Meera spots me first. “Is that blood? Oh, god it’s Arabella! What happened, lass?”
Lights blaze into the alley as neighbors come pouring out of their flats. My mystery man utters a low curse, leans me gently against the brick wall and slips away into the night.
Chapter Three
In which this was not how Arabella was planning to end her evening.
Arabella…
“You’re gonna be mighty gowpin’ tomorrow, but you’ll survive.” Connor is my ambulance technician and clearly not into it for the bedside manner. However, he did a quick and tidy job of stitching the gash in my foot from the broken bottle and examined the road rash on my elbows and knees.
“Thank ye.” I slide awkwardly off the seat in the back of the ambulance and test my foot. I can hobble, at least.
The two very dead bodies and gallons of blood splashed everywhere drew out the whole neighborhood, everyone jostling for a look.
Detective Inspector Christie cut through the crowd earlier to introduce herself and waited for me to get stitched up. Now, she cocks her head, looking me over. “Ye look like something I just cut out of a shark.”
She’s not wrong. The blood on me is congealing and making my shirt stick to my skin, which feels like it’s trying to crawl off my body. I need to peel off the clothes that are about to go into the incinerator and wash all this disgusting stuff off me.
“I was really hoping for a shower and some ice cream tonight,” I say shakily, shoulders twitching against my gore-covered shirt. “I canna say this was part of my plan.”
“Aye, murder and near-dismemberment rarely are,” she agrees, ignoring my involuntary gag. “We need to clear the street and ye need that shower. How about I come up in twenty minutes, then?”
Her partner ambles over to us. He’d been talking to my neighbors, and as expected, no one heard or saw anything until I screamed. “One question,” he asks, “everyone says ye were screaming for your mum. But ye live alone, aye?”
If Detective Christie’s eyes rolled any further back, they’d be lodged in her brain stem. “Here’s your chance todetect,Detective Roy. Do ye see all these women here?” She gestures to my neighbors. Meera set down her soup ladle long enough to put on some shoes and the other women from my building are still standing close. “In a neighborhood like this - no offense, Miss Blair -”
“None taken,” I shrug.
“A woman screams ‘Mum!’ because every soul possessing a set of ovaries is gonna come charging out of the house, even if their wee one is present and accounted for, even if they dinnae have a bairn. It's a bone-deep instinct,” she lectures him.
My neighbors are nodding approvingly.
“True that…”
“Aye, that’s how it is…”
“Waiting for one of these dossers to charge into battle?” Meera flips her hair back, pointing her soup ladle at a group of men holding lager cans and enjoying the neighborhood drama. “Not likely.”
Detective Roy’s young and I can tell he’s torn between excitement for his first big murder case and a wee bit of fear of my neighbors.
“I canna believe I worked my arse off all these years to be carrying this lad who still looks like he just stepped out of the Academy.” I dinnae think Detective Christie means for anyone to hear that, but she is still facing me and it’s easy to read her lips. I give her a small smile when she realizes it and she rolls her eyes again.
I canna look at the alley, where the crime scene is buzzing with investigators, and suddenly, everything caves in on me and I’m crying, making tear tracks through the dirt and blood on my face.
“Here now, you’re coming with me.” Meera’s got her arm around my shoulders, leading me toward my flat. She snags my backpack along the way as she hustles me up the stairs. “Ye need a shower. Then food. S… clothes, fuzzy…” She turns to me, looking stricken. “Sorry! I gotta remember to face ye when I’m talking.”
“You’re doing grand.” I’m ashamed I broke down in front of everyone like that. I never cracked when the kids at school gave me shite, talking and laughing behind my back, knowing I usually couldn’t hear them. I’m not gonna do it now.
Once we’re in my flat, she pushes me toward the bathroom. “Throw those clothes out into the bedroom and I’ll bag them up and take them to the bin.”
“No,” I shudder, “the incinerator.”
Meera nods firmly. “Aye. And I’m bringing my smudge stick up. We’re gonna sage the shite out of this place.”
When I emerge from the bathroom, only after I’ve used up all the hot water and plenty of the cold, Detective Christie is waiting for me in a bit of a standoff with my neighbor, who’s balancing a covered dinner plate and a bag of clothes.
“I must speak to Miss Blair alone,” she says firmly.
