Page 145 of Falling Too Late
“I will be.” I reached up and twisted my fingers in the hair at the base of his neck.
Alex pulled back and looked me over. “Is something the matter?”
I sighed. I had been preparing to tell him for the last week, since he told me he closed on the property. I was resolute to the situation at hand. I didn’t know how Alex would react. I wasn’t worried or nervous, but I wasn’t eager to tell him either.
“Do you trust me?”
“With everything.” His answer was automatic.
“We need to call Mario.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there’s a body in unit 4B.”
Alex looked up to the unit behind me, his brow furrowing. He let me go, took the stairs two at a time and opened the door. I was standing in just the right place to see him bring his hand up to cover his nose.
I didn’t think the body smelled that bad. The last time I had checked on it, it had been right around day four, and it had smelled. . .awful.
It didn’t take Mario long to arrive with the coroner. He and Alex stood to the side while I sat on the tailgate. I watched the two men talk to each other from a distance. Mario and Alex had bonded after the recent events. Mario seemed at ease around Alex now that Mario knew everything Alex did, he did for me.
I was glad. I wanted them to be friends.
“I’ll let her know,” Alex said as Mario took a phone call. “You doing okay?” He asked once he was back at my side.
“Yup.” I laid my head on his shoulder. His hand rubbed gentle circles on my back.
“So,” Mario hung up the phone, walking over to us, “the coroner thinks the body has been there for at least two years. They think it was a homeless person who curled up and died there. They will do DNA testing and take it from there.”
“Can we take down the other apartments?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, just not that one. Just in case they need to come back for whatever reason. I’ll let you know when I know.”
It didn’t take long, but they hauled the body off in the truck. Mario left too. As soon as they left the parking lot, I looked at Alex.
“Come on, let's go home. We can do this another day.”
“It was Lloyd,” I blurted out.
“Who was Lloyd?” Alex asked.
I nodded my head to the apartment.
“The dead body?”
I nodded.
“How do you know who it was? And who is Lloyd?”
“Remember the old fat greasy apartment owner?”
Alex shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Barely.”
“Well, that was Lloyd, and he was the other man that used to rape me. My mom let him so she didn’t have to pay rent anymore.”
I watched as his face took on several different emotions. He paced for a moment before he took a deep breath. His broad chest expanded. He tipped his head back to the sky and released the breath. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you who the other guy was, since I realized it was more than one.” I didn’t respond. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at me. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“I killed him.” A crisp breeze pushed my hair out of my face. “And my mother.”
