“Hold them lightly and just talk to her,” Dex instructed. “Nice and calm, only good things. Nothing about what’s goin’ on here. Everybody else’ll step away and start working out what to do about the body.”
Without taking his attention from Phoebe, Duncan nodded. “Hey, baby,” he said, fighting off adrenaline to keep his voice at something close to a whisper. But what could he say? His head was packed solid with what was going on here.
“I’m home early,” he finally decided on. “Missed you too much to stay away.” Her hands lay flaccid in his. He brushed his thumbs over their backs, but she didn’t seem to notice. Still, it made him feel a little better, so he kept it up, caressing her lightly with the pads of this thumbs.
“I love you. You know that, right? I mean, I know we say the words, but I want to make sure you really know it. I love you, Phoebe.” No reaction. All he could think to say that was safe and calm and good was to pour his heart out, so he kept going. “It’s funny—I was so scared to get close to you because I thought I’d lose so much if I gave up my single life. I always had this idea in my head that ‘settling down’ meant life getting boring, all obligation and responsibility and that kind of shit, so I figured I’d put it off until I was ready to be boring. But you know, I like feeling responsible for you. I like being expected somewhere. I like knowing somebody will be disappointed if they don’t see me. It's not boring at all. It’s exciting. Loving you makes my blood fizz all day long. Being with you feels like having my finger in a socket—but, I mean, in a good way. I feel fucking alive.”
He thought he felt her hands move. When he looked down, they were unchanged, still loose and seemingly lifeless, but he was sure he’d felt something. “You’re safe, Phoebe. I promise you’re safe. I won’t let anybody hurt you anymore. I need you here, babe. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll always keep you safe.”
He could hear the others speaking softly, could hear Vin probably explaining the situation. He could sense in his periphery that they were moving around near the body, but he didn’t let it distract him. Right now, the only thing he cared about was Phoebe, who’d been like this a long time. More than an hour. What if this had broken her—what if something that woman had done, one of the blows that had hurt her face, had hurt her brain, too? Or what if she’d simply snapped? What if she never came out of this? What then?
The change happened in painfully slow increments. First her hands twitched again, and that was all for what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably closer to fifteen seconds. Then she took an audible breath. Duncan lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it, but nothing more seemed to happen. He’d run out of things he could think to say, so he started repeating, “Come back, babe. I love you,” over and over, like a mantra, or an incantation. A resurrection spell, or something.
And then, all at once after so long, she was looking at him. “Dunc?”
His face exploded into a grin. “Hey there, beautiful. How’re you feeling?”
She didn’t answer. For a few seconds, she was obviously confused. Then she looked around, and understanding landed on her so quickly, he saw it drop through her eyes.
“Oh no! I—”
He cupped her face again, hoping to stop that sentence. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“It’s not ... I killed her. I don’t ... remember doing it.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re going to take care of it. You’re okay.”
“We?”
Dex crouched beside Duncan again. “Hey, Phoebe. Do you remember me?”
She turned and squinted at Dex. “Dex. You’re here?”
“I am. I know you don’t know me too well, but I’m gonna ask you to try to help me out, okay? If you can. If it’s too much, we’ll figure something else out.”
“Okay.” She squeezed Duncan’s hands. He squeezed back.
“Why was this woman here? Do you remember?”
Dropping her head, Phoebe took a long, slow breath. “Uh ... She wanted to talk, I think. But ... I don’t think we ...” Her halting attempt at an explanation stopped suddenly, and for a second Duncan feared she’d gone away again.
But then she said, quickly and with anger, “arrogant little bitch!”
Duncan and Dex both reacted. They flinched and glanced at each other, but neither could guess where that outburst had come from.
However, Phoebe was all the way back. “Oh shit! She wanted to try to make me apologize. I think she found out we worked out the repairs, so she came out to make more threats. I told her she had to go. But Vin came down, and he recorded her making the threats. She was angry, but I thought we’d won. I thought she’d go—but then she jumped at Vin and knocked him down. He hit his head. When she tried to get his phone, I grabbed her. She swung at me, and then we were fighting. I don’t remember after that—except oh shit, Dunc! I killed her! I killed her!”
Duncan grabbed her and pulled her close, held her as tightly as he could. She flung her arms around him and clutched at the back of his kutte.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said into her hair. “We’re going to handle this. I promise.”
“We are,” Dex said, still crouched beside them, but leaning back a bit now. “If you can answer one question, we can take it from here.”
Phoebe turned her head and peeked at Dex from the shelter of Duncan’s chest.
Dex smiled kindly and asked, “Do you have any problem of any kind with us taking the body away and staging an accident with her car?”
“I killed her,” Phoebe said.
Dex leaned on his knees and peered directly at her face. “First, sounds like she was attacking you, so anything you did was self-defense. That’s a result of her actions, not yours. There’s no guilt here for you unless you take hers on.” He stood up. “Now, I’m gonna need your man for a while, so we can take care of this. We don’t want you to be part of what happens next. Do you think you’re good to stand and let Margot and Vin take you up to the house?”
She looked up at Duncan. Though she didn’t speak, he understood the question in her eyes.
He wanted to stay with her. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms, carry her up to the house, up to her room, put her to bed and curl himself around her, to keep her safe from all the troubles around her and all those inside her, too.
“I will be back, fast as I can. But we’re gonna fix this for you. Okay? Let me do this.”
Her head dropped, and she curled more tightly against his chest. Duncan snugged her close again and kissed her head.
“Okay,” came a small voice, muffled inside his kutte. “Thank you.”
~oOo~
Once Margot and Vin had Phoebe well away from the stable, the Bulls huddled up.
“Here’s what we know,” Dad started. “Her name is Lydia Copperman. Her husband runs Copperman Resource Management.”
Eight sighed heavily. “Goddamn, you youngsters got a knack for hooking up with chicks who got trouble with important civilians. How many accidents we gotta stage to deal with your girls’ bullshit?”
Duncan figured he was referring to Athena’s ex-boyfriend, who had raped Athena, and had therefore been killed by her family: the Bulls. They’d staged a car accident to dispose of that body as well. It was an effective means of dealing with a body when the person who’d worn it couldn’t simply be erased. Like the son of an advisor to the mayor of Tulsa. Or the wife of a CEO.