“I came down to get some water and heard a noise,” Bram calls from the doorway. “Are you all right?” I turn and blink a few times to watch him cross the room toward me in a fitted black T-shirt and dark sweatpants.
“Yes,” I say, my voice too high-pitched. “I’m fine. Just couldn’t see.”
But he rounds the couch, advancing on me. I shrink back, Adam’s words blaring in my head.She said she was going to break up with him. An hour later, Mariana was dead.
He stops suddenly, his eyes flooding with hurt before lowering to the rug. “You’re afraid of me,” he says with none of his usual humor.
“No, I’m not,” I lie.
“Then let me help you.” He waits for me to answer, unconvinced. He doesn’t take another step.
Nodding, I start to lift the hem of my jeans. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Bram moves to kneel in front of me, his hand brushing mine as he takes over, rolling up the leg of my jeans past the knee. Sure enough, there’s a large gash where my shin met the sharp edge of the wrought iron coffee table. The area is already starting to swell, and blood has seeped into my jeans. Bram’s fingers graze my ankle as he looks up at me with sleepy eyes. “You’ve made a mess of yourself, Phil.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
Ignoring me, he gets up and ambles from the room, returning aminute later with a first aid kit.
When I try to take it from him, he slings me an annoyed look. “Why are you acting like I’m going to take the antiseptic and find a way to kill you with it?”
“I’m not. I just don’t need any help.”
“You were there for me Friday night,” he says, already finished cleaning the wound and moving on to the gauze. “Let me be there for you.”
“Friday night was a mistake.”
Bram’s head draws back, his eyes flicking up to mine. “Why is that?”
“Because Adam thinks something happened between us,” I say, pulling the blanket up to neck level, “and I think he might tell Henry.”
“So”—he clears his throat, eyes back on the bandage—“you and Henry. You’re…”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Nothing happened between Henry and me tonight, apart from my falling asleep on his shoulder. There was no more hand-holding, no kiss to solidify whatever inklings I’ve had. We just talked, like old times.
Bram rises, saying only, “Let’s get the place a little warmer,” before moving to the ornate wood-burning fireplace in the corner. He works on it, leaving me to wonder if he even heard what I said about Henry. Once a fire is blazing, he takes another match and lights the votive candles on the black console and the coffee table. Then he dims the main light in the room to near black and kneels again without making eye contact.
“How are you doing,” I ask, “ever since…you know, Sage’s post?”
“I’m not in jail, so I guess I’m doing prettyswell. Sage’s post is down.”
“It is?” Did she take it down because I asked her to?
“Our lawyer got the police involved. They had it removed.” Guess that answers my question. He finishes up the bandage and rolls my pant leg back down. “All done.” Only he stays kneeling there, staring off in the direction of the doorway. “Go ahead. Ask.”
I hate it when he knows what I’m thinking. I nearly deny having questions. But they’re too burning, like the hot coals from the fire sitting in my back pocket, trying to scorch right through the layers of fabric and skin. “Why did you pull the fire alarm?”
Bram rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I promised someone I wouldn’t. And like I said during your last interrogation, I don’t want to lie to you.”
“You put your face on camera,” I say, my tone admonishing.
“That’s not accurate,” he says, trying to lighten the mood. “I didn’t know someone would be hiding out, recording me from behind the drinking fountain nook.”
“You weren’t even disguised, just wearing a stupid T-shirt. Even if a girlhadn’tbeen murdered, you could’ve gone to jail!”
