Page 113 of Say Yes to the Death

“See? Sawyer will do it,” she said. And he would be much easier to manipulate into leaving her alone. “Ready to go? I’ll call a car.”

“Sure.” He stood. “I can drive, though. One shot in an hour is literally nothing when you weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

“See you at the office tomorrow?” Mindy called after her, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes. Let’s have the escape room brainstorm session at ten instead,” Claire said, pressing a hand to her throbbing temple. “Maybe eleven. If they haven’t decided to fire us too. We’re going to need to run through the puzzles and time everything out to see if we need to add anything. I’ll text you.”

Sawyer and Claire walked to his car in silence. He pulled out onto the street and headed toward her apartment, dark shapes and neon streaks flashing as they drove. Claire rested her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes. The nausea was finally starting to subside.

How could Alex have fired her? Happily Ever Afters was the best in the business. One humiliating news clip and she was losing clients? She couldn’t afford to lose clients with Wendy breathing down her neck. This wasn’t like her. She never should have taken that second shot. She needed to get her head back on straight. No more booze.

The car ran over a small bump in the road, and she jolted upright, heart pounding.

“Just a bump,” Sawyer said, giving her leg a reassuring pat. “Potholes, you know.”

Claire clutched a hand to her thumping heart.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a beat. “After everything that happened tonight, I mean.”

“With the creepy douches? Yeah, I’m fine. I just hate that people like them are out there, targeting women with zero consequences. Who knows what would have happened to that girl if we weren’t around to intervene.”

“I think you’re right about them. They had a sinister vibe. It would make sense for Barney’s old fraternity to have his back. But I guess the only way to know for sure is to talk to him. We’ll just have to wait and see what Barney gives you and go from there. The police can’t ignore something that comes straight from his mouth,” he muttered as he parked outside her apartment building.

“You don’t need to stay.” She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m going to be fine. I’ll deploy my anti-sleepwalking device and be good as new.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that,” he said, getting out of his car and shutting the door. “Nice try, though.”

Damn it. He pulled a bag from his trunk and came around to the passenger side. He opened Claire’s door and helped her out.

“Thanks. Wait, do you need to let Doozer out?” Maybe there was still hope for a night alone.

“He’s at my mom’s. She loves to babysit him.”

Drat. Claire checked both ways before crossing the street. Even with Sawyer lumbering along behind her, the hair on her arm stood up. She paused in front of her apartment and looked up and down Beaumont Street. The only pedestrians were an old woman on a Jazzy scooter toting a bulging bag of cat food and a handful of teenagers in hoodies on a street corner. No one appeared to be looking at her, and yet she couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched.

The Venor douches had left her ill at ease. Had they gone after another girl? Were they her stalkers? Even if they hadn’t heard the reporter call her out by name, they had probably seen the article by now. Were they waiting in the shadows? Maybe having an overnight companion wasn’t the worst thing.

“I feel it too.” Sawyer put a hand on the small of her back. “Let’s get upstairs. You’re safe with me.”

They trudged up the stairs to the fourth floor, casting backward glances the whole way. She slid her key into the lock and opened the door to a sleeping corgi sprawled on the floor.

Sawyer dropped to his knees next to Rosie and rubbed her belly. Rosie opened one eye and stared blearily at him, offering a brief arf before climbing to her feet and wandering over to Claire.

Claire gathered the dog into her chest. Thank god nothing had happened to her. Her downstairs neighbor Kara had watched Rosie while Claire was gone for drinks, but there was still a ten-minute window between Kara returning Rosie to the apartment and Claire arriving home. She wouldn’t risk that again in the future.

Sawyer removed his shoes at her entrance and laid them neatly by the door. “Mind if I use your restroom? I’m a little sweaty from the line dancing.”

“Of course,” Claire said, waving a hand toward the farthest room. “Oh, if you want to brush your teeth, I have new toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet next to the toothpaste. You’re welcome to take a shower, though I don’t think I have any manly soap. There are clean towels in the linen closet. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to bring anything from your house.”

“I have some essentials in my stakeout bag.” He smiled and disappeared into the bathroom. He looked comically large going down her hallway, head level with the row of Planner of the Year awards. She frowned. That empty spot was going to haunt her forever.

When he disappeared, she took Rosie out for a quick pee. She spent the entire time probing every dark corner around her apartment building, but no tank top-wearing douche lumbered out of the shadows to kidnap her. Back upstairs, she took all the throw pillows she had and fluffed them on the couch. She added a pile of blankets and set a glass of water on the coffee table.

The refrigerator door creaked when she swung it open. An expired bottle of coffee creamer and an empty water pitcher stared back at her. Time to start a grocery list. She grabbed a pen from her purse and pulled a notebook toward her.

Why was this pen so heavy? She rolled it in her hand. It was the expensive silver pen she found in the woods while sleepwalking. Initials were engraved on the back end. She squinted at them. Her eyes flew open wide, and she screamed and chucked the pen across the apartment like it was crawling with ants.

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