Page 17 of Wicked Promises
“I’m already feeling better.”
She doesn’t have to help much on the way back, and soon enough, I’m tucked into bed, hooked up to the monitors and IV of fluids.
Detective Masters returns not long after. “Can you walk us through the day? Everything you remember.”
I heave a sigh. What I really want is to go back to sleep. But since Lenora hasn’t moved from her spot on the wall, and Ms. McCaw seems impatient for this to be over… I should just answer his questions.
As long as they’re not incriminating.
“I got home?—”
“Who dropped you off?”
“Caleb.”
“So he knew where you were going?”
I narrow my eyes. “Objection—leading the witness.”
He jerks, then laughs. “Okay, okay. Proceed, Ms. Wolfe.”
“Caleb dropped me off at my foster parents’ house, then left. Robert and I went to the prison soon after that. I visited with my dad for the first time in…” I shrug. Not relevant. “I visited with him. Once it was over, I left and got in the car with Robert. On our way home, we were hit by another vehicle.”
I try not to think about the crunch of metal. The car flipping. Or the way he hung upside down. He’s in the ICU while I’m being interrogated.
And what about Caleb? Did they arrest him? Masters already seems to think he did it, and since Caleb isn’t here…
Is he sitting in a jail cell?
“We went off the road,” I continue. “I hit my head, so everything is kind of blurry…”
“Just do the best you can,” Masters urges.
“Someone helped me out of the car.”
“Did they unbuckle you?”
I frown. “No… I think I did that. I released my seat belt so I could get to Robert. I was right-side-up, trying to reach him, when I was yanked out.”
I was dragged over glass. I flip my hands over. There are scratches and cuts from the glass on my palms. Probably elsewhere, too. Little pieces everywhere. I can smell the snow and smoke.
“The guy who had ahold of me kept apologizing. Saying it was going to be okay.” My fingernails are on my wrist again, scratching. “I believed them up until they put something over my face. It hurt to breathe.”
“The nurses took a blood sample,” Ms. McCaw tells me. “The hospital is running a full lab to figure out what happened.”
Searing pain flashes through my head. I cover my face with my hands and groan. My heart monitor shrieks.
A nurse rushes in, followed by the doctor who helped me.
“Out,” he orders the detective. “Thought we already told you she was done for the day, Masters.”
He puts the bed flat, his hand on my shoulder. “Margo, it’s okay. We’re going to give you oxygen to help you breathe. Okay?”
He lowers a clear mask over my nose and mouth.
I’m so sorry?—
It’s too similar to what just happened to me. My head pounds. A ringing noise fills my ears. It takes a second to realize I’m the one screaming, pushing at the mask.