No one touches her.
“She doesn’t do drugs.” Lathan tapped the side of his nose but used his middle finger in a subtle fuck-you gesture. It was a game they’d played since they were kids—how to tell the other one to fuck off without words and without anyone noticing.
The side of Gill’s mouth twitched once in acknowledgment. Some of the anger released, but the tension remained in his shoulders and arms. “I could’ve sworn she was using.”
“She’s not.” If drug abusers could actually smell their own brains rotting the way Lathan could, it’d probably scare at least half of them into treatment. The other half probably didn’t have enough cerebral cells left to make a cognizant decision.
“Something is going on.” Gill stepped up to the toilet, put the lid down, but didn’t flush. His instincts had always been bull’s-eye. Something was going on, something only Lathan could smell.
“She vomited blood. But not her own.” None of her innate honeyed essence was in it. He’d bet his Fat Bob that the eye and the blood came from the same source, but he’d need a side-by-side comparison to be certain.
“Blood?” Honey stood in front of him, her hands still on his chest, her gaze still on his face.
Damn, he loved how she constantly sought to touch him.
“Why would you think I threw up blood?”
Any normal person wouldn’t be able to smell the blood, wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t hers, wouldn’t have opened his mouth and said something so profoundly revolting.
He stepped away from her, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He didn’t want to look at her, was tempted to turn away and end the conversation, but she spoke before he acted on his thoughts.
“Why would you say that?” Her teeth drew back over her lips and he recognized the expression. Revulsion. “Tell me.”
“When a person vomits blood, it always looks like that.” At least no one else could smell the itchy pepper scent of his lie.
Her eyes narrowed. “But why would you say the blood wasn’t mine?”
How was he going to get out of that one without either owning up to the truth or pleading the insanity defense? Neither was an attractive option.
Gill moved forward, getting too close, getting into her space, forcing her attention to him. “Well, that’s an interesting addition to the problem downstairs. How about you start handing me some answers.” Gill met Lathan’s gaze with a you-can-thank-me-later smirk.
She tilted her chin up, her eyes turning into twin sapphires of challenge. “I am not pressing charges. And I’m not going to talk about it anymore.”
Lathan heard both her nots clearly.
“You’ll talk. I’ve cracked harder gutter roaches than you. So let’s start with a kindergarten question. Where did you get the eye?”
Lathan didn’t like how Gill treated her, but he recognized the method. Intimidation to get capitulation.
“What eye?” Confusion furrowed deep rows across her forehead. A tremor started in her shoulders, rippled outward down her arms and her legs.
“Save the I-have-no-idea-what-are-you-talking-about greeting card for someone who celebrates that holiday.” Gill paused, waited for Honey to answer, but she met him stare for stare, finding no threat in his silence.
“What eye?” She directed the question to Lathan.
“The eye you had in your hand.” How could she have forgotten? Holding a human eye in your hand wasn’t the sort of memory that got misplaced.
She scanned his face like she was trying to decipher the truth of his words.
“That wasn’t real.” She shook her head in short, quick movements. “It was part of my nightmare. How do you know about it? Did I talk in my sleep?”
Gill shoved his cell phone in front of her face. No doubt showing her the picture Lathan had taken of the eye.
Her mouth and nose took on a greenish hue. Her cheeks and forehead blazed with red, mottling her face into shades of Christmas colors. She looked ready to call Ralph on the porcelain phone. Again. She inspected both of her hands. “But there’s no blood. There’s no blood. There would have been blood.”
“I washed your hand.” He doused the flame of hope brightening her face. Guilt kicked him in the ribs.
She froze, motionless as a baby deer in a semi’s headlights. Garlic choked the air, stinging Lathan’s nostrils. She was terrified. Nearly as frightened as she’d been of Junior.
“You’re going to have to do better than”—Gill pushed his lips out in a mocking female pout—“I had a nightmare.”