“Don’t worry. Your friend is in very safe hands.”
She stares at him, her brow furrowing in concern. “Is she?” Her glance swivels to land on me. “Have you talked to your dad about what you saw when you were younger.”
I glare at her, appalled. That’s not the kind of thing…
“What did you see?” He frowns at me. “What’s she talking about?”
I grimace with discomfort. Of all the conversations I don’t want to have, this one rates at the top of the list.
But I can’t take it back. Not when Rosa is arching her eyebrow at me like that. Not when the expectation is written large across her face and my dad is staring with open curiosity.
“When I was little, I saw a woman being… well, I guess… sexually assaulted is the word.” I close my eyes, faltering before I’ve really started. But if my girlfriend can be brave, so can I. “She was being attacked and then raped and I…” My words dry up and I shake my head.
“You can say it,” Rosa says with confidence, nodding at me.
“At the end, the man strangled her.”
My father’s still staring at me with confusion clouding his eyes. “And where did you witness this cinematic delight?”
“On the security cameras. In the room at the old house.”
“A redhead?”
My eyes spring open. “You saw it, too?” My heart pounds in my chest. Please don’t let it have been him. Please don’t let my dad be that monster.
“Saw it half a dozen times or more,” he says with a nostalgic smile. “I loved those grubby old horror movies. Whoever woke up one day and took all the sex out of them deserves to rot in the bowels of hell.”
“A movie?” I tear my gaze away, frowning at the floor, thinking furiously. “No. No, it was on the security camera monitors.”
“It wasn’t,” he says with confidence. “Those camera feeds were in black and white. If you’d really been looking at those images on the monitors, you wouldn’t have a clue what colour hair she had.”
I open my mouth to argue, then slowly close it again.
“You shouldn’t have been watching that,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry you saw.” He turns to Rosa when I can’t say anything. “He used to wake during the night, for years after Meg died. He’d get so tense I’d keep him on my lap while I was watching shows late at night. But I must’ve thought you were asleep, otherwise, I’d never have put it on.”
“A movie,” I repeat, feeling how differently shaped the memory is already. “On a video.”
“Yeah. I can probably hunt it down for you. I’ve still got all the old tapes stored in a box in the garage.”
A movie.
I close my eyes and feel Rosa’s hands snaking around my waist. I lay mine on top of hers, leaning backward into the embrace. Another piece of my life twisting around, rearranging itself, slotting into the new space and finding a much better fit.
Her mouth rests against the back of my t-shirt, breathing warm air through the fabric while she jiggles with laughter. “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”
“Yes,” she says, the word barely audible through the mirth.
I spin around, hugging her face on, my hands dropping to cup both cheeks of her delicious arse.
“You want to go perform a re-enactment?” she asks with a delicious naughty smile.
And yes.
The answer to all her requests is yes.
* * *
ROSA
