AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where the fuck is Elle?”
Chapter 38
Elle?”
“Hello, Dawn.”
“I’m surprised to see you. Aren’t you doing an interview with Shauna Calloway at five o’clock? They’ve been advertising it.”
“We recorded it earlier.”
“Oh.”
Her hair was damp, and she had a vacant stare that Elle attributed to her concussion and the shock of her husband’s murder. “Dawn, I can’t express how sorry I am about Frank. I apologize for showing up unannounced, but I wanted to tell you in person how distraught I was when I heard.”
“It hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”
“I know exactly what that’s like. Some days I still expect to turn around and see Charlie or hear his voice.”
Absently, Dawn nodded. “How’d you know where I’d be?”
“I went to the hospital to see you. I stopped at the reception desk to get your room number. The lady called upstairs and was told you’d been discharged. She gave me your mother’s address.”
“She’s not supposed to give out personal information, is she?”
“No, but she recognized me, and since you and I have been through so much together, she understood why I wanted to see you.”
“That was sweet of you. To go to the hospital and all.”
“I’ve been worried about you. How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay. Come in.” She pushed open the screen door.
“Are you sure?” Elle asked. “I don’t want to intrude, and I can’t stay but a few minutes.”
“You’re not intruding.” Dawn stood aside and motioned her in. As Elle followed her, she noticed that her feet were bandaged. She was walking tentatively in a pair of terry cloth slippers. Compton had mentioned cuts on the soles of her feet.
“Things are kind of a mess,” she said over her shoulder. “Mom isn’t the best of housekeepers to start with, and we haven’t been home long. Just long enough for me to take a shower.”
The living room into which she led Elle was indeed a mess. It was cluttered, and the layer of dust on hard surfaces attested to general neglect.
Dawn lifted a hospital-issued plastic bag from the seat of an armchair so Elle could sit down. “Just some toiletries and bandages they sent home with me. My clothes were taken as evidence. Sims’s blood had splattered on everything.”
“That must’ve been so traumatic for you.”
“It was.”
Before coming, Elle had been uncertain how Dawn would receive her. She wondered if she held it against Calder and her for leaving the safe house without her. But if she was resentful, she wasn’t showing it. She wasn’t exhibiting much emotion at all, not even when she’d referenced Sims’s blood on her clothing. She was moving and speaking like an automaton to an extent that was eerie.
But Elle remembered how she herself had been during the days immediately following the Fairground shooting. She’d gone about in a trancelike state, it being easier to shut down completely than to try to cope with the tragic reality.
“Would you like something to drink?”
When Elle declined the offer, Dawn sat down on the sofa, facing her.
“How did you do?”
“How did I do…?”
