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They came back out. Lee closed the door, fiddled with the handle and then walked toward me, removing surgical gloves.
“No Rosie,” he told me.
“Thank God,” I said on a whoosh and didn’t realize I was holding my breath.
He put a hand on my upper arm and hauled me up.
“I’m callin’ Hank in on this one,” he announced.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “You can’t! He’s gonna freak that I’m here!”
“You weren’t here. Tex was here. Tex, the concerned neighbor,” Lee replied.
“That’s me. Everyone around here knows I’m a concerned neighbor. Gotta go make a call.” Tex put his big hand on top of my head. “You did good, for a girl. Didn’t puke or nothin’.”
“Thanks Tex,” I said on a shaky smile, not quite sure that was a compliment but willing to accept it as one all the same.
Tex ambled off and Lee dragged me to a Mercedes sedan. He’d hit a button on his cell phone and was waiting for it to ring through.
“Lee…” I said.
He pulled me to a stop at the passenger side, opened the door and pushed me in. He stood in the opening of the door while his call was picked up. I sat in the car, too freaked out by the dead body to fume at him pushing me around.
“Hank, a call’s gonna come into nine one one soon. I need to talk to you about it.” Pause. “Yeah.” Then he disconnected.
Lee slammed my door and got in on the driver’s side of the car.
I turned to him. “I have a car here. It’s my neighbor’s. My bag’s in there. I have to—”
Lee held up a hand and I stopped talking.
“What you have to do is keep your mouth shut until we get back to the condo so I can take that time to talk myself out of strangling you.”
Yikes.
I felt it prudent to do as he requested. I’d had a rough couple of days. I didn’t want it to end in strangulation. And anyway, Lee was such a badass, even if it didn’t end in strangulation he might come up with some more creative punishment.
Lee didn’t say word one until we were in his condo. He dragged me by the arm into the bedroom, pulled out a drawer and threw me a T-shirt.
“Get ready for bed,” he said to me.
I immediately saw red.
It was not surprising. I wasn’t one of his boys. I wasn’t one of the troops. I wasn’t a child. He couldn’t tell me what to do. I’d had a tough night. I’d seen a dead body, for goodness sake!
I was willing to give him some leeway with his being pushy when I was in the vicinity of said dead body, but this was too much.
“No!” I snapped. “Stop telling me what to do. I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want—”
I didn’t say any more because Lee came at me. I backed up and slammed against the wall. Lee’s body came up against mine and he bent his face so he was nose-to-nose with me.
“You want your dad to see crime scene photos of you, dead, sitting on that sweet ass of yours with your brains splattered against the wall?”
Yikes.
My stomach lurched and my legs went weak.
“No.”
