll talk to the guys. See what we can arrange for tomorrow.”