I told him how I’d grown up riding in the cab with my dad. While my dad was in the bathroom, one of the other truckers called me a “little lot lizard.” I’d thought it was funny, but when I’d told my dad about it, he’d beat the guy up. I didn’t know then it meant a hooker.
I told him I’d met Andrew in third grade. This one boy had kept picking on me. It even got physical, pulling my hair, pinning me down. Well, I’d always been small. One day at recess Andrew shoved a handful of poison ivy leaves down the boy’s pants. Andrew ended up getting the rash all over his hand, and he got detention too, but the other boy never messed with me after that.
I kept talking, lost in my own world. I said what Andrew had done. What the cop at the hospital had done. And then finding out about Bailey. How I’d raised her, and how Shelly had helped me do it.
I talked about Colin and that first night. I’d have blushed if I’d been thinking, telling this guy about our sex, but I wasn’t thinking, I was talking.
I told him about how Andrew came back and my fear and about Colin and Philip and, finally, about Detective Shaw. All the way up until last night. I told him everything dark and shameful, and probably even incriminating.
It wasn’t really a conscious choice. Something about this place, this cop, my fear for Shelly, had destroyed my barriers. The dam had broken, the one that was supposed to keep me from spilling my soul to people I didn’t know and who didn’t care.
Maybe also it was a kind of therapy. I’d wondered before how people ever talked. How did someone share something dark, something secret, with a stranger? Now I knew. When the time was right, it just came spilling out, unstoppable.
It did help. He hadn’t given me any psychobabble or cop talk. He hadn’t said anything throughout my monologue of a regular girl’s life, but it had helped to let it out. Someone knew now. Someone knew it all. I felt lighter, like I’d given a bit of it away.
When I got the courage to open my eyes, his head was in his hands. I thought he might have fallen asleep. It would be for the best. I almost giggled, that’s how giddy I felt.
He looked up, and his bloodshot eyes looked haunted. My spirits fell. Of course I felt lighter. I’d just dumped it on him. He’d only asked what had happened with his partner, and I’d given him my life story.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I did that.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” he said. “I just—I think that might be the saddest story I’ve heard.”
Then I did laugh. “I know a better one, but I’ll spare you for now.”
It was quiet. I drifted into a dream state. I’d lost everything, at least for the moment: Bailey, Colin, almost Shelly. I was stuck in a hospital room with a cop—a nightmare if there ever was one. But somehow, strangely, there was peace.
Chapter Seven
I woke up to the soft sounds of the nurse fussing over Shelly’s bandage.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Shelly said quietly from beside me.
I rubbed my eyes. I’d fallen asleep in Shelly’s bed and had one hell of a crick in my neck. I glanced around the room. Her detective was gone, his jacket missing from the chair. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I don’t think these beds were made for two.”
“I’m glad you came, though,” she said.
She looked better. Still wan compared to her usual self, but it seemed the indomitable Shelly could bounce back from even a bullet.
I slid from the bed and wobbled on my feet.
Shelly snickered softly. “Nice ass.”
I waved my hand at her, leaving my hospital gown to gape open as I shuffled to the bathroom and shut the door. I only came in to use the toilet, but now that I was here, a shower seemed even nicer. I should probably have gone back to my own room, but walking was so hard today.
I stood under the hot spray for a long time. Just how big was the water heater of a hospital? It was a question that needed an answer, I decided. So I stood under the steamy spray even longer, letting the warmth seep into my bruises.
The hot water hadn’t run out when I heard voices murmuring outside. A knock sounded on the bathroom door. I shut off the water and wrapped myself in a thin towel small enough to be a hand towel for Colin.
Ah, my jailer, come to cart me back to my cell.
He stared at my body. His gaze lifted, paused, drifted down, then snapped up to my face. Red bloomed across his smooth cheeks when he saw me watching him.
“I, ah, Detective Cameron told me you were here,” he stammered. “And…I thought you might need this.” He waved a small brown bag, presumably containing a morning-after pill I didn’t need, but just as quickly withdrew, as if realizing the proximity of his hand to my almost naked body.
It was cute, really, but I yearned for Colin’s unshakeable composure. “Thank you. I’ll also probably need clothes.”
I took the bag from him. “Bye, Shelly.”
“Bye, hon.” She waved me away.