Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Sabine
The following hours are the most intense of my life—and that’s coming from someone who’s been shot and left for dead. The tension in the house is almost unbearable.
Astor isn’t himself. He hasn’t slept since our short time in Palm Springs, and between the recent news and physical altercation, his mind and body are spent. He’s not thinking straight. He’s disoriented, manic.
As suspected, his left eye has swollen shut and looks like a big purple balloon. His entire face is puffy and speckled with the beginning of a dozen bruises. I can’t imagine what his ribs feel like. He doesn’t seem to care, however, and I wonder if he can even feel it.
Cillian, on the other hand, looks markedly less roughed up. He is the more experienced street fighter of the two, no doubt about it. He realigned his nose in the bathroom (not joking), popped a pain pill and acted like he was never hit at all.
Cillian won’t leave Astor’s side to ensure he doesn’t do anything that would lock him up for ten years to life. Even though they almost killed each other, Cillian is a calming force for Astor. I knew the two were close, but seeing them interact in such a dark time has proven just how unbreakable their bond is. Astor trusts Cillian unconditionally, the way a child would a father. And Cillian cares for and protects Astor as a father would a child. They are family, maybe not by blood, but by heart.
Both Jackie and Brittney are gone, of course, and will likely never return. I can’t say I don’t blame them. I was surprised that a line of police cars didn’t show up.
After the scuffle, Cillian called Dr. Squire and informed him that Valerie wouldn’t be coming into the hospital today, and instead, they’d bring her in tomorrow. Neither Cillian nor Astor are in any shape to be in public.
Valerie is in her room and hasn’t stopped crying. I can hear her through the closed door, even through the storm raging outside. It hasn’t let up. One round after another, a violent reflection of the disposition inside the home.
Me? I’m using my sky-high anxiety to plan, to come up with any idea to help the situation. I keep landing on one thing—Astor needs to get far, far away from this mess. Leave the country, even. Settle somewhere until he’s processed everything. If that will even happen.
My gaze shifts to the storm raging outside. I remember when I was a little girl, my grandmother, my mom’s mom, was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of hospice, mom moved grandma into our tiny one-bedroom apartment. Grandma died on the couch while mom and I were making breakfast one morning. Unfortunately, there was a delay in hospice returning to collect the body. We didn’t feel right leaving her, so for hours mom and I tip-toed around the apartment, with a dead body on the couch, trying to act as normal as possible in the most screwed-up situation we’ve ever been in.
This feels like that, but amped up by a million percent. There are so many pieces of the puzzle to sort, so many traumas to deal with, and here we are, tip-toeing around the house, trying to deal with it all.
At midnight, Astor passes out at the kitchen table, his body finally shutting down. Soon after, Cillian falls asleep on the couch, and after peeking into Valerie’s room to ensure she was also asleep, I decide to give rest a shot, too. I drop like dead weight onto the mattress, fully clothed, and fall asleep within minutes.
At one in the morning, I awaken to the low growl of an engine outside. I surge out of bed, slip into my sandals and jog to the kitchen. Astor is no longer at the table. Cillian is still passed out on the couch. The door to Valerie’s room is closed.
I yank open the front door just as Astor backs onto the street in his Aston Martin.
“Hey!” I whisper-hiss, running into the sheets of rain.
When Astor doesn’t stop, I lunge into the street, blocking his path.
I glower into the headlights until the window rolls down.
I have to swallow back a gasp. Astor’s face looks even worse than before he fell asleep. The swelling, the bruising, it’s hideous.
“Where are you going?” I snap, wiping the rain from my face. The interior of Astor’s priceless car is getting soaked but he doesn’t seem to care.
“I have to take care of something.”
“Don’t bullshit me. Where are you going?”
His eyes are as cold as ice. I’ve seen the look before, and whatever Astor is about to do, there is nothing to deter him from it.
“You’re going to find Leo, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to break into his apartment and look for the lock of hair that was cut from Chloe’s head the day she died. If he has it, he’s the one who killed her, and I’ll take that to Detective Harris and they’ll nail the fucker. And then, I’ll be able to rest.”
When I open my mouth to protest, he cuts me off.
“He did it, Sabine. I know. He did it to protect himself because he was worried what I’d do if I found out.”
I can’t blame him.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “We do this together, Astor—everything together, you and me. Remember?”
“I don't want you to be a part of this.”
“Too bad.” I yank open the door and crawl over him to the passenger seat so that he couldn’t peel away before I made my way to the passenger side.
We take off, speeding through the narrow road that skirts the ocean. Even with the wipers on high, it’s hard to see through the rain.
“What makes you think Leo won’t be at home?” I ask, buckling my seatbelt.
“He bartends when he’s not on shift for me. The bar closes at two.”
I remember Brittney telling me that’s where she met him, right before their one-night stand.
“How far is his apartment?”
“Twenty minutes.”
I look at the clock. “We better hurry.”