Chapter 3: Pattern Evidence
The next forty-eight hours were about structure.
The emergency protective order was granted by midmorning. My mother was served a copy at the hotel; Garrick was served at the house by a deputy who, according to the return of service, found him already in a state of controlled fury. He signed for the paperwork without comment. That afternoon he began calling mutual friends and church contacts, framing the situation as a misunderstanding caused by my interference and my mother’s “emotional instability.”
I logged every report that reached us.
Ethan ran the firearm indicators quietly. Two purchases in the last eighteen months sat outside the legal channels Garrick had claimed to use. A third weapon, referenced in a text exchange with a private seller, had no corresponding registration. None of it was enough for an immediate arrest on its own. Together with the threats and the documented injuries, it strengthened the larger picture.
I met Ethan in a nondescript lot near the federal building after dark. He handed me a thin folder through the open window.
“Preliminary,” he said. “Enough to keep the local case serious and open a parallel review on the weapons. The financial side is slower, but the account drain on the day of the filing is clean. It reads as retaliation.”
“He’s going to come to my door,” I said.
Ethan studied me for a moment.
“You sound certain.”
“Men like him don’t adjust to losing control. They try to reassert it in person. He already believes I’m the obstacle. He’ll test that belief.”
“Then we prepare for it.”
I nodded.
We did not discuss sentiment. We discussed sight lines, response times, and the difference between a threat that lived on a phone and a threat that arrived carrying a weapon.
When I returned to the hotel, my mother was awake and sitting by the window with the curtain pulled aside just enough to watch the parking lot. I closed it gently.
“You don’t have to watch for him,” I said. “That’s my job now.”
She looked at me for a long time.
May you like
“You never really left that work, did you?”
“No,” I said. “I just stopped announcing it.”
