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“We need to stop the bleeding,” I explain as I apply gauze to her shoulder and then hand her another one. “Hold this to your palm. Keep it firm.”
She does as I ask, although her body shakes so hard that it’s hard to keep the gauze in place.
“He attacked me. He tried to rape me. He was going to kill me,” she rambles.
It’s a good sign that she can at least form words and isn’t in a complete catatonic state like I’ve witnessed in others. This will make things much easier for me.
“Are you cut anywhere else besides your shoulder and hand?” I ask, looking over every inch of her body. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but her bra and panties are covered in blood, and I’m not sure if it’s hers or his. I don’t want to violate her more by looking under the material to make sure there are no other wounds that I can’t see.
“I don’t know.” She glances down to where I’m holding the gauze to her shoulder. “I think that’s it. I can’t feel anything. My body’s numb.” She then looks back at the man on the floor before asking, “Did you call 911?”
I don’t blame her for asking. It’s what most people might have done. She hasn’t learned yet that I’m not most people.
“We don’t need 911,” I assure her.
“But… Is he dead? Maybe we should call 911 and get help in case he’s still alive.”
“He’s dead,” I say as I pull the drenched gauze away and inspect the wound. “You’ll need stitches, but we’ll deal with that later.”
I tape on a bandage that will do for the time being until I can get it cleaned up and dealt with. At least the bleeding seems to have slowed down, and though it’s deep enough to need stitches, no damage was done to her internal organs. I then repeat the process on her hand, wrapping the bandage around her palm several times until I can address this cut as well.
“How do you know he isn’t alive?” There’s hope in her voice. She doesn’t want to be a killer.
“I know.”
“But maybe you’re wrong.” Her voice rises an octave and her body tenses. “We can’t just sit here and not check for a pulse.”
I haven’t looked away from her wounds the entire time, but finally sigh and glance into her blue eyes. They’re slightly dilated, giving me a new worry of a possible concussion. “He’s lying in a lake of blood. A fucking ocean of it.” She flinches at my harsh tone and language, and I take a deep breath to even it out. My bedside manner needs work. I know this. “I don’t need to check for a pulse,” I say much calmer. “He’s dead.”
Her lip quivers, and her eyes return to the dead man. “I didn’t mean to. He came after me, and I thought I was going to die.”
“You don’t need to defend yourself to me,” I say, running my fingers over her head, feeling for any cuts or forming knots. Her blonde hair is tangled with blood, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t belong to her. “Did you hit your head at all? Did he throw you around?”
She doesn’t answer me, but I don’t feel anything on her skull or the base of her neck that concerns me.
I help her stand and bring her over to a chair just past the foyer. I then reach for a blanket that was cast over the couch and wrap it around her shoulders before helping her sit down. The cream cashmere will be ruined with the blood all over her body, but it will help contain any blood contamination from spreading. By the time I’m done with the room many hours from now, not a speck of physical evidence a crime was committed will remain.
The minute the warmth from the soft blanket touches her body, and her nakedness is concealed, her breath hitches and Rowan begins rocking back and forth.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she recites. “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” She looks up at me. “I killed a man. He’s dead. He’s dead.” She chokes on a sob and rocks herself even harder.
I walk to the wet bar and pour her a glass of water as she keeps mumbling the same words over and over as if repeating the mantra will somehow make her face reality. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this reaction. Every single person as they come to face the nightmare of murder goes through this process. It’s a demented balance of reason and madness. Their morality is being shattered into a million pieces, which causes their body to go into a rejection even as their mind is trying to process the mayhem swirling inside.
