“Absolutely,” Garrett answered.
Mike got up.
Garrett got up without even turning on his computer.
They went to the sedan.
And that day, Garrett drove.
Chapter Twenty
Matchmaker
Garrett
In the bullpen, Mike stood three feet from the whiteboard, staring at it.
Garrett sat on the side of his desk, also staring at it.
Sean and Drew stood close, staring at the board too.
At the top was a long horizontal line, short vertical dashes on the line.
Close to the right edge and under a dash, on three lines, it said, 4:30 a.m. gunshots heard, time of death.
Next to that, under a dash, two lines said, 4:39 a.m., 911 call.
The space between those times and the time Wendy left work as well as the space after those times was empty—except for question marks.
Stuck to the board, there were driver’s license photos of Wendy Derian and Jaden Cutler. There were also crime scene photos of her, her Fiesta, and four shell casings on the pavement outside her Fiesta.
Marscha had heard it right; Wendy had been hit three times. Jake found another bullet lodged close to the gear shift.
Either a warning shot or a miss.
In the top right-hand corner, it said, Cell phone?
Other than that, there was nothing.
Dick.
Their trip to Cutler’s that morning bought them the same. He still wasn’t there.
“Fuck, we got dick,” Mike muttered.
“You got dick,” Drew confirmed.
They all stared at the board.
“Seriously,” Drew kept on. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a board so empty.”
Garrett watched Mike turn annoyed eyes at his colleague.
“Can’t go to Carlito ’cause no one mentioned him,” Sean remarked, eyes still to the board. “Can’t go to any of Cutler’s associates because no one has mentioned them either.”
“Not like those guys aren’t used to fishing expeditions,” Mike returned, turning his eyes to Garrett. “They’re known associates. One of their own lost his girl. We’re just looking for any information we can find.” He tipped his chin up to Garrett. “Game?” he asked just when the phone on Garrett’s desk went.
Game to possibly stir up a hornet’s nest they had no idea what was buzzing around it?
“Fuck yeah,” he answered Mike, looking at his phone. The display said it was reception. “Just a sec. It’s Kath,” he said, and took the call. “Merrick.”
“Uh…sorry, Merry,” Kath replied, for some reason sounding like she was talking under her breath. “But Justin McClintock is here and he says he wants to talk to you.”
Garrett stared unseeing at the phone.
He could not believe this shit.
“I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, Kath,” he told their girl downstairs something she knew.
“I explained that, but Merry, he demanded to have a word, he didn’t back down when I shared that tidbit, and he seems kind of…perturbed.”
Goddammit.
He did not need this.
And what this was, was Mia’s dad coming to Garrett’s place of work to get in his face in an effort to give his daughter what she wanted.
Eyes to Mike, Garrett said into the phone, “Reiterate to him I’ve got important shit I gotta see to in order to solve a murder. I’m comin’ down, but he’s only got five minutes.”
“Will do,” she replied, and disconnected.
Garrett put his phone in the cradle. “Mia’s dad’s downstairs and Kath says he’s ‘perturbed.’ I gotta give him five minutes, then we can go.”
Now Mike was perturbed.
“Her dad? Jesus, how old is she?” Mike asked.
“You spoil a kid like McClintock spoiled his daughter, I’m findin’ she never grows up,” Garrett replied, straightening from the desk, snatching his suit jacket from the back of his chair, and shrugging it on as he headed to the stairs that led down to the reception area.
He saw McClintock pacing just inside the front doors.
Both of Mia’s parents were height challenged—her mom Mia’s height, her dad about five foot five.
In life, this gave Justin McClintock something to prove.
It had served him well, because in business, the man took no prisoners. He wasn’t completely loaded, but he was far from hurting. He drove a Lexus. His wife drove a Jag. They still lived in a big house in a nice development even though their daughter and two sons had long since moved out.
And he gave his daughter a piece of jewelry, the like Garrett learned early he could never compete with, doing that every year, birthday and Christmas.
In the beginning, Garrett had given her other things. He’d made her laugh, made her happy. They were living the good life and he was a part of that, so this wasn’t a problem; if they had that, he didn’t care if her father gave her jewelry.
But in the end, they’d fought about it because he’d used something he didn’t care smack about to drive the wedge he was building between them deeper.
Mia had never asked her dad to lay off, though. She took the diamonds. The emeralds. The tennis bracelets. And she did it with glee, right in front of her husband, even after he’d laid it out—no matter how fucked up it was or how false—that he hated that shit.
Christ, but it seemed he hadn’t paid attention at all.
Walking down the stairs, watching Mia’s father turn angry eyes to him, and all he felt was relief that Cher’s father wasn’t in the picture.
And that he’d finally started paying attention.