Pumpkin came over to me too. “They need to hear it from her. Right now, they think that we, including Carlos, are covering for you.”
“What about Keys’ evidence?” I demanded.
Keys had uncovered a connection between Kurt Brewerand I that I hadn’t even known existed. Barely a day after the first time Kora and I had hooked up, Brewer had been stalking me online. He called me out on my videos, but they were so vague that they were lost among the other haters that I ignored. I barely responded to the good comments, let alone paid any attention to the bad ones. Brewer’s comments were along the lines of calling me a homewrecker and a wife stealer. Nothing specific enough for me to even guess a connection to Kora or the fact that I was sleeping with her.
After Kora had lied and told Brewer she was pregnant, implying that the baby was mine, Brewer’s comments had become even more hateful. I’d been spending all week with Calliope, helping her get her shop ready. All my videos but one had been pulled from my archives this week. I’d barely logged on myself, so it was no wonder that I hadn’t seen or taken notice of the man’s comments.
Then I’d done my live Friday afternoon before we’d opened for the Grand Opening. The threatening comment he’d left had been flagged by the app and I never would have seen it if Keys hadn’t dug to find it.
KBrew26: You think you’re so fucking special?? You’re nothing. That whore you’re fucking will learn what sort of man you TRULY are before the end of the night. You’ve been warned.
It was enough for Carlos to be able to put the blame on Brewer instead of me without Calliope’s testimony. I was cleared, as my actions were deemed in defense of others. It also helped that the only defensive wounds found from Calliope’s nails were on him, and none had been found on me.
My jacket squirmed again, and I had to adjust my hold.
Pumpkin’s expression darkened. “These detectives are friends of Brewer’s. Somehow they got a prosecutor to agree to press charges on her behalf. She woke up just as they came in looking for you.”
“Calliope wanted to do this,” Carlos told me sternly. “Let her so it can be done with.”
I scowled, but kept my mouth shut. Through the bodies in the room, I could see Calliope was writing on the dry erase board the hospital had provided for her. She normally only had the energy for one or two words, but it looked like she was writing a mini novel on that thing.
“Why didn’t you call out for Mr. Miller?” one of the detectives asked.
I stiffened as Calliope started to write again. God, I missed her voice. I missed her smile. I missed her laugh. I missed being able to hold her and curl up beside her at night. Most of all, I missed her light. The world was so dark without it.
“You thought Kurt was going to shoot him if you did?”
“The fuck?!” came out of my mouth, a lot louder than expected. It echoed down the hall through the open door.
Calliope’s eyes met mine before they cast downward again as she wrote something else.
“No,” the other detective answered. “We will speak to the DA and have the charges dropped. We’re sorry to bother you, Ms. Hutchins. We wish you a speedy recovery.”
Pumpkin and Carlos moved as the detectives made to leave, but I did not. They didn’t even stop to ask me to move or to extend their apology to me. They just squeezed their way past me.
I stormed over to the bed. Opening my jacket, I thrust mycontraband at Dosia. She had to scramble to catch Joe and Oolong, but thankfully took them without complaint. Then I rounded on Calliope.
Christ, she looked so small. Her hair was long and greasy. There was a hollowness to her cheeks and eyes that I fucking hated. The bed was standard size for a hospital, and yet it seemed to swallow her up.
I leaned over her, placing my hands on either side of her head. I was careful of the wires and tubes currently connected to her. “One for ‘yes’, twice for ‘no’,” I reiterated. “Did I just hear you correctly? Did you purposefully not call out to me when Brewer held you at gunpoint?”
She blinked once.
Anger rose up inside me and my hands balled into fists beside her head. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
She just stared at me, and it took me a second to realize that I hadn’t asked a yes-or-no question. Fuck.
I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath. She did not need my anger on top of everything else.
“Calliope, my Winnie,” I forced my eyes open to stare down at her. “I need you to promise me that you will never do something that stupid again. My life is not worth yours. I would havegladlytaken a bullet rather than see you in here like this. Do you understand me? Never. Again.”
She blinked twice.
“No?” I repeated, shocked. “What the fuck does that mean? You need to promise me here and now that you will never put yourself in danger for me again.”
She blinked twice again.
“What the fuck? Why the fuck not?” I demanded, forgettingagain that she couldn’t answer me outside of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.
