Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Merritt
P anic set in the instant he pulled me into an embrace. My lungs constricted so tightly no air could get in or out. Blackness started to creep in around the edges of my vision.
“I’m so happy you’re safe. Now that you’re back, we can go get Levi and move him in with us. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep both of you safe.”
The mention of Levi broke through the panic that had been holding me in an iron grip. The underlying threat hidden beneath the shiny veneer of a loving, adoring husband and uncle. I would die before I let him anywhere near Levi.
My fight or flight instinct finally kicked in, and I began to thrash in his hold. “Let go of me!” I shouted, shoving at his arms until I broke free and stumbled back. Blythe was there in an instant, wrapping her arms around me to hold me steady.
He actually had the audacity to look shocked, and slightly wounded, at my outburst. “Merritt, sweetheart?—”
He took a step toward me, but Blythe moved fast, shifting me to the side and stepping in front of me. “Don’t you touch her!” she barked, the rage in her voice drawing several of the people around us up short. We were attracting an audience, but in that moment, I couldn’t find it in me to care. I was too busy trying to keep my knees from giving out as my body started to tremble uncontrollably. “You stay the hell away from her,” Blythe continued.
Warren’s head jerked back at the venom flying in his direction, but I had to hand it to him, the man was the best actor I’d ever seen. He deserved an Oscar for how well he played the role of a bewildered, worried husband.
“What in the world is going on? I’m just trying to talk to my wife.” He shifted his attention over Blythe’s shoulder. “Baby, I’ve missed you so much.”
“You don’t get to talk to her. You shouldn’t even have the right to look at her or breathe in her direction. You need to turn around and walk away.”
“Look, I don’t know what this is all about, but this is between me and my wife. It has nothing to do with you.” The clench in Warren’s jaw and flash in his eyes was one I recognized well, and seeing it directed toward my friend made me fear for her safety.
“Blythe.” I grabbed hold of her arm and tried to tug her back, to get her the hell away from the monster she was standing up to, before something unthinkable happened. I didn’t know what I would do if Warren hurt her because of me. “Please,” I begged quietly, not sure exactly what I was pleading for. For her to stop? For her to walk away? To forget about me and protect herself?
Blythe snorted derisively, her glare intensifying by the second. “You know, you might think this adoring husband act is working for you, but I know the truth,” she said threateningly. “I know it’s all bullshit. And I know the monster you are beneath this facade.” She waved her hand in front of him.
That tick in his jaw became more pronounced, and I knew he was struggling to keep the hidden dark side of him—the real him—from breaking free in the face of Blythe’s dressing-down.
“Look, I don’t know what she’s told you, but my wife is confused. She’s been under so much stress lately, and she’s never been one to handle pressure well. It’s my job to take care of her. I’m the only one who can help when her mind starts playing tricks on her.”
My skin grew clammy as fear washed over me. This was what he did, what he was so brilliant at. Convincing people to come around to his way of thinking was a skill he’d fined-tuned and used regularly, and the thought that the only real friend I’ve had in years might actually believe him twisted my stomach as bile clawed its way up my throat.
However, as it turned out, I was scared for nothing.
“I know what I saw,” she threw back, the anger practically vibrating off her and causing the air around us to shimmer. She stepped closer, her tone full of menace. “And I know she didn’t do that to herself.”
Warren stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re accusing me of, but I’d be very careful if I were you,” he said on a low growl.
She wasn’t deterred in the slightest. “And I also know a narcissistic, manipulative, gaslighting piece of shit when I see one.”
Oh God .
“Now, if you don’t turn around and walk away right now, I’m calling the police.”
She’d called his bluff, and Warren knew it. But I didn’t think for a second he’d just give up. He’d take time to regroup and strategize, all while coming up with a punishment. That was how his twisted brain worked.
He turned his attention back to me, his mask in place once again. “You’re clearly upset, and that’s the last thing I want. I’ll go for now, baby. Just know that, when you’re ready to come back, I’ll be waiting.”
With that, he turned on the heel of his loafer and started back in the direction he’d come from. At the sight of his retreating form, my body gave out, and I would have fallen to my knees if it weren’t for Blythe holding me up. As it was, my heart was beating so fast it was a frantic flutter in my chest that I could feel through my skin.
“We need to go,” Blythe informed me as she started tugging me down the sidewalk toward her car.
“Go where?”
Her eyes met mine, and her arm around my waist banded tighter, like she was trying to pour all her strength into me, knowing I needed it. “We’re going to the police. We’re going to make sure that asshole can’t get anywhere near you or Levi ever again.”
Tristan
Harrison’s desk chair let out a high-pitched whine of protest when my partner flopped onto it aggressively, the expression on his face thunderous to go with the tense lines of his body.
He blew out a frustrated huff as I shoved the white paper coffee cup I’d picked up for him from Muffin Top onto his desk.
“Thanks,” he grunted, lifting it to his lips and taking a sip.
“I take it you didn’t have any luck?” While I’d been working our drug case from this end, trying to find some sort of connection between the overdoses, Harrison had gone to the prison to try and get Oswald Garrison to tell us where he got it. More than once I’d questioned how Merritt and Levi could be related to a man like him. Oswald—or Ozzy, as he was commonly referred to—was a blight of society. A waste of oxygen. He couldn’t have been more different from the rest of his family if he tried. On top of being a worthless junkie, the guy was also a raging asshole. I’d gotten word that he’d been in two fights already because the prick didn’t know when to shut his mouth.
I would admit, my curiosity had been piqued, and I’d come close to asking Merritt about her older brother more than once, but I always managed to stop myself. She hadn’t brought him up on her own, and I certainly didn’t want to pry and risk making her uncomfortable. I managed to come to terms with the fact that she’d tell me in her own time... or not at all. It was her choice.
Harrison cut his eyes at me. “You kidding? I couldn’t even get in to see him. Asshole got himself shanked by mouthin’ off to another inmate who’s a hell of a lot further up on the totem pole than our boy—not that he seems to care. He was laid up in the infirmary, bitchin’ and moanin’ about needing pain meds, which they won’t give him since he’s an addict. Refused to say a word unless I got them to dose him with something.”
“And I’m guessin’ you didn’t.”
Harrison let out a snort and rolled his eyes, rocking his chair back and kicking his feet up on his desk as he took another hit of coffee. “You kidding? I wouldn’t have helped him get a fix even if he hadn’t been a pain in the ass this whole time. But considering he has been, I got a fair bit of enjoyment refusing and watching him suffer.”
I let out a chuckle and rocked back in my seat, twirling the pen I’d been holding between my fingers. “I just don’t get it,” I started a few seconds later. “Garrison is nothin’ like the other OD’s. They don’t run in the same circles, share the same lifestyles. Hell, I don’t think he even crossed paths with any of them.”
All the other people who’d overdosed on the same cocktail as Merritt’s brother were in a different league. They were the types to golf every weekend and have memberships at an exclusive country club. Most of them were from well-off families and had connections in local politics.
“He’s not someone they’d even want to share air with. So how’d he get his hands on a batch of heroine that exclusive?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve been digging nearly a week and a half and can’t find a single connection anywhere. I hate to say this, but unless that shit stain gives up his supplier, I’m afraid we’ve hit another dead end.”
I had a sinking feeling he was right. On that thought, my desk phone rang, the display showing that the call was coming from the front desk.
I plucked it up and brought it to my ear. “Fanning.”
“Detective,” Officer Michaels, the patrolman currently working the front, greeted, “You’ve got a visitor.”
I pushed out a huff. “Swear to Christ, if it’s Sue Ellen Mayfield again?—”
“It’s your sister. And she’s got someone else with her. Says she needs to see you right away.”
A chill passed down my spine. Blythe didn’t just show up unannounced, and from the tone of Michaels’s voice, something serious was going down. “Send her back,” I said in a rush, then slammed the phone onto its cradle and shot to my feet.
I was vaguely aware of Harrison following after me as I started winding my way through the maze of desks that made up the bullpen.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his legs moving fast to keep up with my pace.
“My sister’s here. She—” Before I could finish my sentence I spotted Blythe coming off the short set of stairs with a worried look on her face. But as quickly as I recognized that, my attention was stolen by the woman she was holding onto.
Merritt was pressed into her side, her shoulders hunched like she was trying to curl in on herself and disappear.
I stopped a few feet in front of them, taking a quick second to get myself together and rein in the wide range of emotions suddenly churning inside of me like a squall. “What the hell happened?” I directed the question to Blythe after a quick glance showed Merritt’s pale green eyes had a haze to them like she had closed herself off.
Her unease was quickly replaced by a look of anger so terrifying it would have every man in the vicinity cupping their balls for protection.
“It was him ,” she said. And just like that, a blanket of red coated my vision.