| |
Shade strolled into the kitchen with Nahla in his arms. He favoured his left. She rode high like a delicate queen at a state event. Her rumbling purr filled the room. Lexi glanced up at her and wrinkled her nose. A hail of swear words banked behind her pursed lips. Shade already thought she was an idiot. She didn’t need to prove it by cursing at a cat.
“How did you guess my pin number?” She released the accusation without removing her attention from the image.
Shade raised an eyebrow in her peripheral vision but offered nothing. He placed the cat on the floor with care and sat beside Lexi. She wanted to ask him what made him sleep in her bed and why he’d held her during the night. But he wouldn’t answer, and the words stuck in her throat. Nightmares. Her skin prickled, and the hairs rose on her arms. She needed to deal with her father and Rojas. But how?
Shade nudged her arm and pushed the notepad towards her. Two letters marked the upper page in his distinctive scrawl. Lexi leaned forward to peer at it and then at Shade. “New York?” She frowned in confusion. “Why did you write that?”
He leaned across her to stab his index finger at the screen. Lexi clamped her teeth over her lower lip before speaking. “NY? The last letters of that registration number.” She cocked her head and half closed her eyes. “Perhaps. I see it now, but that might be because you’ve pointed it out. Tarant promised to enhance it more on his office computer, but he hasn’t yet.” She offered Shade a shy smile born from awkwardness and a desire not to push him away. “Thank you. That’s helpful. I don’t suppose you recognise the vehicle model?”
Shade tilted his left hand from side to side as though measuring a non-existent air current. He dragged the pad closer and wrote, ‘Audi or Mercedes. Vintage.’
“Right, thanks. You’re good at this.” Her lips twitched. “It’s fortunate you’re left-handed.”
Shade smirked at her and wrote, ‘I’m not.’
When the awkwardness grew too intense, Lexi busied herself in the laundry. She set the tumble dryer on a low cycle and left Shade’s clean underwear and tee shirt rolling around inside it. A disinfectant wipe had banished the blood from his leather trousers. She left them hanging over the airer. But the bullet had sliced through his leather jacket to leave a flayed channel just below the shoulder. She folded it and placed it on the hall table.
A shower banished the previous day’s weirdness and, for a change, Lexi dressed in a smart trouser suit and added lipstick. It took a while to make the gash on her cheek appear less garish. She possessed no other armour against Lachlan Mortimer but the false courage she manufactured in her own head. He’d gone too far and though she knew it would make no difference, she intended to drive to the bookshop and tell him so. But first, she had another destination.
Lexi squared her shoulders as she walked into the kitchen. “Can I drop you somewhere?” she demanded. “I need to see Keith Barnard and then my father.” But the words stuck in her throat as Shade glanced up at her. He’d stripped off his tee shirt and the first aid box spilled its guts across the table. “What happened?” she demanded. Nahla circled her legs as she rushed across the kitchen. She mewed like a distressed kitten. Shade wrinkled his nose and turned his right shoulder towards her. Blood leaked down his arm and dripped onto the table. Red inflammation swelled the skin around the wound and two of Henk’s temporary stitches had burst at its centre. Lexi’s heart seemed to beat in her stomach. “It’s infected already,” she breathed. “I don’t have anything to fix this. You need proper medical attention.” Her mind flicked to the doctor who’d demanded she text him each month for her own safety. “I might know someone from the emergency room,” she began.
But Shade’s violent head shake stopped her from continuing. “Henk then?” Lexi lifted a fresh gauze pad from the box and ripped open the packet. She placed it over the wound and held it there. Her fingers trembled with the knowledge she didn’t have what he needed. Guilt rose into her throat and choked her. Battersea intended the bullet for her.
To her surprise, Shade slid his phone towards him. He sifted through his contacts left-handed and pulled up the one from the previous night. The call opened, and he pushed the device to Lexi. She quailed inside at the thought of another conversation with the angry administrator of The People.
“What now?” Henk barked. The phone vibrated against the table with the force of his shout. If Shade never spoke, then he also never made phone calls. Lexi sensed Henk’s animosity crossing the kilometres between them.
“Hi,” she said, inflecting her voice with calm politeness. It seemed pointless naming herself for his benefit. “Shade is still at my place. His shoulder is weeping, and the stitches won’t hold. The redness looks like the beginnings of an infection.”
A massive sigh thundered through the phone. “Does he have a fever?”
“I’m not sure,” Lexi stammered. She mentally searched her cupboards, but didn’t recall owning a thermometer.
“Feel his forehead, you idiot!” Henk snarled.
“Sorry,” Lexi breathed to Shade. She reached up to place her sweating palm on his face. Between his fringe and her own body heat, it left her no wiser. “I don’t know!” Her voice rose in pitch. “Can’t you come here, or shall I bring him to you?”
A bark of a laugh in response. “If you even think of coercing him into giving you my location, I will knee-cap him!”
Lexi blew out a frustrated puff. “Fine! Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll take him to the hospital.” She jabbed her finger at the screen and killed the call. Then she turned to Shade. “Let’s tidy this up and I’ll see if your clothes are dry. I won’t take you to the hospital for now. Instead, I’ll call the office. Tarant will know where I can get some antibiotics.”
Lexi didn’t enjoy the conversation with her employer. Especially not after quitting the way she had. Yet, he didn’t mention it, behaving as though the call never happened. He’d heard about the shooting but not linked it to her. She told him about Shade’s rescue but added a minor name change. She didn’t mention Henk or their link to The People. Or that Shade had trailed her for three months and she hadn’t noticed. Lying rankled and she couldn’t account for the ease with which the fabricated story tumbled freely. But she recognised that her responsibility for Shade had somehow trumped her loyalty to her former lover. The cogs of her life had shifted. Only Garima deserved the absolute truth from her now.
Tarant huffed and puffed like an old man across the connection. “Why didn’t you tell the cops about him?” he demanded. “He’s a witness! How do you know he’s not involved with Battersea? The cops would get medical treatment for him. This Steve guy could play the hero.”
Lexi held her breath until he’d run down to a faint hiss. “He didn’t want that,” she said for the fifth time. Someone else who wishes to avoid Rojas’ attention. That can’t surprise you.”
“The forensics lads will find his DNA on the bullet. What’s his last name? I’ll check him out.”
Lexi gritted her teeth. “No thanks. Just tell me where I can get some antibiotics for his wound. Specific ones, not general spectrum.”
Tarant exhaled. “I know a guy,” he said after a brief delay. “I’ll text you his name and address after I’ve spoken to him.”
