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I stopped and stared at him. He sounded really stressed.
He looked rough.
He was pacing out in front of the police station, joints stiff, as he continued to speak softly into the phone.
“Ughh!” he growled, yanking the phone away from his face.
“Something wrong?” I asked, momentarily distracted from the loud ‘bang’ in my apartment.
Honestly, I didn’t think that it was anything to be concerned about. The ‘bang’ was likely Rowen. I had a feeling that it was more likely Rachelle just wanted to talk. And I doubted it was to apologize.
Theo’s eyes met mine as he scrubbed his face with his hands.
“I’m waiting on your chief of police to get back,” he said. “I need to talk to him.”
I looked at the chief’s spot, which was occupied by his police issued cruiser, and said, “Chief’s probably in his office, man.”
Theo frowned and looked thoughtful.
“Shondra just told me she saw the Chief and Rowen together at the diner in town eating breakfast,” he said. “She was just calling to tell me that they’d left.”
I highly doubted that she’d seen them together at all. Not when it’d only been about twenty minutes since I’d left the duplex, and it usually took Rowen at least that to get ready to go in the morning.
For not having hair, she sure did have a lot of stuff to do to get ‘ready.’
Not that I was complaining or anything. I liked the end results for sure, even if I thought she looked just as beautiful without makeup as she did with.
“Well, he’s in there,” I said, not bothering to tell him that Shondra was a lying whore. “I’m fairly sure that he’s in a meeting with the motorcycle patrol right now, though. So he might be a while. But he’s there.”
Theo climbed the steps.
“That’s certified personnel entrance only. You’re gonna have to go around,” I said.
He frowned. “Can’t you buzz me in?”
I was already shaking my head. “Sorry, but no.”
Theo’s eyes narrowed, but just as he opened his mouth to say something, my phone buzzed.
I pulled out my phone and read the text.
Derek: There’s a woman standing at your door knocking on it and she’s not leaving. Want me to tell her to leave?
Instead of replying to Theo, I walked to my cruiser and typed instead.
Dax: No. I’ll be there in ten.
Derek: 10-4
Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I gave one last curious look at Theo who was staring me down as I left, then got into my cruiser.
Pulling up beside the curb so I didn’t block Rachelle when she left, I put it into park and got out.
“I stayed. Knocked again,” Rachelle said. “There haven’t been any more bangs but the one but… I swear to God, I saw those blinds move once. Someone is in there.”
That someone could be Rowen… but her car was gone.
But maybe she had snuck through our combined back yards and had waited until Rachelle wasn’t paying attention before driving away.
Likely she didn’t want to deal with the confrontation.
Likely she ignored the door and hoped that Rachelle would go away.
Luckily, Rachelle hadn’t gone away.
“Thanks,” I said as I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “I’ll go check it out.”
“You don’t have a dog or anything,” she said. “Do you?”
I shook my head. “No dog.”
“Oh, ‘cause I heard whimpering, too. I thought I was upsetting them when I continued to knock at first, so I stopped,” she continued, obviously not leaving. “I really do need to talk to you.”
I rolled my eyes and gestured for her to wait, then went inside.
Closing the door behind me, I flipped on the lights in the hallway.
Almost on auto-pilot, after finding Rowen’s car gone, I walked to the fridge thinking that she’d left me a note.
I hadn’t heard from her since I’d left, and since she was just here and Rachelle was here, I would’ve assumed that she would’ve left me a note.
Only, there was no note.
Which was highly unlike her.
She would’ve normally said something.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text while I looked at the fridge in confusion.
Half of the letters were on the floor, and there was only one real word that was on the fridge.
‘die.’
What the fuck?
I switched from texting to calling, and that’s when I heard the sound of my ringtone she’d programmed in for me ringing from the back bedroom.
It was as I was turning to follow the sound that I saw the collapsed form behind the couch.
I’d walked right past it on my way inside.
“Rowen!” I cried out.Chapter 18Underestimate me. That’ll be fun.
-Dax to Derek
Dax
“She has a severe concussion and a skull fracture,” the doctor explained as she pointed at the top of Rowen’s head where something—likely a hammer—had made contact with Rowen’s head. “We’re watching the swelling on her brain, but we don’t want to lie to you. It’s likely that this is going to require surgery. Swelling has already started around her brain. If it continues, we’re going to have to do surgery to relieve it.”
