Page 33 of Healing the Heart

“It’s not my blood,” Fiona blurted out.

“Well, that’s a relief. You’re covered in it. Stay with her?” he asked the cop before rushing over to help his partner.

The scene was a flurry of activity, the urgency palpable. Fiona stood frozen, her eyes wide with horror as she watched the two paramedics kneel in the same blood she’d slipped in and work tirelessly to save a life that seemed to have already slipped away.

“Miss. I’m Officer Briggs. Are you the one who called this in?”

She raised her hand still clasping her phone. He gloved up before taking it from her and spoke briefly with the operator before disconnecting.

“How about we let them work and go someplace else to talk?” He pointed toward a bench by the elevators. Numb and barely functioning, she allowed him to guide her toward it.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I was leaving work and interrupted”—she waved toward the crime scene—“whatever that was. A mugging or drug deal gone bad, I guess.”

He looked at her funny but only said, “Go on.”

“He had a knife.”

“There was another man?”

She nodded. “It was dripping with blood. He ran toward the elevator, which was where I was—”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

Glancing down at her hands, which hadn’t stopped shaking, she clasped them together, needing something to hold on to as the danger to her sank in.

“I can describe him in vivid detail down to the mole on his left cheek.”

He nodded. “And he saw you?”

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice quivering too. “That’s bad, I know. He said he’d be back for me if I said anything.”

The clattering of metal cut through the haze of shock enveloping her. As she glanced around, it took a moment for her to realize it was her own trembling body, causing the bench beneath her to vibrate.

Another official vehicle arrived with lights flashing. It wasn’t one anyone ever hoped to see in an emergency, the words Medical Examiner written in red lettering across the doors.

Fiona’s heart sank. The ME’s arrival meant her role in this shitstorm had changed. In a blink, she went from being an eyewitness to an assault to becoming an integral part of a homicide case.

“Can you tell me your name, miss, and where you’re from?” the officer asked.

“Fiona Delacour. I work here, but I live in Culver City.”

A man, somewhere in his mid-thirties, in a suit with a badge on his belt joined them at the bench. Officer Briggs introduced him as Detective Owens. “He’ll be heading up the investigation.”

Taking a seat beside her, the detective flipped open a small notebook and jotted down copious notes as he gently probed her with questions, trying to piece together the events that had unfolded before her eyes. In a distant voice, as if she’d stepped outside of herself, Fiona described the attacker, every detail of his face indelibly etched in her mind.

Seeming satisfied, at least for now, he tucked his notebook inside his jacket. Then he considered her at length, a frowncreasing his brow. “Is there someone you can call to take you home? A husband, boyfriend, family perhaps?”

“I have my car.”

The police officers exchanged concerned glances.

“That’s not possible tonight,” the detective said. “We’re going to have to impound it as evidence.”

“Why?”

“It’s been vandalized,” he explained grimly. “The tires are slashed, there’s a bloody handprint on the side, and we found the spray paint can nearby.”

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