Keys and Kisses: Untouchable Book Three

by Long, Heather

  I closed my eyes. I barely knew Mitch. “Is Cheryl all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Archie said. “Nothing happened to her.” The harshness in his tone worried me. He still looked rough.

  “They were dating,” I told him. “That water…”

  “It was hers,” Jake said, almost like he had to ground it out between his teeth. “We know.”

  I glanced at each of them. “Cheryl didn’t do this.”

  “No one is saying she did,” Coop said gently. “Pretty sure Mitch gave her the water, and then she ended up giving it to you.”

  “Ass probably waited until you wandered out to follow you.” Jake’s knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the bed. “If Bubba hadn’t heard something…”

  “Where is he?”

  “Getting questioned,” Archie said, and then he eased down on the side of the bed. “Is this okay?” He was careful not to touch me, but he looked like hell.

  “Are you okay? You drank some…”

  “I know, babe. Started feeling a little woozy about ten minutes after you went to the bathroom. When you didn’t come back, we got worried. I mostly have a headache, I didn’t pass out…” He sucked in a breath and blew it out. “One of us should have gone with you.”

  “That’s on me,” Jake snarled. “She told me—you told me—and I just let you go.”

  “It was the bathroom guys…you can’t exactly go in with me.”

  Coop stroked his thumb against my palm. “It’s no one sitting here’s fault,” he said steadily. “It was Mitch. Let’s put the blame where it belongs. Right now, we’re going to keep this nice and calm. What do you need?”

  “I want to go home,” I admitted. “The cats…”

  “I fed them,” Jake said. “I left for a little while earlier, drove back, made sure they were all right, and then came back here.”

  Relieved, I closed my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, babe,” Archie said quietly. “You really shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t remember it.” My eyes still stung, and it was almost easier to talk with them closed. The concern on their faces choked me. “But I’m really glad you’re here now.”

  “Not going anywhere,” Coop said. “I called my mom—after we couldn’t get ahold of yours.” Reluctance crept into his voice. “Just in case, you know she used to be able to sign for you at school so maybe…”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Just that you got hurt,” he said gently. “No other details.”

  “Everyone knows though...don’t they?” Before they could answer, I said, “Never mind. I don’t care. I just…Denitra, she did an exam. He didn’t…he didn’t do much more than…” I didn’t even want to say the words, so I held up my wounded wrist and motioned to my face carefully.

  “I still want to break his legs,” Jake said almost conversationally. “To start.”

  Making myself open my eyes, I looked at them and blinked rapidly at the sheen of tears in their eyes. Like me, they seemed to be blinking them back. “I’m really tired.”

  “Then get some sleep.” Coop let go of my hand long enough to drag a chair over. “We’re right here.”

  “Not going anywhere,” Archie said. “Unless you’re hungry. I can go get you something.”

  I really didn’t want food. “Not yet.” I licked my lips. “I just want to sleep.” And then to wake up and have this all be a bad dream.

  “Then sleep,” Jake said softly, and he touched my foot through the blanket. “No one is going to bother you.”

  I believed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said

  Archie

  The doctor was in with her, and the cops wanted to talk to Jake. They’d already interviewed Bubba. He sat in a chair across from me in the waiting room. Coop wouldn’t move from her door. Even if he couldn’t be inside it, he planted like a damn oak. Where I would have argued or Jake would have bellowed, Coop just stood his ground.

  As much as I envied his calm, I couldn’t embrace it. Every time I looked at Frankie’s bruised and pale face, rage flooded me. Not even the fact Bubba had broken Mitch’s jaw satisfied my need for violence.

  That son of a bitch was on another floor in this hospital with his jaw wired shut and a handcuff on his wrist. Coop and I already had to keep Jake from going down there once. Personally, I’d been fine with letting Jake take another pound of flesh, but Coop held his head and reminded us that Frankie needed us here and not in jail.

  Someone had cleaned up Bubba’s hands. The knuckles on both had been split open and bloody when we’d gotten in the car. The ride back to Frankie’s place where we got our own vehicles had been dead silent. Coop texted us the whole way. Not that any of the updates made us feel better.

  Frankie was unconscious.

  Frankie’s suffered abrasions and contusions.

  They were pretty sure she’d been drugged.

  No. Shit.

  The wooziness had hit then. The sick feeling. It had been coming in waves since just before we realized Frankie hadn’t come back from the bathroom.

  At the hospital, getting answers was like pulling teeth. No one would talk to us. It was why Coop wouldn’t leave.

  The cops showed up.

  The nurse advocate.

  Tough lady. I liked her.

  She didn’t take crap from anyone, the cops, the doctors, us…and then Frankie finally woke up.

  Even after I’d given them a urine sample and confirmed there’d been drugs in the water, the answer hadn’t helped. It just made me angrier.

  Angry some fucker had done it.

  Angry some fucker turned out to be Mitch.

  Angry the fucker did it to Frankie.

  Maybe he hadn’t meant for her to have the water, but that didn’t matter. He’d taken advantage of it.

  He’d hurt her.

  I was so fucking over people hurting her.

  “Hey…” Bubba’s voice pulled me out of those dark thoughts. Not far really, they were right there. The violence in his eyes promised me he wasn’t pulling me out. Not really. He followed me right in. “Did we ever find her mother?”

  “Yes,” I said spitting out the word. “Jeremy confirmed it for me. She and Eddie are in Prague.”

  Bubba closed his eyes. “Bitch.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Not only had the bitch moved out, she’d left the country. No word. Not even a fuck off. Fine. Screw her.

  I’d called Wittaker. He promised to file an emergency brief to get her emancipation rolling. It was a sticky process. I didn’t care what it cost. Frankie deserved so much better than this crap.

  If Wittaker couldn’t get it done, I’d call Grandfather.

  I owed the old man a call anyway.

  He could do anything.

  “Do you need a lawyer?” I should have asked earlier.

  “No,” Bubba said with a shrug. “Not yet. They aren’t charging me with anything as far as I know. I don’t care if they do. Asshole had it coming.”

  Yes. Yes he did.

  “If they want to talk to you again. We get you a lawyer.”

  “I don’t care about me…” Bubba said, and looked up the hallway. “How is she?”

  “She’s Frankie,” I told him. “She endures.” That was the worst part of all of it. The pain in her eyes and the fact that she put on a brave face for us. But I’d heard her crying. We all had. Jake looked like he wanted to take the door down, but Coop kept a hand on his shoulder.

  How the fuck did he stay so calm?

  I hated him.

  I envied him.

  Nauseated, I leaned forward and dropped my head. Elbows on my knees, I tried to suck in a deep breath. I was not going to puke. They’d offered me something for this earlier.

  I refused.

  If Frankie had to endure this, then I could. I didn’t want to forget one miserable second.

  A hand
settled against my back. “Easy, man, what can I get you?”

  “Can you get me that twenty minutes back for her? So one of us is at the bathroom when she comes out?” So that asshole never put a finger on her.

  “I wish.”

  Yeah. Me too.

  We sat there for a while, and when Jake came back, he looked like hell. The rage in him seemed to shimmer in the air around him like heat rising off the pavement. “They want to talk to you, Arch.”

  “I don’t fucking care.”

  I didn’t.

  “Be faster if you talk to them. Sooner we get this done, maybe the sooner we get out of here.”

  Take Frankie home. Try to make this better somehow.

  “Fine.”

  Bubba gave me a pat on the shoulder as I stood.

  “You need to eat,” Jake told me, and I just stared at him.

  “Can you eat?”

  He shook his head.

  “Me neither.”

  The next hour blurred, but I answered the cops’ questions. They were pretty basic. Who was I? What had I noticed? When had I drunk the water? Did I see how Frankie got it? When did we notice she was missing? Were we aware of some long-standing problem with Mitch?

  On and on.

  After, it was Coop’s turn, and I took his place outside her hospital room. It seemed like the doctors and cops had been in there forever. But she wasn’t alone, the advocate was with her.

  Still, by the time they cleared out, it was mid-afternoon and someone had to think about getting back to feeding her cats. Bubba volunteered. He hadn’t gone anywhere near her room. Instead, he’d been the one running to get drinks, talking to the cops, or just sitting down the hall. Waiting.

  He wanted to be there, but he wouldn’t go.

  Coop gave him the keys. Bubba said he’d bring food back, then he left.

  “He blames himself,” Coop said.

  “What?” Jake looked at us. We’d be in with Frankie, but the advocate was helping her shower now that they’d done everything.

  “He blames himself,” Coop said with a sigh. “He pulled back, she broke up with him, and last night when he was supposed to be her date, she got hurt by someone on the team. He blames himself.”

  “Well, he can get in line,” Jake snapped. “I’m the one who let her go to the bathroom, and I let her get water from Cheryl. I was supposed to be getting her a drink, I should have just taken it over to her while she was talking to them.”

  We all blamed ourselves. As much as I wanted to tell Jake none of this was his fault, I didn’t disagree with him.

  We could have done things differently.

  On all fronts.

  Things I should have said to her, to them. We should have made it clear from the beginning. We shouldn’t have been competing at all. Jake was right, there was room for all of us.

  “He saved her,” Coop said with a certainty I wanted to share.

  “Not soon enough.”

  There was no response to that.

  What could they say?

  We’d all fucked it up.

  Jake

  One day later…

  “I can do it,” she told me as she climbed the stairs. We’d all blown off school. Fuck ‘em. They’d kept Frankie overnight, and none of us left except to come back here and feed the cats. Bubba brought back a change of clothes for her the night before.

  It was smart. She didn’t want to be in that hospital gown, and they’d taken her dress and her jewelry. Coop had her phone and keys and stuff. But…she didn’t want us hovering. Frankie had never been frail or fragile, even if I treated her like spun glass. I wasn’t an idiot—she was tough as they came. She put up with all of us, didn’t she?

  Still, she looked somehow far more delicate, especially with her wrist all bound up and her face bruised. Every single time I saw that bruise, I wanted to kill something.

  Bless Coop’s mom, she’d come to the hospital that morning and helped us wrangle with the staff to discharge her. Archie had been ready to call the lawyers in. Hell, even Jeremy showed up and, though a little more worrisome, so had Joe, Bubba’s dad.

  Between them, they managed to work it out.

  I’d called Mom the night of the incident at the dance and again yesterday. She and the girls were making food, I had to go over and pick it up. Ready-to-heat meals, stuff that would be easy for Frankie to fix.

  Bubba’s mom had sent stuff already, and Coop’s mom said something about doing the same.

  Frankie would have food. She loved to eat, even if she’d barely said a word as she picked at the breakfast sandwiches we’d picked up. The fact that she didn’t touch the hash brown worried me more than anything.

  Ahead of us, Archie unlocked the door and Coop followed. Bubba hadn’t come with us to bring her home. I didn’t think his reticence had anything to do with not seeing Frankie hurt. The guy didn’t think she wanted to see him, and he didn’t want to bother her.

  It was stupid as fuck, she needed all of us, but I’d kick his ass later.

  Frankie moved slowly through the apartment. The cats rushed out to greet her, the volume of their meows climbing as she made her way to the sofa.

  I half-thought she’d go to her room, but she settled on the sofa, and the cats jumped up. The fact that there were fingermarks on her arms just fueled the fury that seemed right at the edge of boiling. Every single mark on her, I wanted to erase and then pound into Mitch three-fold.

  Walking around that corner to see Bubba tearing into Mitch had been like a slow-motion horror movie. Because right behind them, I caught a glimpse of Frankie’s red dress, sprawled on the floor like blood.

  I’d also never seen Bubba like that before. Even seeing red and ready to tear into Mitch—which trust me, the kidney shots I gave him probably had him pissing blood—the fact Bubba kept hitting him after he was down gave me a small sense of satisfaction.

  Until the moment Coop stood, cradling Frankie, and the world just stopped. It sucked all the oxygen out. There were voices in the hall. Staff from the center were there. Someone called the cops and an ambulance.

  They called two really, one for Frankie and the other for Mitch. Not that I cared. They could have left him.

  They should have left him.

  I snagged a blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over her. A flicker of a smile faded almost as soon as it pulled on her cheek. “I’m all right,” she told me, and I eased onto the sofa next to her. I wanted to pull her in my lap and just hold her, but I also didn’t want to hurt her again. There was a bruise on her shoulder and another on her back. I’d seen that one this morning when I helped her change.

  She must have landed on something on the floor in that room. It was another conference room from the looks of it, filled with chairs and tables. Just an innocuous place, and he had been going to…

  When her hand touched mine, I turned my hand over so I could cradle her fingers. Why couldn’t time turners or shit like that be real?

  “You want coffee, babe?” Arch asked. At least he didn’t look quite like hammered shit today.

  “You guys have already done a lot…”

  “Uh huh. You want coffee?” Archie even managed a real smile.

  “I’d kill for some coffee.”

  “Done.” Keys in hand, he glanced at me, and I nodded as did Coop. “Awesome. I’m grabbing some pizza, too while I’m out.”

  “Archie…”

  We all focused on her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Always.”

  After he left, Coop said, “I’m going to take a shower. You need anything?”

  “I’m okay,” she told him. “Really. Jake is staying with me, right?”

  “Like I’m attached,” I told her, and that almost got a real smile.

  Coop lifted his chin toward me, and I nodded. Of all of us, Coop had kept his cool. Sooner or later, he was going to burst, and we’d have to watch for it. But I had this. I’d stay calm.

  Frankie needed calm
. That was what the advocate said. The doctor said. Hell, even the lady cop who’d interviewed me pulled me aside after and said that.

  I wasn’t planning on throwing a rave, but I got the damn message.

  I’d be calm.

  Alone, I focused on her. “Movie? YouTube? Book? Stand up comedy?”

  She laughed at the last, it was a real if faint, and she grimaced as she put a hand to her chest. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Okay,” I said, hanging my head. “So horror movie right?”

  When she swatted me, the first real sense of relief hit me. There she was. There was my girl. “How about a tearjerker?”

  “Fuck. No.”

  Her sigh tugged at me, and I was ready to capitulate before the corners of her mouth turned up again. “Blowing shit up and shooting people?”

  “Now you’re talking my language.”

  I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flicking it over to Netflix, we hunted for something. I had an idea…

  “Jake?”

  “Hmm?” I cut a look at her.

  “Could…could I have a hug?”

  The remote fell out of my fingers, and I twisted to ease an arm around her immediately. She shouldn’t have had to ask. “Tell me if I hurt you.” With care, I tugged her over. The cats scrambled away as she leaned into me.

  “You’re not,” she whispered, and rubbed her undamaged cheek against my shirt. Cradling the back of her head, I rested my cheek against her hair.

  “I’m sorry, baby girl,” I whispered. “I should have done more.”

  “You’re here,” she told me. “You guys came.”

  Eyes closed, I held her. “Always,” I promised. “We’re always going to be there.”

  Nothing like this was going to happen to her again.

  Ever.

  “Now, we can watch something blow up.”

  “You got it.”

  Coop

  Coffee and pizza helped. The shower helped. Frankie smiling, maybe not huge smiles, but little ones, those helped, too. Everyone was on edge. Archie, Jake, even Bubba, though Bubba kept tabs via text message. Rachel and Cheryl had both called. We’d intercepted those and kept them at a distance for now. I didn’t doubt Frankie could use a visit from her friends, Rachel especially. But she’d want to look after a devastated Cheryl. When I mentioned that to Rachel, she told me she was already on it without even an ounce of bitchiness.