The coffee table was lying on its side, a table lamp broken on the floor. The desk drawers were out, papers strewn about everywhere. I stepped farther in but when I headed toward my bedroom, the tangy, coppery smell that permeated the air got thicker, and my mouth started to water with a sour taste, my stomach clenching tightly.
Agent Russell appeared at the doorway of my bedroom and held his hands up, palms facing out like he did last night at the hospital, trying to block my way with his large body.
I faked to the left and then dashed to the right only a couple feet inside my private quarters. I was not prepared for what I saw.
On my bed was a woman, bloodshot eyes open unseeingly. Her neck was purple and twisted at a weird angle. Her brown hair was ratty and tangled all over the place, mixed with blood. Red, bloody stripes were down her back as though someone had tried to write something. My giant butcher knife appeared to have been left on the bed, blood curdling down its silver edge and wooden handle.
I covered my mouth as I noticed the woman was completely naked and worse, I knew who she was.
I backed up blindly on my tiptoes. “Oh my god, no!” I sucked in a huge breath but all I smelled was death.
My stomach churned, the cookies and tea I ate this morning swirling violently in my gut. On a full toe spin the likes you’d see from a ballerina on the stage, I pushed past both agents and flung myself bodily into the bathroom, falling to my knees and retching into the toilet. Everything came up until there was nothing more than bile, but I kept heaving.
The dead woman’s bloodshot eyes filled my vision every time I closed my lids, bringing up another round of heaving.
All of a sudden, I noticed a wet, cool cloth on the back of my neck, then at my forehead, someone holding my long hair away from the mess.
Then he was there.
Everywhere.
All around me.
Hovering around my form.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” His words were soft and soothing.
I heaved some more, and he stayed with me, holding me, doing what he could to comfort me from behind.
“I’ve called it in to the team. The police captain is also on his way too,” Agent Russell said from somewhere farther away, maybe in the hall, but I didn’t turn my head to look.
I grabbed the washcloth Jonah held at my forehead and wiped my mouth with it, then flushed the toilet, my stomach clenching fading away slowly but surely as I breathed in and out in measured breaths.
Jonah helped me to stand and I went to the sink, rinsing my mouth out before loading up my toothbrush with a huge application of toothpaste, shoving it in my mouth, and getting down to business. I couldn’t stop tasting blood. It was insane, and didn’t make any sense, but that was all I could taste on my tongue.
Jonah calmly rubbed my back as I finished up, rinsed my face and washed my hands before leaning both hands to the basin and holding myself up.
Agent Russell led me out into the living space, and I sat down at my small kitchenette trying to make sense of what I’d just seen.
“I, uh, know her.”
“Who?” he asked.
“The woman,” I said while tracing the patterns and knots in the wooden kitchen table with my fingertip. Over and over. Each swirl. One after another.
“Who is she?” He crouched at my side and put his hand to my knee. I flinched, curving in on myself. He removed his hand as if he’d been burned. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head but didn’t say anything for a little bit.
Then my savior was back. His hand at my shoulder, his warmth seeping straight through to my marrow. I sighed and tipped my head up toward him, wanting to be closer, not farther away.
“I knew her.” My voice cracked. “It’s the manager. Of the complex. Katrina. I don’t remember her last name, but I pay her every month, and see her at the pool in the summer. She plants flowers in the spring, and we always seem to use the small gym at the complex around the same time at least once a week. She’s really nice. Super pretty. And everyone, everyone likes her! Why is she dead in my bed?” The emotions roared through me so fast my body quaked