"There was an explosion right outside the door to the office," Detective Andrea explained to me as I sat upright in the hospital the next day. My injuries were superficial, they told me, but kept me overnight for supervision and I'd be getting out later that day. "On impact, you hit your head on the bookshelf, but all things considered, you were lucky."
"Manny broke his arm," I told her, even though she might have already known that. Luckily, he was safe as well, but I was able to talk to him last night in the common area of the hospital and saw his cast. He had some bruises and cuts, but was going to be alright. And, understandably, was quite distraught about the entire ordeal. "He fired me as one of his clients, which I get. He has to think about his family first."
"I talked to Manny this morning," Andrea confirmed with a nod. "Has anybody told you about Julia?"
"The receptionist?" I asked curiously. "No, I haven't talked to anybody but doctors this whole time. Did she see something?"
For a moment, I had hope. Julia was at the reception desk all day, only stepping away to get lunch during the explosion, but maybe she got a license plate from that blue truck. Or saw some suspicious behavior. Could she even have made out a face? Or talked to the person directly? Could this really be our big break?
"We found her body out front," Andrea gave me the opposite of the kind of news I was expecting.
It felt like every organ in my body fell to the my feet and my blood went cold. I was sure that I heard her wrong, so I cocked my head to the side in confusion and stuttered out a nervous, "What?"
Andrea looked solemn and uncomfortable as she continued to explain, "It seems that the suspect was waiting in the reception area for the bomb to go off and wasn't expecting Julia to return to work for another twenty minutes. But Manny called her to come back to help with the jammed door. She was found with a bullet wound-"
Andrea continued talking, but after I heard 'bullet wound' my brain refused to process anymore words. Even after I emptied my stomach into the small trash can beside my hospital bed, I could barely process what was happening.
I'd spent the last day or so trying to cope with almost dying myself, and I was feeling relieved that I got out of there alive. I suddenly felt so guilty for feeling so happy that entire time, when there actually was a casualty in the whole mess.
I didn't know that much about Julia, but she'd worked for Manny the entire time I'd worked with him. She would smile at me when I came in, start up conversations with me while I waited in the lobby. She had beautiful brown hair that she wore in a bun every day, along with the same shade of purple eye shadow. I didn't know how old she was, maybe in her thirties or forties.
"Does she have any family?" I finally mumbled as Andrea handed me a water to cope with the acidic burn in my throat.
"We've notified her parents and sister," she said.
I was dizzy and finding it hard to focus, but Andrea waited patiently for me to process the information. "Was there any warning of this in the letters?" I finally asked. I had dropped off a new letter from my mailbox to Andrea's desk just last week.
There was a long pause of silence before she answered while she watched me cautiously, as if she knew that I wouldn't like her answer. "We haven't gotten through everything yet."
"Well, how much have you gone through?" I continued to prod. There wasn't a ton of letters and packages, enough for just a couple of people to read through them as they came in. So I was confused as to why they weren't doing just that, but by the look of apprehension on her face, I could tell that was definitely not the case at all.
"Not very many," she finally admitted. "But I have officers on it now, we're going through everything."
"Why haven't you been going through it before now?" I wondered hysterically, sitting up further in my hospital bed. "Did somebody really have to die before you could take this seriously?"
"Maren, we-"
Again, she continued to talk about how understaffed the police station was, but I was beyond myself with grief for a woman I'd never known that well, and guilt. Because if it weren't for me going into the office yesterday, Julia would still be alive. And if she hadn't died, this proves that somebody would have had to in order for them to take this investigation seriously.
Andrea alternated between soothing my constant panic attack and asking me questions about what I saw the day before. But I didn't see anything, and I'd learned in recent months to always keep my eye open. So if there was a blue truck, or anything out of the ordinary, I would have seen it. Or at least, I thought I would have.
Before leaving, she informed me that I'd have a police detail for a couple of days in order to make sure that I was safe. I wondered what good a couple of days would do, as I had very little hope that they'd be able to figure out who this person was in that amount of time. But at least it would give me some sort of sense of security.
I sat in almost a catatonic state for a couple of hours after Andrea left, remembering every single detail of Julia that I could. And remembering the day she handed me flowers from Mrs. Lamb himself. I played every other scenario in my head over and over that could have saved her life. If Manny didn't call her back to the office, or if I was more careful with where I went and who I was putting in danger.
"Maren, thank god," Sev broke me out of my train of thought as he rushed into the room. So much for that police detail, huh? "Are you okay? What happened?"
"How did you find me?" I asked him slowly as he approached my bed. I did text him that I was in the hospital, but I didn't tell him where I was. And the hospital was big, so I never thought he'd actually try to track me down.
"You can't just tell me that you're at the hospital and expect me not to show up," he informed me, looking over the small bandage taped to the side of my head. I only needed a couple of stitches and was unconscious when they cleaned up the blood, so the cut hadn't really bothered me that much. However, he was clearly freaked out at the sight of a head injury.
"Somebody's dead, Sev," I muttered out to him, and those words tasted like vile to me. I thought I might throw up again just saying them out loud. "You can't be around me. I'm fine, this is just a bump. But I don't want anybody else to get hurt."
"Whoa. Shit," he took a seat in the cheap chair beside the bed as he took in that news. "The guy that's been doing all of this, he...?"
"Yes," I confirmed. "Locked me in a room and set it on fire, then he shot her so he wouldn't get caught. He fucking shot her in the head."
"Because we...?" Again, he trailed off without finishing his sentence, but I knew what he meant. But I didn't know the answer. Was Julia dead because I couldn't keep my hands, or lips, to myself? The overload of guilt that racked through my body was unbearable.
"I don't know," I rasped out, hiding my face in my hands. "The police haven't been doing a goddamn thing so I don't know if he planned this, if he gave a warning, I don't know. But I'm not going to just sit aside and let them ignore me anymore. I'm just going to go home, and I'll figure it out myself."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know," I admitted to him. "But I'm tired of feeling so powerless. I'm tired of everything happening to me. I need to happen to them."
"Okay. I'll help you," he decided.
"No, I can't let anybody else get hurt because of me," I mumbled in response to him. "You never should have gotten involved in the first place, I never should have gotten you mixed up in it."
"Well, Maren, if he knows about what we did, then I'm already in danger, right?" he reminded me, using one of his hands to cover mine in a way that soothed my nerves more than I thought possible. "So it makes sense that we stay together and try our best to keep each other safe."
Thinking about it, that did make more sense. If he stayed with me, he would at least have the protection of the police detail that Detective Andrea told me about.
"I should have never gotten you into this," I said again, more to myself than to him. I never should have gone to his Thanksgiving, or started texting him. Definitely shouldn't have kissed him in that closet. Going back further than that, maybe my first mistake was asking for his help at the Halloween bash. He made me so weak, made me act against my better judgment because those dark eyes made me melt. But at what cost?
"I got myself into this just as much," he responded, not really seeming all that bothered about the situation. I was sure he had to be a little bit scared though and was trying to keep it together for my benefit, as I was clearly not in a good mental state.
"I thought I was going to die in that building," I admitted to him, my throat closing up again as I held back from crying again. "That's what he wanted. If I don't get home now and figure out who's been doing all of this, I doubt I'll get so lucky next time."
"I think you should focus on healing right now," Sev suggested in a gentle voice.
"I can't heal if I'm dead," I snapped at him rather harshly, and immediately felt bad for it. I was frustrated that I was stuck in this hospital bed when Mrs. Lamb was clearly becoming more and more unhinged. I was terrified for my life and for the life of everybody around me. But I shouldn't be taking that out on Sev, who was really the only person I had in my corner right now. "Sorry. I'm really fine, just a small cut on my head."
"It's okay," he assured me, seemingly unfazed by abrupt outburst. "When are they letting you leave the hospital?"
"In about an hour, I think," I answered him in a calmer voice this time.
Sev nodded his head and thought for a moment before saying, "Okay. I'm going to go grab some stuff, but I'll meet you back here and I'll drive you home."
"Where are you going?" I asked him, both concerned for his safety but also not wanting to be alone again. Sev was right when he said that if Mrs. Lamb knew that we kissed, he wasn't safe either. I knew this whole time that he'd be capable of murder, but now that it actually happened to somebody, I dreaded letting Sev out of my sight.
"I'll be back soon," he promised me without giving me a real answer and then raised my hand to his lips, leaving behind a delicate kiss. "Just need to grab some things from my brother's house."
"Be careful," I warned him, as if he didn't already know to be careful without my caution.
Before he left, we shared our locations with each other on our phones and then he headed out of the room. Not long after that, a police officer came in and introduced himself as Officer Reynolds, who would be my police babysitter for the next eight hours to make sure I was alive. It did make me feel safer having the officer there, but there was a deep sadness too, knowing that somebody had to die in order to make it happen.