They keep me in for observation, tending to my injuries. I try telling them there’s nothing wrong with me, now that my shoulder’s where it should be, but they insist. I think they want to keep me where they can see me.
My head is so fuzzy I feel as though I’m levitating. I gaze at a crack in the ceiling, listening to the beep of my monitor. I don’t have a concussion, but they said there was a lot of blood. I don’t ask whose. My arm’s in a sling and it’s throbbing like a heartbeat. I won’t be able to drive for a while. I don’t even know where my car is.
Ellis is the only one who can answer that, and she’s vanished. It doesn’t even feel as though what happened tonight was real.
Has she set me up?
A police officer with large freckles that make her look more innocent than she probably is, brings me a cup of tea, heaped with sugars, plumping my pillows, helping me sit up. “So…” she says. “Let’s go through the details again.”
I keep having the same conversation with lots of different faces. I’ve told them everything I can remember about how I met her. And I’m more than a little thankful that I still can’t remember everything. It’s more than convenient. It’s saving my skin.
“So, she’s called Ellis.” She glances down at her notebook. “Or Elizabeth, Libby, or Bea?”
“Yes. That’s what she said.”
“And she’s your half sister?”
“Apparently, but she could be lying. I can’t vouch for anything about her.”
She nods, reads through her notes.
“Am I in trouble?” I ask, moving my arm, trying not to moan or cry. I don’t want more pain relief—to be groggier than I already am. I’m starting to worry they think I made up Ellis and that she’s me, an alter ego I invented to exact revenge on Fred. They know we’re at war, that I’ve hired the Rottweiler. The murky half sister tale must sound suspect to them.
She doesn’t answer my question right away. I sip my tea, panic rippling through me, trembling my hands: Fred’s critical, the man in the heavy boots is dead. Killed by Ellis. And almost everything can be traced back to that night at Rumors.
“I don’t think you should be panicking just yet,” she says, tucking her notebook into her top pocket. “You reported the crime, plus the paramedics said you were great.”
I wasn’t. I was petrified, hoping and praying I was doing the chest compressions properly. They found me numb with shock, unable to move my hands and release my cardigan that was stopping his blood flow. They had to pry me away.
“If you remember anything else, let me know.” She smiles, like she knows there are gaps in my story. “I’ll leave you in peace.”
I don’t think they will. Sure enough, five minutes later a man in a suit comes in and we go back through the same conversation all over again, only slower.
* * *
I shift position, pins and needles in my legs, moving my feet up and down in time to the sound of a distant beep. I’ve been allowed to leave my room, but am not permitted to enter the resuscitation room. Fred was admitted there earlier wearing a ventilator, still bleeding, but no one will tell me anything other than the consultant working on him is the best vascular and trauma surgeon in the area.
It’s just after two o’clock in the morning. I’ll sit here all night if I have to. Every so often, I allow myself to think of Will and Alice—to worry about how to tell them, when to tell them. But the worry is so huge I can’t handle it, so I avoid it, playing with my sling, touching the bandage on the back of my head.
It’s four o’clock when I think about phoning Len. Monique answers, her voice all wrinkled from sleep. I tell her about Fred. She starts to cry and then Len takes over and says they’ll be right there.
* * *
Fred is conscious, beachy green and blue curtains separating him from the patient in the next cubicle. I’ve been here for four days, no longer as a patient now but as a visitor, and my skin is itching from dryness and lack of fresh air. Len keeps offering to walk me round the courtyard downstairs, to admire the roses, but I don’t want to go anywhere. Guilt keeps me pressed to Fred’s side, pinning me to this padded chair.
He’s rallying though. The police have been in again this morning to check on him. And me. Mostly me, I feel. They’re pleased; the surgeon is too. But no one is more pleased than me. I can’t think about what would have happened if it had gone the other way.
“Got a moment?” the detective in the suit asks, as though I’m going somewhere.
I nod, motioning to the spare chair beside me.
“So, how are you feeling today?” he asks, tugging his trousers at the knees as he sits down.
“Not too bad. I can go home, but obviously I don’t want to.”
“Quite,” he agrees. He hasn’t looked at me yet, his eyes fixed on Fred, which I find strange because I thought their job was to watch suspects for signs of guilt. And that’s when it occurs to me: maybe I’m not one.
He crosses one leg over the other, looping an arm over the back of the seat. “So, the deceased who attempted to kill your husband was a known criminal. A nasty piece of work, with priors as long as your arms.”
I gaze stupidly at my arms.
“We think it’s more than likely that Ellis contracted him to kill your husband. But then when you showed up, you interrupted him from finishing the job… Good timing.”
Or bad. Had I got there even sooner, he wouldn’t be in a hospital bed.
“As it currently stands, Gabby, we’ve no idea where she is. Nor do we have many solid facts about her.”
Again, I get the feeling they think I’m inventing her. I pick at a loose thread on my sling.
He shifts his legs, changes position. “So, you intercept the attack and he attacks you. So, then she rescues you by killing him.” He looks at me then.
“I haven’t really thought of it that way, as a rescue,” I begin hesitantly, cautiously. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been there in the first place if it weren’t for her.”
“And yet she got there very fast, suggesting not only that she knew precisely where to go, but that she was hell-bent on protecting you.”
“I wouldn’t like to say… But she seems to be under the impression that we’re family or something.”
“You don’t feel the same way?” he asks, eyes boring into me.
“I barely know her.”
“I see.” He raps his fingers on his knee. “And there’s nothing you’re not telling me?”
“No.” I focus on my sling, still holding the thread.
“Any idea why she’d want your husband dead?”
I hope and pray for the life of me that I don’t visibly jolt at that question. “No. I thought it was me she was after because of the house.”
“Ah. The house.” He raps his fingers again. “And yet you didn’t go to the police?”
“No.” I let go of my sling, gazing at him. This part is true—all true. “I didn’t think I had enough to report. Just a nasty feeling. And as it turns out, I was right.”
He purses his lips. I can’t tell if it’s an agreement or a judgment.
“One final question, Gabby…”
I brace myself. They always save the worst ones till last; everyone knows that.
“…Do you happen to know whether she’s left-handed?”
I think about it. “No, I don’t. Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” And he leaves me then, casting a long look at Fred on his way out.
So she’s a lefty. A small but vital blessing, moving me further along the blame chain.
She must have left her handiwork all over that man’s body. Lowlife or not, the way he died was horrific. I’ll never forget it—will never be able to erase it from my mind.
I slump in my chair, pressing the corners of my eyes, too dry and depleted to cry.
And then Len arrives with pasta salad, which he made himself, even though he can barely boil an egg. Monique can’t bring herself to speak to me. I know she is silently blaming me. She tends to her son, pulling his covers about even though he’s asleep, the purple marks on his face looking gray under the lights.
“Have you eaten?” Len asks, sitting beside me. Monique is looking at Fred’s chart like she can understand it.
“Not yet. I will do.”
“You need to keep your strength up.”
Monique puts the chart back, folding her arms. It’s not her strength we need to be worrying about, her expression reads.
“They’ll find her, don’t worry,” Len says, looking at Fred, watching his monitor. “I’ve been following up with the police and they seem fairly confident.”
I touch the back of my head, feeling the raised bump, a tender scab forming. Maybe I do it because I want to draw Monique’s attention to the fact that I got hurt too. Yet, it’s wasted because she still isn’t looking my way.
“How did she even know Fred? A psychopath like that?” she says. “That’s what I want to know.”
I look up sharply at this, my eyes flitting between them.
Len stretches his legs to fish in his pocket for loose change. “Mon, you couldn’t get us a cup of tea, could you?” He turns to me. “Would you like one, love?”
I decline, much to her obvious relief.
As soon as she’s gone, he turns to me. “She doesn’t know Fred’s girlfriend and that woman are one and the same. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
I remain quiet.
“The police found all those…images on his phone.” He glances at me. “I take it you knew about them?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want her to know about any of that either. It’s too much, on top of all this.”
“Okay.” My shoulder aches as I shift position, reminding me of what that man did to me—the click in my shoulder as he wrenched me to my feet. Closing my eyes, fear trembles through me.
Monique returns, holding a cup of tea as though it’s infectious. “I think it’s disgraceful you haven’t told the children,” she says. “They deserve to know.”
She believes that it’s me who’s a disgrace, not Fred.
I don’t see the point in fighting her; she was always going to do this. It would be like trying to change her blood type. Yet, I can’t let her completely railroad me.
“I’m sorry, Monique, but I don’t want to worry them with it, not just yet. Alice has only just started uni. And I’m not prepared to let anyone spoil that, least of all Fred with his—” I’m about to say dicking around. Len’s nudging me, but I would have stopped anyway. Probably.
“So when do you intend to tell them?” she asks, clipping her earrings off, rubbing the lobes.
Maybe never. Maybe I’ll let Fred do it. It’s his chaos, not mine.
Although is that entirely true?
We all look at him then because he’s stirring, opening his eyes. Monique darts to his side, hand to his forehead, telling him how pale he is—does he want water? Is he comfortable? Should she call the nurse?
“Why don’t you go home, take a break?” Len suggests, patting my hand. “You’ve done all you can.”
I gaze at Fred. He looks up at the same time, our eyes meeting, his parents vanishing, and I imagine for one moment that it’s our wedding day and he’s about to kiss me at the altar. And then I blink and we’re on the ward again.
I’m no longer needed here, that much is clear. Standing up, I do my best to look stronger than I’m feeling. Passing Fred’s bed, I’m surprised when he extends his hand toward me, reaching for me.
I stop, gazing down at him. He’s smiling, but his eyes are sad. There’s all kinds of things I can read there, but I don’t want to. Instead, I pull away, taking my leave.
At the nurses’ desk, the police officer with the large freckles grabs me, telling me that my car has been retrieved. I imagine it as a burned-out carcass, dumped over a cliff, or abandoned by an airport. But it’s not.
It’s in my driveway. Forensics are almost finished with it, but unfortunately it’s looking pretty clean.