Cops were far more intuitive and it took them no time at all to connect dots.

Then again, back then, I didn’t know any cops.

Now I did.

Which meant I should have known better.

Crap.

“Move out of my way,” I repeated.

“So,” Merry said, “you were good to let him in on what was goin’ down with you. And since you know Ryker’s history and your shit involves shit that might be happenin’ in a church, you knew you’d get him fired up. And since you are far from stupid and know how tight Ryker is with Tanner, firing Ryker up, you’d put it together that he’d throw every resource he had at gettin’ what you need. So he’d fill in Tanner.”

To be honest, I wasn’t as smart as Merry thought. I didn’t forget that the horrors that almost happened to Ryker’s Alexis had originated when a con man infiltrated the Christian church in order to recruit girls for hideously nefarious ends. I just didn’t put it together that if I mentioned a church being involved, Ryker would go all out. The only thing I was thinking was that I didn’t have to ask for a favor I couldn’t really repay.

He could scratch my back, I could scratch his.

I didn’t share my train of thought with Merry.

I demanded yet again, “Move out of my way.”

Merry didn’t move out of my way.

He kept going.

“Which means you were good with sharin’ your shit with Ryker and, by extension, Tanner.”

That was enough.

“Yeah,” I bit out. “I was. I was good with sharin’ my shit with whoever I wanted. What I was not good with was you decidin’ who to share my shit with, and I did not hide that from you, Garrett. I told you straight up the way it was gonna go. You made me a promise and you broke it knowin’ the consequences. Now move…outta…my way.”

“You’re right, I broke that promise. So, honey, now you gotta know just how pissed at me you should be, ’cause Ryker got a smell of somethin’ he didn’t like and it was somethin’ he couldn’t sniff out fully. So he pulled in Devin, and Devin decided he had to pull in Vera to get the job done right.”

Devin was not only the crotchety, old-guy member of Tanner Layne’s ragtag team of crazy people investigators, he was also Tanner’s father-in-law, recently married to Tanner’s mom, Vera.

In other words, as I suspected, Merry shared and my shit had spread, and it had done this wide.

In that moment, it occurred to me for the first time in ages that alley had seen the grisly murder of a woman who’d caught the edge of Dennis Lowe’s ax.

So it was too bad someone was going to have to hose down the skull and brain fragments of my head exploding.

When this didn’t happen instantaneously, I was able to force out, “Say what?”

Merry ignored my question.

“Now, diggin’ deeper, Ryker got to the bottom and surface proved true—Faith Saves is what it is,” he told me. “They got a mission, and while it might be irritating to some, they just wanna do good, even if not everyone agrees with how they’re goin’ about it.”

Since I clearly had no other choice but to hear him out (because he wasn’t giving me one), I planted my hands on my hips, beat back the urge to attack him with my purse, and settled in.

“I was also right about the fact that’s where Peggy met Trent. They got to talkin’ outside an NA meeting and things went on from there,” he shared.

“Fascinating,” I said acidly when he quit talking.

That left side of his mouth curved up again, but then his humor disappeared entirely in a way that I was no longer settled in.

I was worried.

“And you were right, sweetheart,” he said softly. “She wants Ethan.”

I swallowed, getting the sense that wasn’t all of it.

I was right.

Merry kept speaking softly.

“Feelin’ safe, sittin’ in a park while her daughter’s playin’, cuddlin’ her son, a nice, chatty lady sits with her, cuddlin’ her grandbaby, Peggy Schott let fly. They got a problem with gettin’ her husband’s kid from his momma ’cause they don’t have any money. Trent makes shit, so she’s got a job that helps out but not much. She wants to be home full-time for her babies and so she can begin the work of raisin’ her man’s son right.”

His last words were sticking in my craw, choking me, when finally he pushed away from the door of my car, but not to let me get to it.

To get close because he was going to lower the boom.

I stared up at him, heart slamming against my ribs, and waited for the blow to land.

“She’s prayed to God to find the answer, brown eyes,” he said carefully. “And according to her, He’s given her the answer. She’s got lotsa help back home with a big family, brothers and sisters, mom and dad, aunts and uncles. That means they just gotta find a way to get her man’s boy away from his momma. Then they can take him down to Missouri, her family can find her husband a job, and she can stay at home, raisin’ her brood in the God-fearin’ manner they need.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Do not send your boy to them, Cher,” Merry whispered back. “Vera did not get good vibes from this woman. She’s determined and she might not do what she feels she needs to do in a legal way. She might grab your boy, pack up her family, and go.”

My legs were trembling, as was my repeated, “Fuck.”

“Now, I know you’re pissed at me,” Merry said quietly. “And I know you got reason. I also know right now we got that, and if you’d waited to call Ryker in on it today and shackled him by not lettin’ him gather the team the way it was needed, we wouldn’t have it. Not ever. So I hope you got it in you to get past bein’ pissed, because you know I did the right thing for you and Ethan.”

I wanted to pull the anger around me to hold Merry back, but I didn’t have it in me to do that while fighting back the fear.

I didn’t know what to do.

Should I share this with Ethan? Should I break his heart that two people he’d come to care about, family he thought was his and would be forever, were plotting to take him away from me?

Should I get an attorney and confront Peggy and Trent with what I knew and warn them to back off? Negotiate something that would work for all of us, especially Ethan, in a way that was healthy?

And truthfully, was Peggy Schott even healthy? Did she know the God who was “giving her the answers” wasn’t what it actually was, her deciding the way things needed to be?

Or should I sit down with Colt, report this, and ask for protection so nothing would happen to my son, and if it did, they’d know right where to look?

(Though, Merry already knew, so that last was rhetorical.)

“Cher,” Merry called as his phone rang.

I realized I was looking at him but not seeing him. I focused to watch him pull his phone out of his back pocket.

Distractedly, I noted that since the last time I’d seen his phone, the screen had cracked.

“Shit,” he muttered, sliding his finger on the cracked screen and looking at me. “Gotta take this, baby.”

I didn’t say anything. I might be focused on him, but my mind was still clogged with everything he’d told me.

“Merrick,” he said into his phone.

My mind cleared when what was coming off him slammed into me in a way it was a wonder my body didn’t jerk.

“Where?” he barked ferociously. “When?” he asked, only a little less sharply. But his voice deteriorated significantly when he asked, “How long?”

He listened. I watched him do it.

Then he said, “Fuck. I’m with Cher. I get her and Ethan sorted, I’m there.”

He took his phone from his ear and ordered tersely, “In your car. I’m followin’ you to your mom’s, then I’m followin’ you and Ethan home.”

Oh no.

What now?

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked.

“In your car, Cher,” he commanded, then moved. Starting in a prowl that fed into a jog, he went to his truck.