Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Please, let me see her,” Claudia’s whisper floated into the room, waking Addison.
She blinked and opened her eyes. She was pretty sure it was morning.
She thought she could detect natural light coming from the opposite direction of the door where Daniel was coldly denying Claudia access to Addison’s room.
Addison was about to let him know that she was awake and that she was happy to have visitor’s when Jane’s louder voice piped up.
“I insist on seeing my client this minute. As she’s the one paying my bill and it is visiting hours, you can’t stop me.”
“Or me!” Anya piped in. “I’m… I’m… the investigator’s sister-in-law and… and sidekick and flower delivery person. So I have as much right to be here as any of these bitches.”
“You aren’t helping, Anya,” Claudia sighed.
“I can shut her up,” Laney offered helpfully, followed by the click of a trigger cocking.
“Fuck you, Laney,” Anya said stridently. “I was willing to forgive our last incident owing to possible alcohol consumption on my part, but you need to step off and stop threatening my life.”
Addison laughed and sat up in the bed, shoving hair off of her face. She groaned as each and every stitch pulled agonizingly against her skin. “It’s alright, Daniel. I want to see them. Let them in before someone calls hospital security.”
“If they come in, I’m leaving,” he grumbled.
“I can’t really blame you,” she laughed as the four women piled into her small hospital room. “Will you come back?”
“I’ll find your doctor. See if he’s ready to discharge you. King’s in the lobby. He and Claudia want to drive us home,” Daniel said, leaning in to kiss her forehead before leaving the room.
Silence fell over the assembled women. Addison picked at her blanket, wondering if she looked so bad that they were all staring at her in horror. Finally, Claudia broke the silence.
“That was… eerily domestic for Daniel Mercer,” she said, her voice awe-filled. “I mean, he kissed your head, like some kind of caring husband or something. It was weird.”
“I think you broke him,” Jane said with a snort of laughter. “I honestly thought the only way to settle that feral dog down would be a bullet in the skull, but you proved me wrong. Well done.”
“I… thanks…?” Addison said skeptically.
“I hope this means training isn’t straight out of the pages of Art of War anymore,” Laney commented.
“You poor baby,” Anya said sarcastically.
“Could you not provoke my bodyguard?” Claudia asked with a sigh. “Or I might let her shoot you.”
“At least we’re close to a surgery if she does shoot Anya,” Addison piped up, accepting an armful of what smelled like tulips from Anya.
“Hey!” Anya complained. “Who’s side are you on?”
The light banter continued, with no one really touching on the subject of Addison’s stalker and near-death experience.
She didn’t know if they’d discussed it beforehand and agreed not to talk to her about it, but she was grateful.
She didn’t want to rehash the ugly incident with them.
She didn’t even know how she was going to stomach chicken or white lace tablecloths in the near future let alone having to think or talk about it.
Daniel reappeared twenty minutes later and ushered the others out so he could help Addison dress in a loose-fitting outfit that Claudia had brought with her. Addison’s outfit of the day before had been given to the police as evidence. She shuddered. She never wanted those clothes back again anyway.
“You okay?” Daniel asked as he felt her shiver against him.
She nodded. “I just want to get home. I’m tired, but I want my own bed.”
“Of course,” he said and finished helping her get ready.
Claudia had also provided a toothbrush, hairbrush and shawl.
Addison used the toothbrush, but she couldn’t bring herself to try to drag the hairbrush through the awful tangles in her hair quite yet.
Especially with one broken wrist. She had Daniel help her tie her hair at the back of her head, which he did quite awkwardly.
“Did we finally find something you do badly?” she asked, amused.
“Never did this before,” he grumbled, dropping the messy ponytail and wrapping the shawl around her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Claudia and King sat in the front seat of the SUV, while Addison and Daniel sat in the back.
They didn’t speak much, but she found the silence comfortable, as though they were all friends that were grateful for each other’s company.
Addison hoped that it could be true. At least she hoped Daniel would stop wanting to murder Claudia all the time. Baby steps.
When they arrived in the penthouse garage, Daniel insisted on carrying Addison down to her place.
She tried to argue that someone might see, but of course he didn’t care.
The man never cared what other people thought.
With a sigh, Addison wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.
He let them into her condo and placed her gently on the bed as though afraid she would break.
She took a fistful of his shirt when it seemed like he was going to step back from the bed. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, fear edging her voice.
“Never,” he said quietly, pulling the quilt over her and tucking her in. He slid into the bed beside her and gathered her against his side.
“Thank you for saving my life,” she said, looking up at him so he could see her eyes. She hoped he could read the love and gratitude in their blank depths.
He caressed her lips with his thumb and then with his lips, lightly pressing the softness of her mouth with his harder lips. She exhaled and opened her mouth to his. He darted his tongue briefly into the silken recess before withdrawing.
“Sleep, Addison.”
Addison woke suddenly, a cry echoing in the room around her.
She covered her mouth with her good hand when she realized the broken sound had come from her own lips.
She’d been dreaming that she was drowning in that damn river in the park, struggling to surface, but constantly swimming down toward the bottom.
At the bottom of the river, Erica was waiting for her, laughing and screaming, waving her arms at Addison, her fingertips topped by razorblades.
A kaleidoscope of red and pink had swirled in the river around Addison’s body where Erica’s finger blades had sliced away at her.
“This is going to take years of therapy,” Addison grumbled, sitting up in her bed and shoving the suddenly suffocating quilt aside.
Cool air touched Addison’s arms and she realized it was dark outside.
The sun had set on another day. Which meant it had been nearly twenty-four hours since her ordeal in the park.
It felt surreal to her that so much time had passed and she had spent most of it sleeping.
She knew Daniel wasn't in her apartment, he would have come to her instantly if he’d heard her cry out in her sleep.
She winced as she stood up on her sore feet and it took a few painful steps before she was able to make her way painfully around the bedroom.
She pulled on a pair of old sweatpants and a T-shirt and tried calling Daniel on her cell phone.
It rang, but there was no answer. Her heart hammered in her chest and she broke out in a cold sweat.
“You’re okay, Addie,” she whispered to herself, knowing it was true, but she desperately wished Daniel had stayed with her until she woke up.
They really needed to come up with some kind of system where he could leave his blind girlfriend a message letting her know where he was going to be and when he was going to be back.
She sighed. If he was even willing to take that step in their relationship.
Though she thought getting kidnapped, stabbed and nearly drowned in a river should earn her a few more privileges on her list of relationship goals.
She decided rather than waiting around for him to come back while she paced restlessly and chewed on her already short fingernails she would go upstairs and try to find him.
He was probably organizing security stuff so he could take some time off to take care of her.
He likely hadn’t expected her to wake up when she had.
Though that didn't explain why he wasn't answering his phone. He’d seemed so concerned about her before.
Addison took the elevator up, deciding that her flight through the forest, swim in the river and swollen feet entitled her to at least a month of no exercise.
She tapped the code to the security door and pushed it open.
Silence greeted her. Which seemed odd. It wasn’t that late in the evening, there should’ve been someone on security.
“Hello,” she called, starting to make her way down to his place. “Daniel, are you up here?”
She heard a muffled moan to her right, which made her freeze midway down the corridor.
What was that? She was about to continue on to Daniel’s apartment when she heard another sound and then the rattling of one of the cages.
Heart pounding, Addison stood in frozen indecision, terribly afraid she knew exactly what she was hearing.
“Er… Erica, is that you?” she whispered hesitantly, really hoping she was wrong.
A muffled scream confirmed her suspicions.
Addison leaned against the wall, torn between the need to run away from her tormentor as fast as she could and curiosity over what Erica was doing up there on the security floor.
She knew it couldn’t be anything good, given the muffled quality of Erica’s voice and Daniel’s tendency toward cold-blooded murder and mayhem.
“Okay,” Addison breathed out quietly. “She can't hurt you.”