Dead to Her(69)

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Iris tutted. “And dangerous. And so typical of that man. No wonder the poor girl is all over the place. You stay with her, Marcie. I’m going to find a doctor and get her something. She has enough to cope with at the moment without withdrawal on top of it.”

Marcie simply nodded; her surprise was too great to speak. Was this really Iris talking? Iris with the perfect life who spent it gazing down at them all from the dizzy heights of the top of the social tree? Since when was Iris sympathetic to addicts? As the birdlike aged beauty strode purposefully out of the room—good luck to any doctor who thought about refusing her—a man and a woman stepped inside. Their clothes—both wearing smart trousers and shirts under casual jackets—were not expensive enough for this waiting room. Neither were their haircuts. Marcie’s skin prickled. They looked around the room, the woman’s cool eyes lingering on Keisha for a moment before scanning the others. The woman moved out of sight and her sidekick followed.

“Keisha, I need you to listen to me.” Marcie’s stomach was in knots as she took the other woman’s hand. Her voice was quiet but firm, hiding her own panic. “Look at me, Keisha.” Keisha did, reluctantly bringing herself back to the present from whatever hell her imagination was creating for her.

“Whatever happens, you can’t say anything about us, okay?”

“I love you, Marcie. You know that don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. And I love you too. But you can’t say anything about us to anyone. They’ll use it against you. Do you understand? You can’t say anything. We were friends, that’s all. You got that?”

“Friends.” Keisha nodded. She frowned as Marcie’s words sank in. “Who will use it against me?”

The two strangers came back around the corner and this time Noah was with them. Plainclothes detectives. She’d recognize them anywhere. Noah couldn’t look at her. Whatever had been bothering him, she was at the center of it.





42.

“Is he dead?”

The noise in Keisha’s head had finally deadened, but she felt hazy now under the meds. It seemed like a lifetime and only moments since the hospital. She’d been feeling sick, waves of nausea not helping her confusion. Marcie had been sitting beside her—you can’t say anything about us—and then this woman, this Detective Anderson, had said they needed to talk to her. Not at the hospital. They had questions about the accident. And then she’d been crying and Iris had been there with some medication, trying to get the detective to take it with her, while Marcie shrank back into her seat and she was sure that Jason had almost laughed as they took her away, and Keisha had been left to wonder how Iris was suddenly her only friend.

She’d gone into a full meltdown then, hating the feel of their hands on her as they took her into the station. She remembered hysterically crying. Wanting to go home, wherever home was. A doctor came and gave her something to calm her and then the world had faded and she’d spent the night cocooned in her nightmares in a strange unnatural sleep.

A different doctor came back in the morning and gave her a pill that she presumed was some sort of Valium. She didn’t recognize the name and she didn’t much care.

Now she was in an interview room and she had a stranger beside her who’d told her he was here for her and that Iris had arranged it. She didn’t say much to him either. No one had ever really been there for her, so why should she believe this man now?

She was so tired. She wanted to sleep. And yet, even as the sedative calmed her body, soothed the itch, her mind twisted and turned. Had she done it, this terrible thing they were asking her about? It was all a haze, after her rage at Zelda. Even that was just noise. She remembered her anger. She remembered drinking. When had she finally fallen asleep? Could she have done something awful? By accident? Because she was drunk?

Dan Temple, her appointed defense counsel, leaned toward her ear and once again told her to talk only to answer questions when he said it was okay. He was frustrated, she could tell. When he’d arrived she’d been muttering about Auntie Ayo and the boy and everything that had gone before and she’d seen in his face that he’d thought Keisha was crazy.

“Is he dead?” She asked the question again, her heart racing. Detective Kate Anderson, short, squat, and with sandy hair scraped back in an unforgiving bun, and her hulking sidekick, John Washington, hadn’t said a word about William yet and she couldn’t bear the not knowing.

“No,” Anderson answered eventually. “Not yet. Your husband, however, does have severe liver and kidney failure, has lost his sight, and is in a coma. Needless to say, the prognosis isn’t good.”

All that from a heart attack? A stroke? Or was it the fall? Keisha’s hands picked at the skin around her nails as tears threatened her again. Cursed. That’s what she was. And now the curse had taken Billy. It was what she’d wished for.

“He’s lucky to be alive at all,” Washington added. His accent was pure deep South and in other circumstances Keisha would have found it warm and comforting. A voice for bedtime stories. “If Judge Noah Cartwright hadn’t called us yesterday and told us about William Radford wanting to take you out of his will and divorce you, and that perhaps his fall and subsequent injury could be the result of a physical fight rather than an accident, we would never have gone back to search the house yesterday evening. Our forensics team wouldn’t have seen the yellow mark on the carpet and he’d be dead by now.”