Page 19 of Ace My Heart

“Shit, Mel, I thought … I thought you were … I thought they’d gotten both of you.”

I kept shaking my head.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” he asked again. His hands were trembling. His voice trembling. I reached out one bloody hand and gripped his tightly. He clung on like his life depended on it.

“Is he …?” I whispered. I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Joel turned away from me, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. We both knew, but saying it aloud was just too much. Joel slumped against the wall beside me. I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.

God, what have you done? Why would you let this happen? What did Steve ever do to you? He didn’t deserve this!

Suddenly there were people everywhere. I was being lifted onto a gurney and EMTs were checking to make sure that none of the blood that was soaked through my clothes belonged to me. Joel was having similar treatment. They didn’t even look at Steve. I wanted to scream at them to check him, to save him, but I couldn’t find my voice.

I felt like I was watching the whole scene from a great distance. I was wheeled out of the room as more police arrived. Hotel staff were standing around, their faces white with a greenish tinge. I thought I probably looked the same way, under all the blood.

Joel walked like a zombie into the lift with me and the medical team. There was a streak of blood on his cheek and his shorts were smeared with it. He found my hand and I wound my fingers through his.

I was separated from Joel as soon as we arrived at the hospital. When they cleaned me up and satisfied themselves that I wasn’t bleeding, they relaxed a bit. Someone took the bloody bandage off my ankle and checked out the damage there. They sent me for scans. Well, Julie had said I should get it checked out, I just hadn’t imagined that it would pan outthisway.

I lay there in the hospital gown – totally naked underneath because all my clothes had been soaked through with blood – and exhaustion claimed me.

I woke up to the sound of a throat being cleared.

“Miss Black, sorry to wake you, but we need to ask you some questions.”

I cracked my eyes open and there were two men in suits standing by the bed. One had his phone out and he was muttering the date and time into it. My body went cold.

“Miss Black, can you please run through the events of yesterday evening for us?”

I swallowed dryly. I looked around for a glass of water, but of course there was none.

“Is Steve …?” I forced the words out through my parched lips.

The taller detective nodded gravely at me. “I’m sorry, yes.” They knew what I meant. They were investigating a murder, and I was the first person on the scene after the crime. Of course they would need to talk to me.

They waited for me to answer their question. I racked my brain – yesterday evening seemed so long ago.

“Okay, um … well, when Joel left, Brad – my friend, Brad Jacobs – called me and I asked him to come and pick me up.”

“What time was that?” the shorter man, the one holding the recorder, interrupted.

“Um, that would have been about seven thirty, I think. I met him down in the foyer and he took me to Saint Eric’s church, so I could light a candle.

“Okay, so after that we stopped at a bottle shop, and then we picked up some pizza … and we went back to the apartment.”

“Was Steven Herbert there when you returned?” the taller detective asked. I shook my head. The shorter one murmured into the phone.

“We had dinner and hung out for a while. Brad left just a little before midnight.”

“Did you see Steve after that?” I shook my head again, and again shortie described it into the recorder.

“But Brad sent me a text message to tell me that he saw Steve going into the bar downstairs in the hotel as he was leaving.” I realised that Brad was the last one of us to have seen Steve alive. I felt a pang of sadness that threatened to overwhelm me. I swallowed around the dry lump in my throat.

“And then, did you go to bed?” the taller one prompted, not unkindly.

“No,” I replied, flushing. “I went downstairs and spent the night in someone else’s room.”

The detectives didn’t bat an eyelid at that. “Whose room was it?”