Page 13 of Dying to Meet You
If Tim’s alone in there, I’ll say a casual hello. That’s something a completely sane ex might do, right?
The closer I get, though, the less sense the scene makes. A shadow seems to lean against the driver’s window. And it looks like Tim himself.
Something dark and oily drips from the open door and onto the pavement below.
“Tim?” My voice comes out sounding high and strained.
He doesn’t answer.
The dog whines. She lunges forward, her nose dropping to the glistening liquid on the ground.
I’m close enough to grasp the door handle. “Tim?” When I move the door, he moves, too.
Lickie and I jerk backward as he rolls out of the car and tumbles mostly to the pavement, face-first.
A gasp punches from my chest when I look down. My mind isn’t quite able to make sense of what my eyes just showed me. Blood. Everywhere. And as he rolled past me, I saw a whole lot more of it.
Also, his face. It wasn’t right. At all.
I gasp out another breath. Shock makes me stupid. I stand there for one more beat, before slowly squatting down to grasp his shoulder. “Tim.”
He feels solid under my hand. He feels like Tim. But I’m terrified as I roll him a few inches off the ground and get a look at his jaw and throat.Splinteredis the word that leaps to mind.
I fall back onto my ass. There’s blood on my shoes.
Lickie whines, her ears flat on her head.
“Oh my God.”
Oh my God.
6
I sit on the mansion’s front steps, swallowing bile and trying to answer questions.
The last fifteen minutes are already a blur. I remember screaming, and a jogger finding me hovering over Tim’s body.
I’m not sure which one of us called 911. The jogger had been the one to check Tim’s pulse. The poor man got sick after his fingers had come away covered with the gore.
The police came quickly, two cops in uniform who herded us away from Tim’s body, ordering us to stay put in front of the mansion while they called for backup.
Now there’s yellow police tape around the car, the scene illuminated by the garish headlights of multiple emergency vehicles.
An officer stands in front of me, holding a small notebook and a pen. She’s not in uniform, and although she introduced herself, I recall nothing.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asks, and I get the feeling this isn’t the first time she’s asked it.
My eyes are still locked on Tim’s prone form. Several people are leaning over him. Someone is taking pictures.
He’s on theground, blood everywhere. Shouldn’t they pick him up?
“Your name?” the officer prompts again.
“Rowan Gallagher,” I manage to gasp. But it feels like trying to communicate from underwater.
“Thank you,” she says. “And your address?”
I stumble through her questions. My address on Spruce Street. My phone number. When she asks why I came out here tonight, I point to the dog at my feet.
