“Fuck,” Garrett whispered.
He should have checked. He should have looked into that shit.
Then again, the man who had Cher had done his homework. Preliminarily, how far would anyone dig before they let him get his foot in the door?
Still.
Fuck.
“Only two rental car agencies around Indianapolis International got burgundy Ford Tauruses in their fleets. Got folks checkin’ those that are out and who’s got ’em. They got LoJack, we’ll get positions of the vehicles that are out. Still checking other agencies not at the airport. I’ll report back on that,” Colt continued.
“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.