Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My phone chimed with a text. I grabbed it off my desk and read the incoming text.
I’m so sorry J. Mom and I are in Savannah for the night.
If you can’t find someone to grab the kids LMK. I’ll call Char.
I sent back a response telling Kayla not to worry about calling her friend. With my phone still in my hand I looked across our desks and told Ethan, “Gotta make a quick call. Kayla can’t pick up the kids.”
“Honor’s taking Ford to a doctor’s appointment. But it’s just a well checkup. She can cancel.”
Another prime example of how good of a friend Ethan was.
“Or I call my mom. You know she loves Juni and Cole.”
“Might need you to call your mom. But let me call Rainy first.”
Ethan whistled and shook his head.
“Slow, according to Jason Turner.”
I pushed back from my desk and made my way back to an unoccupied interrogation room.
Rainy picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
Before I could get out another word, she forged on. “Everything okay?”
“I’m calling because I need your help.”
“Okay.”
“Kayla can’t pick up Juni and Cole from school this afternoon and Ethan and I have something important going on. Is there any way you can grab them? I won’t be later than six.” I paused because that could be a lie. “Unless something breaks. But if that happens, Honor can come around and grab them.”
“Who’s…um…Kayla?”
I looked at my boots and smiled.
It probably made me an asshole, but I liked that there was a hefty dose of jealousy in her tone.
“Kayla’s my next-door neighbor’s daughter. She’s nineteen. My neighbor’s name is Emily. She’s sweet and kind and a huge help with the kids but not my type and not only because she’s more than a decade older than me. And if she was mine, I’m not her type seeing as I have a dick.”
“Oh…um, that’s cool you have them next door to help. And yeah, it’s no problem for me to pick them up. What do I need to do to get Colson?”
“I’ll call the school to get a message to him that you’re picking him up and to look for your car. Do you know where the middle school is?”
“Yes, Jason,” she huffed. “I remember where I went to middle school. Unless you drive him to Long County and he goes to LCM, but even if you did, I know where that one is, too.”
“Right.”
There was a beat of silence and once again Rainy’s tone changed. This time too timid. “My house or do you want me to take them to yours?”
“Whichever you prefer. Cole has a key if you want to go to mine.”
No, I was wrong. Before, her tone was shy; now it was timid. “Your house is bigger…I mean…I assume—”
“Rae, baby, if you want to take all the kids back to my place that’s fine. I’ll text you the address and alarm code. But you don’t have to worry about the alarm, Cole knows how to turn it off and like I said, he has a key.”
“I won’t snoop or anything,” she solemnly told me.
“Rainy, I promise you I got nothing to hide. Look around. Snoop. I don’t give a fuck.”
“I won’t—”
“Baby, I don’t care if you do.”
“Okay.”
Right. Moving on.
“Thank you for grabbing them. Juni will be stoked. As you know, she spent the whole weekend talking about you.”
“She’s sweet and I’m just happy my minor freakout before I got out of the car didn’t freak her out.”
It wasn’t minor. Rainy had looked like she was getting ready to hurl, or as an alternative, speed away. Maybe both.
There was a rap on the doorframe to catch my attention. Ethan was standing there with his brows pinched together.
“Dylan’s got something for us,” he whispered.
Fuck, yes.
“Sorry, baby, gotta cut this short, Ethan’s waiting on me.”
“Okay. Don’t worry about the kids. I’ve got them. Even if you’re gonna be late. Just come home, we’ll be at your house.”
Just come home.
I’d waited sixteen long fucking years for Rainy to say those words to me.
Slow was history.
Together, we’d work to get the kids where they needed to be.
Together.
Fucking finally.
One day when I retired from police work, I was applying at TC for a second career in investigations.
Nikki, our cyber tech, had a cool set up but nothing like what Dylan had. Triple Canopy wasn’t hamstrung with government funding. Thus, they didn’t have the same budget constraints the police departments had.
Not to mention, their whole complex was a tactical dream.
“Meet Tyler Mercer,” Dylan said, and pointed to a white board with a photograph of a good-looking, dark-haired man taped to the top.
“Thirty-six. Never been married. No kids. Moved to Hollow Point from Atlanta where he was born and raised. His father still lives there, works as an electrician. Which is also Tyler’s occupation.
His mother moved to Knoxville, Tennessee when he was twenty, she’s an attorney. ”
“That’s the fucker who shot me?” I asked.
“That’s the fucker I caught on Lionel and Marybeth Robinson’s camera they have in the backyard facing the woods.”
“Doe Run?” Ethan inquired about the neighborhood.
“No, Oak Crest. The Robinsons’ house is the one on the curve of the cul-de-sac at the end of Peacock.
He went through their side yard. I also caught him on Trent and Sarah Niemen’s camera five houses down.
Again on Maranda Kennedy’s camera. She lives on the corner of Peacock and Hill View.
It’s her camera that hits paydirt. Tyler removed his hoodie and stuffed it in her trash can.
Her camera had a perfect angle for me to pull an image and run it through facial rec.
” Dylan stopped and picked up a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to Ethan.
“Here are the addresses you are going to want to hit and ask them if they’ll give you their footage.
On the bottom are the traffic cameras he hit on his way home.
” He stopped and picked up another piece of paper but didn’t hand it over, he just held it up.
“This is Tyler Mercer’s information, including his address, phone number, and employer. ”
Ethan shook his head. “You keep that.”
“From that I can guess you don’t want to see the footage I saved,” Dylan put in, knowing Ethan would skirt the line, but us viewing the videos that Dylan had illegally downloaded would mean that line would be crossed.
“Not now, but save them just in case.”
Dylan nodded and put the paper back on his desk.
“Samantha Williams was found dead this morning,” Ethan shared.
“No shit. Any suspects?”
I stayed silent, letting Ethan take the lead on how much he wanted to share.
“In a runoff pond.”
Dylan’s brows pulled together.
“That’s a mighty big coincidence you have two bodies dumped in bodies of water.”
“It is,” Ethan agreed.
“Is that your way of asking me without asking me to see if I can find Tyler near the second dumpsite?”
Ethan shrugged. “That’s just me telling a good friend that Samantha Williams was found near the sand mill.”
Dylan nodded. “Got it.”
“Appreciate the time you spent on this,” I told Dylan.
His gaze dropped to my shoulder. “Just so you know, if Ethan hadn’t asked, I already had orders to find who shot you.
But here’s something else for you. I didn’t need Ethan asking or the direct order, I was already at my computer as soon as I got word what happened.
I don’t wear your uniform, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a brother, and we take care of family around here. ”
I didn’t need for Dylan to tell me that. I knew Ethan’s family well—blood and bond. I knew the kind of men and women they were. And I knew I was damn lucky to have them in my life, but more, in my children’s lives.
“Appreciate it all the same, brother.”
“If you have any trouble getting the homeowners to hand over their footage, let me know. Quinn is primed to go knock on doors and we all know she’s nearly as persuasive as Chelsea.
And Chels only beats her out this month because she performed the miracle of getting West and Jase to go up for her bachelor auction fundraiser. ”
Fucking hell.
How had I forgotten about the auction?
“Chels is gonna be disappointed when Jase informs her he’s no longer a bachelor,” Ethan noted.
Damn, my friend was smart as fuck.
I now had the perfect excuse why I couldn’t go up for auction.
It would seem there were some additional benefits of reclaiming the love of my life.
Not the most important or significant.
But a win nonetheless.