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I nodded once, still not speaking.
Rose smoothed her hair with her right arm. Her diamond nose stud twinkled under the florescent lights. “Yeah. Thanks, Officer.”
“Stay safe, Ms. Gallagher.”
“Always,” she said softly.
The officer left us alone and we studied each other, not speaking. I frowned at the fading bruise on her good arm, right under her shoulder, and thought about the dragon tattoo she got in memory of Mikey. I couldn’t see it under her gown, but I knew it was there. The bruise had the distinct shaping of fingers, as if someone had grabbed her too tightly and refused to let go. Those marks angered me more than the time she stole my phone back in high school, when Mikey had still been alive, and texted Mary St. James that I had herpes. To this day, Mary still treated me standoffishly when we crossed paths every Sunday.
She glanced down, saw where I stared, and tugged her shirtsleeve down. Too late. I’d never forget what I saw. “How did you find out about the attack?”
/> “Your job used your emergency contact information.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Oh. Right. I didn’t know Daisy’s Diner—”
“We both know it wasn’t Daisy’s Diner the cop got my information from, since you apparently don’t work there anymore. Maybe you never did,” I said, my teeth clenched tightly. “How long have you been at Kitty Kat’s?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking…” As she blinked at me, resignation crossed her face and her voice trailed off. Her cover was blown, her secret was out, and she didn’t look too happy about it. “Just for a few nights.”
My jaw twitched. “Why?”
She remained silent, staring at her lap.
I clenched my jaw. “Rose. Why?”
“Keith wasn’t quite the Prince Charming I made him out to be, okay?”
I took a deep breath, and then slowly released it. “Meaning?”
“Meaning…Lately, he was getting drunk and hitting me. I grew up with that for way too many years, and refused to fall back into that life for a man. Any man.” She played with the white blanket on her lap. Her pack of Marlboro Menthols sat beside her on the hospital nightstand, and I grit my teeth at the sight. I hated that she smoked, and she knew it. “So I left. But to lose him, I had to lose everything I had, because he wasn’t exactly happy I walked. Assholes like him never are. So I left my job. My home. What little money I had, before he snorted it all up his nose. I lost it all to him. I had to start over again.”
At a strip club. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed help?” I shoved my hands into my pockets and stepped closer, rage pumping through my veins. “You should have told me.”
“Why? What were you going to do for me?”
“I would have politely reminded him it’s not okay to pick on people smaller than himself,” I growled. “And then I would have showed him why.”
I used to be good at that.
At teaching punks lessons.
“The old Thorn McKinney comes out to play, huh?” She let out a small laugh. “Yeah. In no world would I let that happen. You’re seconds from starting your new life, but you’re going to take on an abusive asshole who’s hitting women because his dick’s too small, and ruin it all? Get thrown in jail for me? Hell no. Not on my watch.”
I stepped closer, my attention locked on the bruise under her eye. “I don’t know what I would have done, exactly, but I would have done something, damn it. If I knew you lost your home and job—”
“You would have…what?” she asked, her tone rising like it always did when she was upset. “Hidden me in your dorm room at school? Gotten yourself kicked out?”
Flexing my jaw, I glanced away, because I didn’t have an answer. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to come up with a plan, after all. But now I was, and I was going to take her out of here, find her somewhere to stay that wasn’t a strip club, and get her a job. One that didn’t involve taking her clothes off like her mother—or mine.
“You still should have told me. I could have taken care of you.”
“I didn’t need help. I was working at a strip club for a little while—not deathly ill. I can take care of myself, and always have.” She gripped the sheets at her lap. “Father.”
I tugged on my clerical collar again and studied her, noticing each mark and bruise as a personal failure of mine. I failed Rose. But I wouldn’t do it again.
Never again.
“I’m not a priest yet. Just a deacon.”
