“Sadie –”
I cut him off, beginning to feel panic slide through my system. “I didn’t do it. I swear. I didn’t.”
The arm Hector had around me got tight and I watched his eyes start to narrow.
“What the fuck?”
I kept on, “I don’t like Harvey, he’s a jerk and I want him to stay away from me but I didn’t kill him, Hector, I swear.”
I’d begun to tremble, my body shaking, Hector’s hand came out of my hair and locked around my waist. Then he gave me a gentle but firm shake. I stilled and looked at him. His eyes were now fully narrowed and he looked angry.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“You said Detective Marker is here to talk to me –”
“Jimmy’s here to make sure you hear it from someone who gives a shit. He’s here to make sure you’re okay. He’s here to let you know Ricky got bonded out this morning. And he’s here to ask you a few questions. He’s not here because you’re a suspect. Your phones are tapped, practically every move you make is followed by cameras and you’re never fuckin’ alone. Even without that, no one would think it was you. Jesus, Sadie, what’s in your fuckin’ head?”
I felt fear replacing the panic in my system at the first part of his speech so I missed most of the other stuff he said.
“Ricky was bonded out?” I breathed.
I watched, fascinated, as the anger slid out of his eyes and a different kind of anger replaced it (don’t ask me how I knew this, I just knew) and then I saw a muscle leap in Hector’s cheek.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess Donny and Marty were moved to brotherly love once Harvey’d been poisoned while on the inside.”
I closed my eyes.
The doorbell rang.
Hector muttered, “Fuck.”
I opened my eyes again and he was looking at me.
“Get dressed and come downstairs. We’ll talk later about what was in your fuckin’ head,” he finished.
Great, just great.
He stood up, taking me with him and putting me on my feet.
I was realizing for the first time that I was naked as the day I was born when both of Hector’s hands came to my neck, fingers sliding up in my hair, thumbs on the undersides of my jaw and he tipped my head back to look at him.
He touched his mouth to mine softly, eyes open the whole time and when his head moved back half an inch, he said, voice low and powerful, “He isn’t gonna fuckin’ touch you.”
He watched me until I nodded, my head moving against his hands.
Then he was gone.
I pulled my head together, quickly got dressed (in the forbidden skirt but I shunned the Stella tee and put on Hector’s flannel because it covered more), ran to the bathroom and let out a surprised, muted scream when I looked at myself in the mirror.
Eighties Rock Video Bimbo was scary the night of but she was hair-raising (literally) the morning after.
And Hector had seen me like that!
And kissed me!
Oh… my… God!
I took a deep breath, calmed the mental flip out, washed my face, found Hector’s brush and was tearing it through my wild, bimbo-groupie, morning after hair when there came a knock at the door.
Before I called, it opened and Hector came in. I just stared at him as he walked up to me, put a cup of steaming coffee on the side of the sink, turned to me, grabbed my wrist, opened my palm with his other hand and planted four white pills in it.
“Hangover cocktail, ibuprofen and Midol. Don’t ask, it works. They give you salve for the tattoo?” he asked.
I was staring at the pills but I looked up at him and nodded.
“Douse it before you come down, you gotta keep it moist so it doesn’t fade.” He reached beyond me, opened the medicine cabinet, rooted through it and came out with a package of new tops for an electric toothbrush. He handed them to me without a word, touched my lips with his again and he was gone.
I kept watching the door, not knowing what to feel.
After my Mom left (or, I should say, was murdered), whenever I was sick, my father sent one of our maids to take care of me. They did it because it was their job not because they cared about me.
But no one had brought me a hangover cocktail in my life.
No one.
Shakily, I sucked down the pills, pulled his electric toothbrush out of its charger, found his toothpaste and went to town on my teeth. Once done, I dug the tattoo balm out of my skirt pocket, pulled up my skirt and peeled back the bandage to salve the tattoo. While I was righting everything, I heard the doorbell ring again.
I sighed, wondering what now, wiped the goo off my hands with a towel, grabbed my mug and walked downstairs.
I stopped at the foot of the stairs.
The living room was filled with people. Detective Marker was there and so were Jet and Eddie, Indy and Lee, Hank and Roxie and Daisy and Marcus.