I disconnected.

Then I jabbed at my screen again.

After I did that, I put my phone to my ear.

It rang a long time, then I got Ryker’s voicemail.

“Your surveillance guy just quit. And you’re off my Christmas card list. And if you come into J&J’s and I’m the only bartender on, you aren’t gonna get a drink. And if I didn’t totally dig your missus, I’d never fucking speak to you again.”

After I said all that, I hung up and drove to J&J’s.

I stormed in, and being me, I didn’t bother hiding how pissed I was.

This made Feb, who was standing at Colt’s side of the bar seeing as her husband had his ass planted on a stool there, widen her eyes at me.

Colt saw his wife’s face and twisted on his stool.

He got one look at me and let out an audible sigh before begging, “Please, fuck, tell me Merry isn’t the asshole who’s makin’ you look like that.”

“No, Merry isn’t the asshole who’s making me look like this,” I returned, stomping toward the office.

“Who’s the asshole makin’ you look like that?” Feb called as I opened the door to the office.

I turned to them. “Ryker,” I spat.

Neither of them looked surprised.

This was likely because Ryker didn’t have a habit of making people look pissed off.

He’d made it an art.

I went into the office and stowed my purse, slamming drawers as I did it, this not making me feel any better.

Me slamming the office door when I left also didn’t help.

Further not cooling me down, I felt something coming off Colt as I tramped his way.

I looked at him and stopped when I caught the expression on his face.

“You wanna tell me why Ryan just slunk in here, lookin’ like a whipped dog, and made his way right to the back where I can’t see him or whatever the fuck that moron’s got goin’ down?” he asked.

Colt knew Ryan. Back during the manhunt for Denny Lowe, Ryan had led them to me, and both Ryan and I had given them lots of information to figure out just how many screws Lowe had loose (in other words, all of them). That information might have even helped them (a little bit) to track him down.

Unfortunately, Denny had managed to wound three men, one woman, and murder three more victims before they stopped him.

But we’d helped (maybe…and not altogether willingly, but the last part only because Ryan was tweaked and I was pissed off I was fucking an ax murderer).

I knew Ryan because he was a regular at the strip club.

He was a nice kid, geeky, not real good at being social, and unbelievably smart. But smart in that bad way that made him geeky and not real good at being social.

He’d had a crush on me. He’d made it clear. It was sad and cute at the same time.

He also gave me money. It wasn’t a lot, but back then, when Ethan was much younger and every time I turned around he needed something—new clothes because he was growing, medicine because he got an ear infection, food because he was human and had to eat—I needed all the money I could get.

It didn’t feel good taking Ryan’s money, but I consoled myself (poorly) by being his friend.

One of the only ones he had.

Sadly, this led to Denny meeting him, learning Ryan might work at Radio Shack but had many other skills, and Denny put him to work, spying on Colt and Feb. This meant he’d gotten Ryan to plant cameras everywhere—in Feb’s house, on Colt’s street—and Ryan had taught Denny how to do it, so Denny planted cameras in J&J’s.

Ryan then kept an eye on the feeds because Denny was paying him.

And because of me.

This meant it was me who got Ryan caught up with a serial killer, hauled in, questioned, and scared out of his mind.

I held guilt about this, obviously. In the end, I’d wanted to give Ryan a bunch of the money Lowe had left me to pay him back for all his kindness and then never see him again.

But Ryan had told me that would hurt worse than any of the other shit that befell him because he’d been unlucky enough to cross paths with me.

So I paid him back the way he wanted me to.

By continuing to be his friend.

This was not a hardship. He wasn’t real good at being social, but he was a good guy, he could be funny, and he’d always been a good friend.

Eventually, I got over what I did to him and the reminder he always was of what Denny did to both of us.

I did this because I cared about him a lot.

However, even with all that had happened, Ryan had not learned not to be stupid regardless of how smart he was.

Which meant Colt had had occasion to brush up with him, and not just when Ryan came to Ethan’s birthday parties or when I had everyone over to watch a game.

To Colt’s question about Ryan being there, I jerked an agitated finger to my face and asked, “Pissed off look?” Then I answered myself, “Ryker and also Ryan.”

Colt sighed audibly again.

“I’m handlin’ it,” I declared.

Colt’s attention on me deepened even as his mouth warned, “This better be shit you can handle without Merry gettin’ a pissed off look, Cher. ’Cause you pissed off gives me a quiver. Merry pissed off might mean I’m in the dark with a shovel and a flashlight, coverin’ a brother’s ass by buryin’ bodies.”

That gave me a quiver.

I ignored the quiver, nodded to Colt, and called to Feb, “Got somethin’ to sort. Be right back.”

“We’re slow. Take your time,” Feb returned.

I didn’t take my time.

I marched quickly to the pool table area where, as Colt said, Ryan was around the wall, sitting at a back corner table that was not even close to being visible from the bar.

I went right to him, stopped, and planted my hands on my hips, glaring down at his pale face, which had luckily lost the pimples he used to have when I’d met him, though some of them had left marks.

“Have you lost your mind?” I hissed.

He leaned toward me but kept his seat, “Cher, it’s a big job and the guy who hired me trusts me to do it right.”

I.

Was.

Gonna.

Kill.

Ryker!

“Is the guy who hired you gonna console your momma when you get dead doin’ this big job for him?” I asked.

His face got even paler, but he didn’t answer.

I read this to mean he knew the danger.

I didn’t know the danger.

But I knew it was significant.

And I knew that if Lissa and Alexis wouldn’t be upset that daddy didn’t come home, I’d go to the nearest gun store, buy a baton, find Ryker, and beat him unconscious.

I threw out my hands, leaned toward him, and repeated, “Ryan, have you lost your mind?”

Suddenly, his head twitched and his brows shot together. “Do you know what the job is?”

“I know I don’t want you doin’ it,” I returned.

He seemed to relax before he replied, “I’m a big boy, Cher.”

“You’re my friend, Ryan. You’ve had my back a lot over a lotta years. It’s not about you bein’ a big boy. It’s about me givin’ a shit about you. And part of that givin’ a shit about you is wantin’ you to be safely sellin’ extension cords at Radio Shack and not sittin’ in your car outside a house two doors down from mine where I know a dickhead lives and is likely into dickhead shit that makes you unsafe. And part of this unsafe is that you’re surveilling a house two doors down from mine, doin’ it stupid by,” I leaned deeper, “sitting in your car outside that house.”

Ryan sat back hard in his chair when I leaned into him. “It’s my job to keep an eye out.”

“I got that,” I returned. “And even though that job is over, heads up, you don’t do that sitting right outside a house you’re staking out.”

“I got ears in that house, and when I put them in, I didn’t have time to use the good stuff. The feeds don’t range too far. I gotta be close.”

At the news Ryan had actually broke into my dickhead neighbor’s house and planted bugs, I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, wondering if it was possible to feel your blood pressure spike since I was pretty sure I was experiencing that.