This was what I did.
When I soundlessly closed my door behind me, I looked into my living room and hissed, “Shit.”
I didn’t know Carlito.
But I worked in a bar that served booze to cops, bikers, and bankers. Hairdressers and lady doctors. Farmers, plumbers, and lawyers.
And at a bar, customers considered waitresses deaf to anything but drink orders.
Also at a bar, customers considered bartenders their own personal shrinks.
So I knew that the least of what a man called Carlito was was a low-life loan shark.
But considering I’d heard his name murmured on more than one occasion by Colt, Sully, Mike, Drew, Sean, Merry, and a number of other cops in that ’burg, I suspected he was more.
I did not need that shit on my block, but it was more.
I did not need that shit on the block where my kid lived.
I went to my kitchen to pour myself a travel mug, emptying the last cup of joe from the pot into the mug to take out with me when the coast was clear. I was standing in the living room, holding it in my hand and listening for my neighbors, when my phone sounded with a text.
Excitement and annoyance chased its way through me as I looked to my phone on my purse, wondering if the text was from Merry.
Last night, through texts, his games had begun.
I was trying to ignore this.
It was hard to ignore.
I put the mug down on the coffee table, grabbed the phone, and saw it wasn’t from Merry. It was a text from Violet telling me she could pick Ethan up from school on Thursday when both Mom and I were working.
When I texted her back to confirm and give thanks, I saw I had a voicemail.
It was from that number I didn’t know.
I didn’t want to listen to it, but just in case the school got a new extension or some teacher was calling me from their own phone for some reason, I went to it, hit play, hit speaker, and heard, “Ms. Sheckle. This is Walter Jones. I would appreciate it if you could phone me back when you have a moment. Just so you know, I’ll make it worth your while. I was a profiler with the FBI, currently freelance, and am researching a book I’m writing on serial killers of the last twenty—”
I set my teeth and hit delete.
Fucking motherfucker.
I jumped and turned when a knock came at my door.
I had a shit door that, even wearing my daintiest high-heeled sandal, I could kick through. It was two layers of thin, cheap wood with a small diamond window at eye level so you could look out.
And in that diamond window, I saw Merry.
Fucking motherfucker.
He’d texted tomorrow.
And it was tomorrow.
I stared at him through the window, but he did not stare at me.
He opened the door and walked right through.
Mental note: lock the damned door, no matter if you’re inside just to pour a cup of coffee.
“Well, come on in, Officer,” I greeted sarcastically, throwing out my hand with the phone in it. “Something I can get you? Cup of coffee? Late breakfast? Quick blowjob?”
He did not look amused. He did not look annoyed.
He looked ticked.
“You puttin’ in your own storms?” he asked.
With the crap coming from my neighbors, Walter Jones getting my cell phone number and having no problem calling me, thinking he could ever in a million fucking years make it “worth my while” to talk about Dennis Lowe, and Merry waltzing into my living room, all in the expanse of ten minutes, I wasn’t following.
“What?”
“Windows, Cher.” He jerked his head toward the side of the house where the storm windows were stacked. “You puttin’ in your own storm windows?”
I had no idea why he would care, but there was only one answer to that question, so I gave it to him.
“Well, yeah.”
“Why doesn’t your landlord do it?” Merry asked.
“Because he’s seven hundred and twelve years old and my CPR skills are a little rusty, so I don’t want him giving himself a heart attack switching screens out for storms when I can do it myself.”
“It’s his responsibility,” Merry returned.
“I’d have to study my rental agreement, but I think routine maintenance is my responsibility, Merry.”
“You study that agreement, you’d find you’re wrong.”
It had been a while since I read it, but I had a feeling Merry was correct.
I didn’t share this feeling.
I said, “Then, considering the screens pop out, the storms pop in, and the doors only require little ole me to be able to turn a screwdriver, I’d rather just do it instead of calling him, waiting for him to come over, suffer a stroke while winterizing my house, thus scarring me mentally for life.”
His eyes narrowed. “You this much of a smartass before I made you come for me five times?”
I waited for my head to swivel around on my shoulders while fire shot out of my eye sockets.
When that didn’t happen, I snapped, “Uh…yeah.”
“Leave ’em,” he ordered. “I’m done with my shift, I’ll come over and put ’em in.”
I didn’t know how to react to that except allow my mouth to drop open, which I did.
Before I recovered, he asked, “You know Riverside Baptist Church?”
“Oh God. First you give me five orgasms, now you’re gonna save my soul?” I asked back.
He crossed his arms on his chest. “Rein in the smartass, Cher. Don’t got time to get you sweet, which means get you hot, so you’ll give me what I want instead of bein’ a pain in my ass. Answer the question: Do you know Riverside Baptist Church?”