The Body

by Arabella Abbing

  “You what? Your text said—”

  “I know what it said and I’m so sorry I lied to you,” Brianna said in a rush, clearly concerned that Stacy wasn’t going to forgive her. “But you know I’ve been wanting to leave for a while now.”

  “Well, yeah… but how the hell are you going to pay your half of the rent with no income? If I could afford to pay for it I would, but—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I offered, standing up from the couch and going over to stand with them. “It’s my fault she quit so I’ll cover her half until she finds another job.”

  Stacy eyed me warily before tossing her bag to the floor with a sigh. “All right, all right. You do what you gotta do, Bri. As long as the lights stay on—I’m happy.”

  “Thank you,” Brianna said, relieved.

  “Any time, girl,” Stacy replied, chuckling as they exchanged a brief hug. “Now is anyone going to tell me why you two look so... depressed?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Stacy seemed to sense that I wasn’t comfortable sharing any more than that, so she held up her hands in a motion of surrender before she said, “Got it. I’m gonna jump in the shower while you guys continue... whatever it is you were doing.”

  Stacy left without another word, leaving Brianna and me to stare at each other for a moment before silently returning to our spots on the couch.

  As we continued to stare down at my phone and wait, I felt her hand slide into mine. I intertwined our fingers together and smiled when I felt her give my hand a supportive squeeze.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Brianna and I didn’t speak again for a long while. Stacy came out of the bathroom and made dinner for herself, plopping down on the lazy chair in the living room to eat while watching us with a raised eyebrow. She let out a disappointed grunt once she finished eating, taking her plate back to the kitchen and returning with an irritated scowl.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Waiting for a call,” Brianna said vaguely, looking up and shaking her head when she saw Stacy beginning to speak again. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Well, I’ll be in my room if you need anything. Try not to implode your brains or set anything on fire with all that fucking staring.”

  I had to stifle a laugh at the joke, but Brianna just rolled her eyes and shook her head. After Stacy disappeared down the hall, Brianna turned to me and said, “She has a point, you know.”

  “About brain implosion?”

  That earned me another eye roll and a slap on the arm.

  “Not that. But you know what they say about watched pots.”

  “They never boil, I know. But I don’t think I could focus on anything else.”

  “Let’s at least get something to eat,” Brianna decided, standing up and tugging at my hand. When I bent down to reach for my cell, she stopped me. “If it rings, you’ll be able to hear it from the kitchen.”

  Knowing she was right, I nodded and let her drag me into the kitchen. We quickly decided that since neither of us could fathom the idea of eating an entire meal, we’d just raid the leftovers.

  “There’s still some Chinese from Monday in here. Sound okay?”

  I nodded absentmindedly, but my focus was glued to her ass as she bent over to dig further in the fridge. Ecstatic that I had found something else to think about, I began to move closer—which was when the telltale sound of my ringtone echoed into the kitchen.

  “I’ll be damned,” Brianna muttered, looking as surprised as I was that the call had finally come. “Go!”

  But despite all the desperation I’d been feeling for that damn phone to ring, I found myself momentarily paralyzed by fear. We had been waiting so long that I knew something must have gone south and while I was embarrassed to admit it—I was fucking terrified.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Brianna hissed, rushing into the room and grabbing my phone off the table. I snapped out of my trance and followed behind her, stopping when she frowned and looked up at me. “It’s not Dale.”

  I took the phone when she offered it to me, frowning down at the number I didn’t recognize. It was a local number and I briefly considered the odds of it being my father on the other end.

  “Answer it.”

  I looked up at Brianna and watched as she nodded encouragingly I took a deep breath to steel myself before I swiped to accept.

  “Hello?”

  There was a brief shuffle on the other end, then—

  “I’m trying to reach Adam Reed.”

  A woman. Thank fuck. I really wasn’t sure how I was going to react if it had been my dad.

  “This is him.”

  “I’m calling from Saint Mary’s Hospital. There’s been a shooting and I was asked to call you and—”

  “Who was shot?” I interrupted, silently praying that it wasn’t my mom.

  “I can’t release any information over the phone, sir. All I’m allowed to tell you is the police need you to come down and identify the body.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Brianna

  The phone slid from Adam’s hand and I reacted out of pure instinct—reaching both hands out and somehow managing to snag it from the air before it fell to the floor. I lifted it to my ear and waited until I heard a woman impatiently calling for Adam before I said, “Adam’s right here. I think he’s in shock.”

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  “I’m his—” I cut myself off, glancing up at the faraway look in Adam’s eyes before I said, “My name is Brianna Larson. I’m Adam’s girlfriend.”

  “Miss Larson, please get Mr. Reed down to Saint Mary’s Hospital as soon as possible.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Like I told Mr. Reed—I can’t release any information over the phone. Do you need an address?”

  I dashed over to the table where we kept our keys and grabbed the little pad of paper and a pen, scribbling down the address the woman read off before I ended the call. Adam still seemed to be in another world, so I ran down the hall and barged into Stacy’s room.

  “I’m taking the car for a few hours. We need to get to the hospital right now.”

  “I’ll drive,” Stacy said, slamming the lid of her laptop shut and hopping off the bed. “You don’t need to be driving right now—you look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”

  I didn’t bother to mention it, but it certainly felt like I was at risk of having one. Finding Adam still blankly staring off into space didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Is he okay?” Stacy whispered as she slipped on her shoes.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back, slowly moving to approach him. “Adam? Adam, we need to get going. Stacy’s going to drive us to the hospital, okay?”

  Something I said got through to him. His head whipped towards me and nodded, but his eyes were crazed. While I wanted to know what the lady said to make him go practically catatonic, I thought it’d be best to at least get to the car first.

  The three of us rushed downstairs and to the car, Adam waving me off when I moved to sit in the backseat with him. The rejection stung more than I expected, but I figured this was really the only opportunity for anything remotely resembling alone time that he would probably have for a while.

  So I swallowed the hurt and gave him his space, plopping into the passenger seat and buckling my seatbelt.

  “You’re going to have to navigate me,” Stacy said as she turned the key and started the engine. “I have no idea where I’m going.”

  “Uhhh...” I trailed off, digging into my purse and pulling out my phone. I typed the address of the hospital into the maps application and started feeding her the directions, using every last bit of my willpower not to continuously check up on Adam in the rearview mirror.

  “We’re here!” Stacy needlessly announced as she pulled the car into the hospital parking lot. “I’ll drop you guys by the door and find somewhere t
o park.”

  “Call me when you find a spot.”

  “Will do.”

  Adam was opening the door the moment the car stopped moving and I struggled to keep up with his pace, grateful when he froze halfway to the front door and turned back. He was frowning hard as I jogged to his side and took his outstretched hand, but I knew the look on his face had nothing to do with me.

  “What’s going on, Adam?” I quietly asked as we walked hand-in-hand into the hospital.

  “They need me to identify a body.”

  “Oh my god,” I breathed out. I didn’t get a chance to say anything else because two cops flanked us as soon as we entered the building.

  “Adam Reed?”

  “That’s me,” he confirmed as his grip on my hand tightened, bordering on being painful.

  “Come with us, please.”

  We were led down numerous hallways until we got to a part of the hospital that I recognized as being the morgue. All signs of life had disappeared save for the occasional staff member lingering about and the two police officers gestured for us to take a seat in a set of chairs lined against the hallway wall.

  “We’ll be ready for you in just a moment.”

  As Adam opened his mouth to say god only knew what, a voice called down the hallway, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Hold up!” A third officer shouted as he jogged down the hall. “Dale wants to see him first.”

  “Dale’s okay?” Adam asked, his voice filled with relief. “Where is he?”

  “He’s holed up in the E.R. He asked to see you before you go in.”

  In the brief but tense moment that followed, I wished I could read Adam’s mind. His gaze lingered on the doorway he was going to have to go through to identify whoever’s body it was, a frazzled mixture of emotions on his face.

  Finally, his eyes drifted back to the third officer, the gratitude obvious in his voice when he said, “Take me to Dale.”

  One of the officers who led us here groaned. “Come on, man. Can’t we just get this over with?”

  The new arrival chuckled and shook his head. “The stiff ain’t going nowhere. Come on, you two.”

  Adam and I followed the third officer back to the lobby where we first walked in, which was when I spotted Stacy sitting in the waiting area. She waved in acknowledgment and made a gesture that told me she’d still be there when we were done and I was surprised to notice Adam wave back, silently mouthing his thanks to her.

  After a few more twists and turns through the hallways of the hospital, we were in the emergency room. The officer bypassed the intensive care area and led us further down. We made another left turn and I immediately spotted Dale leaning against a wall beside a closed door.

  Adam’s relief to see him in one piece was palpable.

  “Hey, kids,” Dale greeted when he noticed us. His eyes locked on Adam and he bluntly stated, “You look like hell.”

  I could tell Adam was tempted to run over and hug his uncle, but he managed to hold himself back.

  “You’re not looking so good either,” he joked, but his tone betrayed his real emotions. “What happened? Where’s mom?”

  I knew Adam was terrified that it was his mom’s body that he was going to have to identify, so when Dale pointed down the hallway in the opposite direction of the morgue, some of the tension in the air instantly cleared.

  “She’s got a private room if you want to visit her. Nothing real serious, just a broken arm. But I got to warn you—she’s been heavily drugged.”

  “What? Why?”

  “After she got her arm taken care of she started demanding to see Kyle. When she was told she couldn’t see him she got hysterical. They drugged her just to keep her calm for the time being.”

  I noticed Adam’s jaw clench and unclench a few times and I knew he was trying to figure out whether he cared enough to ask or not. Since I was curious myself, I decided to do it for him.

  “Where is Kyle?”

  Dale glanced at me then back to Adam, chuckling a little as he pushed himself off the wall and pulled back the curtain that hid the room we were standing outside of. The man inside was hooked up to multiple machines that I didn’t recognize and a nurse was administering medication into his IV line.

  Which was when I noticed that the arm that wasn’t in a sling was handcuffed to the table he laid on.

  Adam sucked in a shaky breath and the sound pulled my attention back to him. His eyes had slid closed and when he reopened them, there was a considerable amount of pain behind them. Pain that I noticed was also in Dale’s gaze.

  “He killed him, didn’t he?” Adam asked quietly. When Dale nodded, Adam released the breath he’d been holding in a harsh gust. There was a long moment of silence before he finally spoke again. “What happened?”

  “From what I gathered myself, David knew you’d gone back home at some point and was getting ready to make his move. I’d bet that he was watching the house for signs of you and when he saw Kyle instead—he went fucking ballistic. There were signs of forced entry so he likely waited until he saw that Linda and Kyle were... otherwise engaged before he barged in and attacked. The evidence at the scene collaborates with your momma’s story—that Kyle had a piece on him and managed to take down David in self-defense—but not without taking a few bullets himself.”

  “How is he?” I asked, ignoring the annoyed look Adam shot me for interrupting.

  “He slipped into a coma shortly after the doctors got him stabilized. They think he’ll be coming out of it soon which is why I’m stuck here playing watchdog. The killing might have been in self-defense but Kyle was violating the terms of his parole by carrying a weapon. Not to mention the charges against him for all the drugs that were found in his truck.”

  “Is that why mom was freaking out? And what happened to her arm?”

  “Kyle’s facing jail time no matter what and your momma knows that. But despite how much of a shithead he is… the guy did take a number of bullets in her defense. She has a right to be upset,” Dale pointed out. Adam’s gaze hardened and Dale rolled his eyes. “As for her arm, she says that Kyle yanked her out of the line of fire when David first got in. Between the force of the pull and the fall she took while the shooting was going down, it’s really not a surprise.”

  Adam nodded slowly, his gaze traveling back to where Kyle laid motionless on the hospital bed. After a long moment of staring at the other man with something that was almost gratitude, he finally asked, “So what now?”

  “They don’t want me leaving my post in case Kyle wakes up. So since I’m stuck here guarding this asshole for a while, Leon down there is going to take you back to the morgue to give the positive ID. After that, you can come back and visit your mom. Assuming she isn’t knocked out.”

  “I...” Adam started then trailed off as if he lost his train of thought. A beat passed and he began rapidly shaking his head. “Wait, wait. Is there going to be a funeral? Do I need to—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Dale said, cutting him off with a stern shake of the head. “I’ve got someone coming in tomorrow to cover for me so I can take care of anything that needs to be done. You giving the positive ID so we can get him out of here is all I need you to do, Adam.”

  He looked like he was primed to argue, so I chose that moment to cut in, hoping to keep the two of them from getting into it in the middle of a hospital hallway.

  “We can talk about that later,” I reminded him as I gently tugged his arm in the direction of the officer Dale had referred to as Leon. “You should get this over with before you even start thinking about that stuff. You’re just going to stress yourself out more.”

  “Listen to your girl, kid. She’s not wrong.”

  Adam rolled his eyes but said nothing in response. I did my best to suppress the untimely happy sensation at being called his girl and Adam not objecting to it, but I couldn’t stop the way my heart skipped when Adam locked our hands together again while we followed Leon back down the
hall.

  Only this time when we got to the main waiting room, Adam asked Leon to wait a moment. When I frowned at him in confusion, he gave me an apologetic smile.

  “I appreciate you being here more than you know, Bri,” he said, albeit a little sadly.

  “But you need to do this alone,” I finished for him.

  Rather than feel rejected by his dismissal, I opted to put myself into his shoes for a moment. It took only a split second for me to realize that I would have felt the exact same way.

  “I do,” he confirmed, reluctantly letting go of my hand as he said the words.

  “Do what you need to do. I’ll be right here when you get back. Well, not here, here. I’ll be sitting over there with Stacy,” I said, jerking my thumb towards where my best friend was engrossed with whatever was playing on the television in the waiting area.

  Adam smiled and nodded, reaching up to cup my cheek with his palm before he whispered, “Thank you.”

  He pulled away and stepped back in line behind Leon, following the officer back to the morgue. I slowly turned around and made my way over to Stacy, flopping down beside her and giving in to the exhaustion that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

  “You okay?” she asked as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a comforting pat.

  “Yeah, I’m all right. I’ll feel better once Adam gets this over with and I see that he’s okay.”

  “I know you’re too busy worrying about him to even think about yourself, which is why I’m choosing to worry about you,” Stacy said as she shot me a pointed look. “Are you sure you’re all right? Is there anything you need?”

  “Honestly? I’m just tired and hungry,” I admitted, my stomach growling right on time. “I was too freaked to even think about eating until right before we left and the phone call kind of ruined that.”

  Stacy laughed and reached for her purse. “I’ll grab something from the vending machine to hold you over until we can get out of here. Watch my purse?”

  After I nodded my agreement, she slid the cash into her pocket and walked off in search of the vending machine. I was grateful both for her presence and for her offering to get me something to eat, but I was even more grateful for the brief moment alone I was getting.