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“Go,” Mrs. Black urged. “We’ll be fine.”
The older woman was everything that I always wished that Auggie would have for a mother.
It sucked.
“See you next week, Auggie,” I told her. “Love you.”
Auggie looked at me, color tinging her cheeks. “I love you, too, big bro.”
Then I was taking off across the outdoor seating area and hopping over the small fence that separated the restaurant from the walkway outside.
A minute later I was on my bike and heading toward the vet that Zach had indicated Swayze was at.
When I arrived five minutes later, possibly breaking a few traffic laws, it was to find Swayze standing in the middle of the lobby bawling.
Zach was standing beside her, looking uncomfortable as hell.
He saw me and walked toward me.
“So I got the gist of what happened,” he said, explaining what he’d heard from Swayze. “I’m going to go and look up the security cameras for your bar, though. Maybe we’ll see something. I don’t like that she was over there. Especially after what they suspected she did to you two nights in a row.”
I sure the fuck didn’t either.
I offered him my hand. “Thanks, man.”
He nodded once and gestured toward where Swayze had her face buried in her hands and was shaking with sobs.
“Take care of her,” he said as he walked out the door.
I walked over to Swayze and pulled her into my arms.
At first, she stiffened.
But when I said, “It’s me,” she all but fell into my arms.
“Oh, God. Tater. He was hurt really bad, Trick,” she whispered brokenly. “And fucking Ignacia. She just let it happen. Your poor kitty!”
I didn’t like hearing that at all.
Even worse, I didn’t like the sobs wracking her chest.
It was one thing to hurt me.
It was quite another to hurt the woman that I was beginning to realize meant a whole lot more to me than I ever realized.
These last twelve years I’d told myself it was hate.
But after spending time with her, I realized it was something altogether different.
“Start over,” I said soothingly, pulling her closer into my arms and burying my face into her hair.
This morning, when she’d had to get up to go to work, I’d wondered if this thing between us would be awkward. If she’d put distance between us after everything that we’d had happen over the last couple of days.
But she didn’t feel awkward at all in my arms. She felt like she was exactly where she needed to be. Exactly where I wanted her to be.
Where I’d wanted her back since I’d watched her walk out of my apartment this morning.
“So I heard this yowl when I was in my office putting my chair together,” she paused. “Thank you for bringing that inside, by the way. I can’t believe you picked that up all by yourself. There’s no way I would’ve gotten that in the door without help.”
I looked down, and that was when I realized she didn’t have her damn boot on. She was standing there in one shoe. Bootless.
“Son of a bitch, Swayze,” I growled. “Where’s your fuckin’ boot?”
She winced. “I left it in the car. I couldn’t drive with it on.”
I growled, picked her up, and walked her to the waiting room chairs.
Then I was walking toward her car with purpose in my step.
I found her boot on the floorboard of her car and winced when I saw the cat’s blood streaked all over everything.
I grimaced and slammed the door closed, knowing that that would need to be detailed. There was no way in hell that it was going to get clean by a non-professional.
Pulling out my phone and stalking back toward the vet’s office, I dialed and waited for it to ring before going inside.
Once it did and someone answered, I pulled the door open.
“Yeah, man,” I said, calling the number by heart. “Can you look up some people for me? Ones that are professionals, and can clean blood out of light gray upholstery?”
“Sure,” Hunt grunted. “Why?”
I explained to him what was going on as I handed Swayze her walking boot.
“That fuckin’ sucks,” Hunt said. “That why Zach just pulled up with a pissed off look on his face?”
“That’s why,” I confirmed. “Where did it happen, baby?”
Swayze bent over and put her foot into the walking boot, then stood up.
“Literally right outside of my back door,” she explained. “The big metal door, in between the trash can and the fence.”
I relayed what she’d just told me, but Hunt was already clicking away on his computer, obviously hearing her answer without me having to relay it.
“I’m forwarding the five-minute clip of her in the alley to you,” Hunt said a moment after that. “She comes in from across the street. Parks her car two doors down from your bar. Crosses the street with her dog, then disappears into the alley. Switching camera views to the one that goes down your back alley and faces hers, you can see her walking up and down looking behind the dumpster. Then her dog finds the cat behind the dumpster and she just allows him to eat the cat.”
