18. Sawyer

18

Sawyer

S awyer seethed with anger as he climbed into his truck and drove home. He knew Dahlia was behind the attack and it was because of him. He gritted his teeth and his knuckles were white as he clutched the steering wheel tightly. Growling, he wished he knew where to find Dahlia because he would gladly tear her limb from limb.

He made sure that he hadn’t had any visitors while he was at Abby’s house. It wouldn’t surprise him if Dahlia had used the attack on Abby as a way to get into his place, especially since he couldn’t remember if he had locked the door or set the alarm in his hurry to get to her.

He was relieved to discover he had done both. Just to be on the safe side, he walked around the house, inspecting everything. Nothing had been disturbed.

Sawyer plopped on his couch and called Sean.

“You’re never going to believe this. Someone broke into Abby’s house and poisoned her vitamins, milk, orange juice, and tea with cyanide.”

“What? Is she okay?”

“She is. I think the reality of it hasn’t sunk in yet. I offered to let her stay with me, but she said that no one was going to chase her out of her own home. The only reason I’m not parked outside of her house now is because Sebastian put a state-of-the-art security system in before I left.”

“I wonder if she’s said anything to Xyla yet.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s safe for Xyla to go over to the house. I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that Abby is scrubbing the house now, making sure that nothing else was poisoned. The last thing we need is for Xyla to go over there and touch something even remotely toxic.”

Sean sighed. “True, but if she finds out that I knew something and didn’t tell her, she would murder me, right before she murdered Abby for not calling her.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, my friend. You might tell Xyla and then advise that she wait for Abby to call her. I know when I left, she didn’t want to talk about it. She simply wanted to be left alone so she could process everything.”

“That’s a good idea, although, I know her first instinct would be to drive over.”

Sawyer chuckled. “It seems to me that you’re between a rock and a hard place.”

Sean was quiet for a minute. “I think I’ll tell her. She knows Abby best and would know how to handle the situation. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just pissed. Who the hell does Dahlia think she is? I’ve never intentionally hurt a woman before, but I think that I might make an exception in this case.”

“I don’t blame you, Brother. Just be careful and don’t let your anger and frustration get the better of you. We’ll catch her and either let the mundane human court deal with her or, if she is responsible for hurting shifters, we’ll let the pack handle the situation.”

“You’re right, I know. But dammit, I care about Abby and it almost got her killed.”

“Do you think that Dahlia left the door ajar on purpose?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It would be like her to taunt Abby. Making her terrified would be even greater revenge than killing her outright, especially since Abby told her off.”

“At least she knows to be careful now and she has a good alarm system.”

They talked for a few more minutes and then Sawyer ended the call. He made a couple of sandwiches for dinner and sat on the couch, staring at the television, although he had no idea what was going on in the game.

His shoulders were so tight that they hurt and his gut was tied up in a huge knot. Between the drug situation, the virus going around, and now Dahlia launching a direct attack on Abby, he was certain that his body was going to explode into little tiny bits.

Sawyer resisted the urge to text Abby to find out how she was doing. He didn’t want to crowd her. She had made it clear that she just wanted to be alone for a while.

Sleep was elusive and he was very annoyed when his phone rang at six. It was from an unknown number.

“Dr. Cooke.”

“How’s your little girlfriend?” a familiar voice taunted.

“Dahlia. You stay the hell away from her, do you understand me?”

“Why? You took everything from me. My whole life was spent in preparation for me becoming a doctor. I went to school all those years. Because of you, I lost it all. Now, I’m going to take everything from you, bit by bit.”

“You are the one who was stealing drugs and other supplies, and you are responsible for losing your medical license. It’s about time that you grew up and took responsibility for your own actions and accept the consequences.”

“The only action I’ll take responsibility for is getting revenge. I’ll quote Montressor, the narrator from my favorite Edgar Allan Poe story, The Cask of Amontillado. ‘I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when the retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.’ You know it’s me getting my revenge and I won’t get caught.”

“Keep telling yourself that. I promise that you won’t get away with it. I do know who you are and mark my words – I will take you down.”

She laughed maniacally. “You can try. Good luck with that,” she said and ended the call.

Growling, Sawyer rolled out of bed, knowing that there was no way that he could go back to sleep for the hour he had left before his alarm went off.

He plodded into the kitchen and hit the green button on his coffee pot, which sputtered in protest at being started before its designated time.

Sawyer forced himself to not text Abby. He didn’t want to wake her if she had managed to get any sleep.

He took a long shower to try to ease the tension from his shoulders and then made some bacon and eggs for breakfast. He was restless until it was time to leave for the clinic.

Fury exploded inside of him when he saw Dahlia in the parking lot talking to Brent. She smiled at him, waved, and blew a kiss at him when he pulled into his space and jumped out of his truck.

“You take care of yourself, Sawyer,” she called as she practically ran to her jeep.

He figured that she might talk big, but was a little afraid that he might hurt her if he could get his hands on her.

Sawyer stalked over to Brent. “What were you guys talking about?”

“I don’t know that it’s any of your business, but she offered me a job at the lab. She promised to pay me twice as much as you do. I’m actually thinking about accepting their offer.”

“Why in the world would they want an office manager? I would think that they already had someone to do that type of work.”

“They want me because I’m good at my job and I’m very talented at procuring hard to get items.” Brent smirked at Sawyer and walked away.

Sawyer wanted to fire him on the spot but knew that it would ruin the DEA’s investigation.

He called Jason. “You need to do something about him. He’s talking to those assholes who run the lab on the hill. They have a personal vendetta against me. Brent is becoming a serious liability.”

“I promise, we’re getting closer to an arrest,” Jason said.

Sawyer repeated what Abby had told him about Brent’s tardiness and that drugs were disappearing at a faster rate.”

“Just a bit longer. Please,” Jason said.

Sawyer growled. “Get it done in the next few days, or I’m firing him, anyway. You have a week.”

He hit the end button, thinking about how much more satisfying it would have been to slam down the receiver on one of the old-fashioned rotary phones.

Abby came in just as her shift was supposed to start. She was pale and had dark bags under her eyes, telling him that she hadn’t slept at all the night before.

“Are you going to be okay today?”

She smiled at him, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course. However, there might be a point when I might ask you to deliver an energy drink intravenously.”

“Those things are bad for you.”

“Everything is, these days,” she said.

The day started off bad and went downhill from there. There were six more shifters who were hit by the spray. There were two dragon shifters, three bear shifters, and a wolf shifter. The attackers were changing their tactics. The dragon shifters were sprayed at a grocery store by a single individual. One of the bear shifters was caught as she got out of her vehicle to go to work, and the other two were sprayed as they left the high school. The wolf shifter was sprayed when someone knocked on her door, pretending to be a gas line repairman.

After patient hours were over, Sawyer spent a couple hours adding different things to the compound, trying to figure out what the last two ingredients were.

“They have to be synthetic,” he muttered to himself. “I haven’t seen anything like them.”

His phone buzzed. It was a text from Abby. I went grocery shopping, which I needed to do, anyway. I’m making bacon-wrapped meatloaf balls for dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy if you’re hungry. They’ll be ready in half an hour.

He smiled. I won’t be late.

Sawyer arrived as she was taking the main dish out of the oven. He brought a couple gallons of sweet iced tea.

She greeted him with a kiss and said, “You told Xyla.”

“Nope. I told Sean.”

“Ah. I spent an hour last night convincing her not to come over. I was afraid that she might touch something toxic. She promised to wear gloves, but I told her I wouldn’t let her in. Xyla knew I meant it. Then, I spent the majority of the night scrubbing everything.”

“I would have helped.”

“I know. I listened to true crime murder podcasts and pretended it was her face every time I sprayed cleanser on something and scrubbed it. It was very therapeutic.”

He laughed. “I bet.”

The food was delicious and he complimented her cooking skills. They cuddled together on the couch and started to watch Homicide Hunter: Joe Kenda.

While Kenda narrated one of the murder cases he solved in Colorado Springs, Abby snuggled close to Sawyer. He touched her cheek. Abby looked up at him and he couldn’t resist kissing her.