Page 19 of Lies Beneath Secrets

“Playing your most liked music,” Alexa responds. I press the volume button and turn up the music as loud as the device will go.

“That yelling can be scary, I know. You’re safe here with me though, okay?” I reach out my hand and for a moment, I don’t think she’s going to take it but when she does, I lead her over to the kitchen table and help her onto a chair. “I don’t have anything here to color, but I do have a deck of cards. Do you know any card games?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know many either.” My mom’s last boyfriend taught me how to play cribbage but other than that, I’m completely worthless with cards. “Well, how about we just match them up? It will help you learn your numbers.” I separate the cards, dealing them between the two of us until there are none left. I try my best to distract her when yelling through the floor gets a little bit louder.

“Okay, so I’ll lay a card down, then you can put either one that matches that same number, or you can lay down a different one.” It isn’t much, but we start laying cards down, and she does a great job matching each number to the correct spot. “You’re so smart, Gabby,” I praise her, getting a smile in return.

We continue playing our newly invented matching game until someone knocks on my door. “Be right back,” I say and go over to peek through the spy-hole on the door. I’m relieved to see Conner standing on the other side. When I get the door open, I notice he has a slight red mark on his cheek and a small cut on his forehead that’s bleeding. “What the hell?” I whisper, not wanting to alarm Gabby.

“Asshole won’t be coming back,” he tells me. “Thanks for watching her.”

“You’re bleeding,” I say in response. He reaches up with his hand and swipes away the blood with his forearm. It smears across his skin and pools at the bottom of the cut again.

“Fucker hit me with one of them damn TV dinner tables. An old ass metal one.”

“Come sit; you’re bleeding everywhere.” I try to bring him inside, but he pauses.

“I don’t want Gabby to see the blood.”

“Oh.” I pause to look around my apartment quickly. “Here.” I go over to my kitchen, grab a paper towel, and bring it back to him. Gabby has gotten down from the chair and is coming to the door. “Use this.” I hand him the paper towel just in time for him to cover the cut on his head.

“I’m okay, kiddo. Just bumped my head. Did you have fun with Lauren?” She nods a little, then hands him a card. “Did you play cards?” She nods again. “Well, good. Ready to go home?” She doesn’t nod this time. Instead, she walks past him toward their apartment. “Thank you,” Conner says and hands me the card.

“Yeah. Anytime.” I’m suddenly at a loss for words as he follows his daughter, and they disappear into the apartment. I stand there for a moment, then close the door.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Con

I’ve about enough of that fucking asshole neighbor yelling. We haven’t even been home for ten minutes, and that prick is cussing up a storm. Then when I hear him throwing stuff, I decide to bring Gabby over to Lauren’s apartment so I can put an end to the noise. When I go to get Gabby from her bedroom, I can’t find her.She’s hiding.I look all over her room, then come out to the kitchen and remember where Officer Rice had told me they had found her. I carefully open each cabinet until I find her huddled up with her stuffed horse, tears filling her eyes. “I’m here, Gabbs. Come on out.” It takes a minute for her to decide to come out of the cabinet. When she does, it takes everything in me not to grab her and hold her tight. The doctor had told me that doing so might trigger something unless she initiates it. “I’m going out there and telling them to be quiet, okay? Is it okay if you go over to Lauren’s while I do that?” She nods a little and clutches her horse tighter. “Good.”

After dropping her off at Lauren’s apartment, I grab my bat and take off upstairs, wishing I’d had my gun with me. I had decided that I wouldn’t keep one in the apartment with Gabby here. She has seen enough in her short life that I’d rather her not come across one of my guns and panic.

When I get up to their apartment, the door is already open a crack, so I kick it in further. The asshole is beating the hell out of the woman with his belt. She’s crouched down on the floor, covering her head and crying. It takes the guy all of ten seconds to reach over and grab a damn TV dinner tray and throw it right at me when he sees me step inside. It catches me off guard enough that it hits me in the head. After that, I go after him with my bat. He manages to catch my cheek with an elbow, but one good hit to his fucking head, and he’s out. Not long after that, the cops show up and haul him off. The woman leaves in an ambulance. Then I get Gabby. I had no idea I was bleeding so bad until Lauren points it out. If I had known, I would have cleaned up before I got her.

Holding the paper towel to my head, I do my best to get one of the shows Gabby likes to watch on the TV. Another thing I’m not used to navigating. Not once in my life have I owned a TV, let alone needed to figure out how to work one. Knox, of course, gave me shit about it when he helped me set it up so Gabby could have something to watch. At first, I told him no on the TV. “Trust me, you’re going to need it,” Knox had said. One week it took before I gave in and bought one.

Gabby sits happily as I flick through the options and flashes a big smile when I select a show about little ponies. I watch her as the music comes on, and she nods to the tune. She’s happy as she can be now. Nothing like she was an hour ago when I found her in the cupboard. I inhale a deep breath through my nose and walk over to the kitchen, eyeing up that cupboard door as I take the now blood-soaked paper towel from my head. I don’t think it’s bleeding anymore. Head wounds always seem to bleed a lot but in reality, turn out to not be that bad.

Soft knocking on my door breaks my intent of heading to the bathroom to clean my forehead. I’m surprised to find Lauren out in the hall, holding onto what looks like a first aid kit. “I wasn’t sure what you had here since you just moved in.” I think for a moment and realize she’s right. I don’t have jack shit here for taking care of a wound. The only thing I do have is this paper towel she gave me. That’s about it.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I let her come inside and glance over at Gabby, who’s occupied with the show. “Let’s go to the bathroom.” I gesture in Gabby’s direction as if I don’t need to explain any further. Lauren nods and follows me.

The bathroom is small, so the two of us in here puts us in close proximity. Close enough I can smell the sweetness of whatever shampoo she uses. I do my best not to take too deep of a breath and take a seat on the toilet. “She doesn’t like yelling,” I say, tossing the bloodied paper towel into the sink.

“Me either. When my mom and whatever boyfriend she had at the time would fight, Leah would lock the bedroom door and turn on some music. That’s what I did with Gabby.” Lauren unclasps the first aid kit and opens it up onto the countertop.

“I wondered why the music was so loud. Thank you for that.” She nods in response to my thank you, then cleans the cut. The silence seems to drag on, so I decide to go for it and apologize for earlier when I dropped her off. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I wasn’t trying to assume I know either of you.” I know damn well I had struck a nerve with my comment.

“It’s fine.” She lets out a sigh.

“The scariest word a woman can say,” I joke, getting her to laugh. She then dabs the cut with something that makes it sting. I flinch only slightly and watch the corner of her mouth turn up.

“This might sting a little,” she warns.

“Little shit.” I chuckle, getting her to smile.

“It’s not really deep, and the bleeding has stopped. I’ll put some tape on it to try to keep it closed,” she tells me. I look over at her kit and notice a bigger bottle of burn gel along with the gauze and tape.There’s more than just ointment and band-aids in there.

“That doesn’t seem like a typical first aid kit.”

---