“Uh, it’s fine,” I finally answered. “It’s healing. It’s all pretty minor stuff, really. I guess I came out mostly unscathed.”
“Uh-huh,” Ollie said, though I thought I caught a twitch of his eyes glancing at the hairline at my neck.
It took a massive power of will not to adjust my hair to make sure the bite in question was covered.
Ollie set his notebook down and picked up the piece of paper. He unfolded it and slid it across the desk toward me.
“Do you recognize this man?”
The printed image of a snarling and angry face sent a jolt of fear through me, one of fear and recognition. The quality of the image wasn’t great—obviously from a gas station security cam or something—but it fit what I’d seen of my attacker’s face in the dark. I could almostfeelthe hot breath washing across my cheeks, hearing his grunts and growls of frustration and anger as we fought.
“That’s him,” I said, pointing a trembling finger at the image. “That looks just like the guy who attacked me. That’s got to be him. I’d never forget that face.”
Ollie and Nate shared another look. When Ollie looked at me again, his eyes were tense and worried.
“Ms. Torres, this is going to sound strange, but bear with me,” Ollie said. “Would you allow Mr. Zane here to inspect the wound on your neck?”
Again with the wound? Something weird was going on, and I didn’t like it. How the hell could some two-bit private eye be able to tell anything from examining it, anyway? Though, given thesituation, I wasn’t sure how I could refuse without coming off as suspicious.
“I guess that’s fine,” I said reluctantly.
Ollie nodded to Nate, who stood and walked over to me. As soon as he was close, I could smell him. A musky, manly scent, somehow more intense than any other aroma I’d ever known. Like a combination of sawdust, leather, cinnamon, and whiskey. The moment his fingers brushed my hair aside and touched my skin, a bolt of heat went through me, and I had to clamp my teeth into my tongue to stop a moan of delight from escaping my mouth.
“Do you perhaps know what caused the wound, Ms. Torres?” Ollie asked, eyeing me speculatively.
For some reason, I didn’t want to tell them I thought the guy bit me. It was too private somehow. A dark secret I needed to keep hidden, but I didn’t understand why.
“Maybe a knife or something?” I offered.
Nate’s fingers froze. Even without being able to see him, I could feel the tension in his body.
“What do you have?” Ollie asked, his voice tight and strained.
“It’s small,” Nate said. “An inch and a half. Looks like it was done by teeth.”
Ollie stood and moved his chair around the table to sit beside me. “Ms. Torres,” he said. “I want you to stay calm. Our working theory is that the man who attacked you may have been driven by either a drug or some sort of disease.”
Fear settled in my bones.A disease?
Ollie sighed. “If that is a bite, the sickness he has might have been transferred to you. Can you tell me if you’ve felt sick at all since the attack?”
I started to nod, but froze. I felt better now than I had since the attack. There was no nausea, and my headache hadvanished. Nate stepped away from me, his fingers brushing my neck as he did so, and I had to suppress a shiver of pleasure.
Finally, I said, “Yeah. I have. Some nausea and headaches.”
Nate and Ollie shared another loaded look. That wasreallystarting to piss me off. These two men knew more than they were letting on, and I was tired of being in the dark.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded. As a reporter, I should have been digging into this further, trying to find out what they knew. But in all honesty, I was now too freaked out to worry about a story.
“Ms. Torres, I would like to escort you to the hospital,” Ollie said. “We need to do some tests. Your illness may not be directly related to the attack, but we need to rule some things out. You could be fine, but you could also have something very serious. Can you go with us now? It truly is better to do this as soon as possible.”
My whole world tilted on its axis. The last thing anyone wanted to hear was that they might have some kind of dangerous sickness. Would I be okay? Was I going to die?Holy shit.
“Uh, yeah. I guess that’s fine,” I said numbly. “Am I going to be okay?”
Ollie patted my knee and gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s going to be fine.”
Maybe he was right. Hopefully, if I did have something, the doctors could prescribe whatever I needed, and I’d be right as rain soon. And if I did, I might be able to ask some questions I could use for my story.
