‘When are they discharging you?’ Anna continues.
‘All being well, in a couple of days.’
‘Oh that’s wonderful.’
‘I know. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.’
I look around at this plush room and think that, compared to an NHS patient, she’s hardly roughing it. Then I remind myself why she’s here in the first place.
‘Do you remember anything about the accident?’ I ask. I should’ve waited for her to bring it up. But my mouth is operating faster than my brain.
‘Nope, not a thing.’ She shrugs. ‘The last thing I recall is leaving the house to go for a run and then waking up in here, missing a few days and with the headache from hell.’
‘You didn’t see who hit you?’
‘I don’t think I even heard the car. Apparently, I was even dead for a while.’
‘Dead?’ Anna asks.
‘Brandon could barely locate my pulse when he found me, and by the time the ambulance arrived, it’d disappeared.’
Yes!I almost want to punch the air with joy. I was right to believe she was dead.
‘They had to resuscitate me with a defibrillator,’ she continues.
‘And do the police have any leads?’ I say.
She shakes her head. ‘And unless any witnesses come forward, they can’t put any more man-hours into the case. They don’t have the resources.’
‘Well, you’re alive and that’s what counts,’ I reply, and I mean it. And not only for my sake.
‘And you’re expected to make a full recovery?’ Anna asks.
‘My fractures are healing well, but I’ll probably need to grow my fringe out until I can have surgery on the scar under this bandage.’
She removes her phone from the cabinet next to her bed and locates a photograph of the stitches in her forehead. They’re in the shape of a crescent. Blood was oozing from that wound the last time I saw her.
‘I told Brandon I might keep the scar, as it gives me an edge,’ she jokes. ‘He said it makes me look like an ageing Harry Potter.’
I laugh dutifully.
‘The only lasting effect is that my memory isn’t great,’ Liv continues. ‘The week or so leading up to the accident is fuzzy. I can’t remember much about it.’
I wonder if she remembers recording a certain video and sending it to my husband?
‘It might come back or it might not,’ she adds. ‘It’s only a week out of my life so it could’ve been a lot worse.’ She turns to us both.‘I hate to ask, but could one of you help me into the bathroom? My legs are still weak and I’m not used to the crutches.’
I am grateful when Anna offers to help. When they disappear behind the closed door, I seize my opportunity. Liv’s phone remains unlocked so I open her photo reel and search for the incriminating video footage. If her memory of that week is so hazy, there’s a chance she might not recall me and Brandon. It’s not here. I rack my brain to remember the format it was in when Nicu showed it to me. But in my hungover state, all that registered were the images. I check her WhatsApps, texts, iMessages, emails and Facebook Messenger, but it’s not there either.
It’s when I jump in and out of other folders that a handful of video clips in the same folder catch my eye. I can’t work out what I’m watching until a few moments in. It’s porn. Well, that’s a surprise. I turn the volume down a couple of notches. There’s a masked man having wax poured over his buttocks while a masked woman smacks him with a wooden paddle. I’m surprised this is Liv’s cup of tea, but we all have our quirks.
And then I hear this kinky couple’s voices.
‘Do you want me to stop?’ she screams.
‘Yes, mistress, yes,’ he shouts back at her.
‘Oh my God!’ I say aloud when I realise what, or who, I’m viewing. These are the elusive OnlyFans videos I’ve been searching for. I press stop and go further back. There are dozens more like this. I randomly select a few, then AirDrop them to my phone so there’s no trace of them being sent to me. The toilet flushes just as the last one appears on my screen.
