He pulled it out, looked at the screen, decided tomorrow he was fucking finally going to go get a new phone, and he took Sully’s call.
“Yo, Sul.”
“Merry, brother, call just came in. Shots fired. Parking lot at Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe.”
Garrett froze.
Not because there were shots fired.
Because of the tone in Sully’s voice and the fact that Cher was going to Bobbie’s that day.
“Sul,” he whispered, his insides freezing.
“Shits me to say this—shits me—but gotta say it. Calls came in reported the shooter abducted Cher.”
He turned sharply and headed to the door.
“You with Colt?” he asked Sully.
“Merry,” Mike called.
“We’re headed that way,” Sully told him. “Colt’s a little…” He didn’t finish.
He didn’t have to.
Garrett knew what Colt was.
He was that too.
Except she was his.
She was Colt’s friend.
But Cher was his.
And she’d been abducted.
Fucking abducted.
So what Colt was, Garrett was more of it.
“We’re headed that way too,” Garrett told him, shoving out the door.
“Merry, dammit, what the fuck?” Mike clipped.
“You got any more?” Garrett asked Sully.
“Nothin’. Call just came in. Pandemonium at Bobbie’s. Got units goin’ out there. If I get more before you get there, I’ll call,” Sully answered.
“Later,” Garrett bit off, standing on the driver’s side door of their service sedan. He looked to Mike, who was rounding the hood. “Keys,” he demanded.
It wasn’t his day to drive.
“Garrett, what’s goin’ on?” Mike asked tersely.
“Shots fired at Bobbie’s and preliminary reports say that the shooter took Cher.”
“What?” Mike asked, stopping short by Garrett.
“What?” Cal growled, and Garrett spared a glance to the sidewalk where Cal and his kids were.
He looked back to Mike. “Keys.”
“You aren’t drivin’, brother,” Mike replied quietly.
Garrett leaned his way. “Give me the goddamned keys.”
“Round the car, Merry. I drive,” Mike returned.
They faced off.
For half a second.
Then Garrett jogged around the car so they could get to Bobbie’s.
* * * * *
Cher
From my place, lying in the backseat of a car, hands zip-tied behind my back, I stared at the profile of Walter Jones, who was driving.
“You’re not ex-FBI, are you?” I whispered.
He said nothing.
“You’re not ex-FBI. You’re one of those sick fucks who gets off on all things Dennis Lowe,” I guessed.
“Shut the fuck up.”
He was.
God.
He was.
And he had me.
“I got a kid. I got a mom. I got a man. I got a life. I’ll repeat, I got a kid,” I told him.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“He’s eleven.”
I rolled to the floor when he suddenly stopped the car, pain shooting up my shoulder and across my hips, both of which hit first.
By the time I twisted my head to look up, he was leaned around the driver’s seat, pointing his gun at me.
“I said,” he whispered, “shut the fuck up.”
I shut the fuck up.
He waited.
Then he turned back around and drove.
* * * * *
Garrett
“She didn’t run.”
Garrett stood in the parking lot of Bobbie’s with Colt, Mike, and Sully, listening to Susie Shepherd talk, Mia standing next to her but not close. Both of them were visibly freaked right the fuck out, but surprisingly, it was Susie who had it together to report what had happened.
He tried to stay locked on Susie, but he couldn’t.
His eyes wandered to the back of the Equinox. The hatch up.
She’d been loading bags when Mia confronted her. Interrupted by his fucking ex-wife, then abducted by an unknown man with a weapon.
Six shopping bags he could count.
Fucking six.
She was excited for Christmas. Christmas with him and her boy.
Pink ornaments.
“It was too late, though. He was right on her. Snuck up the side of her car. She didn’t see him because she was dealing with Mia, and I didn’t see him because I was too. Cher didn’t have time to run,” Susie finished, and Garrett looked back to her.
“Merry,” Mia whispered.
Abe ran up. “BOLO out on the vehicle. They’re settin’ up roadblocks. Everyone’s been called in.” His eyes fell on Merry. “Everyone, dude. Everyone’s out lookin’.”
Even though the man had shot three rounds into the air to make his point, everyone getting that point and scattering, Susie had managed to have it together enough to see what car the man took Cher to. Make, model, but she got no plate.
Now they had a BOLO.
“Merry,” Mia whispered again.
“Describe him again,” Garrett clipped at Susie.
“Dark hair. Receding. Gray in it. Same with his goatee,” she described. “Good clothes. Blue shirt, nice jeans, nice leather jacket. He had some heft, but it worked on him.” She glanced at Colt before she returned her attention to Merry. “You know my type, so just to be helpful, I wouldn’t fuck him. He’s too short, he wasn’t all that, and he’s clearly a psychopath, shooting gunshots in the air in a fucking garden shop parking lot.”