She also had not been to any of these hangouts the night before nor did any of the regulars know where she’d gone.

And at a quarter to eight, when they went back to Cutler’s, there was still no truck and no lights on in the house.

“We’ll try tomorrow,” Mike said.

“Right. Gotta get home so Cher can get to work and I can look after Ethan.”

Mike grinned at the windshield. “Domestic bliss already?”

“Don’t know, but you’ll be the second to know when I do.”

Mike chuckled.

They went back to the station, did what they had to do to end their days, and Garrett got to his place just in time for Cher to give him a kiss and rush out to work.

Taking one look at Ethan on his couch, he shrugged off his suit jacket and installed the Xbox.

Ethan went for it with some video game, but he did it jabbering to Garrett about his day. The sound of the TV and Ethan talking made his condo seem a lot less crappy-ass than it always did.

Garrett listened as he went for some food, finding he had more of it in his kitchen than he’d ever had in his life, including the part of his life that he shared with his ex-wife.

He made a sandwich.

And later, he and Ethan polished off one of the three bags of Oreos Cher had stocked, doing this while watching sports talk shows before they both hit the sack—Ethan, because he was a kid and was supposed to go to bed early; Garrett, because he’d been woken up early by a murder and was glad to put the day behind him.

But before he turned out the light, he made one call.

“Was pissed at you. Now pissed that I’m worried about you,” he told Ryker’s voicemail, then ordered, “Call me, Ryker.”

He hung up, hit the lights, and stretched out in bed.

He fell asleep.

Ryker did not call.

* * * * *

He approached the car.

It wasn’t a Fiesta.

It was a blue Equinox.

He didn’t want to approach, but his feet kept moving, taking him there.

He stopped outside the driver’s side door.

Shards of glass in her hair and on her clothing, sitting in a pool of her own blood, her top drenched with it.

Cher.

Garrett’s eyes shot open as his body jolted.

He stared at the dark, feeling cold because of the dream and the slick of sweat on his skin.

“Fuck,” he whispered, lifting his hands, pressing the pads of his palms to his eye sockets, forcing stars to shoot through his eyes in order to obliterate the residue of that dream. “Fuck,” he repeated.

He got it.

Finally, he got it. He understood.

His poison was different from Rocky’s.

He thought it was the same.

It wasn’t.

Now he understood.

He just had even less of a clue what to do about it.

But he knew who did.