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Right there on the screen she was pretty sure was the man she had pepper sprayed.
“No, I haven’t seen him before. Where did you say they found…”
“I have!” came an excited voice from right over her shoulder.
Ohhhh shhhhhiiiiit.
The young girl was pointing at the screen and exclaiming matter-of-factly, “That’s one of the men that was trying to kidnap us! But Bloom maced him right in the face and saved us. Tell him, Bloom.”
She had never wished harder for the power of invisibility. Or maybe the ability to literally fade into the woodwork. Then, quickly realizing that was a futile avenue, she briefly tried to will The Tree to ‘port Dax away.
Dax’s face was a mix of surprise, excitement, and consternation all at once.
“I can explain,” she said, resting her hands flat on the bar top.
“Please do,” he said simply, pulling up a stool and having a seat at the bar. “This ought to be good.”
“Honey, would you go and maybe sweep up a bit in the back?” Bloom said to the young teen.
“Sure, Bloom,” she said as she headed off.
Bloom calmly recounted the relevant events of the previous days, doing her best to downplay the ladies’ roles and divert as much of the focus onto herself as possible.
She felt like she had betrayed the mother and daughter.
“Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” he asked.
“Dax, I didn’t think it was necessary. Besides, they were clear they didn’t want the police involved.”
“You don’t trust me, do you?” Dax said matter-of-factly,
“What? No, that’s got nothing to do with it.”
Oh please. It has everything to do with it.
“No, they just seemed traumatized enough. I went with my gut,” she explained. “And I am tired of being angry, okay? Let’s just move forward on this.” she added. “But I am not sure how you can’t see things from my perspective, Dax. I get that you have to follow protocols or whatever, and protect the integrity of your investigation, but can’t you understand what I am going through? My father was murdered. You were great for a while, but then you just seemed to drop the whole case and shut me out. Can you get why I would be upset?” There she had said it.
Dax seemed stunned for a moment, or maybe just lost in thought. “I can only tell you that bringing whoever is responsible for your father’s death to justice is right at the top of the Tribunal’s list.”
“I knew you knew it was no animal attack,” she said, feeling a little spike of excitement at his candid admission.
“You didn’t hear that from me, okay? Let’s just handle this current business and please just trust me when I say we are actively working on his case.”
Dax looked torn for a moment. It almost seemed he was going to add something before he caught himself.
But then he seemed to refocus. “So, you never saw this guy before the other day, right?”
“What? The thug? No, definitely not.”
“Okay. We don’t know if or how the women are involved, but for now let’s keep this next thing to ourselves,” he said.
“What thing?”
“This,” he said as he showed her a close-up picture of the weird red starburst pattern on the guy’s forehead that he had snapped at the hospital.
“What is that? Is that from running into that sign?”
“I don’t think so. Have you ever seen this before?”
