Chapter Five
Sawyer
I was rinsing the dishes when I watched Slim get up off the floor near the couch and wander leisurely down the hall.
Curious, I leaned over the counter to watch him.
Sure enough, he planted himself down in front of the guest room door with a long yawn, making it clear he was calling it a night after a long day of doing nothing.
And while the giant beast usually slept on the foot of my bed at night, I had a sneaking suspicion that he would be keeping guard in front of her door instead.
He was fickle with his loyalty like that.
Plus, who wouldn’t want to protect the pretty damsel in distress?
I had just put the leftover pizza in the fridge when my cell vibrated on the counter, getting my attention. I knew it was Barrett before I even picked it up. He was on top of earning his money.
“Hey, what ya got?”
“Not as much as you’d probably like,” he started, preparing me. “I have the file in your email. In English.”
“Alright. Give me a CliffsNotes,” I demanded as I moved back over to the living room to have one last drink before I called it a night too. It was going to be a long as fuck day the next day.
“Riya Sweeney, adopted at age seven to Mike and Allison Sweeney, who were forty at the time, childless professionals in business and culinary arts respectively. Her birth records were sealed as it was a closed adoption. Riya, luckily, didn’t have any physical or emotional abuse in her foster homes.
At least none was reported. She was an A and B student all through school.
She did lacrosse in high school and had one long-term boyfriend by the name of… ”
“Eric O’Neil,” I offered, it being the first name on her list.
“Yeah, that’s him. Jock. Football. He went to California for college, which is likely how they broke up.
She took some community college classes before landing a front desk job at the IVF clinic where she has been for about six years.
She lived in her apartment on Maple for five of those years after moving out from her parents’ house at twenty-one, then living with another boyfriend… ”
“Derek James,” I supplied.
“Yep. For two years, and then another boyfriend…”
“Timir Lee,” I added, surprised that three out of the five men she had been with, thus far were long-term boyfriends.
“For one year. I guess at that point, she decided to do her own thing. From what I can tell, no one actually lived with her on Maple. She paid her rent on time. Her credit rating was good. She tucked away the small inheritance from her parents as well as the sale money from their home into an account and only seemed to touch it when she needed a down payment on a car.”
“So you’re saying she did everything right.”
“Pretty much. Nothing criminal. She doesn’t even have a parking ticket on record.”
“Alright. What about her work and health records?”
“Work… good. They keep everything on file there. A lot of liability in a place like that. She has no warnings or write-ups. As for health…” he started, flipping through pages.
“She was pretty on time with her check-ups, both normal and gyno. She was on the Pill from the time she was sixteen until eighteen when she stopped refilling.”
“Mental health?”
“Never seen a shrink. I mean, not that that means anything. But she’s never been on any medication.
No holds. No suicide attempts. And, given how steady her life has seemed, I wouldn’t say anything points to her being nuts.
There’s nothing erratic, no bad periods.
She was living a good life and then… she stopped living it. ”
“What about the last two names I sent over?”
“Right. Um. Chris Miller is just… I don’t know, man. I think that might have been a one-night stand or a short fling. I can’t find him anywhere on her old social media, not even in a group Instagram picture. Definitely wasn’t a boyfriend.”
“And the last?”
“Well, gotta say… there are about eighty Michael Robinsons in a twenty-mile radius…”
“You couldn’t narrow it down?”
“No social media about him either.”
“Alright,” I said, exhaling. “Anything else?”
“Not really. Her phone records were, well, typical. Lots of use of data and almost no actual phone time. She had a few friends she saw here and there, but no best friends. She went to Shane’s gym. She went to movies. Really, just a normal girl.”
“Who dropped off the face of the Earth for a year.”
“Hear back from Ashley yet?”
“No. She pulled some strings at the lab to get the tests run, but she won’t hear back until tomorrow. Considering it is usually a week out for that kind of thing, I can’t bitch.”
“So you’re taking the case?”
“Fuck if I know,” I said honestly as I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. “But I got her crashing at my place right now.”
There was a long pause at that. “You have her crashing at your place?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, so you keep three safe houses around this county for situations like this with all amenities… but you brought her to your place instead.”
“I had shit to do. It was closer to bring her here.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and I could practically hear the smile he had on.
“Say it,” I demanded, knowing he was going to eventually anyway.
“Bringing her back to your place has nothing to do with her being gorgeous then, huh? If, say, Riya Sweeney was Roy Sweeney with sixty extra pounds and meat-oily skin, instead of some exotic goddess…”
“Exotic goddess is a little romantic for you, Barrett.”
“Just making a point.”
“She’s in the guest room,” I said, leaving out the fact that she had been on my bed and that my comforter likely smelled like her.
“Sure. But for how long?”
“Alright, I think that’s enough brotherly bonding for the night. Or a lifetime. I’ll send the check first thing tomorrow.”
Barrett chuckled, knowing he had found a weak spot, likely cataloging that fact for later. “Alright. Keep me updated on this one. It’s an interesting case.”
“Yep,” I agreed, ending the call.
“Interesting case” was an understatement.
Most of the time, I was drowning in ‘catch my cheating spouse’ cases. Or, just as often lately, ‘track my missing drug-addicted child, spouse, friend’ cases. Occasionally, I dealt with ‘this person stole my identity and I need them tracked down’ cases. After a while, it all became the same.
But a woman who, barring proof she wasn’t off her rocker, was missing a year of her life with no idea why? Yeah, that was some refreshing shit.
Though I wouldn’t deny that what Barrett said was at least partially true.
I did have safe houses where I could store her while I figured her shit out.
They were well-stocked and likely more comfortable for her than staying in her private investigator’s house.
That being said, a part of me thought that, after a day from hell, maybe the last thing she really wanted was to be alone with her thoughts.
Plus, my place was safe, with me and most of my staff one floor below and Slim with her.
Granted, he seemed like a lazy fuck, but he could get off the floor and scare off someone when he needed to.
It had very little to do with the fact that I liked looking at her. While I did, I knew better than to get involved with clients.
And I damn sure didn’t dip my wick in crazy.
If she was.
I genuinely thought that wasn’t the case, but I was no shrink.
She had no history, which was a good sign. But people could snap at any point, so it was really just a waiting game until the tests came back the next morning.
On that note, with the kitchen cleaned and the doors locked, I made my way to the bedroom and called it a night, shaking my head at Slim, the guard dog, at his post outside the guest room.
Another twenty-four hours and things should be a lot clearer.
—
I, being a morning person by nature thanks to my time in the military, always got up just before the sun rose.
I took out Slim, who was willing to leave his post for his morning walk.
Then I brought him back, brewed the coffee, and hit the streets for a run.
When I got back to shower, I was somewhat surprised she hadn’t woken up yet, given how early she crashed the night before, but figured that her mind and body maybe needed a rest.
I got out of the shower, dressed in jeans and a blue tee, my usual outfit, then made my way back to the kitchen. I was just pouring my cup of coffee when the bedroom door creaked open, and Slim made a grumbling noise as he got out of her way.
“Hey, buddy. Waiting for me?” she asked, and I could see her squatting down to rub his big head between her delicate, fine-boned hands.
“Hold on, give me a minute,” she said, disappearing into the bathroom.
I reached into the cabinet for another mug, pulled it down, filled it, and added a touch of cream and one sugar like she had at the brunch place.
An image of her face popped into my mind as I stirred, of her standing out front of the place she and everyone else had always known as the twenty-four-hour diner.
She had frozen on the spot, her light brown eyes going wide, her full lips parting, her dark brows drawing together.
And she had looked completely and utterly… lost.
I’d seen a lot of sad shit in my life, but that definitely took a spot in the top five.
Riya came out a couple of minutes later, face shiny like she had washed it, hair tucked behind her ears.
“Oh,” she said, stopping short.
“Not expecting to see me, babe?”
“It’s early,” she said instead, moving to stand on the other side of the counter from me.
I pushed her cup toward her, watching her eye it for a second before taking it. “I’ve been up for almost two hours,” I said with a shrug.
“Oh, you’re one of those,” she said as she sipped, her eyes going wide. “Has anyone ever told you that your observational skills are almost unsettling?”