“And that’s damn admirable, but it was still a trauma. You don’t want to let something like that fester. Do me a favor and call someone. If you want a rec, I think Dr. Kensington is amazing.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and riffled through it to find her card. I always kept a few on hand.
Cammie took it hesitantly. “Thank you.”
“Are you going to call?”
Cam rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
I chuckled at the action, but it lightened a little of the worry sitting on my shoulders. “Good.”
My phone buzzed on the table, and Cammie stood. “You take that. I need to clean some tables.”
I hit accept on the screen and put the phone to my ear. “Easton.”
“Sheriff, we’ve got another attempted abduction.”
“Where?”
“Wolf Gap Veterinary.”
My blood turned to ice, and everything around me seemed to slow and fade. The noise from the bar, the bright overhead lights, the country music drifting through the speakers. “Who?”
“Everly Kemper.”
I stood, tossing a twenty on the table and gathering up my pile of papers. “She okay?”
“Not sure. EMTs were called. Ruiz and Williams are headed over there now.”
“On my way.”
All sorts of scenarios, each one worse than the last, filled my mind as I made my way to my SUV and climbed inside. The steering wheel creaked as I adjusted my hold. What the hell had she been doing at the vet’s office so late? Why had she been walking to her car alone?
I took a deep breath, the air whistling through my clenched teeth. It took less than two minutes to get to the vet’s, but it felt like two decades. Lights from an ambulance and a cruiser painted the streets and buildings in a red and blue staccato rhythm.
I pulled my SUV to the side of the road and added my lights to the symphony. Something in me released at the sight of Everly on a gurney, awake and talking. But my rib cage gave a painful squeeze at the sight of my sister holding a compress to Ev’s head.
My boots hit the cement with a thud, my pace picking up with each step. Hadley’s gaze met mine. “Hayes, dial it back a notch.”
I glared at my sister. “What happened?”
“Everly was attacked, but she’s going to be fine.”
“I’m okay, really. Just feeling a little woozy.” Everly tried to smile, but it was wobbly, and her skin was so damn pale.
I didn’t think, I simply moved, slipping my hand into hers and squeezing gently. “Tell me what happened.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket with my free hand and hit my recorder app. I didn’t want Ev to have to recount this over and over.
“I stayed late to finish up some paperwork so it wasn’t hanging over my head this weekend. I locked up and was walking to my SUV when someone grabbed me. I didn’t even hear him coming. I’m usually really good about being aware of my surroundings, but I was looking at the sky. The moon and the stars aren’t nearly as clear in Seattle. I missed them. So dumb.”
I squeezed her hand again. “It’s not dumb, and it’s not your fault.”
Everly’s hand twitched in mine, but I held firm. “I should’ve been paying better attention. But I wasn’t, and it felt like he came out of nowhere. He yanked me hard and covered my mouth with a cloth.”
My gaze met Hadley’s over Ev’s head. Hadley’s normally relaxed expression had hardened to granite. “I’d guess chloroform or something similar. Her vitals are still a little sluggish.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“I bit him. Hard.”
I swept my thumb across the back of her hand. “That’s my girl.”
Her fingers gave another twitch, but she didn’t let go. “I was losing my balance, and everything was fuzzy, but I got him with an elbow to the ribs. Then someone yelled from down the street.”
I glanced over to where Sergeant Ruiz was interviewing a couple—I guessed the people who had interrupted the crime.
“I don’t really know what happened next. I guess I fell…”
Hadley removed the gauze pad, and it was soaked in blood. She quickly replaced it with another one, even though Everly winced as she did. “Everly knocked her head pretty good on the pavement. It’s going to need stitches, and she might have a concussion. Whenever you’re done, we’re going to take her to Forest Lake to get checked out.”
One of the few downsides of living where we did was that there wasn’t a hospital close by. We had a good Urgent Care, but we were forty-five minutes away from treatment for true emergencies.
Everly tried to sit up on the gurney but winced. “Hadley, I don’t think I need the Emergency Room. Can’t someone give me stitches here?”
“You’re getting checked out,” I barked.
“Bedside manner, Hayes,” my sister warned.
My back teeth ground together. “You need a doctor to look at you, and probably some x-rays or a CT scan.”
Everly slumped back against the gurney.
“They’ll get you in and out as fast as they can,” Hadley assured her. “You done?” she asked me.
“Just one more question. Did you see the attacker? Anything about him or her at all?”
“Based on size, it was a man. He was behind me the whole time. I never got a look at him.”
“What about his voice? Did he say anything?”
“Nothing—” Her words cut off.
“What?”
“He made a noise when I bit him…but nothing about it was familiar.”
It was all just a little too similar to Cammie’s attempted abduction—and easily could’ve been a crime of opportunity. “Do you usually work this late on Thursdays?”
“No. I normally leave with everyone else.”
One more point in the opportunity column. But I had to ask one more thing. “Do you think this could’ve been Ian?” I wasn’t sure Allen had the strength to overpower Everly. She was much stronger than her size suggested.
Pain danced across Everly’s eyes, and this time, it wasn’t from the gash on her head. “I don’t think so. It’s not his style. Attack me? Sure. But try to kidnap me? That’s not him.”
“Okay. I’ll need to talk to him anyway. I’ll tell him to keep his distance, but you may get blowback.” I hated that there was almost nothing I could do to shield her from it. Nothing legally, anyway.
“I’ll be prepared.”
“I really need to take her in, Hayes.”
“Go.” I forced myself to release Ev’s hand, but it hurt like hell. She looked so damn small and alone on that gurney. “Take care of her.”
“You know I will.”
I looked at Everly. “Text me and let me know what the doctor says. Or if you remember anything else.”
“Okay.”
The single word was soft—quieter than I’d ever heard Ev before. And I had to fight the instinct to climb into the back of the ambulance they were loading her into. Instead, I turned to my officers. The way I could help was to find whoever had done this.
24
Everly
“I’d stay, but I have to head back for the rest of my shift. You going to be okay? Is there anyone you want me to call?”
There was no one. I fought back the rush of tears that wanted to surface with that knowledge. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for everything, Hadley.”
She moved to my purse on the hospital gurney in my ER bay. Riffling through it, she pulled out my phone and handed it to me. “Add me to your contacts.” She rattled off her number, and I plugged it in, even though my vision was still a little blurry. “Call me if you need anything.”