by Jessie Cooke
She nodded, “Or Xanax or Versed—phenobarbital. There are lots of drugs in that category and those tests will have to be done individually. I knew Pam smoked pot, but as far as I know she didn’t do any other drugs. Did you two take anything together?”
“No. All we had were the drinks we had at the party and the joint we smoked there.”
“You fell asleep when she was in the tub...was the door locked?”
“The bathroom or bedroom door?”
“Both.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. When I woke up, the bedroom door was locked and the bathroom door was wide open.”
“How long was she in there before you fell asleep?”
“Just a few minutes, I think. I was tired...”
“From having sex with my little sister, I get it,” she snapped. It took her a few seconds but when she recovered her composure she said, “Is there a key to that room, like where anyone might be able to access it?”
“Yeah. There’s a box on the wall in the kitchen with spares of all the rooms in it.”
“Did the police print that?”
“I’m not sure, but don’t you think they would have?”
“If they knew about it. I don’t even want to ask what happened to the bed with all the blood, or the condom you...you did use a condom, right?”
He nodded again. “Yeah, and to answer your question, I don’t even know what happened to all of that. Dax sent me to shower and wait downstairs while they cleaned up. He was only trying to protect me, though. He did call the police after.”
“What a guy,” she said, sarcastically. She picked up her drink and swallowed the rest of the amber liquid in one gulp. “The problem here is if there was any evidence that pointed to the real killer in that room, Dax Marshall had it destroyed in the process of trying to ‘protect’ you. And honestly, he didn’t do you any favors since that evidence might have cleared you.” Wheelie saw something pass across her features and she said, “Was there a knife in the room, Wesley? Did you...or Dax, or who-the-fuck-ever...get rid of the murder weapon too?” He knew that telling her that, especially when she was already pissed, was too much. He shook his head.
“There was no murder weapon there.”
“Good,” she said, relieved. “Hopefully that means it will still turn up, because if there’s no weapon, proving anything in court will be almost impossible and whoever did this will walk. Dax Marshall has to stop tampering with evidence and let this case take its course.”
Wheelie smiled. “You going to tell him that?”
“Fuck you. I’m not afraid of Dax Marshall.”
He chuckled. “Glad to know one of us isn’t.”
An hour later, Wheelie sat on the couch alone, flipping through the television channels and trying not to think about the beautiful, naked woman down the hall. He could hear the water running and the image of her in the shower kept coming into his mind. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about sex at a time like this...but his little head had taken over, and it was completely in control of his thoughts at that moment.
He looked at his phone and thought about texting Dax, or one of the guys. He wondered how things were going with DA Kent...but he reminded himself to be patient. Dax would let him know if there was anything he needed to know. Meanwhile, he had to just take a breath and chill out. He chuckled at that thought...so fucking much easier said than done.
“Wesley!” He heard Bri calling from the bathroom. The water was still running through the pipes; he could hear it in the walls. When he got to the bedroom he went inside, but stopped at the bathroom door.
“Bri, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Do you have any bruises?”
“Excuse me?”
“On your arms. Do you have any new bruises?”
Wheelie looked down at his arms. He’d washed his hands, but his arms were still dusty from their trip through the trees. He was waiting for Bri to finish in the shower. The steam that was wafting out meant he would probably be taking a cold shower, but since he could not only imagine her naked now, but hear and smell her, he’d probably need it. “From today?” he asked. He heard her sigh or scoff, or whatever you called that irritated noise that women make. The water went off and a few seconds later, she pulled open the door. Wheelie’s jaw almost hit the floor. What the fuck was she trying to do to him? She had a thick towel wrapped around her sexy body, but that was it...a fucking towel. Her hair was wet and tousled. Jesus Christ, she was sexy.
“Hello? Did you hear me?” He really didn’t. He thought those hot lips were moving but he hadn’t processed a word that came out of them.
“No, I’m sorry. What?”
“After that night with Pam, did you notice any bruising on your arms?”
“No.”
“Let me see.” She grabbed his arm and tucked it under her arm...against her breast...that was only covered by a towel. Was this her plan all along? Was she trying to give him a heart attack? Her fingers were probing the skin on his arms and he thought she said something else, but again...his brain heard nothing as he thought of her being naked and wet. “You should shower,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “I planned on doing that...”
“Take one now so I can see your arms.” Okay, she’s hotter than hell, but maybe a little crazy. That thought was confirmed when he caught sight of the gun on his bathroom counter out of the corner of his eye.
“What are you doing with a gun?”
She gave him a look like “Really?” and said, “I was going to shoot you with it.” When he didn’t respond she said, “I’m a probation officer, remember? I have a concealed carry permit. I wasn’t going out into the woods with you without it.”
“But yet somehow...you’re standing here nearly naked in my bathroom.” He felt bad...kind of, almost as soon as he said it. It was like she hadn’t even realized she was almost naked. She looked down at herself and when she looked back up at him, her face was scarlet red.
“I...I wasn’t thinking. Don’t get the wrong idea here...”
Wheelie again bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “No worries, the gun killed any ideas I had.”
“I’m so fucking tired,” she said, suddenly. “Jesus. I can’t stop the wheels from turning in my head and I feel like it’s going to explode. This...this really wasn’t a come-on. I’m sorry.”
He smiled at her as gently as he could in his wildly horny state and said, “It’s okay. You’ve been through hell this week. You need some sleep. Go lie down and I’ll shower and go sleep for a while on the couch, okay? Neither of us is going to get anything else done if we don’t.”
She nodded, slowly. “Okay, thank you. I know this seems...”
“Bri, it’s really okay. Go. There are t-shirts in the top drawer of my dresser if you want to grab one.” She nodded again. As she walked out the door she stopped and said:
“I just want to believe so badly that you didn’t hurt her.”
“I didn’t hurt her, Bri. I don’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on giving me the benefit of the doubt, especially since I lied to you, but thank you.”
“I don’t know either,” she said. Then she went out and closed the door behind her. Wheelie was left with an aching heart, an aching cock, mostly cold water, and the fear that if he gave himself relief in the shower, she’d be able to hear him in the next room. It was one of the most uncomfortable showers he’d ever taken.
11
When he got out of the shower, he dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist. He took a deep breath before opening the bedroom door. He needn’t have worried; Sabrina was dressed in one of his t-shirts and curled up in the middle of the bed, sound asleep. Her wet hair stuck to the side of her face and her pretty mouth hung open. She was gorgeous, and he knew he had to grab some clothes and get out of there before his little head started thinking again.
He picked up a soft blanket off the chair in his room. Sylvia had sent it to him for
Christmas the year before. She said she and Bella worked on it together, tying strings all along the outside and then stuffing it with some kind of soft batting. He loved it because they made it, but he never used it. Now, he draped it over Bri, grabbed his clothes, and went out to the living room. He pulled on his shorts and was about to pull on his t-shirt when there was a loud pounding on his door. All he thought about was that he didn’t want them to wake her up. Without looking out, he pulled it open and suddenly Bart Kent was in his face, gun out. He used his forearm to push Wheelie into the wall behind him and pressed the gun to his head. “Where is my daughter?”
“What the fuck?” Wheelie said. “Get off me!”
“Fuck you! I’ll put a bullet in your worthless head and have a story made up before the six o’clock news hits the airwaves. So tell me where Bri is or I will fucking kill you.”
“Your daughter is fine.”
“Where is she?” he said through gritted teeth. Wesley wasn’t thinking about the gun to his head. He was just pissed that this man thought he had the right to come into his home and threaten him. Kent was not a small man, but Wheelie was bigger and a lot younger. He would have known he was taking a foolish risk if he’d thought it through, but he didn’t. He just let his knee come up, hard, and connect with the soft flesh between the older man’s legs. Thankfully, Kent didn’t pull the trigger on the gun. When he let go of Wheelie and doubled over, the young man kicked him again, this time in the head. Kent dropped the gun as he flew back into the other wall.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Bri had come out of the room at some point and just as Wheelie reached for the gun on the floor she started yelling.
“Baby, there you are. Thank God...”
Wheelie had thought she was yelling at him, until he looked at her and realized the venom she was about to spit was directed toward the man on the floor. “Don’t you ‘baby’ me. I’m not a baby, Dad, and I don’t need you rushing in with a gun, threatening people. Have you lost your mind? You should be home, with Mom. What are you even doing here?”
Kent was clutching his balls with one hand and his head with the other. Wheelie felt a little bad because the man suddenly looked so pathetic. It only got worse when the man started crying. “I thought he hurt you! They told me you were with him today...baby...Bri, what are you thinking? You’re smarter than this, aren’t you?” Wheelie could tell the “aren’t you?” hurt her; she actually winced. “I thought after...” He stopped, but the look in Bri’s eyes was a murderous one. Whatever he was implying, she understood. Sighing he said, “Sabrina, even if he wasn’t a suspect in your sister’s death...”
“He’s a suspect, Dad? Is that why you’ve filed charges and the police have arrested him? Oh, wait...that hasn’t happened, has it? You shouldn’t even be working on this case and you know it. Meanwhile, where’s Mom? Home alone, grieving for her daughter and arranging to bury her.”
Kent struggled to sit upright and then wiped at his face with the sleeve of his expensive suit. “Why aren’t you there, Sabrina? Why would you rather be here with this...” He looked at Wheelie and apparently couldn’t even find the words for him. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“I can’t be there, Dad. You know why. Mom keeps looking at me like she wishes it was me that died. She blames me for this.”
“She’s just upset. If you hadn’t had that party at the house...”
“Exactly. If I’d never had that party, Pam wouldn’t be dead. I get it. This is my fault, just like...” Again, that look passed between them and she stopped for a few seconds before saying, “I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure the person that killed her pays for it, Dad. But I can’t take the looks from Mom in the meantime, or the way you hover over me and treat me like I’m still sixteen.”
Wheelie would have loved to remove himself from this family drama, but he was trapped between the door, Kent, and Sabrina. Short of climbing over the man, or leaving out the door almost naked, there wasn’t much else he could do but watch the soap opera unfold.
“You see what happened to your sister?” he said, struggling to his feet. Wheelie and Sabrina both just watched and neither reached out to help, even as he teetered sideways and almost fell. He glared at Wheelie again and then went on. “The worst happened. All those years I worried because of the scum of the earth I see every day...because of the evil I know exists...and the trouble you two insisted on stirring up. I was always on guard, and I still couldn’t stop any of it from happening.” Wheelie got the feeling that they were both talking about something other than this incident as well. Kent went on, “Look at you, Bri. After everything...you’re still always pushing the limits. If you want to spit in my face all the time how you’re twenty-six years old, then you should act like it. You’re a law enforcement professional and you’re...” He stopped and looked her up and down disgustedly. It hadn’t even dawned on Wheelie, until that moment, what it looked like Kent had interrupted.
“We didn’t...” he began, but Bri grabbed his arm and said:
“Shush! Let me handle this.” She turned back to her father and said, “I’m what, Dad? I’m whoring around? Is that what you were going to say? That’s your favorite thing to say to me and it was your favorite thing to say to Pam too, wasn’t it? Well, guess what? After you get called a whore one too many times, you figure what the hell. Any trouble we got into was your fault for being such a shitty father and you know it.”
“Bri, please...”
“Get out.”
“Sabrina...”
“Go! Leave!” It got really uncomfortable when she used both her hands and tried to push him out the door. Wheelie wasn’t sure whether to intervene or push them both out. He pictured that big house he’d seen that night...a family of professionals...and he thought that it really was true that you couldn’t judge a book...or a family...by its cover. Kent bent down and picked up his gun. As he tucked it into his jacket she said, “Wesley could charge you with assault, you know. He could ruin your career. Think about that before you do something stupid again.” He stepped out the door and turned to say something else, but she slammed the door in his face. “I hate him,” she said, before storming back down the hallway and into the bedroom. Wheelie was left standing there, unsure of what to do next. Ultimately, when she didn’t come back out, he went back over to the couch and fell down on it. He was asleep before his head hit the cushion.
Wes didn’t know where he was. He could hear voices and he knew he was lying down on his back...but he couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t see who was talking and he couldn’t hear what they were saying, they were just muffled voices. His head felt...foggy...and his body felt heavy. He tried to lift his arms, but he couldn’t. He could tell they weren’t tied down, he just couldn’t raise them. It was like he was paralyzed. He tried his legs next, with the same result. What the hell was going on? Something warm suddenly splashed across his face. His lips weren’t paralyzed and when he moved them he tasted something like salt...and iron? Fuck! Blood. Whatever had splashed over him was blood. He realized that his body was sinking into the surface he was lying on and everything felt wet now. He fought again to open his eyes, but with the same result as before. The voices were louder...there were two of them, he thought. One was definitely male, but the other was speaking so low that it was hard to tell. He tried not breathing so that there was no noise rushing through his ears; then he should be able to hear what they were saying.
It was almost like they knew he was trying to listen, though. They stopped talking all at once and he could tell, even though he couldn’t see, that the lights were shut off. Then the sound of a door opening and closing, softly...and then nothing. No sounds, no light, no movement...but he could smell, and what he smelled was like the smell of their campground when he was a kid and his dad would take him and Chris hunting. Dad would kill his buck and then hang it from one of the trees and gut it. Wesley hated that smell...blood and death...but it stuck in his head and now it was stuck in his n
ose. He was sure that was the smell, and it was overwhelming.
His headache was turning into a migraine, moving down low on his forehead right above his eyes, and he could feel the heaviness in his limbs begin to recede. For several minutes he waited for the tingle and burn to go away and then he tried to move again. This time he was able to sit up...and he was in his own apartment. His head was still pounding and now he could hear his heart beating in his ears too. He looked around the room. It was still light outside. He saw his phone lying on the coffee table and reached for it to see what time it was. It took his eyes a few seconds to focus through the pain and leftover fogginess. When they adjusted he realized two things...he’d only been asleep mere minutes and the phone he was holding wasn’t his.
The slamming of his heart against his chest intensified when he realized it was Bri’s phone thanks to the text message on the screen, waiting to be read. It said, “My flight lands at eight p.m. Has he remembered anything?” The name on the text message simply said, “Chris.” No fucking way...
“What are you doing with my phone?”
Wesley looked up at Sabrina. She didn’t look like she’d slept at all. Her eyes were even more red and swollen, like she’d been crying the entire time. He tried to stay focused. “Who is Chris?”
“What are you doing with my phone?”
“Who is Chris?”
“Give me my phone.”
“Tell me who Chris is and who he’s talking about remembering things. Is he talking about me?” The phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at it and she tried to grab it simultaneously. She fell into his lap just as the words penetrated his brain, further scrambling his thoughts and emotions.
“I can’t wait to see the look on my little brother’s face when he sees me. This should be fun.”
12
“Give me the damned phone!” Wheelie was holding her down with one arm and holding the phone away from her with the other. The weird dream was all but forgotten and all he could think was, Why the fuck has she been contacting my brother?