Page 47 of Doctor Wolf's Human Nurse

Sleep was elusive and he was very annoyed when his phone rang at six. It was from an unknown number.

“Dr. Cooke.”

“How’s your little girlfriend?” a familiar voice taunted.

“Dahlia. You stay the hell away from her, do you understand me?”

“Why? You took everything from me. My whole life was spent in preparation for me becoming a doctor. I went to school all those years. Because of you, I lost it all. Now, I’m going to take everything from you, bit by bit.”

“You are the one who was stealing drugs and other supplies, and you are responsible for losing your medical license. It’sabout time that you grew up and took responsibility for your own actions and accept the consequences.”

“The only action I’ll take responsibility for is getting revenge. I’ll quote Montressor, the narrator from my favorite Edgar Allan Poe story,The Cask of Amontillado.‘I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when the retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.’ You know it’s me getting my revenge and I won’t get caught.”

“Keep telling yourself that. I promise that you won’t get away with it. Idoknow who you are and mark my words – I will take you down.”

She laughed maniacally. “You can try. Good luck with that,” she said and ended the call.

Growling, Sawyer rolled out of bed, knowing that there was no way that he could go back to sleep for the hour he had left before his alarm went off.

He plodded into the kitchen and hit the green button on his coffee pot, which sputtered in protest at being started before its designated time.

Sawyer forced himself to not text Abby. He didn’t want to wake her if she had managed to get any sleep.

He took a long shower to try to ease the tension from his shoulders and then made some bacon and eggs for breakfast. He was restless until it was time to leave for the clinic.

Fury exploded inside of him when he saw Dahlia in the parking lot talking to Brent. She smiled at him, waved, and blew a kiss at him when he pulled into his space and jumped out of his truck.

“You take care of yourself, Sawyer,” she called as she practically ran to her jeep.

He figured that she might talk big, but was a little afraid that he might hurt her if he could get his hands on her.

Sawyer stalked over to Brent. “What were you guys talking about?”

“I don’t know that it’s any of your business, but she offered me a job at the lab. She promised to pay me twice as much as you do. I’m actually thinking about accepting their offer.”

“Why in the world would they want an office manager? I would think that they already had someone to do that type of work.”

“They want me because I’m good at my job and I’m very talented at procuring hard to get items.” Brent smirked at Sawyer and walked away.

Sawyer wanted to fire him on the spot but knew that it would ruin the DEA’s investigation.

He called Jason. “You need to do something about him. He’s talking to those assholes who run the lab on the hill. They have a personal vendetta against me. Brent is becoming a serious liability.”

“I promise, we’re getting closer to an arrest,” Jason said.

Sawyer repeated what Abby had told him about Brent’s tardiness and that drugs were disappearing at a faster rate.”

“Just a bit longer. Please,” Jason said.

Sawyer growled. “Get it done in the next few days, or I’m firing him, anyway. You have a week.”

He hit the end button, thinking about how much more satisfying it would have been to slam down the receiver on one of the old-fashioned rotary phones.

Abby came in just as her shift was supposed to start. She was pale and had dark bags under her eyes, telling him that she hadn’t slept at all the night before.

“Are you going to be okay today?”

She smiled at him, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course. However, there might be a point when I might ask you to deliver an energy drink intravenously.”

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