Seven Days (27 page)

“Of course,” the nurse granted before disappearing and leaving me at Ryan’s mercy. I wasn’t ready for him to watch me pee so early in the relationship. What was it they said about needing to keep the mystery alive? Surely, this is what they meant.

“You don’t have to do that,” I waved him off, trying again to lift myself from the bed, only to find myself tangled in my leads. With a deep sigh, I waited while Ryan untangled me, gingerly, from the bed and brought the IV pole around the bed before helping me into a sitting position. “Fuck, I have to go,” I shivered at the shift, my bladder trying hard to hold on.

“I’ll get you there,” he declared before scooping me into his arms and holding me in a bridal carry as he maneuvered the IV pole into his hand to drag with us. Once we’d made the two steps to the bathroom door, he pushed it open and turned on the overhead light. I squeezed my eyes at the intrusion and felt myself being lowered to cold tile floor. A rush of cold air hit my ass as my gown was pulled free right before it met the plastic seat that was far too low for my stomach’s liking.

“Thank you,” I said, trying to dismiss him, but when I didn’t hear him move, I cracked my eyes opened and found him leaning against the door. His back was to me, but he was definitely still in the room. “I can take it from here,” I prompted.

“I know,” he agreed, “but if you start to pass out and I’m not here to catch you. Well, I’d never forgive myself. So pee already,” he explained. On a muttered curse, the dam finally broke on my bladder and overruled my desire to not pee in front of anyone. It didn’t help that it was probably the greatest pee I’d taken in my entire life, so much so that I couldn’t fight the sigh that escaped my lips as I voided into the toilet.

“That was embarrassing,” I mumbled, as I reached for the toilet paper.

“Don’t worry,” Ryan chuckled as I flushed and tried to stand again, but only found myself back in his arms and carried to the sink to wash up. This was exceedingly difficult when the only one hand was available for use and it was the wrong one. “I promise to never speak of it after we leave this place.”

“I really appreciate it,” I sighed, ready to settle back into the hospital bed and hit my little button so that the pain from moving around would go away again.

“So, are you okay with being my wife?” he asked after he’d tucked me back in. He was still whispering so we didn’t disturb Britton who was snoring loudly on the small couch in the room.

“Are you okay with it? I mean, after everything you must’ve seen,” I was finally able to verbalize my fear.

“The only thing I saw in that house that mattered was the fact that you were still breathing, Carrie. I’ve fallen for you, and I won’t watch you walk away from me again,” he declared, stealing my breath. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve fallen for you, too, Ryan. I’m sorry I ever thought I needed to walk away,” I whispered, trying to choke back the tears threatening. I couldn’t believe how much of a sap I was turning into through all of this.

“That’s all I needed to know, now hit that button that takes away the pain I know you are in and go back to sleep. We have plenty of time now to talk about what’s going to happen when you finally get out of this place,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face and leaning down to kiss my forehead as I followed his instructions.

“Okay,” I smiled and closed my eyes again.

“We just have a few questions, if you are feeling up for it, Ms. Patrick,” one of the officers at the foot of my bed requested. I’d just started to wake up from another pain medication induced nap and my eyes hadn’t even adjusted yet. From the covered tray next to my bed, I could see that it was lunchtime.

I was hungry, but still on a liquid diet. My nurse had cheerfully told me this morning that if I tolerated lunch well, I would be moved up to soft foods this evening. The glimmer in Ryan’s eye when he heard that before leaving for work made me smile at getting closer to discharge. So I tried not to grimace at the thought of rice and apple sauce for dinner. Yet, at this point, I didn’t think I could stomach another serving of chicken broth and lime gelatin.

“She’s only been awake twenty-four hours,” Britton protested, bringing me back to the scene in my room. I knew she meant well, but I was grateful they’d come while Ryan was still at work. I was going to have to explain what he saw that night eventually, but watching him learn the truth through some loose-ends style interrogation was far from the ideal way to give him the details.

“It’s okay,” I said, laying my hand on my sister’s forearm to stop her protest. “I’m awake, and I have nothing to hide.”

“Can you give us a moment?” the officer asked my sister in a way that she knew the only correct answer was yes.

“Fine,” she huffed, handing me the nurse’s call button before getting to her feet. “I’ll be right outside,” she finished, shooting the cops her famous evil eye. The younger of the two detectives gave her a look of amused interest as she passed them.

I recognized both men as soon as they stepped closer to me, now that my sleep hazy vision had finally cleared. They were regulars at the diner, usually coming in for our early bird dinner special, even though neither of them was close to retirement age. I’d asked them once why they made it a point to eat so early. The men had, sheepishly, admitted that they had a weakness for the free half slice of pie that accompanied the meal. I couldn’t blame them, the pie was pretty damn good.

“So, Joe, Carl, how can I help you?” I asked once the door clicked shut behind my sister.

“Carrie,” Joe, the younger detective, started. “You know we don’t like seeing you under these circumstances, but we need to know what happened last Sunday night, in detail,” he prompted, opening his notebook and taking the chair Britton had vacated, while Carl leaned with a shoulder on the closed door.

“No problem,” I agreed before launching into everything I remembered from finding dad on the couch to the feel of the bullet slicing through and lodging in my intestines, costing me my spleen and a lot of blood.

“Where had you been that your father was able to lie dead in that house for over forty-eight hours and no one knew?” Carl asked when I finished my story. His voice wasn’t gruff or accusatory, more curious. It was probably all part of the job. I’m sure my dad wasn’t the first to die of a drug overdose in this town.

“Friday morning, I was on the road, travelling from Laughlin to St. David with my boyfriend,” I smiled, fondly as flashes of the drive flitted through my memory. My cheeks heated over the use of the title ‘boyfriend’ to describe Ryan. Somehow, the designation felt more intimate than the husband moniker that my nurses thought was true. “I’d asked Britton to stay away because our dad had the tendency to do dangerous things while I was away and I didn’t want her to witness it. Ben assured her that he’d look after our dad when she did a welfare check on Wednesday night,” I embellished a little. Ben had vowed to keep him occupied and I was fairly certain that his commitment to that promise had been what had killed my father. I wondered if he’d only been thinking of what he could get me to do in return that had driven him to give my dad more than he could handle.

“Speaking of Mr. Archer. What was your relationship?” Joe asked, bringing me back to the conversation.

“He was our landlord and my dad’s friend,” I said, explaining our connection in the simplest terms.

“So you don’t know any reason why he was found naked, tied to your bed with his wrists slit to his elbows?” Carl asked, pushing off the wall and folding his arms over his chest. His words echoed through my ears in a way that had my blood rushing through my body and spiking my adrenaline. I knew I wouldn’t need any pain medication for a few minutes based on this news and the way it made my limbs feel like noodles attached to my torso. The bells on my monitors started pinging and a nurse sounded over the speaker in the room.

“Mrs. Kelly, I need you to take deep breaths, your oxygen saturation rate is low and your heart rate just spiked, honey,” Sasha coached, and I focused on her words, taking in large gulps of measured air until the machines calmed.

“Ben’s dead?” I finally asked. My jaw dropped as I tried to process this news. The tears that welled in my eyes at that moment were not from sadness, but from relief. Although I was sure the detectives in the room wouldn’t know the difference. If Ben was dead, what had happened in the time it took for Ben and Britton to make it back to the trailer and before I arrived?

“You didn’t know,” Joe said, leaning forward in his chair. It was a statement rather than a question. I was pretty sure my monitors had betrayed the shock I felt over the news.

“No,” I shook my head, “I know Dallas mentioned something about him being there, but I didn’t know he was dead. I figured he’d been given the same treatment as my sister, or he was lying in wait as Dallas’ back up,” I denied as I had a vision of sinister sharp cheekbones and icy blue eyes.

“Why would you say that?” Carl dug, picking up on something I’d just revealed.

“Dallas said something about getting me away from anyone who might hurt me. He told me he was in love with me, but he and Ben were friends, so I wasn’t sure how deep their loyalties were. If he would help Dallas…I don’t even know what he was trying to do,” I tried to clear my head of all the possibilities. Had he wanted to kill me? Kidnap me? I had no idea.

“That’s all we have for now,” Carl said, obviously noticing the pain that was starting to creep back into my body. “We might have a few more questions after you’re back home,” he smiled, calling attention to a truth I hadn’t thought about. Where was home? Turning my attention to the liquids on the tray beside me, I tried to figure out how much this hospital stay was going to cost me. I had basic health insurance, so I knew a majority of it would be covered, but I would still have to pay some out of pocket. I hoped there would be enough left over in my savings to find a decent place, because there was no way in hell I was ever going to step foot in that trailer again.

“You’re thinking pretty hard,” Britton observed as she cautiously returned to her seat next to my bed.

“Yeah,” I frowned, deciding to shelf the house discussion in favor of a subject I was even more curious about at the moment. “What happened after you and Ben left the diner? Better yet, why the
fuck
did you leave with him in the first place? I mean, you know what the man is capable of!” I fired off, giving Britton my most stern face.

“If I’d known that he knew you weren’t at training the week before, Carrie, I swear I wouldn’t have taken him up on the ride,” she started, holding her hands out in defense. “I figured that it would look suspicious if I turned him down, considering how we’d left things on Wednesday night,” she explained.

“I supposed you’re right,” I, begrudgingly, agreed. “So, what happened? I couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes behind you. How could you be so broken and Ben end up dead in that time? It feels like…I don’t even know.”

“I don’t know how long it took you to get there, but, you’re right, it all happened so fucking fast,” she took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you what happened, but you need to remember that I’m
okay
. I am alive and sitting next to you right now, so don’t get all freaked out and need the nurse again, okay?” she clarified, leveling me with a look that told me she meant business. “If you start to have another panic attack, I’m going to stop.”

“Okay,” I nodded, shifting in the bed to face her more fully. “Please, tell me.”

“I could tell something wasn’t right the second we pulled away from the diner and onto the road,” she started. “He was all tense and sweaty. His knuckles were white from gripping the wheel. When we made the turn into the park, he finally spoke.”

With that, she started to tell me the story of what happened after she left the diner and before I got to our house:

“
When were you and your sister going to tell me?” he snarled, shooting an angry glance in Britton’s direction.

“
What are you talking about?” she asked, giving him a puzzled look in return, knowing there were a couple of options for his anger.

“
That chick at the diner said Carrie’s been traipsing all over the state with some guy?” he clarified, slamming his car into park and getting out before she could respond. Her heart hammered in her chest at the situation she was facing. Did she try to sit in the car, phoning for help, or did she try to defuse this herself? She was almost eighteen; shouldn’t she be able to take care of this problem without calling her sister in?

Before she could decide what she needed to do, the passenger door opened and she was yanked from the car. Ben mumbled to himself about needing to teach Carrie a lesson about respecting boundaries and unspoken rules as they neared the door. It was then that she knew she should’ve locked herself in the car when he got out. Why did clarity have to come too late? As they neared the door, she tried to wrench her arm free, but found the old junkie’s grip to be stronger than she’d expected.

“
Look, there’s something you need to know,” he said, coming to an abrupt stop at the foot of the stairs, but she could already smell his news. “Your dad is dead. I gave him something new, and apparently, he took too much. I’m sorry,” he offered, insincerely. Britton knew the end of that sentence was ‘the rent will be the only thing I’ll be able to collect from your sister’s body.’