9. Garrett
Chapter Nine
GARRETT
H e nearly bit his tongue off trying to keep from shouting at the gray tabby kitten that had pissed all over his keyboard.
“What the hell?” he hissed, trying to mop it up with the spare tie he kept in his desk drawer. “The PI just sent the accident report!”
The kitten skittered to the side. It looked at the floor as if it was contemplating jumping, but it was too far.
Sighing, Garrett picked the animal up. He set it in the makeshift bed he’d made from a file folder box and some microfiber towels from the supply closet. But the little beast immediately escaped to roam the expanse of his plush cream carpet.
“Crap on that and you’ll be…” He trailed off, at a loss to find a threat that didn’t make him sound like a monster.
Garrett unplugged the keyboard and threw it in the trash. “Just behave kid. I’m trying to do you a solid here.”
He’d already fed the animal a quarter of his lunch, some very choice tidbits from his favorite sushi place. A mobile vet was also on his way to check him out and give him whatever shots cats needed at this age.
The kitten sniffed around the couch before stopping to sit and scratch his back. “Guess I better add flea dip to the list,” he muttered .
On cue, Garrett began to get itchy. Ignoring the sensation, he buzzed Fletcher’s assistant to get him a new keyboard. Dismissing her as soon as he had it plugged in, he sat and opened the file.
The first blow came when he saw the date at the top. March twenty-third.
He closed his eyes for a long moment before taking out his phone to confirm what he already knew. March twenty-third had been the last Saturday of his spring break senior year of college. He’d thrown his last party in Verdant Falls that night.
The next day he’d packed his bags, going back to college, determined to kick-start his life in the fast lane, leaving the Podunk town of his birth in his rearview mirror. And not just the town but everyone in it.
He had never gone back.
Garrett shoved the keyboard aside and laid his head on his desk surface, belatedly remembering there might still be cat pee on it. Groaning, he went to find some disinfecting wipes before continuing with the report.
Fuck . It got worse. Emma wasn’t in a car at the time of her accident. She had been walking when it struck her.
It had been a hit-and-run.
Garrett scrolled on as the vise around his chest got tighter and tighter.
The woods. Emma had been found at the bottom of the incline on one of those unnamed dirt roads that ran all through the woods. Her mom had been the one to find her a little after midnight, long after she had been expected at home.
The report didn’t say what road she had been on when she was run down. Where had she been going?
Jumping up, he began to pace. This was not enough information and at the same time too much.
Some asshole had hit Emma with his fucking car and left her for dead. He knew the men of Verdant Falls were always gunning it down those fucking dirt roads in their 4x4s.
Hell, the driver didn’t even have to hit her to do the damage they had done. A lot of those roads ran along steep ravines. Emma might have seen headlights and jumped out of the way, the driver passing none the wiser that he’d almost killed her.
God, he couldn’t imagine what Emma’s mother Mariana had gone through.
Back then Mariana Mendez had a reputation. Garrett had always thought it was unfair, the way people had talked about her love life. Small towns disapproved of anyone single with an active sex life.
Mariana had Emma young too, at sixteen or seventeen. She hadn’t been done growing up herself. Most of the town had condemned her for it. The rest—the single male part—vied for her attention.
It wouldn’t have been unusual for Mariana to be out all night back then. Far more likely than her very responsible college-bound daughter. How long had it taken her to realize Emma wasn’t just out with friends, but missing ?
Unwilling to wait for his PI, he called the number attached to the police report.
“No, I never had a viable suspect,” Jesse Warner said when he finally got him on the line and explained his interest in the case.
Warner, a former deputy and now the town sheriff, had been a good six or seven years ahead of him in school. They hadn’t been friends but had been aware of each other in that way reasonably popular guys in small towns were.
“Did anyone get bodywork on their car in the aftermath?” he asked.
Jesse harrumphed. “If they did, it wasn’t in Verdant Falls or any of the neighboring towns. We checked and made sure the local mechanics knew to call me if anyone brought in a car with damage consistent with a hit-and-run.”
“Shit,” he muttered. “I guess I was imagining that she saw the car and jumped out of the way.”
“Afraid not,” Jesse said with a sigh. “There was crushing damage to her left side.”
Garrett closed his eyes, struggling to hear what Jesse said after that.
“Could you repeat that?” he asked after a minute.
“I said it could have still been a drunk. You know how people are always tearing it up on those dirt roads. And the Mendez women are tiny. The fucker might not have even noticed he hit Emma and just drove on.”
Garrett wanted to protest, but he could see that exact scenario happening. Verdant Falls wasn’t financially depressed, but every Colorado town had that segment of hard-drinking roughnecks.
Warner must have shifted around, the sound of fabric rubbing against the phone’s receiver. “You said you ran into Emma recently and that’s how you found out?”
“Yes,” he said. “She ended up working in my building.”
“And she didn’t remember you?”
Garrett tapped the blotter on his desk with his pen. “No, she did not.”
“That’s a shame.” Jesse sighed. “I was hoping Emma would recover her memories someday. Accident or not, what happened to her never sat well with me. I guess Mariana was right. She’ll never get those memories back.”
Garrett leaned back in his chair. “She’s that sure?”
“She must be. She’s the one who has had the most contact with the doctors, right?”
He grunted, making a mental note to check the credentials of all the doctors who treated Emma back then.
“I still wonder if Mariana made the right move,” Jesse continued after a beat. “She moved one town over about a year after the accident. I know Stella was young and needed a lot of care, but Mariana did have friends here who could have helped no matter what she thought…”
“Stella who?” Garrett asked with a frown.
“Emma’s little sister.” Jesse hummed. “I guess you don’t know about her. She’s like four or five years old now. Mariana found out she was expecting around the time of the accident.”
Garrett rubbed his forehead. “No. I hadn’t heard about her. Do you keep in touch with Mariana?”
He wasn’t aware he’d touched a nerve until Jesse hesitated, his tone changing. “I still check in with her from time to time. We used to spend time together back in the day, but I wasn’t quite done playing the field yet so she moved on.”
Mariana had ‘spent time’ with several of the town’s eligible men. And a few of the married ones too. It was one of the reasons Emma hadn’t dated in high school. She’d been so determined not to make her mother’s mistakes.
“One thing I’m not sure you know…” Jesse hesitated. “Rumor had it she moved on with Teddy Bronson.”
“Oh.” Well, fuck …
Teddy was his aunt Phil’s ex-husband. He’d been ten years younger than her. They had divorced after eight years of marriage around the time Garrett left Verdant Falls.
Jesse’s grunt was clear over the line. “Yeah. I don’t want to gossip because I really like Mariana, but you should know there was a lot of talk about Teddy being Stella’s dad. Some even suggested the inheritance Mariana got—the one she used to buy her house—was a payoff from him.”
Naturally, his aunt Phil hadn’t told him any of this.
“I can pretty much dispel that last one for you right now. Geoffrey got alimony after the divorce, but nothing near enough to buy a house for himself, let alone anyone else.”
“Really now?” Jesse was skeptical but Garrett didn’t fight to convince him. It was enough that he knew the truth.
His aunt had used his lawyers to handle Teddy’s settlement after the divorce.
Whatever had gone down between Teddy and Emma’s mother, Garrett didn’t think it had been the reason his aunt had filed for divorce. At least not the only one. Teddy was a womanizer who’d had several affairs.
“Tell Emma the case is still open, if she’s interested, that is,” Jesse said. “But there’s no need to dredge it up if she’s moved on and doesn’t want to dwell on the past. Last I heard she was hell-bent on doing that.”
“Yeah,” Garrett mumbled. “Understandable.”
He hung up a few minutes later, giving the cat a meaningful look .
“Jesse brings up a good point.”
It was the same one Bethany, the surly barista, had made. Emma didn’t want to interact with anyone from before her accident.
Rising, he bent to pick up the kitten, putting it in the box before it could pee on him.
“You’re going to have to do me a solid and help me get my foot in the door,” he told it. “Remember to be extra cute when you meet your new mom because daddy has some karmic debt to clear.”