Chapter 24
It was after eleven p.m. by the time Cutter collapsed on his bed on the third floor of the Gilmore—an historic hotel in downtown Ketchikan.
The throaty roar and thump of skateboards on wooden docks across the street carried through the open window with the screech of squabbling seagulls.
The smell of fry oil drifted up from Annabelle’s Restaurant on the ground floor.
He and Lola had planned to stop in for a bowl of their famous seafood chowder after they rolled up their bad guy, but with the business at Ward Lake, neither of them had an appetite.
Cutter had called Mim earlier and told her about the arrest. News traveled at lightning speed, even from eight hundred miles away.
He didn’t want her to worry if she caught wind of gunplay near Ketchikan.
He longed to talk to her again before bed, but it was far too late to bother her now.
Even worse, he’d only add to her stress by downloading events of his day in detail.
That was his burden to carry. Still, he’d promised to call, so he split the difference and sent a text. If she was awake, she’d call back.
Cutter snatched it up immediately and fell backward on the bed. Mim’s face appeared on the screen. She was in bed, propped on a mountain of pillows, straw-blond hair pulled up in a frilly yellow scrunchie.
“Hey there,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.
“Hope my text didn’t wake you.”
“Your baby girl woke me,” she said. “Judging from her powerful desire to kick the crud out of my bladder, I’m a little worried she might be the grumpiest person in this family.”
Cutter gave her a playful grimace. “Sorry. Tell her I said hello.”
“How you holding up?”
“I’m good.”
She scoffed. “You wouldn’t tell me if you weren’t.” She adjusted her pillows against the headboard to sit more upright. “Let me try it this way. How’s Lola holding up?”
“We talked it out,” Cutter said.
“Something like that has to be a kick in the gut, I’m sure,” Mim said. “Just know you don’t have to shield me from the bad stuff.”
“That’s my job,” he said.
“Then our jobs are at odds,” she said. “Because it’s my job to buoy you up. And we decided early on in this marriage that if you and I are at odds, my position wins.”
“We decided that?”
“Well,” she said, “I decided that. And if you don’t agree, please refer to what I have already decided.”
“Noted.”
“Seriously, Arliss,” she said. “You can’t be afraid of talking to me. We’ve been through too much for that.”
Cutter beat his head against the pillow.
“It’s a tragic deal,” he conceded. “Worse for the Ketchikan PD guys. They knew her. Lola’s stunned for sure, but she seems more pissed than anything.
I didn’t mention it earlier, but Jessica Stone’s previous arrests showed she had a wolf’s head branded on the nape of her neck. ”
Mim’s mouth fell open. “No! Just like the ones in that horrible business last winter.”
“Yep,” Cutter said. “The troopers and the FBI both have open homicide cases. Lola sniffs around every free moment, but it’s been months with no new leads until today.”
“Whoever it is branding these people is so terrifying that the possibility of seeing them again made this poor woman feel she had no other choice than to kill herself?” Mim closed her eyes. “What kind of world are we bringing this child into, Arliss?”
“The same kind of world it’s always been,” Cutter said. “We just happen to be privy to the guts of it at the moment.”
“This scares me,” she said.
“I know,” Cutter said. “That’s what I’d hoped to avoid.”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk to me about it. Anyway, if anyone can find them, it’s you and Lola.”
“We’re manhunters,” Cutter said. “Not homicide detectives. The chief has made it clear this is a spare-time endeavor only. And there’s not a lot of that floating around. The warrants just keep rolling across my desk.”
“Well, I have faith in you,” Mim said. “Might not be today or even tomorrow, but at least you have another piece of the puzzle. You’ll find them, and when you do, you’ll make them pay. Grumpy’s Man-Rule …”
“How are you feeling?” Cutter said, eager to change the subject away from bloody murder.
“Like a whale.” Her eyes narrowed, studying him. “You didn’t eat, did you?”
“No appetite.”
“I stashed an emergency PAYDAY in your pack,” Mim said. “Eat that, at least. I have a feeling it’s gonna use up a lot of energy dealing with Joellen.”
“You’re not really worried about her, are you?”
“What, worried that you could fall back into the arms of your gorgeous ex-wife while I’m eight hundred miles away with acne and swollen feet? Nope. Not one teensy bit.”
“That’s a relief.”
“If I’m worried about anything, it’s that now we are finally together, I’m not quite the girl you’ve been imagining me to be all these years.”
“You’re more,” Cutter said.
“Yeah, thirty-eight pounds more.”
“Seriously, Mim, Joellen doesn’t even know I’m here, and she may never know. My idea is to watch from a distance when she leaves the ship. See for myself if anyone is following her. If she gets off clean, then Lola and I will finish up and fly home.”
“Tell Lola she has my permission to clobber Joellen if she tries to get fresh.”
Cutter laughed. “I’m sure Lola has that covered on her own. She already thinks of herself as our kid’s auntie.”
“You’re a good man, Arliss Cutter. I’m not really worried.”
“Good,” he said. “And anyway, Joellen told me she’s met some new guy on the ship. I am the farthest thing from her mind right now.”