Page 77 of Manner of Death

Bashir nearly stumbled again. “What? He was following Tami around?” Fuck, Sawyer had made his point. He hadn’t needed to stalk her, especially since she was still in custody, and—

“No,” Walker said flatly. “Dr. Boyce.”

Bashir’s lips parted.

“Sawyer had a hunch about him,” Walker barreled on. “So he followed him. And apparently someone—we don’t know if it was Boyce or someone else—decided to run Sawyer off the road. Deliberately.” She stopped outside a room and met Bashir’s gaze. “This was an attempt to kill him, Dr. Ramin. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Ice water slithered through Bashir’s veins. Road rage happened. So did accidents and DUIs. Not everyone getting run off the road was murder or attempted murder. Bashir didn’t want to believe someone would try to kill Sawyer—never mind that they’d come anywhere near succeeding—but he also needed to be objective about all of this.

He squared his shoulders. “Were there witnesses?”

“There was one, but she didn’t see much.” Walker took a breath. “What she did see was an SUV hitting Sawyer’s vehicle repeatedly. She didn’t see him go off the road, but her dashcam did, and from the looks of it, Sawyer deliberately went off an embankment into the river.”

“Went off—deliberately? Why would he do that?”

“You’ll have to ask him.” She gestured at the closed door beside her. “But I reviewed the footage myself, and…” Walker nodded. “It looks to me like Sawyer either lost control or deliberately went off the side.”

Bashir swallowed. “What, um… What kind of SUV was it?”

“A Lincoln Navigator. Black.”

His guts wound themselves into knots.

“How the hell can you afford one of those things?” he remembered Tami asking Boyce a few months ago. “Especially on top of a Porsche?”

Boyce had gone off on a long soliloquy about investments, Bitcoin, and getting alimony from “that cheating skank,” though Bashir had tuned most of that out as his usual bragging nonsense. It echoed in his mind now, that was for sure.

In the present, Walker gently said, “I need to go chase down some leads.” She tilted her head toward the door. “You just be with him for a while.”

Numbly, Bashir nodded. “The, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Boyce has a Navigator. Just… Just FYI.”

No surprise registered on her face. She was likely ten steps ahead of him, and she’d just been waiting for him to arrive so she could go investigate. She probably hadn’t wanted to leave Sawyer alone.

Reaching for the door, Bashir whispered, “Thanks, detective.”

She gave a sharp nod and left.

Bashir steeled himself, then pushed open the door and slipped inside. As soon as his gaze landed on Sawyer, his heart dropped into his feet all over again.

His time as a med student had desensitized him a little to the hospital environment. All the wires, leads, monitors, and machines weren’t nearly as scary after learning what they all did. Seeing someone surrounded by all that in a hospital bed didn’t alarm him as much anymore because he understood that most of the equipment was just keeping an eye on the patient, and half of it wasn’t even turned on—it was just there because it happened to be in the room or on the same pole as a necessary monitor.

But when it was Sawyer lying there on the semi-reclined gurney, dressed in a snowflake-sprinkled hospital gown with bandages on his face, an IV in his arms, and an army of monitors looming over him… it fucked with Bashir’s head. This wasn’t a patient. This was Sawyer.

Bashir carefully closed the door behind him, then crossed the room to the side of the bed. There were glued and stitched cuts along one side of Sawyer’s face and neck. From broken glass, most likely. The bruising on his face had probably come from the punch of the airbag. Hopefully the plastic collar around his neck was just there out of an abundance of caution and not because something had fractured. His left arm was wrapped in thick bandages and draped across his stomach. The right seemed no worse for the wear except for the IV in his hand and a small contusion on his forearm.

He looked like shit, but his chest was rising and falling and all the readouts on his monitors were… not normal, but not in any dangerous ranges.

Sawyer’s eyelids fluttered, and he gazed up at Bashir. He was obviously on some hefty drugs, but after a second, his focus sharpened, as if he’d suddenly recognized who’d come into the room.

“Bashir.” He started to sit up, but gasped and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hey.” Bashir touched his more or less uninjured arm. “You’re supposed to be getting some rest.”

Pain kept Sawyer’s expression contorted for a moment. Then, slowly, he started to relax back against the pillows. “I’m sorry.” He sounded miserable. “Tami. I didn’t… You know I wasn’t—”

“Sawyer. Don’t worry about that right now.”

“No. I need to.” Sawyer shifted, wincing again, and he held Bashir’s gaze. “I fucked up. I thought it—all the evidence was pointing to—”