“Yes, ma’am.” Peter grinned.
Little shit.
“You’re ready to go, officer. An orderly will be by in a few minutes to wheel you outside. Oh, and before I forget, there’s another officer here to take your statement.”
“Thanks,” I said, thinking decidedly non-brotherly thoughts about Peter.
The nurse exited, leaving the curtains trembling in her wake.
“Who’s ‘we’, Peter? Because that better be me and you, and not me, you and Darryl. Or me, you and Rosa. Or me, you and anyone. If I wanted that many people to see my ass, I’d become a wh— stripper.”
At the correction of my language, Peter’s smile became one of those moments that threatened to stop my heart.
“Turn around so I can get dressed,” I said, twirling a finger at the ground.
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re going to need help.”
He was right, but I was still suspicious. I was right to be. The scrubs took longer than necessary to put on, mostly because Peter kept breathing onto my skin when he had to lean forward to tug up my pants or when he assisted in lifting my hips. At one point I would have sworn to almighty God that he blew into my ear. I nearly fell off the table.
Fucker.
I had to meet the officer taking my statement with a raging boner. And wearing scrubs.
With no underwear.
When I was stopped by an officer Briggs, I succinctly told him the story from when I entered the building until the ambulance took me away. I made sure to mention the strong odor of turpentine, which I was certain had something to do with my dizziness. Peter waited for a few minutes, listening in stoic silence, then exited to retrieve the Jag. Neither of us told the officer that Peter was the homeowner. Maybe he just wanted to get home. Or maybe he didn’t care about Joe’s house. Or maybe neither of us trusted the police not to arrest him.
Briggs asked a few pertinent questions, fishing for information that I had anything to do with the fire. Satisfied with my responses, he left me his card and then left me longing for my badge and gun as he radioed in. I wheeled past him, feeling a little sorry for myself.
Hump Day Goes Down in Flames
Standing outside the hospital doors, waiting for Peter to pull my car around—the car no one but me was supposed to drive—I filled in the time by calling Luis. It was better than thinking about someone else handling my baby and one true love, Arturo.
“Happy Hump Day, Luis.” I grinned. His slow sigh was music to my ears.
“The whore staying with you?”
“Peter,” I corrected defensively. “His name is Peter.”
“Is Peter staying with you?”
“Not even a, ‘Happy Hump Day’?”
“Can it, Glass. This is important.”
Luis’s tone narrowed my eyes at the ambulance bay, my smile twitching downward. “Yeah, he’s staying with me. What’s up?”
“Was he there last night?”
“Yeah, all night until I left at five-thirty-ish this morning. Going to tell me what this is about?”
“There as in, you saw him, or there as in he was around?”
“First time you’ve questioned my honesty, Luis,” I said quietly. My Jag pulled up, and I held a finger up for Peter to wait, turning my back on the car.
“Not questioning your truthfulness,” Luis said after a few seconds. “Your judgment, but not your honesty, Glass. Now did you see him or not?”
“Give me a time frame.”
“Three to three thirty.”
“He came up to bed at twenty after three,” I said, squinting in remembrance. “And he was still there when I woke up again at four, and after I took a shower. I’m guessing his brother and Darryl will vouch for him before that.”
“A murder suspect and another whore?” Luis huffed. “What about the other one? Darryl.”
“Ask the two cars of feds outside my house if either of them left. Black SUVs, no shame and no technique.”
“You’re under surveillance?”
“Their witness is under surveillance,” I said. “Protection most likely. Now will you tell me what happened.”
“The diner’s toast. Five injured. Fire started in the kitchen. Alarms were disabled.”
I silently tumbled this information around. “Ask me why I called you, Luis,” I said, pondering how I was going to tell Peter this news.
“Your place in flames?”
“Joe’s house,” I corrected his guess, and then told him what happened.
“Fire alarms disabled there, too?” he asked.
“Until you mentioned it, I didn’t even think about it, but, yeah.”
“Same doer. He hits the diner first, house next.”