A Dark Horse

by Cooper, Blayne

  The phone rang seven times before a sleepy-sounding woman answered the phone. “Latisha?” Adele said, pleased that Al’s wife had answered the phone. “I know it’s late. I’m so sorry.” A pause. “No, you’re the one I need to speak with.”

  * * *

  Thirty-six hours later…

  Natalie shifted in the bed of the nicest hospital room she’d ever seen and wondered whether Adele’s and Amelia’s repeated, emphatic phone calls to persons unknown had anything to do with it. She supposed she’d worry about what her health insurance would actually cover later.

  She was in significantly less pain than the day before. Once her doctor was sure there was no additional danger from her head injury, he’d switched her to a mild narcotic painkiller that she’d have to give up all too soon.

  Natalie lifted her fork to her mouth and scrunched up her face. The green beans were slimy and the chicken thigh, while drenched in shockingly yellow gravy, still managed to be dry. As she chewed and took a painful swallow, she only half-listened as Adele and her doctor discussed her pending discharge.

  If the doctor said she could leave in the next five minutes, it wouldn’t be soon enough for Natalie’s tastes. She needed to leave, if not for herself, then for Adele, who had refused to leave her bedside and stood guard like the most dedicated of sentries, but looked utterly spent. Adele had also grown increasingly…distant wasn’t quite the right word. Guarded. That was better. And it was starting to frighten her.

  Natalie was the tiniest bit groggy. It was the sluggish sensation one’s mind had when you first woke up, only she wasn’t able to shake it off fully. Not yet. She was also beyond drained herself, although she wasn’t sure what was the bigger contributing factor, her injuries, or the recent, highly stressful phone conversation with her mother.

  Rose had been understandably worried, but she also hadn’t missed the opportunity to harshly scold her daughter for not disclosing that she’d gone to New Orleans in the first place, and then for foolishly remaining in a city “where everyone gets murdered.” Natalie had listened patiently to her mother’s rant, then Rose’s apology for her rant, then a new rant, before hanging up with a promise to call later. By later she meant as long as she could possibly put it off.

  Natalie pushed her plate and rollaway cart away with a little grunt and sat up a little straighter as her doctor finished his conversation with Adele and exited the room. Adele did not look happy.

  Adele took her usual position in the chair beside Natalie’s bed and picked up her iPad. “They’re discharging you tomorrow after breakfast.”

  Thank you. “Isn’t that a good thing?” Natalie rasped, her throat still raw, but much better than the day before when she sounded like a cross between a drag queen and a phone sex operator.

  “You just got hurt!”

  Irritated they were having this discussion again, Natalie smoothed the edge of her blanket. “I can’t believe you talked them into keeping me until then. There’s no way my insurance will allow me to be here ten seconds longer than…” Natalie’s eyes turned to slits when a guilty look flashed across Adele’s face. “You offered to pay to keep me here, didn’t you!”

  “You almost died!”

  “I’m only lying here, Ella. My doctor wouldn’t let me leave if it would endanger my health. There’s no reason I can’t recuperate at home.”

  Adele swallowed hard and trained her eyes on the far wall. “You can’t fly for a week to ten days. I asked. Something about absorbing gas and the pressure in your head.”

  “I didn’t mean home to Wisconsin.”

  Adele began to smile at the implication, but her face quickly went flat.

  Natalie could sense the progress they’d made together on a deeper relationship begin to slip through her fingers. This was the Adele she’d first encountered when she came back to New Orleans this most recent time, not the mostly open, bright woman she’d come to care so much about. “I’m not giving up on finding out what happened to Josh either. This slowed us down, but it doesn’t have to stop us.”

  She saw Adele’s jaw work, and when there was no reply, Natalie hesitantly added, “I don’t have to go back to the inn. I know this has been awful and that you’re probably tired of…all of this. But I’ve got almost a month before I have to be back at work. I know my week’s prepay at the inn is basically over.”

  “Christ,” Adele mumbled. “Do you really think I want your money? And neither one of us are going back to the inn. Not until I figure out what happened.”

  The lack of the word “we” in Adele’s last sentence didn’t go unnoticed. “What’s wrong, Ella?” She grasped Adele’s arm and while Adele didn’t shrug her hand away, she felt the muscles beneath her fingers turn to iron. “I’m tired of waiting for you to be ready to tell me, so I’m asking.”

  “You mean besides the fact that a man broke into my inn and then tried to murder you?” Adele fired back, swiping her finger over her iPad screen with more force than was necessary.

  Her feelings are hurt. Natalie could see the shuttered pain and frustration lurking behind Adele’s eyes. She just had no clue why. “Yes,” she challenged just as strongly. “Besides that.”

  Adele’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the iPad. “Why are you so calm?”

  “Because you aren’t, and one of us should be.”

  Adele’s mouth snapped shut.

  Natalie wanted to keep picking and picking until she discovered exactly what was bothering Adele, but she schooled herself in patience. Besides, everything had grown so complicated—like a giant spiderweb where every fact, emotion and multiple crimes were somehow tied together with translucent wire, its pattern still a mystery—that she assumed whatever was haunting Adele was part of the same, enormous mess.

  “Ella, are we ever going to talk about what happened at the inn?”

  Adele ran her hands through her hair. She had dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks were sunken, and Natalie thought it was a little unfair that the other woman was still undeniably beautiful.

  Adele sighed long and loud. “The doctor said…I mean, I don’t want to upset you. You’re supposed to be resting and getting better without stress. Not worrying about any of this.”

  Natalie gave her a wan smile. “So you’re doing all the worrying for both of us?”

  “I’m not the one who’s hurt.”

  “You can barely walk, and you haven’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time in almost three days!”

  “That’s hardly the same.”

  Natalie bit back an exasperated grumble. “I can see the wheels in your head turning. I thought we were a team, remember? Talk to me.”

  “Fine!” Adele’s face turned red with what at first appeared to be anger, but then dissolved into something more complex. “Why didn’t you tell me something was on Josh’s phone?”

  “What are you talking about?” Natalie was reminded that the day before Adele had specifically asked her not to mention Josh’s phone to the police, then refused to discuss it further.

  “You know, the phone that was somehow worth almost getting killed over? Why didn’t you tell me what was on it? When I said you needed to think more like Nancy Drew that didn’t mean for you to try to solve this on your own!”

  Natalie drew her head back. She had no idea what Adele was talking about. “I’m not.”

  “I can’t believe you would have forgotten to tell me. Again. You’re not that stupid.”

  Natalie’s blood began to boil. “When you get hurt or angry you lash out, Ella. And that’s not okay.”

  “I know that! But—”

  “I have no idea what’s on Josh’s phone.”

  Adele leaned forward, eyes intense and vulnerable, as though she desperately wanted to believe Natalie but didn’t know how. “I saw Georgia give you her charger before she went home for the day.”

  “She did, and I tried to use it. But her charger is for the new iPhone. Josh’s is more than five years old. The charg
ers must be different because hers didn’t fit. When it didn’t work, I put the phone back in my purse so I could take it to the store with me to find the correct charger.”

  Adele could only stare, dumbstruck.

  “And I know what you’re going to say next. I wasn’t keeping this information from you.” She gave Adele a stern look. “But somehow discussing my dead brother’s cell phone in the middle of our first date didn’t seem like a good choice.” Natalie grimaced in pain and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry if that isn’t enough like Nancy goddamned Drew for you.”

  “Natalie.” Pale-faced, Adele dropped her face into her hands. “I’m…I’m…shit! I’m so sorry that I used the word stupid. I’m sorry I said all that. I’m…I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m so angry and worried! And I feel sick and stupid that I didn’t go charge the phone the second you told me about it. If I had, maybe, somehow you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Christ, sometimes I’m just an asshole.”

  Natalie pursed her lips. “You’re not an asshole. But, Ella, you claim to be concerned about my trust in you, when really it’s you who’s afraid. Not the other way around.”

  Eyes glistening, Adele looked up directly into Natalie’s gaze. “I am trying.”

  Natalie did her best to reassure with a smile. It was easy to forgive Adele when she knew her worry and anxiety was on her behalf. “I know.”

  “But…there’s still something I don’t get. If you didn’t think there was something important on the phone, why didn’t you just turn it over to the intruder in your room when he asked for it?”

  “You think I didn’t?” Natalie said, suddenly angry again because maybe Adele really did think she was an idiot. “I gave it to him instantly, and offered him my wallet, and anything else he wanted. I also started screaming my head off!”

  Natalie’s heart began to pound as she remembered the terror that felt like an icy-hot shock wave. “He stuffed Josh’s phone in his pocket and turned to leave, but you were already outside the door, banging on it. That’s when he froze, like he wasn’t sure what to do next. Then he spun around and…just came at me.”

  Adele’s jaw dropped, her eyes widened. A look of pure horror settled over her. “Oh, my God. He attacked you because I was blocking his way out?”

  “No!” When Adele looked away Natalie cupped her jaw firmly and turned her head back so they were facing each other again. “Listen to me as I say this. There is no way to know this asshole’s reasoning. He’s a criminal and all you did was save my life.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t you dare make this about you and your irrational need to feel guilty for anything that happens within a twenty-mile radius of me!”

  That shut Adele up instantly. She floundered for a second and Natalie let her. Adele needed to understand for herself that she wasn’t responsible for other adults. “I-I…I didn’t know I was doing that and I’ll try not to do that again,” Adele whispered finally, looking a little like a deer in the headlights.

  “Good. Because I won’t let you.”

  Natalie’s voice filled with tears when her mind settled on a particularly difficult moment, but she refused to cry. “We fought.” The statement seemed so inadequate when what she had done was punch, kick, block, claw, flail, anything to try to stay alive.

  “He pinned me on my back with his knees on my chest and wrapped his hands around my throat. When he leaned forward and squeezed everything started to go fuzzy. Even then, I could hear the violent banging as you threw yourself against the door, and the sound of wood cracking.”

  Adele closed her eyes, visibly disturbed by the vivid picture Natalie was painting.

  “It must have been taking too long to choke me, because he grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and hit me with it.” She shivered. “Everything went black, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.” There. It was over.

  Adele perched on the very edge of the bed next to Natalie and moved her IV tubing out of the way before she wrapped her in a gentle hug. “It’s okay now.” Adele stroked up and down Natalie’s back with one hand, her body vibrating with an intense, dark energy that Natalie could literally feel through her thin hospital gown. “I’m going to make sure he can’t hurt you again. One way or another.”

  Natalie pulled away so she could see Adele’s face. “Wha-what do you mean hurt me again? Why would he do that? He has what he wanted.”

  “Maybe he thinks you saw something on the phone that’s incriminating. Or maybe the fact that you know it exists is the problem. It could be a lot of things. But there is one constant: you are someone very bad’s loose end.”

  * * *

  After a long nap, Natalie awoke feeling surprisingly alert. Adele was lightly dozing, the blonde’s body horribly contorted in the small hospital chair. Natalie hated to wake her, knowing that Adele’s body must have simply given in to its demands for rest. She also knew how much pain Adele was already suffering through. And this would only make it worse.

  “Ella?” she whispered. “Wake up. Ella?”

  Adele bolted upright, then sprang to her feet. “What?” She limped around in a circle, looking for the danger and reaching for her phantom gun. Seeing none, she grasped the bed railing for support, her head hanging down between her arms as she steadied herself before her legs could give way. “Dammit.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re hurting and worn out.” She gave Adele a sympathetic look. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I was afraid you were going to end up as a lifetime chiropractic patient if I didn’t.”

  “I’m okay,” Adele murmured, looking anything but okay. She twisted her neck and winced.

  Natalie scooted over and patted the bed next to her. “Come up here with me. It’s not the greatest mattress in the world, but it has to be better than that horrible chair.”

  “No. I’ll hurt you. You—”

  “Then go to a hotel.”

  “What? I’m not going to a hotel! You know I’m not going to do that. You’re stuck with me.”

  “You’re stuck with me too, and that means sometimes I actually get my way, Ella. Get up here before I have to drag you up.” Natalie suddenly had an idea. She was going to kill two birds with one stone. “And bring your iPad.”

  Reluctantly, Adele kicked off her shoes and shocked Natalie by actually climbing under the covers with her. “You said you wanted me in here,” Adele reminded her teasingly.

  Ecstatic, Natalie said, “I did indeed. And if I’d known I’d get you under the covers, I would have asked a long time ago.” She glanced down at Adele’s mouth, but before she could decide whether she should kiss her, cool lips whispered adoringly over hers.

  Natalie couldn’t stifle her soft moan at the sensation that both excited and calmed her. Her lips had never been treated with such reverence.

  After a moment, Adele backed off a little sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  The grin that stretched Natalie’s cheeks felt wonderful. “I think it’s safe to say that’s nothing you ever have to resist.” She gestured to the iPad. “Now show me what you’ve been poring over while you think I’m asleep. If it’s pornography, I’m a little insulted that you’re hoarding it.” Natalie was hoping to earn at least a small smile, but was met with a serious look instead.

  “We don’t have to—”

  “I’m well enough for you to read to me, Ella.”

  “Okay,” Adele agreed uneasily, and she opened up her notes.

  Natalie was shocked to see pages of what looked like theories, timelines, lists of names and other scraps of information.

  Adele scrolled a few pages, then stopped. “This is the one I need your help with. It’s a list of everyone who knew you were in New Orleans. The motive for your attack, at least in part, was to get Josh’s phone. We know that, though that doesn’t really help us. We know the means for the crime. Now, we need to know who had the knowledge and opportunity.”

  The “we” was back in Adele’s sentence
s and Natalie was thrilled. She was tempted to comment, but Adele was still so easily spooked when it came to risking her heart that she didn’t dare. There would, she promised herself, be time to be effusive in the future and really let Adele see all that she felt.

  Her eyes never leaving the screen, Adele lifted one of Natalie’s hands and pressed her lips against the slender bones. The move was done so matter-of-factly, so absently, that Natalie was sure Adele didn’t even realize she was doing it. Adele kept hold of her hand, placing them both in her lap, her thumb tracing a soothing pattern on the back of Natalie’s hand.

  “Oh, wait,” Adele said, sounding a little excited and letting go of Natalie’s hand.

  Natalie felt the loss immediately.

  Adele bent down, retrieved her duffel bag, and plucked out a simple pair of brown-framed reading glasses. “I asked Amelia to pick these up for you at the gift shop yesterday.”

  Natalie knew Adele was leaving off the words “because I wouldn’t leave you.”

  “They won’t be as good as your own, of course, but until we can retrieve them, I figured these would be better than nothing.”

  Natalie’s chest constricted with a feeling so overwhelming it made her gasp. “Ella…”

  “Hang on…yeah…just turn your head…let me help put them on.” Adele carefully slid them onto Natalie’s face, taking great care to make sure they didn’t upset the bandage coiled around her head. “There.” She gave Natalie a delighted, slightly dopey grin and kissed the tip of her nose. “You look beautiful.”

  It was a small gesture, almost insignificant in comparison to others Adele had readily made on her behalf, which somehow managed to bowl Natalie over completely. And in that moment she knew. She could feel it from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. It was so simple and beautiful it made her want to cry. They fit. Natalie would travel a million miles for this woman, all of them baby steps, if that was what it took.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Adele asked softly, concerned. “You look weird all of a sudden.”

  Natalie laughed. The fact that she was hurt and lying in a hospital bed was all but forgotten in the wake of the heady moment. “I’m wonderful. I promise.”