Wincing when my sore feet hit the floor, I shuffled down the hallway to my dad’s study. Crossing my fingers, I pressed the button that released the catch on the hidden door concealing the built-in bar. Sure enough, when the house had been cleaned of perishables, the discreet door had been missed and the shelves still held the vintage glassware my dad spent years collecting, the dusty bottles filled to varying degrees reflected in the equally dusty mirror behind the display.
Blowing the dust out of a tumbler, I uncapped a bottle at random and dumped half the contents into the glass and drained it in two swallows, shuddering when the fiery liquid burned its way to my gut. I waited for a minute and when nothing happened, I refilled the glass, emptying the bottle and drained it again.
Still nothing.
Leaving the empty bottle on the small countertop, I grabbed the bottle that sat next to it on the shelf and abandoned the glass next to the empty bottle, returning to the living room to wait for the anesthetic properties to kick in.
Chapter Eighteen
Dex
Three days.
Three ridiculously long days.
Thatis how long it took me to dig up the courage to knock on Otto’s door.
To my credit, I tried to contact Otto in those three days. I initially texted him while we drove at a snail’s pace down the dark mountain road but there was no response. Stan tried to reassure me that it probably wasn’t personal; after all, Otto might still be somewhere on the mountain and unlikely to stop and shift to check his texts. Reluctantly agreeing, I stuffed my phone in my pocket and tried to think of anything else.
When I got home, I forced myself to leave my phone to charge while I crawled into bed to sleep. I woke stiff, cranky, and out of sorts from messing up my sleep scheduleandannoyed when I found the text message still ondelivered.
I dawdled while I brewed a cup of tea and decided that a turkey and avocado sandwich would make a perfectly acceptable late brunch meal. With my food prepared, eaten, and the dishes cleaned, the text still didn’t show read, so I decided to take a leap and call Otto instead. After all, it was always possible that Otto hadn’t heard the text alert. Wasn’t it?
My call went directly to voicemail.
You’ve reached Otto. I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Beep!
Uggh.
“Otto, hey. It’s me, Dex. I was hoping we could talk, so could you call me back?”
Three hours later, I tried again. No ringing, just straight to voicemail. I left another message, this time including my phone number on the offhand chance Otto couldn’t find it.
Really?The voice in my head whispered.Then why didn’t he just show up? Did he forget where you live, too?
At dinner time, I forced myself to again put my phone in the living room while I ran a warm bath and crawled into bed.
On day number two, I made myself limit my calls to only one and when there was no response, I did my best to shake it off and settled in to find a show to binge.
On the third day, I was tempted to give up. After all, even if Otto had lost my number, my internal voice was right that he absolutely knew where I lived. I waited until early evening to try again, and my self-pity quickly turned to concern when instead of the usual beep, a recorded voice informed me that the voicemail was full and the call disconnected.
Otto not calling me back I got, but just ignoring his voicemail? No. He wouldn’t do that.
Would he?
I stared at my phone for a long minute, unable to convince myself that it was simply a case of me having pushed him away and losing my friend. Ordering a ride, I was standing on the curb anxiously tapping my foot when the blue Toyota Corolla pulled up. I stumbled when I jumped out as the car pulled into the driveway at Otto’s, ignoring the driver yelling something about waiting for the car to stop completely.
The sun was setting but the house was completely dark. The security gate was open and, when I tested the knob on the front door, my heart sank. It was unlocked.
“Otto?” My voice waivered when I called out but then the smell hit me. Booze, vomit, and rotting food, all blended into a stomach-turning fog that filled the room. Saying it smelled like a circus cage stuffed with animals would have been understating it.
I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose in a vain attempt to escape the stench and shuffled further into the living room. Glass tinkled when I kicked and tripped over empty bottles on the floor as I groped along the wall for the switch to the overhead light. The sudden blaze when I found it temporarily blinded me but when my eyes adjusted, I screamed.
Otto lay naked in the center of the living room floor, dried blood caked on the left side of his face and vomit dried on his chest and the carpet beside him. Next to his left hand was a mostly empty tequila bottle. Clutched in his right was the sheet of ultrasound photos I lost weeks before.
My hands were shaking as I pulled my phone out, dialing while I stepped over the liquor bottles littering the floor and shoved a bowl of rotting food out of the way to kneel beside my Alpha to check for a pulse.
“Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?”
