Twirled Bond (Holly Woods Files, #5) (27 page)

He scrubs again.

“Oh, just like that.”

“Noelle. That’s ridiculous.”

“So are you in those pink gloves, but I don’t see you taking them off.”

“I’ll have you know pink is my color.”

“Sorry, Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t realize you had a color.”

He smirks. “Real men wear pink. If you need reminding of that...”

I hold Daniela’s journal up. “Wish I could, but I gotta read.”

“I thought you had nothing better to do than provide pseudo toilet-cleaning porn.”

“I didn’t. Then you ruined my fun.” I huff and turn around, hugging the journal to my chest.

Then I’m hit with something on my back.

Something wet.

Something that smells like...toilet.

“You did not just throw your pee-cleaning sponge at me!” I cry, frozen in place, unable to move.

“It’s all over your back.”

“Oh my god, Drake!” I drop the journal and rip my shirt over my head, launching it toward the laundry basket. “That’s disgusting!”

“It’s on your shorts too.”

“Ugh!” I push the shorts down until I’m standing in my underwear. Then I throw the shorts to the laundry too. “You absolute—”

I stop when I turn, because he’s still holding his pee sponge, and the wet one in front of me is the bath sponge.

He shrugs, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face. “I never told you it was the pee sponge.”

“You just wanted to see me naked, didn’t you?”

Smugness glints out of his eyes.

“I hate you.” I give him the finger and get a clean tank top and shorts from the dresser. I make sure to bend over right in front of the bathroom, giving him a great view of my ass as I cover it up and give him the finger a second time. “If that isn’t properly clean, I’m going to do it with your toothbrush, asshole.”

I snatch up Daniela’s journal and flounce out of the room to the sound of his laughter. He’s such a child. Honestly, we both kinda are. But that sponge thing... Ugh. He’s so gross. Such a man.

I grab my glass of wine from the kitchen—and stop to top it up—before carrying the journal through into my office and settling myself into the snuggle chair. I sit sideways, my legs hanging over the arm, and hold my glass as I read. It’s skimming for the most part, just a refresher for my brain.

Half a glass of wine later, I find what I’m looking for.

And I was right.

I didn’t read it all, because what I originally thought was the end wasn’t. There are five blank pages between the last entry and the one I’m looking at right now. I only found it a moment ago because I happened to flick through the pages randomly.

I sip and read.

I can’t stand him. Can’t stand the way Mom treats him like he’s a God. I think he’s horrible—nowhere near as nice as Dad. I can’t believe she’s breaking up our family for him. He’s so young too. It’s so wrong.

“Drake!”

I turn the page.

He’s here again. Every week when Dad takes the boys to soccer and Stacia’s at dance class, he’s here. I’m sick of seeing him. Mom thinks I don’t notice, but I do. Dad has to notice too. She’s always prettier when he’s coming. I’m so tired of pretending I don’t know and having to hide it.

I’m going to tell Mom tonight that I know.

“What is it?” Drake asks, coming in.

“Shhhh a minute!”

I turn another page.

Mom cried when I told her. He didn’t. I didn’t know he was there. I thought he’d left.

He’s horrible. Real horrible. I don’t like him at all. I don’t know what Mom sees in him.

“Noelle?”

“Hold on!”

If he ever comes into my bedroom again, I’m going to kill him.

I turn the pages, but that’s it. It’s gone, stopped, no more. I shove my glass at Drake and check every single page just to be sure, but no, that really is it. That’s the last thing she ever wrote in this diary.

“I’m the worst investigator ever.” My voice cracks. “It was here, Drake. The whole time, and I didn’t know.”

“Sweetheart, I think you’re a few steps ahead of me.” He puts my glass and bottle on the side.

Thank god he’s taken those damn awful gloves off. I wasn’t even serious when I threw them at him.

“Noelle. Take a deep breath. Listen to me,
bella.
”

As always, that name does it, and I close my eyes. It doesn’t stop the guilt though. Doesn’t stop me from knowing that it was shoddy detective work, not checking every last page of this journal.

“He did it. The guy Dori was seeing. I’m sure.”

“You’re still skipping things, babe.”

I grab for my wine, and he passes it. I gulp down a mouthful before setting the glass on the floor and looking at him.

“Look. In here. There are blank pages between her normal entries and her entries about her mom’s affair. I didn’t look all the way to the end. I stopped when I hit the first blank page.”

He frowns. “But you said earlier you didn’t read it all.”

“Did...” I stop. I did. I did say that. “It must have been a gut feeling...”

“One hell of a gut feeling.” He grabs my chin and kisses me. “Let me read this.”

“From here.” I hand him the book with my finger holding to the right place.

He takes it and sits back on the chair. I pick my glass up so my hands have something to do as he reads, but it’s unnecessary, because he makes it through the few short entries as quickly as I just did.

“Well, shit,” he says quietly. Slowly, Drake’s eyes meet mine. “We need to find this guy.”

“Yeah. He did it. He’s her abuser for sure. There’s no other reason he’d be in her bedroom.” I finish the last of my wine. “But I don’t know how we find his name when you can’t interview the only person who’d know it.”

“I know. We might have to wait until Dori’s let out of hospital. I can call Stacia in the morning and ask how long it’ll be, but if her mental state hasn’t…”

“What?” I ask when he pauses midsentence.

His lips curve upward into a smile. “You’re right. I can’t interview Dori. None of the police can. But you’re not a cop.”

My lips part. He’s right. I’m not a cop.

“What are you suggesting?” I slowly ask.

“I’m suggesting you go and see her tomorrow with flowers under the guise of a visitor and get what we need from her.”

I swallow. “That seems...cruel...if she’s not up to questions.”

“Noelle, unless someone’s unconscious, they can answer one question.”

There is that. “Fine. Okay. I’ll do it. But I’m taking Bek. And I’m charging the HWPD for the flowers.”

He smirks. “Keep it under fifteen bucks.”

“D
oesn’t it seem kinda...wrong?” Bek asks, prodding a lily in one of the bunches inside the hospital shop. “Turning up, pretending to check on her, and then asking her who she boned to break up her marriage?”

“That’s one way of putting it, but I think we’ll go for a softer approach.” I screw my nose up at one bouquet with mixed roses. Half of them are dead. “It’s the only way we’re going to get the answers we need.”

“A softer approach for a hard situation.”

“That’s not helping. Pick some flowers.”

“They’re all shit.” She sniffs and pokes a flower again. “Look. They’re all dying.”

“Then I think, at this point, it’s pick a damn bunch and go.” I walk around the flower stall and find a bunch that doesn’t look too bad. And, by doesn’t look too bad, I mean we can pick out the two or three dead flowers and get away with it. “Here. These will do. There are a lot of buds. Let’s get these and go up.”

“I still don’t feel okay about this,” she says as we approach the register.

“Neither do I, but we don’t have a choice.” I swipe my card and put it into my wallet. “Thanks,” I say to the cashier, taking the receipt and the flowers. As soon as we’re out of the shop, I say to Bek, “We need the name. We get this and the entire case is going to be blown open. Everything is going to change, and Daniela matters most right now.”

“I know.” She sniffs as we get into the elevator. “It just sucks we have to be deceitful like this.”

Well, that’s the doctor’s fault. They should have let HWPD in to ask her a couple of questions, shouldn’t they? They’re the ones forcing this situation; not me. If I had my way, I wouldn’t do it. I felt dirty calling the ward this morning and laying it on thick about being her niece.

Idiots believed it.

We step out of the elevator and onto the fourth floor of the hospital. The hall is deathly silent, but it doesn’t matter because the noise coming from the ward we’re about to enter is astronomical. There’s a fit of screaming and shouting, and we both hesitate before ringing the bell.

“Don’t like it,” Bek hisses.

Me and you both, sister.

“Hello?” a voice says through the buzzer.

“Hi... I’m here to see my aunt, Dori Russo. It’s Noelle, and I have a friend with me.”

“Hold on.”

The buzzer goes off, and I share a look with Bek before it comes on.

“You’re on my list, but your friend can’t come in. Sorry. She’ll have to wait in the café on the ground floor.”

I nod to Bek, and she visibly relaxes.

“That’s okay. Thank you.”

She buzzes me in, and I clutch the flowers. Whoever was making so much noise has quietened, and I try not to look in each and every room with an open door as I walk to the nurse’s station.

“Noelle, right?” The nurse looks up at me. “She’s down the hall in room six. She’s not doing too well today, so you’ve probably got ten minutes. Come on.”

“That’s okay. Thank you.”

If it’s possible, I hold the flowers even tighter as she leads me past a common area where a few patients are watching TV and some are playing cards. A young teen is sitting in the corner, staring out the window, and my hair stands on end when she turns to look at me.

I look away as we reach room six and the nurse slowly pushes the door open.

“Dori, darlin’? You’ve got a visitor. Noelle’s here to see you.”

“Noelle.” Mrs. Russo’s voice is soft, like a whisper.

“Yeah.” The nurse waves for me to step inside. “And she’s brought you some flowers. Look here. These are real nice. You want me to go get them in a vase for you?”

Mrs. Russo nods, barely glancing at the flowers before she looks out the window.

“You might not get a lot out of her,” the nurses says, taking the flowers. “Just be aware.”

That’s what I’m afraid of. “Don’t worry. Thank you.”

She pulls the door almost closed behind her but not entirely.

“Mrs. Russo?” I gently say. “Do you mind me being here?”

“Dori,” she whispers. “Call me Dori.”

“Sure. Dori. Do you mind?”

She shakes her head, not looking my way. She’s perched on the edge of the bed, staring out the window at the grassy area surrounded by trees. Nice view. For a hospital.

“Can I sit?”

“Sure.”

I perch on the chair. “How are you doing?”

She ignores me for a moment, but when I open my mouth, she speaks. “I’m surviving. I don’t know.”

“I’m so sorry.” My heart clenches. “I really am.”

She nods.

Enough time passes in silence that the nurse comes back in with the flowers, this time in a vase. She sets them on the nightstand next to the bed with a smile. “Are we doing okay, Dori?”

Dori nods again.

The nurse smile sadly at me. “I’m not sure you’ll get much else out of her today, doll.”

“Can I just have another couple of minutes? I don’t mind sitting with her a while.”

“As long as she doesn’t mind, I don’t.” She leaves with a nod when Dori doesn’t object.

I give it a good minute before speaking. “Dori, I need to ask you something. About the case.”

Her head jerks in a nod. It seems to be her favored way of communicating right now.

There’s no easy way to say this, is there?

Gosh.

“I...found out about your affair.”

She doesn’t react.

“Can you tell me the name of the man you were seeing?”

Still nothing.

Just deathly silence.

Maybe the doctors were right. Maybe she can’t answer them right now. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s in a place to.

“Never mind. It’s okay. I’ll leave you in peace. Thank you for letting me sit with you.” I slide to the edge of the seat and grip the arms to stand when she whispers something. I don’t hear it clearly. “Dori?”

“Eddie.” She giggles, and—no, she’s crying. She’s not laughing. “Eddie Thomson.” Tears slide down her cheeks, and I freeze. She snaps her head around to me. “Eddie. He hurt her. Didn’t he? He did. He hurt her. I know he did. I know it!” Her voice is shrill now, and her knuckles are white where she has her hands in fists so tight. “He hurt my baby! Eddie, Eddie you bastard!” She’s breathing too quickly and her eyes aren’t focused, but two nurses make it in before I can get anyone to help.

A third follows as a man who is obviously the doctor sweeps past me and begins the process of attempting to calm her down.

Guilt coils in my stomach. I knew that it was wrong. I knew I shouldn’t have come.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the nurse, the one who brought me there. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her daughter.”