“Can you call the police?” he asks quietly. I look down and Jill’s eyes are open. They are faded and unblinking and I know she is dead. I back away, my hands over my mouth, as complete and utter horror fills me up. I want to scream, but I don’t.
There is vomit on her shirt and chin. At some point, it had run down her arm onto her hand. It is frozen there now, an orangey-rust color. I gag and turn away. Pax stands up and wraps his arms around me.
“Let’s go call the police,” he says gently. “Don’t look again. You don’t need to.”
“We can’t just leave her out here!” I tell him. “It’s cold. How long do you think she’s been here? Since last night? Do you think she was texting you from here?”
I stare at him wild-eyed and he grasps my elbow.
“Mila, she isn’t feeling the cold now. We need to go call the police. And I have no idea if she was here when she was texting me.”
I don’t say what I know we are both thinking. If he’d only answered her, this might have been avoided. I don’t look him in the eye because I don’t want him to see my thoughts.
“Did she overdose?” I ask quietly as we walk woodenly into the house.
Pax shakes his head as we climb the stairs to the kitchen. “I don’t know, but it sure looks like it.”
He looks at me. “Can you make some coffee while I call?”
I nod and set to finding the coffee supplies. It somehow feels good to do this mundane thing, to let my hands operate automatically as I measure out the coffee and pour the water into the basket. The aroma fills my nose and I am standing there, with my hands gripping the cabinet, when Pax appears behind me.
“They’re on their way. I forgot to put your clothes in the dryer last night, but I think I have a pair of sweats you can borrow.”
I nod and follow him upstairs, where he finds the sweats and hands them to me.
“They’re way too big, but there’s a drawstring. Are you okay?”
He looks at me and I sit down on the bed, shakily.
“Pax, that could have been you. It could have been you.”
I am limp and I don’t know what else to say. That’s the only thing I can think. It could’ve been him. If I hadn’t come across him that night on the beach, it would’ve been. Seeing Jill like that just drove it home for me, like a stake through the heart.
Pax drops to the bed next to me and forces me to look at him.
“But it wasn’t me. And I’m not doing that anymore, so it will never be me.”
His gaze is determined and strong and I feel my lungs shake as I draw in a breath.
“I need you to promise.”
“I promise.” His words are firm. And I nod.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He raises his eyebrow.
I nod.
“Okay.”
He leans over and kisses my forehead. I have the urge to collapse against his chest, but I don’t. I pull the sweats on instead and we return to the living room to wait for the police. It doesn’t take them long to arrive. Finding a body in our little town isn’t something that happens every day.
Pax answers a million questions, and then they ask me a few, also. Was I with Pax last night? Had we seen Jill earlier in the night? And so on and so forth.
We answer all of their questions and then Pax tells one of them that he knows she has two kids, but he doesn’t know her address or even who takes care of her kids when she is out. That part surprises me and it makes me insanely sad.
“I guess I didn’t know a lot about her,” Pax admits. He looks weary. Not sad really, but just very tired. He grips his coffee cup as the officers take notes and ask even more questions.
I feel frozen as I curl up on the couch and wait for it to be over. Through the window, I can see the EMT’s rolling a gurney toward Jill’s body and they load her up, zipping her into a black bag.
The finality of it slams into me.
Just like that, she’s gone from sight. I feel so empty and sad, like in a second, everything about this woman was extinguished, without respect or fanfare. I didn’t even know her, so I have no idea why it is affecting me so deeply.
Except that I know it could’ve been Pax.
And a part of me, deep down, is terrified now. Unsure.
I have no idea if I can handle this. What if the next body that I walk up to is Pax’s? What if he underestimates his ability to stay clean? I’m just not sure if I’m strong enough to find out.
I feel Pax watching me, as if he can hear my troubling thoughts.
I look up to find his eyes uncertain and soft and he raises his eyebrows, as if to ask Are you alright?
I nod. Yes, I am.
And I smile a little to prove it.
But I don’t know if I am alright at all.
So my smile was a lie.
I close my eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
Pax