367 Days Read online

  "That's hardly reassuring," I called back, smiling a little despite my slamming heart.

  "Look, Slim decided to treat Sawyer's desk chair as a chew toy so he needs to get out of the office before he causes any more damage."

  As if on cue, Slim let out a loud whine.

  With that, I moved across the floor and unlocked the door, realizing maybe a bit late that if he had come up to the door, that he had needed to punch in a code. And, well, if he knew the code to the first door, he likely knew the code to the inside door as well. So him knocking was simply a courtesy.

  I pulled the door open to reveal a frustrated-looking Brock and a self-satisfied-looking Slim. As soon as the door opened, Slim flew inside.

  "Is that coffee?" Brock asked, inviting himself in. I closed the door, leaning back against it as Brock easily moved through the kitchen, making coffee like he had done it a dozen times before. Maybe he had.

  And it was just about then that Slim moved, tail-wagging excitedly toward Brock whose brows knitted as he reached down toward him. "What have you got there?" he asked, taking something from his mouth, his face breaking into a giant smile as he held up a small swatch of purple lace.

  A pair of my panties.

  "Hmm," Brock said, holding them up and toward me, like he was sizing them up to my body.

  "Can you not..."

  "Shh, trying to create a mental image here," he said, nodding his head. "Oh, yeah. That's a good look."

  "Oh my God," I laughed, shaking my head as I stalked across the room and grabbed the panties from him. "You're being childish."

  "I can assure you, Riya," he said, smile wicked, "the thoughts I have right now are very much grown man thoughts."

  "Okay, perv," I said, curling my panties into my palm and shaking my head at him. "I'm not looking for a fling right now."

  "No?" he asked, undeterred, charmingly persistent. "Honey, I can assure you, I can..."

  "Drive a woman to throw you out buck ass naked and shriek at you like a banshee?"

  He chuckled at that, the sound low and rumbling. "I do tend to have that effect on women." He shrugged off my rejection, obviously not the kind of guy to harp on it. "Friends then?"

  "I can use some friends right about now."

  "I'll bet. You know, I know Sawyer can seem like a prick at times, but he knows what he's doing. If anyone can figure this out, he can. You're in good hands here. And, you know, you have a vicious guard dog and everything," he said, nodding his head at Slim who was laying against the wall in the living room on his back, legs straight up in the air, tongue half out of his mouth.

  "Oh yeah, he's terrifying," I agreed.

  "Alright. So now I know you're all safe, I am going to go earn my paycheck."

  "Taking pictures of cheating husbands?"

  "It's a glorious job," he agreed, saluting me with his mug as he walked toward the door. "I'll leave this on the bottom step for Sawyer," he declared, heading out the door and closing it behind him. "Lock this," he demanded and I crossed the floor to do just that.

  I shook my head at the door, going back and collecting the clothes I dropped, washing then drying them so when I showered, I had something clean to change into.

  Then, with nothing else to do with my day, I rummaged around in Sawyer's cabinets, finding them surprisingly well stocked and not with typical man-food, meaning- pre-cooked hunks of meat, leftovers, or deli meat. I mean he had multiple vegetables, fruits, pastas, rices, and an array of spices.

  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. Sawyer seemed to have a great body. You didn't get a great body by filling it up with crap all the time. But if I hadn't already seen him standing in his kitchen cooking, I would have said he was completely incapable of that kind of domesticity.

  I dug around in my box and found my iPod, loading it up into Sawyer's dock, and trying to drown out the constant stream of worries, uncertainties, and fears swirling around my head as I made dinner.

  The door slammed closed a couple of hours later, just as I was cleaning up the small mess I had made. Even over a crooning Joni Mitchell at a high decibel, I heard it and jumped, eyes going to the door to see Sawyer standing there, watching me.

  I reached out quickly to turn the music down, a little self-conscious of the fact that he likely heard me singing all the way up the stairs. Badly, I might add. I was a terrible singer.

  "I see Brock was here," he said, holding up the cup and I felt myself smile. Apparently that was a thing between them.

  "You need to buy a new office chair," I informed him. "Cujo over there thought it was yummy."

  His step didn't even faulter at that news as he walked into the kitchen and put the cup in the sink. "I've had to replace three armchairs since I got him. This shit just rolls right off me now," he supplied as if reading my thoughts. "You cook."

  "So do you apparently."

  "Marg stocks my fridge," he informed me, erasing the almost comical image I had of him pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store, trying to compare and contrast brands of pasta. "And, when she's particularly worried about my 'bachelor lifestyle', she breaks in and cooks for me too."

  "Seriously?" I asked, smiling at the idea.

  "Marg is a bit old school. She thinks all men need a woman to take care of them."

  "Right. Or else you might starve and never have any clean clothes," I said, rolling my eyes.

  He ignored that, hip-checking me out of the way and washing the rest of the dishes himself. "Those clothes suit you better," he informed me as I checked inside the oven.

  I felt myself start slightly at that, a little disarmed by the off-handed compliment. I looked down at my basic blue skinny jeans and the form fitting, but not overly tight deep purple long sleeve tee. I didn't even bother to put shoes or socks on. It was by no means a great outfit which made the compliment even more unexpected.

  "Oh, ah... thanks."

  "How long that food have?" he asked, turning off the water and drying his hands.

  "Another twenty or so. It's veggie and ricotta-stuffed lasagne rolls," I told him. "And a salad."

  "Wanna take Slim on a walk with me? You gotta be getting a little stir crazy up here."

  He wasn't wrong. "Okay," I said, trying to not sound too excited about the idea. "Let me just grab shoes."

  With that, I rummaged for socks and sneakers. When I came back out, Slim was on his leash and sitting beside Sawyer, waiting. And Sawyer was holding out a black hoodie with white hood pulls. "It's cold," he informed me as I a bit awkwardly let him help put it on. Did men still do things like help you into jackets? Apparently, Sawyer did.

  We went down the stairs and walked in somewhat tense silence for a few minutes before the need to know got the best of me. "Did you get my test results yet?"

  Sawyer looked over at me, the streetlights casting half his face in shadow, making him look just a tad more dangerous. And, well, sexy. There was no denying that. The man was ridiculously good looking.

  "She texted to say she had a meeting and would call me after."

  I nodded at that, looking forward again. "What are you worried she might find?"

  "You know, I've never been a particularly tense person. But since I woke up, I've just been a ball of nerves. It's almost nauseating. I don't even know what she could find, but I know I am anxious that it isn't good." I paused, shaking my head at myself. "It's stupid."

  "It's not stupid to wonder about where the fuck a year of your life went, babe. Actually, I would be worried if you weren't worried. But we'll eat and I'll take the call, and then we'll talk about the results. Just gotta hang on another couple hours."

  "Yeah, I guess you're..." I started, then felt my foot catch a crack in the uneven sidewalk, sending me toppling forward as my stomach shot to my toes.

  But before I could even throw my arms out to brace a possible fall, a strong arm wrapped around my belly and hauled me back up. My back met the warm, solid wall of Sawyer's chest. "Whoa," his voice said, low and relaxed, like he h
adn't just swooped in all knight and shining armor-ish. "You alright?" he asked, his breath warm on my ear, sending a shiver through my insides, settling with an almost unnerving fluttering sensation in my belly.

  "Yeah," I said, swallowing hard. "Thanks."

  I was steadily on my own two feet, but his arm stayed across my stomach, loosening enough that it wasn't crushing, but tight. His fingertips were pressing into the dip next to my hipbone. It was way, way too intimate. And it was having consequences of the less than innocent kind.

  He held me for a long minute, Slim sitting down and looking at us, his head tilted.

  Then he abruptly moved away from me, making me feel almost unsteady for a second. "Come on. Let's eat," he said, his voice a little tense.

  Then we ate.

  And then his phone rang.

  One look at him confirmed that it was Ashley. His face went a little guarded as he reached for his cell.

  "I'll be back," he said, sliding his hand across the screen. "Thanks for dinner," he added on his way out the door.

  Why he needed to take the call outside was beyond me seeing as it was about me, but I figured maybe he had some questions that were indelicate and was worried about upsetting me.

  So I put the leftovers away.

  I cleaned.

  I worried the floors.

  Then I threw myself on the couch and tried to slow my heart that seemed to beat harder with every passing second.

  By the time the door opened and ushered in Sawyer, I had worried myself to sleep.

  SEVEN

  Sawyer

  "What do you have for me, Ash?" I asked as soon as I was outside the door and making my way down the stairs.

  To be honest, my immediate instinct was to put Ashley on speaker and let Riya hear the results of her tests. But that was the part of me that was more than professionally interested in the woman thinking that way. I needed to focus and get my head in the game.

  That was why I headed outside.

  "Well, it's weird," she said and I could hear her flipping through pages.

  "Ash, do I seem like the kind of man who likes to have to pry information out of people?"

  "From what I hear about your time in the..."

  "Don't," I warned, feeling myself stiffen.

  "Right," she said, understanding. "Well, her levels are... optimal."

  "What levels are we talking here?"

  "All her vitamin levels. Bs, iron, calcium, D, C, E, zinc, iodine..."

  "Yeah, babe, I get it. She's been eating right."

  "No. There's no way just eating right gets her levels to where they are. Even if she was eating organic and non-GMO, our soil is too depleted in nutrients for this. They're literally perfect."

  "So she's been taking vitamins."

  "Religiously."

  "Alright. Weird, but okay. Anything else?"

  "The scrapes from under her fingernails gave us nothing. Literally nothing. There was nothing under there except a trace of white cotton."

  Again, weird.

  Everyone has crap under their nails. Actually, if most people knew the kind of shit they had up under their fingernails, they would be completely anal about scraping them.

  So to have nothing under them was not only unusual, it was almost impossible.

  "What else?"

  "Well, when I did her exam, I saw needle marks in her..."

  "What the fuck, Ash," I interrupted, frustrated. "You see goddamn track marks on her and you don't say shit to me? This woman is staying in my house."

  "If you would let me talk," she said, unphased by my outburst, "I would have said that they were too few and too precise for a junkie. But I ran a drug test anyway."

  "And..."

  "And nothing. Not even a hint of alcohol or pot. She's never touched drugs. That being said, I did find a couple other things in her blood that shouldn't have been."

  "What the fuck can be in her blood if it's not drugs?"

  "Well, it is. In a way. Sawyer, I found a trace of Pentobarbital in her system."

  "Pentobarbital?" I repeated, pausing in my pacing of the parking lot behind my building. "The shit they use in lethal injections?"

  "Yeah," she agreed, sounding equally baffled. "They use it to put down dogs too. And it can be used in emergency situations to stop seizures."

  "She has no history of seizures."

  "I mean... they can just happen sometimes. Especially as your hormones change. Which, I need to add, her hormones were nuts."

  "What, like she was going through a sex change or some shit?"

  "Looked her over, Sawyer, she's not going through a sex change. But her hormone levels are almost a thousand times what they should be."

  "What could cause that?"

  "Honestly?" she asked, sounding frustrated. "I have no friggen idea."

  I reached up and raked a hand through my hair. "Well, that's just fucking great."

  "Yeah, I mean... we have nothing really to go on. I mean, what? Someone pumped her full of vitamins and then tried to kill her with a lethal injection shot? While exposing her to something that spiked her hormones? It makes no sense." She paused. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help."

  I exhaled hard. "You never know what bit of information might be useful down the road. I have to do some digging personally. Maybe from there, some of this shit will start stacking up."

  "Good luck, Sawyer. If you need anything..."

  "Thanks again, Ash," I said, hanging up.

  More confused than I had been before, I moved around the building and let myself into the office, going into my room and having to sit on my guest chairs thanks to Slim, as I went over not only the files from Ashley, but the ones from Barrett as well, writing down notes to questions I had or connections and leads I needed to look into.

  There were more questions than answers and, well, that shit would not stand.

  It wasn't every day that I had a case that made no sense whatsoever.

  "You got that pretty piece upstairs and you're in your office. That shit doesn't make any sense," Brock said, leaning in my doorway.

  "What are you doing here so late? Aren't there girls at Chaz's who need to be swept off their feet and into your bed?" I asked, not looking up.

  "Thought I had a lead on that missing heroin kid. Turns out I didn't. I just wanted to update the file. You working her case?" he asked, moving in the room, taking one of the files. "Pentobarbital?" he asked, brow raised.

  "Yeah, isn't that some shit?"

  "And these vitamin levels. What? Was someone trying to see the effects of a lethal injection on someone at perfect health?"

  I looked up at him, seeing a Brock I hadn't seen in a while.

  See, in general, he was light, easy, funny, and a shameless flirt. That was the Brock I knew growing up and it was the Brock he was the vast majority of the time.

  That being said, at eighteen, we were both headstrong adrenaline junkies in need of a constant danger fix. So we enlisted. We went through basic. Then when that wasn't good enough, we opted in for Marines. We got our asses handed to us in LINE. We got deployed. We proved ourselves time and again.

  And then we were approached and offered something that we would never be allowed to talk about again to anyone but each other and our supervisors. And even them, rarely.

  We were offered black ops.

  We were taken off the official books.

  Then we were thrown into shit situation after shit situation and had to fight, shoot, run, crawl, limp our ways out of it.

  I had always been a little more serious, more guarded. So it hardened me. It made me detached and cynical. It made me painfully aware of the downright evilness people were capable of.

  For Brock, it forced him to be something he wasn't by nature. It made him cold and numb.

  For years, I went to sleep near and woke up by a man I no longer recognized. He barely slept and when he did, he had nightmares. He ate only enough to sustain him, saying food suddenly tasted like cardboard.
He raged out. He refused to answer letters from home on the extremely rare occasion that we were even allowed to do so, skirting the actual truth about what we were doing and where in the world we were at any given time. He just shut down.

  Brock failed his next psych eval. And he was being sent home.

  It was about then that I decided I was done as well. I finished up the mission with my best friend and then I got discharged as well, both of us under heavy threats of execution if we ever talked about the things we had done, the secrets we had upheld, the lives we had taken.

  I immediately started the agency. The nice thing about being in the military when you're young and bad with money is, you're not home to spend it foolishly. So it piled up in an account for years. It was more than enough to buy the building and do conversions and pay Marg to work for me. Eventually, the business grew and I hired Tig.

  Meanwhile, Brock was off the grid for a while. He drank, he fucked, he laid around and watched mindless TV.

  I let that fly because I was busy for about... a year. Then I went over there, poured ice water over him, asleep on the couch at three in the afternoon. We fought. Then we talked. Then he started to get his shit together.

  Ever since then, he slipped back into the Brock I had always known. He lightened up. He warmed back up.

  But there were moments every now and then, cases and clients that brought out the coldness again.

  And watching him look over her files, I saw the deadness hit his eyes.

  "Brock?"

  "Think about it," he said, looking up at me, his deep eyes intense. "We don't get the luxury of ignorance. We know the shit they do. They do stuff like this all the time."

  "Brock, I'm not sure this is a government conspir ..."

  "It's not a conspiracy theory, Sawyer. We've fucking seen them doing experiments similar to this."

  "Listen..."

  "I'm not saying it's that," he reasoned, shaking his head, letting it go somewhat. "I am saying that you shouldn't close your mind to the possibility. Who else can disappear a person and have no one miss them? Who else can drop them back off a fucking year later with no traces of where they have been and no memory? Consider it. If the leads take you in that direction, don't discount it because you think it sounds like a conspiracy. This shit happens. You know it does."