Sheer Suspicion Read online

  SHEER SUSPICION

  (Sheer Submission, Part Eight)

  Hannah Ford

  Contents

  Copyright

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  SHEER SUSPICION

  SHEER SUSPICION

  Copyright © 2018 by Hannah Ford

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  SHEER SUSPICION

  (SHEER SUBMISSION, PART EIGHT)

  SHEER SUSPICION

  The paramedics had arrived by the time I got back outside with Conner and Violet.

  “Jesus,” Conner said as we watched one of them load Abigail into the ambulance on a stretcher. There was blood everywhere – on the pavement, on my shoes, smeared on the side of the building.

  Landon stood beside the stretcher, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt stained crimson red.

  “Are you okay?” Violet asked me. The color had drained from her face, and the paleness accentuated the bruise under her eye and the cut on her lip.

  “I’m fine, “ I lied.

  The paramedics had finished getting Abigail into the ambulance now, the back doors still open as they got to work placing an oxygen mask over what was left of her face, and placing compresses on her head to try and stop the bleeding.

  Landon turned and walked to us, his face a mask of stoicism.

  He looked me over, taking in the blood on my dress. “You’re okay?” he asked. “You’re not hurt?”

  “I’m not hurt.”

  He turned his attention to Conner, silently asking the same question.

  “We’re fine,” Conner said, putting his arm around Violet’s shoulder and pulling her close. “But, Jesus, Landon, what the hell happened?”

  Landon opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a paramedic stuck her head out of the ambulance doors. “Anyone coming with her to the hospital?” she asked. “We can take two.”

  “Yes,” Landon said. And before I could offer to come with him, he turned and climbed into the back of the ambulance, leaving me standing there in the alley with Conner and Violet.

  The police took my statement at the hospital while Violet sat next to me, her hands clutched in her lap. She stayed silent as the police officer asked me question after question – what I’d seen, how I knew Abigail, who else had been in the alley.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t any help – I hadn’t seen anything, had only heard the shots ring out right before the side of Abigail’s head had been taken off by the bullets.

  The scene was replaying over and over in my mind, the way the blood had spread into puddle, the way Landon had placed his suit over the side of her head to stop the bleeding, how it seemed to pointless since her head seemed to have been literally blown away.

  I didn’t mention anything about the note Abigail had slipped to Landon before we’d gone outside – I wasn’t sure if Landon wanted me to, and I told myself it wasn’t really a lie, since the police didn’t specifically ask me about it.

  The last thing I wanted to do was anger Victor Sheer. If Abigail knew something about Landon’s father, then it was up to Landon to tell the police that, not me.

  After what seemed like the five hundredth question from the police, Conner walked into the small waiting room where they were questioning me, two paper cups of coffee in his hands.

  He handed one to me and one to Violet, and I took it gratefully.

  “Are you done here?” he asked the police, making it clear that it wasn’t a question.

  “We just have a few more –”one of the cops started.

  “A few more of the same questions you’ve already asked her a million times?” Conner asked. He spoke with confidence and derision, as if he were familiar with the police and their questioning, and thought their method of asking the same questions over and over again was ridiculous.

  I wondered if it was from the stalking case he’d been involved in when he was younger, or if there’d been other times that Conner Sheer had been questions by the police.

  “Have you told them everything you know?” Conner asked me.

  I nodded, my hands wrapping around the hot coffee in front of me, taking in the warmth that was seeping through the cheap paper cup.

  “Then you’re done,” Conner said.

  The cop opened his mouth, but Conner cut him off again.

  “If you need anything else from Ms. Courtland, I’m sure her lawyer would be happy to set up a time for the two of you to talk.” He stared the cop down with cool eyes, until finally the cop got up and gathered his things, mumbling something about being in touch on his way out.

  “Thank you,” I said to Conner.

  He nodded.

  Violet stayed silent in the chair next to me, her hands still twisting in her lap as she pushed at her cuticles. I fought down the annoyance the rose in me that Conner Sheer had to be the one to come to my defense and watch out for me, while Violet said nothing.

  Are you really mad at Violet for not protecting you? a little voice inside my head asked. Or are you mad at Landon?

  Landon hadn’t appeared since we’d been here – I assumed he was somewhere with Abigail, but I had no way of knowing exactly what was going on.

  I pulled my phone out and checked again for a call or a text, but there was nothing.

  “Have you heard from Landon?” I asked Conner.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. The nurse said he’s with Abigail.”

  “She’s alive?” I asked.

  Conner shook his head, ran his hand through his thick blond hair. “I have no idea.”

  “How could she be?” Violet asked. “Half of her face was gone.” She shook her head, her skin still deathly pale “If she’s alive, with no face, how could she even –”

  “It’s time for us to go,” Conner said, cutting Violet off before she could finish her grotesque thought.

  Again, I fought down a wave of annoyance at my sister. She’d never been good in a crisis, preferring to exist in a wave of denial and optimism, but I’d literally just seen a person get shot, and besides a perfunctory, “Are you okay?” she didn’t seem like she cared.

  “I want to stay,” I said. “I want to wait for Landon.”

  Conner shrugged, like he couldn’t have cared less what I did, and it made me realize his concern earlier was more likely motivated by his hatred of the police rather than any real desire to look out for me.

  “Violet, come on,” he said.

  The three of us stood up, and started walking back toward the front of the hospital, to the main emergency room waiting room. I wasn’t even sure if that was the place I was supposed to be. For all I knew, they’d taken Abigail to the ICU or some other place in the hospital with its own waiting room.

  But with no updates and no texts from Landon, there wasn’t much choice. I had the best chance of seeing him if I stayed in the main waiting area.

  “Do you need a drink or anything?” Violet asked. “I could get you some water.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

  “You’ll text me?”

  I nodded. “I’ll text you.”

&n
bsp; I was interrupted by a commotion coming from the nurses’ station. A girl in her mid-twenties was pounding on the counter and yelling at a nurse who seemed like he was doing his best to try to calm her down.

  “I’m sorry, miss. I know it’s upsetting, but it’s hospital policy that we can only release information about a patient’s condition to an immediate family member.” The nurse’s voice was soothing, but the words sounded practiced and hollow, even to me.

  “I am immediate family!” the woman said, thrusting her chin in the air. She was tiny with chestnut hair, wearing a pink bodysuit and a sheer pink cardigan over black skinny jeans. A pair of delicate black ballet flats encased her feet. “I’m her sister.”

  The nurse sighed. “Which would have been fine, if you hadn’t already told me that you were her friend.”

  “Best friend,” the woman protested. She clasped her hands together, pleading. “Look, Abigail is… she’s all I have, and I just want to know how she’s doing.”

  Something about the torment and desperation in her voice struck a chord with me. I remembered what it was like waiting at the hospital to hear about my parents. It was one of the worse things ever, the anticipation and the not knowing.

  “Excuse me,” I called, “are you looking for Abigail Benedict?”

  “Aven,” Conner said, his voice a low warning. I felt him grab for my arm, like he was physically trying to stop me from saying anything, but I wrenched out of his grasp.

  “I was with her when she…. when it happened, “ I said.

  The girl rushed over to us, her stride long.

  But when she saw Conner, she faltered.

  “Conner,” she said finally, her voice strong. “I was wondering if you would be here.” Her shoulders pulled back, her eyes narrowed, her dark eyes meeting his with a strong, clear gaze. It was almost as if she’d practiced this moment, as if she’d told herself that if she was ever to come across Conner Sheer, she would show no sign of weakness.

  “You two know each other?” Violet asked, looking between Conner and the pretty brunette.

  “Come on,” Conner said, grabbing Violet’s arm in a show of possession as he began hustling her toward door.

  A second later, they were gone.

  “You know Conner?” I asked the girl. “I’m sorry, I’m just… it’s been a long night. Are you a friend of his?”

  “No.” She raised her chin in the air. “I’m Paisley Daniels.”

  I turned the name over in my mind, trying to remember where I’d heard it before.

  It clicked into place almost immediately.

  Paisley Daniels.

  The one who had accused Conner of stalking her, the stalking Landon had ended up taking the blame for.

  She was looking at me carefully, trying to see if I was going to have a reaction, if I was going to recognize her name, if I was going to tell her to get the hell out of here --- she’d seen me with Conner, so she was probably assuming that my loyalties lied with him.

  But I knew nothing about the stalking case, and Conner may have been my sister’s boyfriend, but I barely knew him.

  “I’m Aven Courtland,” I said. “I was with Abigail when she….when it happened.”

  Paisley held up her phone. “The press isn’t making it sound that promising.”

  I glanced at the screen, my eyes skimming the words

  Abigail Benedict, husband of philanthropist Richard Benedict, was reportedly shot tonight while attending a benefit for the Benedict Center for Behavioral Health at the Onyx Center in Manhattan. There has been no official word on the condition of Ms. Cross, although witnesses reported that paramedics administered CPR at the scene. “She’d lost a lot of blood,” one person said on condition of anonymity. “Her head had been blown off, literally. She looked like she’d been decapitated.” No suspects are being held, according to the NYPD. Story developing.

  “Jesus,” I said in disgust, shaking my head and pushing Paisley’s phone back toward her.

  “I know.” Her eyes met mine again, strong and clear. “Is it true?”

  I hesitated. “I’m not going to lie,” I said, knowing that if I were in her position, I would want to know the truth. “It doesn’t look good. She lost a lot of blood, and she… I don’t know if she was conscious when the paramedics got there.”

  Paisley nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I figured. My dad used to work in hospital administration. Usually if someone is okay, they try to release the information right away, to keep stories like this from being reported.” She scrubbed at her face with her hands. “The only reason not to release someone’s condition is if it’s bad.”

  “Does she have any family we should call?”

  “Her husband, I guess. But I’m not sure if she would want me to – “ Paisley cut herself off, looking suddenly as if she was afraid she’d said too much. She looked around the waiting room and shivered.

  “Here,” I said, pulling off the sweatshirt I was wearing over my dress. It was a black hoodie of Landon’s that had been left in the car we’d taken to the hospital.

  “Thanks. I didn’t have time to grab anything, I just came down here as soon as I heard what was going on. It was just… I panicked, I guess.” Paisley’s phone rang then, and she glanced down at the screen. “It’s Richard, Abby’s husband. He’s on his way here from Upstate. Excuse me for a second, will you?”

  She slipped outside quickly, the whooshing sound of the double doors swallowing up her tiny frame.

  I sat down on one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room, wondering why waiting rooms were always so stark and sterile. The only tv was tuned to the weather channel, the pamphlets strewn around all had titles like “Coping With Multiple Myeloma”, and the only decoration on the wall was a sign alerting everyone to The Patient’s Bill Of Rights.

  I tapped my foot, waiting for Landon to text me, for Paisley to come back, for someone to tell me what the hell was going on.

  But none of those things happened.

  Patients came in and out – a little boy who’d been jumping on his bed and sprained his wrist, a man who’d sliced his hand while trying to open a bottle of wine, a woman with a high fever.

  But still no sign of Landon, and no sign of Paisley.

  Finally, at three in the morning, Landon came wandering into the waiting room.

  I stood up, my face hopeful.

  But one look at him and I could tell.

  I could tell Abigail was dead before he even said it.

  His face was drawn, his eyes swirling with anger and torment.

  The top of his shirt had been unbuttoned, his tie missing.

  “Aven,” he said, when he saw me, as if he were surprised that I was there. “You’re still here.”

  “I waited for you.” I stood up and rushed to him, and he enveloped me, his arms encircling my body and pulling me close.

  “She’s dead,” he whispered into my ear. “There was nothing they could do, she was almost gone when she got here.”

  I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut tight. I hadn’t known her, but I thought about her husband, and her friend who’d rushed down here. I knew they were in some room right now, being told that she was dead, that the doctors were explaining things to them, telling them that there was nothing they could have done. Or maybe the doctors had left by now, leaving the room to work on patients who actually had a chance. Maybe by this point the social worker had come in, a person they’d never met before but was somehow supposed to help them through their grief.

  I knew how it went because the exact same thing had happened to me when my parents died.

  So even though I didn’t know Abigail or her friend, or her husband, I did know. And I knew Landon.

  When I pulled back, he brushed my hair from my face. “You’re okay?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I’m okay.”

  He took my hand, and longing and emotion filled his face. He cupped my chin, and for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.

  B
ut then something changed.

  His face hardened, his demeanor changing as fast and sudden as a candle being blown out.

  “I’ll take you home.”

  In the car, he didn’t take my hand.

  We sat in the back of the limo he’d called, the divider up between us and the driver, the air hanging heavy with meaning.

  Something had changed, and it wasn’t just because one of his friends had died. No, it went deeper than that.

  I’d been foolish once again.

  When we pulled up in front of my apartment, I grabbed the handle of the car door. I wanted to be petty, wanted to say ‘thanks for a great night’ sarcastically and slam the car door, but I knew that for all his shortcomings, he’d been through something tonight.

  So instead, I said nothing, hoping my silence would be just as poignant.

  I was halfway to my door when he called my name.

  I ignored him and kept walking.

  “Aven,” he repeated, and now his voice was a growl. “When I call your name, you will acknowledge me immediately.”

  I still didn’t turn around. The sound of his voice made it clear that he was closer to me now, but I quickened my pace to my front door, at the same time rummaging in my bag for my keys.

  “Aven.”

  He was right next to me now, and he took me by the wrist and spun me around, so that I was forced to face him.

  “What?” I demanded. “What do you want? Because I know this part, Landon. It’s the part where you tell me that it’s over, right? That you’re sorry, but you can’t be with me anymore, that it’s complicated, that you’re sorry? I can save us both the speech. I’ve heard it before.”

  His eyes flashed with anger. “A woman was killed tonight, Aven.”

  “Yes, I get that, Landon. I was there, and it was awful. But it has nothing to do with us.”

  “She was killed tonight because of me.”

  “You don’t know that.”