Even the Score(64)

My stomach flipped as I turned and strode to Dani’s office. “What happened? Another message?”

Dani was picking up a couple of frames that had either fallen or been thrown off of her desk.

“What the hell is going on?” I repeated sternly.

“I gotta go!” Dani answered without looking up as she threw her cell phone in her purse. “I’m meeting June at the vet. It’s Roxy.”

“What happened?” I pushed, feeling like someone wasn’t telling me something.

“Not sure,” Ellie finally answered. “She got a call a few minutes ago from June. She went over to walk Roxy, and she wouldn’t wake up, so she called Dani. Then she noticed a weird bowl on the floor next to her regular bowls.”

My head snapped to Dani. “A weird bowl?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “She sent me a picture of it. I’d never seen it before.”

My chest tightened and my mouth went bone-dry. “Holy shit, he was in your house?”

Nodding again, she added, “There was a note, too, but I can’t even deal with that now. I gotta go meet June. I’ll call you later.”

“Screw that. I’m going with you,” I insisted, thankful that she didn’t waste time arguing back about it. “Ellie, cancel my whole afternoon.”

Ellie nodded quickly and rushed back to her desk.

“You got everything?” I asked Dani as she turned the light off and raced past me.

“I think so. Let’s go.” She jogged to the elevator and pushed the button half a dozen times.

“Please keep me posted,” Ellie called out as the doors opened. Dani ran in and pressed the Lobby button over and over.

“I’ll call you,” I hollered back, barely making it in as the doors closed.

The elevator hummed to a start, lowering us slowly. Dani chewed on her bottom lip nervously, staring at the descending floor numbers as her eyes filled with tears. I knew she didn’t want to talk, but I couldn’t not touch her when she looked like that, so I took a step forward and pulled her hand in mine. She squeezed it hard as a tear dripped down her cheek.

The elevator doors opened, and we both rushed to the parking lot.

“I’m driving,” I ordered, not leaving an option for her to argue.

We ran through the parking lot and hopped into my car. I started my car and backed out of the parking space before Dani even had her seat belt on.

“Tell me where to go,” I said as I pulled up to the gate at the exit of the parking garage.

“Go left,” she answered softly.

I stole a glance at her as I turned the car. Her hands were in her lap, nervously pulling at a tissue, and her face was paler than I’d ever seen.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I inquired slowly. Pushing her and causing a meltdown was the last thing I wanted, but I was still pretty clueless as to what had actually happened.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the tissue. “I was just sitting at my desk and my cell phone rang. It was June. She said that she went in the house to walk Roxy like she does every day, but right inside the door was a pile of throw up. Not totally weird, but not typical for Roxy, either. So she went into the kitchen and there were two more piles. That’s when she got nervous.”

Her voice was quiet and shaky, the exact opposite of the strong-willed, smart-mouthed Danicka Douglas I’d worked side by side with over the last couple of months.

“She said she called her name but she didn’t come running like she normally did, so she started looking around. Roxy was laying curled up under the kitchen table, breathing but not responding. She scooped her up in a blanket and tried to wake her again . . .” Her voice cracked and she paused for a second to collect herself.

Driving was next to impossible when Dani was acting like that. All I wanted to do was park the car and pull her into a hug.

“As she was sitting in the chair with her, she said she noticed a different bowl next to her normal ones. That’s when she called me. I told her I hadn’t left another bowl out, and she sent me a picture of it. I had never seen it before”—she took a shuddering breath—“so she stood up and headed toward the front door, and that’s when she noticed the note on the island.”

I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Dani to tell me this story, but I wanted to know everything. “And . . . what did the note say?”

She took a deep breath, exhaling loudly through her nose. “It said, ‘You’re next, bitch!’”

My blood ran ice-cold.

Sending Dani all those messages was one thing, vandalizing her car crossed a major line, but breaking into her house, doing God knew what to her dog, and leaving notes in her kitchen? Fucking horrendous. I would give an entire year’s salary for five minutes alone with that asshole.