Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
My gaze shot back up, taking in the state of him all at once again with this new knowledge. And now knowing exactly what was going on.
He was septic.
From the dog bite.
And from the looks of things, he wasn’t going to make it without immediate medical intervention. If even then.
I tucked the gun back away, knowing there was no way a man in his condition was going to be able to charge at me.
I realized as I watched the man for a moment that Kingston would be happy with this development. That my other siblings and the Mallicks would as well.
I didn’t have to kill anyone.
I just… needed not to call an ambulance.
Time and his raging infection would do the job for me.
I wondered, though, if this would be worse for AJ. Finding out that the bite from her dog had killed her ex.
But it wasn’t like Joss didn’t have it coming.
And Samson had done what he’d needed to do to protect his owner.
It wasn’t Samson’s or AJ’s fault that Joss hadn’t sought out medical treatment. Or sufficiently cleaned the wound.
Everyone knew dogs’ mouths were filthy.
Not getting treatment after a deep cut was just asking for trouble.
The kind that had clearly caught up with Joss. I moved around the living room, finding an open notebook set on a small table under the front window.
I flipped as much as my stupid leather gloves would allow, seeing a seemingly endless list of phone numbers. All of them but the last one with lines drawn through them.
Reaching for my phone, I snapped a picture of the page, wanting to know what those were about, then kept flipping through the notebook, but finding nothing else inside of it.
As Joss’s breathing got more and more erratic, and his consciousness seemed to be slipping away from him, I moved through the house, finding his laptop, phone, and his tablet, then slipping them into one of the bags from the kitchen, not wanting anything in them to lead back to the doggy daycare or AJ. I tossed the notebook in for good measure.
Then I stood there and watched as the man slid from mere unconsciousness to complete stillness over the next several hours.
I pressed my gloved fingers into his neck, finding no pulse.
It was done.
He was gone.
He’d never hurt her again.
With that done, I made my way back to the car, then drove out of Navesink Bank to toss the tablet in one dumpster, and the laptop in another, the notebook, and, finally, the phone in a third, before making my way back to Charlie Mallick’s house.
And, finally, calling Kingston.
He took all of five minutes to get there, rushing into Charlie’s house with me, finding a fresh pot of coffee and some cinnamon rolls sitting there for us, evidence that Helen had been around, that she knew something was up, but that she’d likely gone to bed and left us to handle things from there.
“It’s done?” Charlie asked, tone serious.
“He’s gone,” I admitted, seeing the discomfort slice across King’s face. “I didn’t have to do it.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, stiffening.
“I mean that when you get several severe dog bites, you should probably seek medical attention. Not sit and let it fester for almost a week.”
“He died from an infection?” King asked, shaking his head.
“I came in through the back, and there was a weird stench in the house. Like hay…”
“He was septic,” Charlie said, nodding.
“Far gone, it seemed. He was only partially conscious. Then, little by little, he slipped away. I didn’t have to do anything but wait. I found his laptop and tablet, took them, and tossed them in different locations. And I checked around for anything else that might lead back to AJ.”
“They won’t even dig that hard,” Charlie said, knowing more about law enforcement, thanks to his long career, than we would likely ever learn. “Eventually, a cleaning crew or the owner of the rental will show up. They’ll see him. Call the cops. The coroner will know that he died of an infected dog wound. No one is going to assume anything nefarious. Just a random death.”
“Who are you calling?” King asked, suddenly tense again as I found the picture on my burner phone, then typed the number in, and set it on speaker on the table as it rang.
“You have reached Navesink Bank Animal Hospital. We will be open again at—“
I ended the call, seeing the curious looks of Kingston and Charlie.
“His notebook was fucking full of phone numbers, all of them crossed off. Except this one.”
“He’d been calling vets,” Kingston said. “Trying to find where Samson was being taken care of.”
“But who would give that information away?” I asked.
“He was probably slick about it,” Charlie said, reaching for a cinnamon roll. “Called each place saying he needed to know something like the vaccination record of his dog. Gave AJ’s last name, then the dog’s name. There’s no reason the receptionist would think that’s problematic. These aren’t human medical records,” he said.