Page 14 of Say Yes to the Death

She walked to her bedroom and popped the door open with her foot. Keeping her back to the wall, she crossed to the far side of the room and took down the sword that was mounted between the two windows facing the street. It had arrived in a care package from her mother and stepfather a couple days after the abduction. Even though Barney was behind bars, her home hadn’t felt secure since he broke in a month ago. Sawyer probably would have noticed if there was an intruder in her apartment, but it didn’t hurt to double-check.

Gripping the weapon tightly, she dropped to the carpeted floor and flipped her bed skirt up. She stuck the sword under the bed and waved it around for a moment before ducking to inspect. There weren’t any murderers lurking under the box springs, but she had accidentally stabbed the emergency escape ladder her mother had sent her despite Claire having a functioning fire escape outside her bedroom window. The closet was clear too. She crossed to the window and dragged the blinds down with one finger, peeking through the hole.

The rusty, rickety fire escape swayed in a sudden gust of wind, and no murderers clung to it. She breathed a sigh of relief and mounted her sword then rifled through her drawers. She hadn’t done laundry since getting out of the hospital, so it was slim pickings. Leggings with a hole in the knee was stuffed all the way in the back.

Claire returned to the living room and stepped onto her mat. Sawyer tapped at a small console he had installed on her wall. She wasn’t about to let a strange man fiddle around in her kitchen unsupervised. The muscles behind her knees burned as she bent forward, craning her neck to keep him in her eyeline. What were the odds that she could escape if Sawyer turned out to also be a homicidal maniac? Slim to none.

Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her leggings. Luke again. She ignored the call.

The edge of Aaron’s proposal binder stuck out of her purse. A knot twisted her stomach. Aaron was by all accounts a normal, non-murderous person. His background check had come up clean, he wasn’t on any dating websites, and his date with Jane that Claire and Mindy had spied on had been nothing short of endearing. But Barney had been equally unsuspicious. What if Claire was wrong again?

She dipped lower until her fingers touched her ankles, then her toes, then the mat. There would be time to worry about her clients later. She bent and breathed, relaxing into the pose. The fabric of her bandage scraped against her holey leggings.

Even though she was getting sued by a venomous demon disguised as a proposal planner and she had just had whatever was the opposite of a meet-cute with Luke’s mom, there was so much to be grateful for. Her friends, family, and dog were safe. The West Haven Widowmaker was behind bars, and she had put an end to his killing spree. Despite the psychological damage and feelings of panic she had every time she encountered a parking garage, it was over. Life could return to normal.

She stretched, reached, and breathed through several rounds of sun salutation, feeling calmer after each repetition. She blocked out everything that was wrong with her life and instead focused on the rhythm of her breath. In, out. Easy, controllable. There was no Wendy, no Jason, no stab wound burning with each breath.

She promptly lost any sense of Zen when someone knocked on her front door. Her heart staggered. But she was being an idiot; she was expecting company.

By the time she made her way to the front door, Sawyer had already opened it. Mindy entered, raven hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head. A lavender-colored sweatshirt with a coffee-colored stain on the arm hung off one tanned shoulder. Her green eyes locked on to Sawyer as she crossed the threshold. A flush crept over her cheeks, and she tugged at her sleeve.

“Hey, Min,” Claire said, unable to keep a hint of amusement out of her tone.

“Hey, boss,” Mindy said, offering a large paper bag that had a wet spot in one corner.

“Thanks.” Claire took it from her and set it down on the kitchen island, withdrawing two pints of ice cream.

Mindy gave Sawyer one last look and followed Claire around the bar and into the kitchen. Mindy backed up to the kitchen sink, which was out of view from the front door.

“I didn’t realize Sawyer was going to be here,” she whispered furiously, so quietly Claire almost didn’t hear her. “He puts the moan in Samoan.”

Mindy grabbed a spoon from the dish drying rack and looked into it. She tugged the elastic from her bun and let her hair fall to the small of her back. After running her hands through it, she tugged her top down an inch.

Claire smiled. Her mother’s persistent etiquette lessons resurfaced. An introduction was necessary. “Oh, Mindy, I don’t know if you’ve met Sawyer. He’s one of Kyle’s groomsmen. Luke apparently commissioned him to install a security system. I was not expecting it.”

“She almost decapitated me with a croquet ball,” Sawyer called from the front door.

“Yes, we met…uh, last week,” Mindy said, tactfully skirting around the exact circumstances of their encounter. “Thank you for saving my best friend’s life. I owe you one,” she added, crossing back to the front door and firmly shaking Sawyer’s hand.

“Any time,” he said, smiling as he turned back to the security system. If he noticed that she had suddenly taken her hair down, he didn’t say anything.

“Speaking of lifesaving,” Mindy said, digging through her purse. “Put this on.” She handed Claire a smart watch.

“Ooh, I love it! But my birthday’s not for another two months. You didn’t need to get me anything.” Claire slid the watch on her left wrist and admired it.

“It’s not really for you. It’s for us. It has GPS, so if you ever get abducted again, we’ll be able to find you.”

“You are a lifesaver,” she said to Mindy. “Let’s hope I never need it. So, about this impending lawsuit.”

“Oh, Claire. We’re going to ruin that bitch’s day.” Mindy drew Claire in for a tight hug. The smell of honeysuckle engulfed them.

Mindy took a step back. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called in some reinforcements.”

As if on cue, there was a knock at the front door. Sawyer glanced through the peep hole and opened it again. Nicole and Kyle entered, smiling sympathetically.

“Dude.” Kyle, lawyer extraordinaire and Nicole’s boyfriend since their college days, greeted Sawyer with an overly enthusiastic back slap, then pulled him into a bro hug.

“I thought you were working on your flowers,” Claire said. Her friends had just dropped everything on their very busy schedules to help her at a moment’s notice. The weight of the day lifted off her.

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