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“What?” I blurt. He keeps blood? I look at Beau, who looks equally surprised by this. “You know all of our blood types, don’t you?” I recall now, Doc requesting Daniel’s a few weeks ago in St. Lucia, and I thought it a bit random. I didn’t have the foggiest idea what blood type my son is and thought no more of it. I make a mental note to make that a priority.
“Indeed, I do,” Doc replies, injecting something into Brad’s line. “Nice and quick, please.”
“I’ll go,” Fury says, leaving the room to fetch Doc’s requests.
“Will he be okay?” I ask, crouching beside Brad, looking over his pasty skin, his hollow cheeks.
“Just as soon as we’ve topped up his veins.”
I nod and look back when Beau touches my shoulder. “We should prepare for the arrivals.”
I’m blank. Then— “They’re bringing the women here?” I stand, stunned, and Beau nods, just as I hear more wheels across the gravel. “Oh God,” I whisper, feeling wholly unstable. Thinking about ten women drugged and mistreated is one thing. Seeing them is another.
“You've got this,” Beau says, leading me out of the room. And there she is, doing what we both do best. Reassuring each other, talking sense, but struggling to do that for ourselves.
We approach Fury, who’s holding a bag of blood at arm’s length while dragging along a metal stand. “Coming through,” he says, as we move to the side of the corridor, letting him pass. My eyes follow him all the way to the door and through it.
“Where are James and Danny?” I ask Beau without looking at her.
“Come on,” she says gently, not answering me, coaxing me away. “What can I smell?”
“You won’t want to eat it.”
“Smells good.”
“Well, it looks atrocious. Have you heard from Ollie yet?” I ask, diverting from my own trauma, if only briefly.
“Nothing. I’ve reached out a few times, but he’s not answering. And it’s not like I’m being given any space to visit him, is it?”
We both know Beau could break away if she wanted to, which tells me she’s nervous to do that, and not because of her safety. It’s because she’s scared of what she’ll find out. “And the detective?”
She shakes her head. “I already dislike her, and I hate myself for it.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s doing what I would do in her situation.” She turns a small smile my way. “Funny how my instincts have changed, huh?”
“No.” I laugh a little. The cop’s still in there. It’s just mixed up with a bit of crime these days, making it a weirdly immoral moral cocktail. “But you’re okay, aren’t you?” And here’s me ready to hold her up when I’m collapsing over my own traumas.
“They’ve asked if I want to see him.”
I’m confused, and I can’t hide it.
“My father,” she goes on. “They’ve asked me if I want to see him before I lay him to rest.”
I’m the worst friend. “Will you?”
“I think...” She nibbles her lip, unsure. “Something tells me I should. I couldn’t with Mom because, well...”
Because there was nothing left that Beau would want to see. I slip an arm around her shoulder. “Do you want me to come? If you decide to go, of course.”
“I think James will want to do that.” She gives me a sardonic look. “He needs me to need him at the moment. I’ll think about it. I don’t even know if I want to. The funeral will be hard enough and”—she looks unsure for a moment—“I have absolutely nothing to wear. What should I wear?”
I won’t ask her what she wore for her mother’s funeral. Something tells me she wouldn’t remember. “Then we’ll go shopping.” We keep saying it, and it never happens. I need to make it happen.
“Shopping? To buy something for me to wear to my father’s funeral? Great. I hate shopping at the best of times.”
Of course. Absoluteworstfriend. “Or...”
