“It’s really great of you to think of me,” I told him. “I’m just a little busy right now.”
“Oh, is something wrong?” The concern in his voice didn’t match the glint in his eyes.
“Nothing much—” A thump pulled both of our attention to the hall behind me.
“What was that?” he asked sharply.
“That was just my, uh, my dog.”
“You have a dog?” he asked, not believing me.
“Yes, yes, I have a dog.”
“I didn’t know you had a dog.”
I laughed shrilly. “Well, it’s not my dog. It’s my Grandmother’s dog I’m watching for her. It gets nervous by itself.”
“Is it hurt?”
“Why do you ask that?”
He pointed to my hand. There was a small splatter of blood on the back of my hand that I had missed when I’d wiped it off with the rag.
“It got in a fight with a German shepherd on our walk.”
Sullivan’s face crumpled into a frown. “I’ll come in and help. I know of a great veterinarian we can take it too.”
“Oh no, she’s nervous around strangers. I’ll have to take her to her regular vet in the morning. It’s really not that bad. Just her leg.” I might as well have said she cut off her head and we’d sew it back on at a more convenient time. “Can I call you back about that dinner? I don’t want to leave the dog too long.” I forced a smile.
A surprisingly convincing whine sounded from down the hall.
Sullivan nodded with a skeptical look at me. I pretended like nothing was wrong.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your…dog.” He glanced over my shoulder again. I shifted the door a little more closed.
My smile was as forced as could be. I hated lying.
“Okay. Well, have a nice night!” I said before I closed and locked the door.
Luckily, my curtains were already closed. I didn’t have to worry about him seeing my sigh of relief when I closed the door.
I stared through the peephole of the door until I saw the lights from Sullivan’s car fade away down the street. I hurried down the hall toward Fletcher.
He wasn’t in the hall anymore. A few more steps and I found him in the bathroom, lying on my plush white rug.
It wasn’t white anymore.
“Fletcher!” I leaned down and lifted his head. “You shouldn’t have tried to move when you were hurt this bad.”
“Issss fine,” he whispered.
“I don’t care what’s happening, I’m taking you to the emergency room,” I muttered as I tried to roll him onto his back. He groaned and opened his eyes when I pulled his head onto my lap.
“Sullivan gone?” He mumbled as he turned his face to lean into my hand.
“He’s gone. He saw the blood on my hand. Why is he so interested in you?”
He ignored me. “If we’d had a dog, you wouldn’t have had to lie.”
Even bleeding out, he was making an argument for owning a dog. “You made a convincing-enough dog whine.”
Fletcher reached up and squeezed my hand. “You’re always taking care of me. You’re the best girlfriend a guy could ask for.”
His eyes closed and I didn’t bother correcting the girlfriend part. Right now, he needed me. And I wasn’t going to turn him away.
“Fletcher, I have to get you to the hospital,” I whispered as I looked at the rag pressed against his waist. The blood was seeping through the triple-folded material.
“Help’s almost here.”
His voice startled me. I thought he was asleep.
His phoned chimed and he held it up enough to read the screen. “Go open your back door.”
“What?” I tried to read the phone screen, but he’d already turned it off.
“Open the back door.” He grunted.
I carefully laid his head back down and hurried to the back door. I took a deep breath and unlocked it. Not sure what I’d find on the other side. I slowly pulled it open. I yelped when I spotted a man standing in the shadows of the small porch.
He hushed me and brushed past me inside. He pulled the door out of my hand and closed and locked it.
“Wait, it’s you,” I said as I stared at him.
“Hi, Saidy.” He smiled at me. It was the man who shoved me into the closet at The Bar. The one who claimed to be Fletcher’s friend.
He turned around and walked down the hall toward Fletcher, as though he knew exactly where he should go.
“You’re not here to hurt him, are you?” Not that I was sure what I would do if he did plan on hurting him. I was horribly outmatched.
“What?” He stopped and turned to look at me. “I thought he would have told you by now.”
I shook my head.
“Aw, hell. He’s better at keeping his mouth shut than I thought.”
“Ha,” I said as I brushed past him. Fletcher really needed to start running his mouth if he didn’t want me to go crazy. I had no idea what was going on, and I wanted to scream. “You’re here to help? We need to get him to the hospital.”
“We’ll see,” he said as he stepped aside and let me lead the rest of the way into the bathroom.
Fletcher was propped against the bathroom vanity now.
“I told you we didn’t want any holes in this investigation,” West commented with a dry chuckle.
Fletcher grunted as West knelt down beside him and propped open the bag he’d brought with him.
“What happened?” he asked gruffly as he reached for the bloody rag.
“I was shot,” Fletcher replied with a hiss as West peeled the rag off the wound.
“You were shot?” The room was beginning to look a little fuzzy. Like there was a light haze of red floating through the air. “That’s it. I don’t care what is going on, I’m calling the police right now.”
I picked up my phone from where Fletcher had dropped it on the bathroom floor, ready to call 9-1-1.
“The cops are
