Chapter Thirty-Eight
Barrett
"Your life is being dictated by a fucking bird."
When Sawyer was told it was his job to keep an eye on his little brother, he apparently didn't realize that there was an end date to that; that once I was an adult, I could take care of myself.
This explained why he was in my office at three p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, shooting small eyes at me, his disapproval a living, palpable thing.
"Macaw."
"What?" he asked, shaking his head a bit.
"It's a macaw. A Blue & Gold one, to be exact."
"Yeah, 'cause that's important. The problem is you just turned down a fucking job because the bird needs to have a shower."
"Showers help soften up the casings on their pin feathers so they can preen them more easily."
"Jesus Christ." Sawyer sighed, rubbing a hand down the back of his neck. "The point is that the shower can be done later, and you could have had the interview now."
"He can't have the shower later. Later, he needs dinner, and then to go to bed. Parrots need ten to twelve hours of sleep a night."
"There's no fucking talking to you," Sawyer declared, huffing out his breath.
"And yet, here you are."
"Riya wanted me to check in on you. She was worried this place had turned into a sty again. She's not wrong," he added, moving a coffee cup off the edge of my desk, eyeing it dubiously before looking inside like he might find mold. As if I ever didn't finish my coffee.
I liked Riya.
When Sawyer first nudged her into my life— into my office—I was sure I would chafe every time she tried to clean up my messes, lectured me about taking out my trash so I didn't get bugs or rodents, or ordered something healthy to go along with my dinner.
But, in the end, it had been nice to have some semblance of order.
And I was sure my body appreciated something other than grease and cheese.
But soon she had ballooned up with Sawyer's baby, and had needed to leave the manual labor type work behind.
It had taken all of three or four days before the office went back to the mess it was before her. A mess now compounded by the Java tree stands and ceiling-hung climbing rope toys for Diego, the macaw I shared with Luce and his woman, Evan.
"Well, you can go ahead and tell Riya that you checked in on me, and that I'm fine."
"Fine?" he asked, stacking used coffee cups in his arms much the way Riya used to do, all the while clucking her tongue, muttering about how she thought when all my cups were dirty, I simply bought new ones.
She was right about that too.
"How many fucking mugs do you have?" Sawyer grumbled, making his way through to the bathroom, running the water into the cups.
Last time I counted, sixteen.
Which, admittedly, was maybe getting a bit out of control.
"Now that you've done half my washing for me," I started when he emerged from filling the mugs in the sink, leaving them to soak, "are you satisfied?"
"The bird thing is weird, Barrett," he told me, walking over toward the macaw in question.
"I wouldn't..." I started just before Diego lunged, closing his giant beak over Sawyer's forefinger.
"Fuck," he hissed, yanking his hand back, inspecting his finger, likely expecting blood.
"It was just a warning bite."
"Fuck of a warning. Alright, fine. I get it. You don't want my—”
"Condescension," I supplied.
"Help," he shot back.
"Sometimes, with you, it is the same thing."
To that, his shoulders sagged a bit, his air exhaling hard out of his nose. "I get that you're an adult and you have to live your life how you want, but that doesn't mean I can't worry about you when shit seems a little sideways," he told me, then turned, heading outside.
Alone, my breath hissed out of me.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to bristle when Sawyer sometimes got bossy, something that likely stemmed from the short stint of time I had worked for him, when he nitpicked and micromanaged, reminding me that my place was in the belly of the operation, not working outside the office on active—and therefore somewhat dangerous—cases.
Because unlike him and Brock, I wasn't ex-military.
Because, unlike Tig, I hadn't grown up rough.
To Sawyer, I was the skinny, clueless kid playing video games, someone who would throw his own shoulder out when trying to throw a punch.
To be fair, I was skinny. I wasn't trained. I had gotten my ass kicked more than a few times.
But that didn't mean I wanted him telling me what I could or could not do.
Eventually, I needed to strike out on my own, get my own license, and set up my own operation.
I wasn't Sawyer.
I would never have the kind of business he had. But I was doing alright. He didn't need to tell me if I could or could not—or should or should not—be turning away clients.
"I thought you were leaving," I grumbled at the sound of the door opening back up.
But before the words were even fully out of my mouth, I felt the change in the air. Diego could too, judging by the thumping noise of his flapping wings. Whoever was here was not Sawyer, was not someone he was familiar with.
Turning, I expected to find a stranger, someone who didn't know how a phone worked, someone who assumed that all investigating agencies had staff to deal with them instead of one man operations like mine.
But it wasn't a stranger just inside the doorway a few feet from me.
It was a local legend—the (now-retired) detective who seemed to understand the delicate balance of bad guys and genuine dirtbags in our town, choosing to look the other way from the gun running of the Henchmen but cracking down on the violent drug dealers, the wife beaters, the child abusers.
Detective Collings was past middle age with a bit of a hangover waistline, somewhat ruddy skin, and a mustache that wouldn't have suited anyone else but an ex-detective.
"Collings," I said, feeling my brows furrowing, not understanding why he would be in my office ever.
"Barrett," he said, nodding.
He couldn't claim to know me per se, but the police station was almost directly across the street from my office. I had seen him in passing hundreds of times. And he likely did know my brother.
Which was why it was even stranger that he was at my office instead of Sawyer's.
"What are you doing here?"
To that, he rocked back on his heels, tucking his hands in his back pockets, pressing his lips into thin lines.
"I need help."
And, clearly, he was not the kind of man who felt comfortable admitting that.
After all, he had dedicated his life to being the person others came to when they needed help.
He fixed things. That was what he did. That was a huge part of his identity.
Not being able to fix something himself was likely eating away at him.
"Alright," I agreed, moving behind my desk, waiting for him to take the seat across from me.
"Your desk reminds me of mine back when I was working," he informed me. To my recollection, he was the only person to come into my office and not tell me what a sty it was. It was refreshing. "Too many cases, not enough time," he added, filling silences.
"Speaking of cases. What's yours?"
To that, he sucked in a deep breath, expanding his chest so far that the buttons on his shirt strained to make room for it.
"My daughter."
"I didn't realize you had a daughter."
"Her mom left me when she was young. Rightfully so. Moved a bit away. The relationship got strained."
"So you're not close," I gathered, grabbing a legal pad, scribbling down notes.
"It's complicated," he insisted, his already reddish face getting redder. Anger? Embarrassment? Maybe both. I was never good at telling. "We talk about every other week."
"In person?"
"Sometimes, but mostly by phone. Does it matter?"
"Well, I am assuming that you are here because she hasn't contacted you, correct? That you haven't been able to get in touch?"
"I, ah, yeah. I haven't been able to get in touch."
"For how long?"
"Three and a half months. Almost four."
"And the last time you had contact, was it in person?"
"No. I haven't seen her in person for half a year. She's, ah, often busy."
Or simply not close with her father.
"Have you been in contact with your ex-wife?"
"I haven't been able to get in touch with her."
"Because she wants nothing to do with you?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"I'm assuming you checked to see if her mother filed a missing persons report."
"There's nothing."
"Is she close with her mother?"
"Closer than she is with me."
"So, if your daughter was missing, your ex-wife would know, and would report it, you would imagine?"
"Yes."
"And yet... you're here."
"Her car is gone, her place is empty, her cell is on the counter in her kitchen."
"But no signs of foul play?"
"No," he admitted reluctantly.
"She's an adult..."
"She didn't just walk away," he objected, likely having given the speech to several people who had come in to report missing adult children or friends in his career.
"But you can't really know that," I reminded him. It didn't matter that he had learned to be calm and detached. When it came to your own children, I figured there was no such thing as distancing yourself.
"I don't know it for sure. That's why I'm here. Find her. I don't have the channels I used to. And I know you aren't... above finding different ways to get information."
"Are you asking me to break the law for your daughter, Collings?" I asked, feeling my lips curve up.
"Why not? You've done it for other people's daughters."
"You're not wrong. Alright. I need her information. Address. Key if you have it so no one catches me breaking in."
It took me an almost embarrassingly long time to figure out how to pick a lock—something that seemed to come as second nature to my brother and his employees.
But I managed. Maybe I couldn't do it in five seconds flat like Sawyer, but I could get the job done.
That said, it was always better not to have to do it.