I had prepared for this question. “I was coming back from a business dinner downtown. I took a shortcut through the warehouse district to avoid traffic on the main roads.”
“And you decided to investigate the gunshot instead of calling 911 and driving away?”
“I’m in the security business, Detective. I’m trained to respond to threats, not run from them.”
She studied me for a moment, clearly weighing whether my story held together. “The victim’s husband hasn’t been located yet. Do you know anything about their relationship?”
“I saw him briefly at a gallery opening earlier tonight. They seemed…” I paused, choosing my words carefully. “Tense.”
“Tense how?”
“She seemed nervous around him. Jumpy. It made me uncomfortable.”
Detective Morrison made a note. “We’ll need to speak with Mr. Hartwell as soon as we locate him. In the meantime, Mrs. Hartwell was lucky you were in the right place at the right time.”
Lucky.
As if fate had anything to do with the sophisticated tracking system that led me to that alley. As if luck had made me choose Willa’s safety over the biggest business deal of my career.
But I didn’t correct her. Some explanations were too complicated for police reports.
The surgery took about an hour. I spent that time pacing hospital corridors, drinking terrible coffee from vending machines, and trying not to imagine what could have happened if the injury had been worse. Every closed door felt like a verdict waiting to be delivered. And even though the waiting was torture, I was grateful it wasn’t something far worse.
She would have died in that alley. She had been alone, scared, bleeding to death while her husband disappeared into the night.
When the surgeon finally emerged from the operating room, she was cautiously optimistic. “The bullet missed the major arteries, but there was significant damage to the muscle and soft tissue. She’ll need extensive physical therapy to regain full use of her arm. But she is alive, and that is what matters.”
I was allowed to see her once she was moved to a private room—another benefit of influencing the hospital administration. The corridor outside was quiet, the kind of hush that only exists in hospitals late at night. I took a moment before entering, steadying myself.
She looked impossibly small in the bed, her face pale against the white pillows, an IV drip feeding medication into her left arm. Bandages wrapped her shoulder and upper torso, stark against her skin.
She was awake, and when I entered the room, her eyes tracked to mine immediately. She seemed more lucid now; the medications and rest had helped clear the fog of shock and blood loss.
“You’re here,” she said. Her voice was hoarse but stronger than it had been in the alley.
“Where else would I be?” I took the chair beside her bed, noting the way she instinctively shifted away from me before catching herself. Even then—even safe—she operated on the assumption that getting too close to people was dangerous.
“I remember… pieces. Of you finding me. Carrying me.” Her brow furrowed as she tried to assemble the fragmented memories. “I think I said things. Did I say things?”
“You were in shock. You didn’t make much sense.”
“The doctor said you saved my life.”
“You saved your own life by running. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
She was quiet for a moment, studying my face. The silence stretched. “That wasn’t true, was it?” she said finally. “You being there wasn’t a coincidence.”
I considered lying, but something in her eyes told me she deserved the truth—or at least part of it.
“I saw you at the gallery with your husband. Something about the way you looked told me something wasn’t right. Will, you’ve got to let the authorities know what really happened.”
“You’re stalking me?”
“I had you followed.” I saw her flinch, and my eyes dropped to her split lip and the wounds on her feet, barely covered by the hospital blanket. Guilt settled heavily in my chest.
“You can tell me the truth, Willa,” I said quietly, my voice tighter than I intended. “Has he been hurting you?”
“You should leave.” She said the words as if she were testing their weight. “We haven’t spoken in three years, Kieran. You know nothing about my life now.”
