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My cousin Elise brought me clothes to wear home from the hospital: comfy, baggy jeans, a tank top, and a soft pink hoodie. She wanted to stay and help me get dressed, but while my body was nowhere near as tender as the day before, my mind felt like it was constantly being jabbed at.
Without being unkind, I snapped at Elise to go home. “I’m fine,” I told her wearily, unable to stand the hurt look in her eyes. But at the same time, I couldn’t have her around me. The only person I wanted close was Roman, and he hadn’t left me for a minute. “I’ll call you later,” I said to get her to leave. It was a half-hearted promise I wasn’t sure I would keep.
Roman looked me over, holding onto my shoulders like I might collapse in a heap. Just like our house had done. “You’re sure you’re okay to leave?”
Like everyone else’s, his voice still sounded like it was stuck behind a cloud of high-pitched mosquitos. I swallowed hard and shook my head to try to free my ears from the noise left behind from the massive explosion.
“Wait, you’re not ready?” he asked, trying to help me back to the bed.
I hid my impatience and nodded this time. “I’m just trying to get rid of the ringing.”
“That might take a while,” he said with a rueful smile.
They finally discharged me, and Roman kept being considerate, only asking if I was okay to walk when they wheeled me out the hospital doors. He’d been keeping his thoughts about what had happened to himself and had refrained from asking me why I hadn’t wanted to stay at Papa’s house. I was grateful for that because the way everything was swirling in my head, I wasn’t sure I could explain it to him in a way that would make sense, or that he would believe.
Not without proof, anyway.
Finally, we were heading towards Roman’s apartment in South Beach. At first, I had felt a little jealous that he’d kept the place and seemed to be dragging his feet on finding an office building to use instead, but now I was glad we had a neutral place to go. When we were coming up to the turnoff to our neighborhood, I reached out and slapped the dashboard.
“I want to go to the house,” I said.
Roman shook his head. “Baby, there’s nothing in there worth getting. I’ll buy you whatever you need, once you’re safe in the apartment.” He reached over and pressed his fingers against my wrist. “You don’t need to worry. I’m going to hire some security on top of the guys your father’s sending over.”
He didn’t look happy about the prospect of my father’s security detail but I couldn’t worry about that right now. Not until I knew for sure.
“I need to go to the house,” I said more urgently. We were just about to reach the exit he’d need to take. I didn’t want to wait. “Roman, I need to go to the house, now,” I demanded, much too loud even to my ringing ears.
He nodded at the sound of my near hysteria and turned at the last second, heading through the gates to our neighborhood and along the winding, private road to our driveway.
He pulled up as close as he could get, and I got out, staring up at what was left of our home. The place was sodden from the fire hoses, and like I figured, it didn’t seem like it would ever be in any shape to be lived in again. One entire wing was completely collapsed, with nothing but piles of rubble. The perimeter from the top of our driveway all the way to the hedges on either side was cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape.
I stomped through the wet gravel and crushed shells, ducking under the tape to head to the path that led around back.
“I thought they were calling it an accident,” I said, when Roman merely snapped the tape from its post and followed me.
He shrugged. “They still have to do an investigation. Karine, what do you want to see this for?”
I didn’t answer, and began poking around in what was left of the backyard. Several palm trees had been toppled, their mighty fronds half buried in big chunks of cement wall and broken glass. I shook my head sadly when I saw the state of the once beautiful pool. The water was mud-brown and full of roof debris and bits of trees. The waterfall structure was cracked in two, one-half listing to the side while the other had fallen backward, revealing the system of pipes underneath.
I kicked aside what looked like bits of windowpane and bathroom tiles and leaned over, scanning the ground near what had been the outer edges of the house.
“This is dangerous,” Roman said, reaching for my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
I ignored him and ducked away, completely focused on my task. Praying I was wrong.
But then I found it.
What I’d been hoping wasn’t there. It's so tiny and nondescript that even a well-trained arson investigator might have missed it. They had before. I knew it well because I had seen it dozens of times before.
My hands shook almost uncontrollably as I reached for it and my vision blurred by the rush of tears as I held it out to Roman.
“What is it?” he asked in a hushed tone, as if it was a tiger about to pounce. I met his gaze through the film of tears, but he only shook his head blankly.
“It’s a detonator,” I said, and once again, my voice was much too loud. This time, it wasn’t because of my ringing ears, though. I tried to explain without screaming, but the pain in my heart was beyond what I thought I could bear. “It’s one of Demian’s.” I finally broke down sobbing.
Roman pulled me into his arms, holding on tight. Not even his caring embrace could ease the pain. Everything around me was not only done on purpose but by the person I had considered my oldest and best friend.
My own organization had tried to kill me.
