I laugh and swat at his chest, feeling a little on show. “Alright, get your paws off me. I need to take a shower.”
He’s reluctant to let me go but places a chaste kiss on my temple then motions for me to carry on anyway. I’m finding it a little easier to walk but my muscles are still aching from being in the same crouched position on the cold floor for so long. I can’t wait to let the hot water run over them.
It feels amazing. I relish in the feeling of it warming up every part of me and even though the soap stings the cut’s that haven’t fully healed yet, I haven’t enjoyed a shower like this before. Only one thing could make it better.
How hunter reacted to my hair has a fire starting in the pit of my belly and I have to pull myself out of the shower so I don’t get caught up in my head and leave everybody waiting for me.
I wrap a towel around myself and walk out. “Oh, fuck.”
There’s two cops sitting on our sofa and I painfully fast walk to my room, slamming the door shut.
“Er, Kee. They’re here for you,” Sam says.
“Yeah, be out in a minute.” I close my eyes, how embarrassing!
I gently towel dry my new hair and throw on some black leggings and a baggy white tank top, finishing it off with a red bomber jacket with ‘I ain’t your baby’ written on the back. My hair will have to wait until I’ve spoken with the cops. I tense, they aren’t going to make me relive it all again like in the hospital, are they?
“Steely? You alright?” Hunter’s voice washes over me and I open the door.
He’s here, I’m okay.
They didn’t want me to go through the whole sordid thing again, just the first bit that happened in Little Hollow. Explaining every detail in front of Hunter of how his brother, had taken me was painful. He was white knuckling the sofa cushion and eventually had to go stand outside to cool off. He’s still outside as we near the end of the questioning and Connor goes to see if he’s alright.
“So from then on you don’t remember anything else? Just seeing the shattered mirrors over the floor?”
I refrain from rolling my eyes, I’ve explained this twice already. “Yes. That’s all.”
“Which is where your Uncle put you into a…” He looks down at his notepad. “...black van and drove off.”
“Well I wouldn’t know, I was unconscious.”
I’m seconds away from shouting ‘obviously’ but I stop myself.
Dumb and Dumber shake their heads but only one answers. “We know, but there was a witness that came forward, that’s how we knew where you were, we tracked the plates.”
I’m speechless. I didn’t think to ask, I just assumed Hunter or Jacques had rang them for help. “Who was the witness?”
“A... Mrs Faith Marshall-”
The other cop raises his voice over his partner. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re not obliged to tell you that.” He gives his partner a death stare then turns back to me. “That’s everything for now but if you think of anything else, please let us know.”
I didn’t understand any of this, he was dead now. Why are they still carrying on the investigation? I asked them and they gave me a boring answer, ‘because of paperwork’. Well that kind of made sense but I just wanted to be left alone now. Faith, the timid woman with the two beautiful girls springs to mind and I want to see her. If Hunter hadn’t have found me, she would’ve saved my life, and perhaps because the police were there sooner, she did.
I blow out a deep breath and eye the cops as they walk out of the salon. Hearing how my brother took Keeley made my blood boil, I hadn’t been able to stay and listen while she retold every minute detail.
I walk back up to the apartment, Connor trailing behind me like a watchdog.
I walk over to Keeley and place a kiss on her temple. “Sorry, beautiful.”
She smiles at me then looks at each of us. “We need to find a woman around our age called Faith Ma-”
“I’ll help!” Sam screeches a little too high, cutting Keeley off.
“O-kaaay. So no beach, I want to find this woman and thank her for coming forward.”
“What’s that?” I ask her.
“A woman apparently saw me… well, you know. And they tracked the license plates of the van, that’s why the cops turned up when they did.”
I nod slowly. “That makes sense, I did wonder why the pigs were there.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “They’re not all bad.”
Yeah, right. “We’ll agree to disagree.”
I pull her by her red coat and kiss her slowly. It’s a long, lingering kiss and I forget where I am until a male voice clears their throat. “I err… I heard you were back so I thought I’d come say hey.”
I turn and eye the dirty blond haired guy holding a bunch of black and purple flowers. He looks like he shops at Abercrombie and Fitch and my lip quirks up at the corner.
“Lewis? You didn’t have to come,” Keeley says a little flushed.
From our kiss or from seeing him?
“I was worried about you, I wanted to,” he says, eyeing me warily.
I put my hand on Keeley’s shoulder, a feeble attempt of claiming her.