She punched in her code and listened.
“Krista, hey. You’ll never guess the shit Wendy and I uncovered. We know why Wicks lets Slade get away with murder. The shit Myles has on the staff sergeant is huge. Call me back ASA—” Then the message cut out.
Krista replayed it three more times, hoping to hear a background noise or another voice or something to give a clue as to why Marlise’s message cut out early, but she heard nothing. It made sense in some ways. Marlise wasn’t dumb enough to be leaving a message like that out for anyone to overhear. She was probably home or in her car or the empty locker room or something. Maybe someone came in and she didn’t want them to hear.
Wrinkling her nose in confusion and about to call Marlise back, a text message from Wendy pinged her phone just as Krista put it to her ear.
“Hey! We’ve got news on Slade and Wicks. Meet Marlise and me at your old place ASAP.”
Krista texted her back right away. “Awesome. I just got the message from Marlise. Why my old place?”
It was roughly five minutes before she got a reply. Fivelongminutes.
Wendy: “Privacy. Come now.”
What the hell? That wasn’t like Wendy at all. If anything, they’d all go back to the Ogden Point coffee shop to discuss things. It was out of their jurisdiction and in a public place. Something was up.
She texted back. “Are you okay?”
Wendy: “Come NOW!”
It had to be a setup. Fuck. Had Wicks gone to Myles and let him know what was going on? Did Myles or Wicks find out they’d all been investigating them? Had Stella filed anything to alert Myles they were on to him? Did Myles have her friends? Did Wicks? Or was this a setup to get her alone?
Either way, she had to go. If her friends were in trouble, she couldn’t just leave them.
She called Brock as she headed out to her car, but there was no answer. She sent a mass text to all the Harty Boys about the call and text, swung her belly behind the steering wheel and peeled out of the police station parking lot.
At her old place, Marlise’s sporty little Honda Civic sat around back where Krista used to park her car. There were no other vehicles around. Her oldlandlords must be out. But where was Myles’s car? Was it a setup after all?
She quietly shut the door of Heath’s penis truck, drew her gun and made her way toward the house. Instead of going straight for the front door, she snuck around back to do a bit of recon. The blinds were all closed. Had she done that before she left last time? Had Mrs. Geller? She was going in blind.
Slowly, she crept around the house, careful not to let the gravel crunch under her shoes. She paused next to the living room window for the suite and held her breath, hoping to hear something—anything.
Should she text Marlise?
No.
If it was a setup that would give her away.
Making her way around the house to the Gellers’ front door, she tried the knob. They rarely locked it. It was open and she let herself inside, once again careful not to let her footsteps make any noise. She padded softly over to the vent on the floor in their dining room that she knew was situated directly over her living room. Kneeling down, she put her ear to the floor.
Nothing.
Fuck.
If it was just Wendy and Marlise they’d definitely be talking.
But maybe Wendy hadn’t arrived yet and Marlise was just sitting down there quietly playing on her phone.
“Hey there, darling!” came a whisper from the living room.
Krista jumped where she knelt and spun around only to see Collette, the Gellers’ African grey parrot, bobbing her head in her cage.
“Hey there, darling. Hey there, darling. Lookin’ good. Lookin’ good.”
Krista shook her head and let out aphew. Her heart beat a million miles a minute and her stomach was in knots. “Don’t do that, Collette. Not cool,” she whispered.
The bird squawked. “Not cool. Not cool.”
