Page 74 of The Wedding Party

I’m still ignoring him when Marcus pulls us into the parking lot of what reads more like a luxury resort than a treatment center. Oliver’s family is paying big money to put their son’s potential killer in this place, and I can’t get over the fact that they’re avoiding me while helping her get a lesser sentence. Something doesn’t sit right.

We all exit into what has turned into a brutally cold afternoon with the wind wicked and punching at us. Marcus heads to the trunk to retrieve Carrie’s luggage, and I indicate the building. “We’ll walk you inside.”

Ms. Littleton bristles but says, “All right, then.” She urges Carrie forward. “Let’s get out of this wind.”

Finally, something Ms. Littleton and I can agree on.

The lot of us make a run for the door, and once we’re in the lobby, all of us shivering from the cold, Ms. Littleton motions Carrie toward the front desk, and the pair walks in that direction. I join them and flash my badge. I follow that by making our agreement clear, and even presenting a signed copy. “I’m to be given twenty-four-hour notice of Carrie’s departure and allowed to question her before she leaves.”

The receptionist is now the one bristling. “I’ll have to talk to the medical director.”

“I signed the agreement,” Carrie states. “I’m fine with the arrangement.” Her eyes meet mine. “You know I want to talk to you.”

I don’t reply. I simply eye the woman behind the counter. “I’ll still need to have the medical director involved,” she says, and stands. “Ms. Reynolds, I’ll take you back now.”

Ms. Littleton steps in between me and Carrie and hurries her away. It sure seems as if she’s afraid of Carrie speaking to me, more afraid than Carrie is, which is interesting. Whatever the case for Carrie and me, our time is coming. Sooner than later.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Moments before I walk into a meeting with Ms. Littleton and the medical director, I get a call from Aiden. The search warrants are a go, but I’ve decided against any early warning. “There are too many players running the game board in the wrong directions,” I tell him, standing outside the building and freezing my ass off for a little privacy. “But let’s move in this evening, after work hours, to allow the Phoenixes some privacy. I want to take lead.”

“This is your baby,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the Phoenix offices. I’ll have Marcus run the team going into Oliver and Carrie’s place. Unless you want me to call in Whit.”

“No,” I say tightly. “I don’t want you to call in Whit.”

“You’re going to have to forgive him.”

The man beat a witness, I think. His reasons don’t matter. It was wrong. But what I say is, “Yeah, well, I have things to say to Whit right about now, but that’s for another time.”

I’ve barely walked back into the lobby when the medical director enters and waves me and Ms. Littleton to the back offices. At least this goes well, and an understanding is achieved about how and when Carrie will be discharged. Actually, a little too easily. It’s clear Ms. Littleton is eager to keep me on board with this plan.

After the meeting, Ms. Littleton arranges her own ride home, and in the process, I learn that she choppered into Estes Park. Brody’s suggestion that the Phoenixes might be funding her actions in some way is starting to check out. Considering their bizarre behavior in general where Carrie is concerned, it’s not hard to believe and certainly worthy of further exploration.

I leave Ms. Littleton in the lobby of the treatment center waiting on her car. Marcus and I settle into his car, and he groans. “Lord help the man who marries Ms. Littleton. She’s as ripe as a fresh crime scene with a dead body.”

He’s not wrong.

Not at all.

There are a lot of things not right about Ms. Littleton.

Chapter Sixty-Five

I’ve learned naps are all about the survival of the fittest.

Marcus drops me at my door, and the minute I’m inside, I head to the bedroom, declining a call from Whit, and collapse on my mattress. It’s new, a gift from my father after I told him I wasn’t sleeping well during the prime of my search for the Spider Man. He’d surprised me and had it delivered, ironically, with a big red birthday bow on it with a note that read: This one sleeps so well, even the boogeyman won’t keep you awake at night. The boogeyman was the worst of my fears as a child. Oh, how I wish that were true now. We never talked about the note, or my nightmares, but that first night on that bed, I slept like the boogeyman slayer or a baby, however you want to look at it.

Puffing up my pillow, I sink into it and then shoot off a text to Hazel and ask her to find out if the Phoenixes paid for Ms. Littleton’s travel to Estes Park before I set my alarm for forty-five minutes later. By the time I’m up, I have a message from Hazel telling me that no, Ms. Littleton’s transportation was not paid for by the Phoenixes, at least not on the books.

I still think they paid for it.

My next move is to unpack and shove down a microwave dinner, some sort of pasta with chicken. If that stuff they call chicken is really chicken. I wonder sometimes. Whatever the case, I’m no worse for the wear by the time I arrive at the Phoenixes’ building twenty-five minutes ahead of time. I’m unsurprised to find Aiden leaning on the hood of his black BMW, waiting for me.

Aiden is tall, with dark hair and a good build, his face chiseled and handsome. He’s also a good listener, a great negotiator, and a problem solver. On top of all that, he’s a good friend. Most would say I’m crazy for keeping him at a distance. Maybe I am, but he’s also my boss.

That’s usually my reason for keeping him at a distance.

It’s more about monsters, most of them my own personal variety.