Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
She swallowed convulsively, and then stood up, calling Butterfinger to her.
“Come here, baby,” she called her. “Come to me.”
Butterfinger went, but the entire time she kept turning back to look at her master, whimpering with each step she took.
The moment Naomi got her out of the room, I checked for signs of life myself, even though I knew there wouldn’t be any of them.
The minute my fingers met the cooled skin of Brady’s neck, a deep wave of grief washed over me. Naomi was going to be devastated.
Brady had become one of her greatest friends since moving here, and now that he was gone, she would have a huge hole in her life that he used to fill.
“I put her into my car,” Naomi said softly from behind me.
I looked over to her from where I was kneeling beside Brady’s body.
“What are you going to do with her?” I asked curiously.
I knew after a discussion a few weeks ago that Naomi wasn’t allowed to have dogs at her apartment. The moment she tried to have a dog there, the landlord would kick her out just like she’d done the last four tenants who tried to sneakily have a pet.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if we take her to the pound, she’ll be put down. Everyone will look at her and think she’s mean when she’s really just heartbroken.”
I didn’t point out that Butterfinger really was mean. In fact, she was a downright asshole.
Naomi was speaking the truth. If we did take her to the pound, which I knew we weren’t, she’d be put down immediately. She was that much of a jerk.
“We’ll figure it out in a little bit, baby,” I said softly, returning my eyes to the man in front of me. “Gather her food and toys. We’ll take her to my place until we figure this out.”
With one last glance at Brady’s prone body, she turned and escaped.
I stayed there until the medics came through the door, followed on the heels by my father.
“Son,” my dad said. “Your woman is in the yard crying next to a dog that growled at me.”
My lips twitched.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s sad.”
Dad took a look at the man, then nodded. “Get out of here. Take your girl home.”
Dad clapped his hand on my shoulder to halt me before I could take a step toward the door.
“Did you touch anything?”
Confusion swept over me. “Just touched his body, felt for a pulse, why?”
“Don’t touch him.”
The two paramedics who were about to bend down froze.
“Get out. Tell my boy outside that we need a crime scene crew.”
The two paramedics left just as fast as they came.
“What is it?”
The worry in my voice didn’t stop my father from putting his police hat on and ignoring everything about me. “Get out of here, Son.”
Aaron came in the room moments later and said, “Crime scene techs have been called. What’s wrong?”
That was when my father pointed to a small brass cylinder on the floor.
“Shell casing,” he said as he pointed.
My brows lowered in confusion. “That might’ve just been there,” I told him honestly. “He has guns.”
Dad proved me wrong by bending down and pushing the side of Brady’s head over, revealing a hole in his head right under his ear. “Bullet wound.”
“There’s no blood,” I said. “How the fuck…”
Dad stepped carefully over the carpet, and pushed the door of the bathroom open, and it was there that I saw the blood.
It was everywhere. Splattered on the wall, the floors and even the ceiling. There was blood all the way up to the end of the carpet where it disappeared, but was likely still there we just couldn’t see it since the carpet was so dark.
“Why move him?” Aaron asked. “Why not just leave him there.”
Before anyone could answer, Brady’s phone rang, and dad walked over to the office desk in the corner and pressed the button with a pen that was in his vest pocket.
“Hello?”
Dad looked over at me as he said, “Hi. Who is this?”
The man on the other end of the line laughed like dad had said something hilarious instead of something that was common occurrence when someone called and you wanted to know the person’s identity.
“I’m sure you would like to know,” the man on the phone said. It was raspy, and so goddamn familiar that I knew that I’d met this guy before somewhere. “You can call me…Mr. Silver.”
The man’s voice sounded so familiar that my subconscious was practically screaming.
“Hello, Mr. Silver,” Dad said. “What can I help you with today.”
“I think we can all cut the crap and get to what I really called for,” the man that wanted to be called ‘Mr. Silver’ said silkily. “It’s time for you to understand what’ll happen if you don’t leave her alone.”
Dad looked at Aaron in confusion.