“I’ll be right back. I swear,” I promised.
She nodded, and I dropped my hand from her face.
Her head fell back to the bed as she said, “Do you think they’d care if I got dressed?”
I looked around for her clothes—my clothes—before saying, “I’ll go ask about that while I’m out there.”
She frowned, likely because that would put me farther past the door, before she said, “Keene, can you do it?”
Keene was already up and moving. “Sure can.”
Then he was gone.
I moved to the end of the bed, squeezed her foot that was underneath the blanket, then said, “Be right back.”
Moving to the door, I chanced a glance back to make sure she was okay with me leaving and found her eyes laser-focused on me.
Deciding that getting out of her line of sight might freak her out too much at this juncture, I made sure to go outside but stayed where she could see me.
I turned back once I was where I was going to be to again check to make sure she was okay, and I saw her leaning forward in her hospital bed, eyes intently on me like if I got any farther, she might just launch herself out of the bed at me.
I stopped and pulled out my phone to act like I was on it to explain my being where I was, then I listened.
I was almost too far away to hear.
But like my father liked to say, “Almost doesn’t count.”
I could hear every word, even if every few words, I had to use context clues to get it correct.
“Toxicology reports show that he’d been drinking heavily,” I heard one of the deputies talking quietly to another. “As in point two four. Triple the legal limit. Also, reports show that he had hints of cocaine in his system. Not that he’d been doing it while on shift or anything, but he’d definitely been shooting up at some point in the last twenty-four hours.”
“I fuckin’ knew it,” the other deputy grumbled. “Swear to Christ, if this doesn’t oust him, I’m going to lose my fuckin’ shit and quit.”
“We’re all gonna mass quit,” the other confirmed. “He’s going to come back and have an empty department with no help. Then what’s the county going to do?”
I hoped they did quit.
Because I had a feeling ol’ Bright had too many connections to be charged for whatever had just happened tonight. He’d try to cover it up, that I could assure them. And whomever he had in his back pockets would protect him because Bright likely had dirt on them that would be more damning than whatever kind of cover-up they’d have to do with Simi’s case.
“Right now, he’s in a medically induced coma because he hit his head pretty hard on the steering wheel,” Deputy One finished. “I hope he dies and makes it easy on us.”
I nearly snorted.
Keene walked back into my line of sight, smiling at Yennifer, who handed him a set of clothes.
They were mine, but they looked freshly laundered, as if the hospital staff had made sure they were clean so she could put them back on.
Well, that was nice.
“What about the girl?” Deputy Two asked.
“She’s going to be okay,” Deputy One said. “But dude, she’s fuckin’ pregnant. She could’ve lost that kid, and it would’ve been partially our fault because we didn’t do something about Bright before he got triggered.”
“Agreed,” deputy two said. “I say we let them go. If she’s fine, she can go back to her circus, and they can leave, and we can play dumb.”
“What about the murder?” deputy one asked.
Keene walked past me, muttering, “Yeah, what about the murder?”
Agreed.
He slipped past me, and I chanced a glance back over my shoulder.
When Simi had lost sight of me, she’d visibly stiffened even more.
I backed farther into her line of sight, which meant I didn’t hear as much.
“…think we should…let…we’ll figure it out,” Deputy One said.
I had a feeling if we left, Mary’s murder would go unsolved.
But I felt like that was a necessary evil, seeing as if we didn’t leave, Bright might make Simi’s life a living hell.
“All right,” I heard the doctor say, interrupting my eavesdropping. “She’s free to go,” he said with a smile as he came into the space I was standing. “But signs to watch out for…”
I stopped listening, instead focusing in on my girl since I knew what the signs of a concussion were. You didn’t stay in the military as long as I did and not know the signs of a concussion. If you didn’t have one yourself, your friend did.
She was getting dressed on the other side of the curtain, and the small gap in the drapes allowed me to watch her do that.
I probably should’ve been a gentleman and turned my head, but I wasn’t.
“I hope you don’t need us, but if you do, here’s my card.”
I took his card and the papers he was handing to me that were likely the discharge instructions and nodded my thanks. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
He smiled. “Any time.”
Then he was gone, and I was left watching through the gap in the drapes as she pulled my pants up over her hips.
She turned and saw me staring, and her shoulders visibly wilted as if she was glad that I was closer.
“Ready?” I asked.
She threw open the drapes and then slipped her flats on over her feet before saying, “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER 14
All men are cremated equal.
-T-shirt
SIMI
“Ready?” the man that was my baby daddy asked.
Yes, yes, I was really ready.
“Absolutely,” I said as I slipped my shoes on. “Let’s go.”
He caught my hand, and together we all walked outside.
To a bike.
I blinked at it, but then instead of stopping at the bike, he kept us moving toward a brightly colored van with “Singh Circus” on it.
He opened the passenger door and then said, “Up.”
I swallowed hard and looked at him. “Are you sitting in the back?”
Because didn’t men normally sit in the front?
“No, I’m riding my bike back, babe,” he said, then narrowed his eyes as my state of panic was being alerted to him with big, neon letters. “I’ll follow right behind you, though. I swear.”
I licked my dry lips, then started to get into the van, but my sores and bruises made themselves known before I’d even lifted my leg partially off the ground.
“Ow,” I murmured.
The pain only made the panic worse.
I did not want to let him out of my sight.
I wasn’t sure why him over my brother, but I felt this connection to him that literally made me want to latch on and never let go.
“Hurting?” he asked as he caught me around the waist and bodily lifted me into the van.
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m going to be right behind you,” he vowed as he set me in the seat.
I swallowed hard, feeling a sudden rising of even more panic at the thought of him letting me go.
Before I could get too far into my panic attack, he caught my hand and pressed it to his heart. “Feel that?”