Hold On (Page 25)

He did not look amused. He did not look annoyed.

He looked ticked.

“You puttin’ in your own storms?” he asked.

With the crap coming from my neighbors, Walter Jones getting my cell phone number and having no problem calling me, thinking he could ever in a million fucking years make it “worth my while” to talk about Dennis Lowe, and Merry waltzing into my living room, all in the expanse of ten minutes, I wasn’t following.

“What?”

“Windows, Cher.” He jerked his head toward the side of the house where the storm windows were stacked. “You puttin’ in your own storm windows?”

I had no idea why he would care, but there was only one answer to that question, so I gave it to him.

“Well, yeah.”

“Why doesn’t your landlord do it?” Merry asked.

“Because he’s seven hundred and twelve years old and my CPR skills are a little rusty, so I don’t want him giving himself a heart attack switching screens out for storms when I can do it myself.”

“It’s his responsibility,” Merry returned.

“I’d have to study my rental agreement, but I think routine maintenance is my responsibility, Merry.”

“You study that agreement, you’d find you’re wrong.”

It had been a while since I read it, but I had a feeling Merry was correct.

I didn’t share this feeling.

I said, “Then, considering the screens pop out, the storms pop in, and the doors only require little ole me to be able to turn a screwdriver, I’d rather just do it instead of calling him, waiting for him to come over, suffer a stroke while winterizing my house, thus scarring me mentally for life.”

His eyes narrowed. “You this much of a smartass before I made you come for me five times?”

I waited for my head to swivel around on my shoulders while fire shot out of my eye sockets.

When that didn’t happen, I snapped, “Uh…yeah.”

“Leave ’em,” he ordered. “I’m done with my shift, I’ll come over and put ’em in.”

I didn’t know how to react to that except allow my mouth to drop open, which I did.

Before I recovered, he asked, “You know Riverside Baptist Church?”

“Oh God. First you give me five orgasms, now you’re gonna save my soul?” I asked back.

He crossed his arms on his chest. “Rein in the smartass, Cher. Don’t got time to get you sweet, which means get you hot, so you’ll give me what I want instead of bein’ a pain in my ass. Answer the question: Do you know Riverside Baptist Church?”

That was when my eyes narrowed. “Get me sweet, which means get me hot?”

Merry became visibly impatient. “Babe, focus.”

“You want me focused, tell me why you’re here, injecting cheer into my day,” I demanded.

“Peggy Schott belongs to Riverside Baptist Church.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Merry didn’t.

“She talk about that? Trent talk about it? Ethan come from them to you and talk about it?”

I felt my heart beating hard in my chest. “What I wanna know is why you’re talking about it, and how do you even know that? How’d you even find out Peg’s last name?”

“I told you I was gonna take your back and that’s what I’m doin’,” he returned.

That was what he was doing?

We’d had our previous fun-loving chat at four o’clock yesterday afternoon.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock the next morning and he’d already learned about a church Peggy belonged to.

I had a bad feeling about this because I knew Merry, and once he got his teeth into something, he didn’t let go.

And he had his teeth into Trent and Peggy, so my chances at stopping him from getting right up in my shit were minimizing by the second.

These thoughts made me throw up both hands in exasperation and snap, “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours!”

“Someone gives you a heads up they’re thinkin’ of fuckin’ with you, you don’t offer them a head start,” he replied, then kept going. “Margaret Schott is the volunteer assistant director of a program run by Riverside Baptist Church called Faith Saves. The mission of this program is to send members to hang outside AA, NA, and Al-Anon meetings, as well as methadone clinics, approaching people who leave to seek recovery or guidance through the word of God.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Considering those programs are already significantly faith-based, the folks at Riverside either aren’t that bright or not real good at hiding their recruitment tactics. Google Peg Schott’s name; she’s all over the church’s website, tied to this program. Might be a jump, but doubtful—this is how she met your ex. You know anything about that?”

I shook my head.

“They take Ethan to church?” Merry asked.

I kept shaking my head.

“He’s never mentioned it?” Merry pushed.

I continued shaking my head but asked, “This church bad news?”

“Haven’t had time to dig deep. Jumped from that to some articles about a couple of community centers and other churches that give space to recovery programs that got together to call the cops to get Faith Saves off the pavement so they don’t bother group members after meetings. But they stick to publicly owned space and they’re peaceful, if irritating, so cops can’t do jack. Haven’t been able to follow it further.”

I didn’t have any time to sort through this information in my head before Merry kept talking.