Page 2 of Fierce-Jax

After checking her phone, she saw he hadn’t texted to say he was on the way, so she snapped a picture of the ingredients and sent it. Their little joke. Sometimes dinner would be done for him; other times it was a message about what he was going to cook.

She walked into the pantry to get a pot and pan and noticed a piece of paper on the kitchen counter. How had she missed that when she came in?

It was Alec’s handwriting. The bold script that she was familiar with. Normally she was the only one who could read it, but this time it looked as if it was written much slower. As if he wanted her not to mistake any of what it said.

I’m sorry, Dillion. Don’t hate me. Please support me. Please be there for me. I need you more than ever.

What the hell did that mean?

She started to read it a second time when the doorbell went off.

The last thing she needed was her daughter up and screaming for more food.

With the words she’d read in her mind, the doorbell going off felt as if the grim reaper was on the other side with his long bony finger reaching out.

She whipped the door open after running forward, didn’t see a tall figure in a black robe with a blade in his hand, but rather two police officers looking uncomfortable.

“Dr. Dillion Patrick?”

“That’s me,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Can we come in to talk? It’s about Dr. Alec Cannon.”

She opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said. “What happened to Alec?”

“I’m sorry to inform you, but he’s been shot and killed.”

And everything she’d been trained to do in the midst of a crisis left her body as she crumpled to the floor.

1

TO BE NOSY

Four Years Later

“I’m notsure what that rash is, Jax,” Dr. Davis said.

He looked down at the mixture of red and pink bumps along with the remnants of scratches on his right hand.

Talk about embarrassing.

There was no way to hide it unless he kept gloves on his hands nonstop.

No disguise for it.

Nothing he used got rid of it either.

A pimply mess that reminded him of an acne outbreak on half of his friends in middle school.

“It’s been there for a few weeks,” he said. “I’d think it was gone and then it returns.”

Dr. Davis’s head went back and forth a few times. “Stress maybe? Have you been under a lot of it lately?”

Who the hell didn’t have stress in their life in a job like his?

He ran one of the biggest not-for-profits in the area. Was always short-staffed. Just moved to a new location a week ago,and now had to look at this disgusting mess on his hand, praying it didn’t spread to any other part of his body.

“Just the normal,” he said.