Tuesday (June 8), I got a message from my brother asking if I could pass by his work. His college had found something.
'I can stop by during my lunch' I messaged him back. I wouldn't wait till after work, I was too curious. I let Laura know where I went and that she could call me if they needed me.
I walked towards the Fire station where Thorn works.
"Hello everyone, is Thorn inside?" I greeted his colleagues that were sitting outside.
"I will go get him." One of the younger guys told me.
"Thank you."
5 minutes later Thorn and a colleague came back outside, and we took a seat while Thorn introduced me to Michael. "Nice to meet you Rose."
"You to Michael. So, what did you found out?" I asked.
"Well, since I'm not a licensed private detective yet, it's harder to get access to camera footage, however via a friend I found someone who works at that restaurant where your friend was that evening. Late last night I received all camera footage from that night."
"Really?" I asked, surprised that it would be so easy.
"Yes, we are lucky that the restaurant has many camera positions. I still need to go through all the footage of that evening, but I think we have already found something interesting." He smiled at me.
"And?" I asked eagerly, because now I was even more curious.
"I'll show you." He opened a video on his tablet and scrolled fast through it till he found the part that he wanted to show us. "They have at the main entrance two camara's. This is from one off them."
He hit play and we watched Lucas's step outside, he really looked sick, he whipped of his forehead and stumbled a bit. Then he started vomiting, he held himself up against the wall. Next a women came out, I assume Hailey. She was on her phone, she watched Lucas but never reacted to him being sick.
'We are meeting the others at the club' we heard her say to him.
He shook his head 'take an uber, I can't drive. And neither can you.'
Hailey started laughing with him and walked towards the car 'I'll bring you home.' We heard her say.
The car was parked outside camera range, Lucas groaned and muttered something and stumbled out of sight. Not even a minute later we heard the car engine roar.
"That's all?" I asked disappointed.
"No, wait a sec. This is from the second camera." Michael said, and he clicked to another video.
We saw the car pass by from another angle. With a clear view on the driver seat...
Thorn and I glanced at each other "so, she was driving." I stated.
"Indeed."
"But we need to know what happened after that." Thorn said.
"I'm on it, Thursday I will have my license, then I can go deeper. I also went through her profile and that of her friends. I found pictures of her friends that night at nightclub Gigged. So, assuming that she was driving towards their or Lucas his house she would take this road." He showed us two maps, one from the restaurant to the club and one from the restaurant to Lucas his apartment.
"The car accident was here." He made a cross on both maps.
"Away from Lucas place." Thorn said.
"Indeed, but neither the quickest route nor the most logical route to 'Gigged'."
"Why would she do that?" Thorn asked.
"Lucas said that she drank a whole bottle of wine at the restaurant, maybe she wanted to take a calmer route." I suggested.
Suddenly the alarm went off, an intervention was needed, my brother jumped up and ran off. "Don't you need to go?" I asked Michael.
"No, not working today. Do you still have time to stay?"
I glanced at my phone "yeah, I can stay for a while. What do you want to do?"
"I want to make a timeline."
I nodded "good idea" I pulled out my notebook.
When we were finished with putting down the information on the timeline, I was startled by the time that had past "I need to go Michael." I ripped the sheet with the timeline out and wrote my phone number on it before I handed it to him. "Call me if you find something else, or if you want help. I'm sorry, I really need to go back to work."
"That's fine. I let you know if I find something else."
"Thank you very much Michael."
After work I finally had the time to go see Lucas. I hadn't heard from him since I left Saturday.
Gail opened the door and let me in "come in Rose, I am glad to see you! He has been in a mood since Saturday."
"Is he in so much pain?" I asked worried, stepping into the hallway.
"Nope, we think it's because you haven't visited since Saturday. Not that he would admit that." She smiled.
"Yeah sorry, I was out yesterday with my sister. It's been pretty busy at work." I told her while she motioned me to follow her to the kitchen.
"Don't Rose, you don't owe him anything. He could have called you if he wanted. What did you do this time with your sister?" she asked with a smile.
"We went to a cooking class."
"Oh nice, what did you make?"
"Donuts and brownies. It was fun." I took a seat.
"You need to teach me someday to make those donuts. Ivy adores donuts."
"I will, maybe she can help us." I proposed.
"She would love that. Coffee?" Gail asked.
"No thank you, a glass of water is fine."
"I heard that your sister is dating Brandon's brother Dean?"
"She is, but it's recent. I do believe he is the one for her."
"You do?" she asked surprised, handing me a glass of water.
I nodded "they look at each other like my parents look at each other."
"That's good for her. Everyone deserves that."
I nodded "I want that to. How is Megan doing? Not too stressed yet?"
"What do you think?"
"Stupid question uh." I chuckled.
"She bought yesterday your dresses."
"Oh, Lucas let her?"
"He did give his instructions with her and so did Dean. They picked out beautiful dresses, I'm sure you and your sister are going to like them."
"I trust her with it. Iris and I will be here that day from 8am."
"I know, she told me. I'm glad that you accepted Rose."
"I'm going to go see Lucas, hopefully I can cheer him up a bit." I stood up and placed my empty glass in the sink.
"Rose?"
"Yeah?" I hummed.
"Thank you."
I gave her a smile and walking out the kitchen towards Lucas his room. I knocked on his door and waited. I heard him yell "go away!" Oh god Lucas I thought, ignoring him I opened his door.
He was sprawled out on his bed, wearing only sports shorts and I couldn't keep my eyes away from his nicely sculpted body. With every movement he made I saw his muscles relax and tighten.
He groaned seeing me, he closed his eyes again and snapped "I don't want to talk."
"Are you back at this behavior?" I asked him. "If I had known that you would be like this I would have gone home." I huffed at him.
I opened my eyes and narrowed them at her. Even though I was thrilled to hear and see her. She was wearing a brown reddish shirt with a pink pleated skirt that went just below her knee. She combined it with a Bordeaux belt and pumps. A bit of jewelry but not too much. My eyes traveled from top till her toes and back up. Her hair was in a high ponytail, and she was wearing a bit of makeup but not much, staying really natural. She was beautiful.
I rolled my eyes "what?" I snapped at her.
"God Lucas, how old are you?" she asked, dropping her purse next to my door and kicking of her pumps. She walked towards my bed and took a seat next to me. I was lying all stretched out, wearing only some shorts that I pulled on after my shower. She looked at me up and down, her eyes lingered over my muscles.
"No tattoos?" she asked after a while.
"Nope. Never thought about it. Why?"
"I have always thought that you would be someone that would have some." She shrugged.
"I never thought that you would have tattoos."
"Yeah." She looked away.
I pushed myself up and sat close to her now, I trailed my finger over the one in her neck "why did you get this one?" I asked her glancing at the goosebumps that I had caused.
"My grandma, I got it after she passed away. It reminds me off her."
"I like it. And this one?" I asked, tapping her side.
She smiled "Iris and I got it together last month."
"I saw it on the beach but couldn't read it. What does it say?"
"Mine says 'you keep me wild' and my sister has 'you keep me safe', Lexie found them for us. Iris does keeps me wild, and I will always keep her safe. They were very fitting."
"I like them both, planning on taking others?"
She shook her head "no, maybe in the further. So, what did you do the past few days? I haven't heard from you since Saturday." She narrowed her eyes at me.
I closed my eyes "sorry Rose."
"What for?" she asked touching my right thigh.
I opened my eyes and glanced towards her, in the beginning when she came in my room I was to wrap up in my own pity and pain but now I was most of the time blown away by her beauty. She didn't even try; she was just natural. I took her hand in mine "for Saturday, how I pushed you away. And for not calling you or texting."
She held her head a bit to the right and smiled softly "I forgive you, but next time I will ... uh... I'll think of something."
"Okay" I smiled at her.
"What are we going to do now?" she asked.
"I need to rest, I overdid it. Alex orders."
"Yes, fine but can we go outside? It's a nice day."
"Fine, we can rest on the sun bed."
She clapped her hands excitedly and jumped of my bed "let's go." She handed me my prosthesis. I put it on and stood slowly up. She came next to me and wrapped her arm around my waist "lean on me Lucas, I've got you."
I leaned a bit on her but left most of it on my left leg, she wouldn't be able to hold my whole weight up. But it was adorable that she thought that she could. We slowly walked out of my room and down the hallway. We passed my mom who just smiled at us while she opened the terrace doors for us. I flopped down on the bed and pulled my prosthesis off.
"Are you good?" Rose asked.
"Yes."
"I'll be right back." She turned away and left.
When she came back, she was wearing shorts and a top. She held a bag in her hand and my mom was with her.
"I brought some refreshments." My mother said putting down a tray with lemonade, water, and sliced fruits.
"Thank you, Gail." Rose said.
"Are you staying for dinner?" Mom asked Rose.
"Oh?" She glanced at me "if I do not disturb, then yes."
"No problem Rose, Megan and Ed will be happy to see you too."
Mom left and Rose took a seat next to me, she sat so close that I could feel the warmth of her body. "Do you read?" She asked.
"Not really, before the accident I was always busy, I never had the time to."
"I can bring over some good books if you want."
"Why not? Maybe I like it." I shrugged.
Her face lit up with excitement and she pulled her bag towards her. "So, I may have brought already some books with me." She beamed at me and started to pull out some of the books and piled them up.
"Rose?"
"Uh?"
"How many books do you have in that bag?" I asked her.
"5, I think." She took one off the pile "since I didn't know what you like to read, I asked my colleagues after their favorite books. Bill likes thrillers, so this one his favorite. Kurt his favorite is this one, I'm not sure if he was honest or it's a joke." She showed me the book.
"What's that?"
"It's an Erotic novel, I think it was a joke, but I brought it with me. Maybe you like it."
"Maybe."
"Heather likes everything, so she gave me two books."
"What is your favorite?" I asked her.
"This one, it's not too predictable, it surprised me, in a good way. It's a bit of fantasy, it's well written and lots of romance and drama."
"I will start with that one."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes Rose, or otherwise I'll start with this one" I took the Erotic novel and flipped it open on a random place and started to read out loud till Rose pushed her hand against my mouth "stop Lucas, you can read whatever you want, in silence."
I chuckled when I saw her pink cheeks. "Don't you like this stuff?" I asked her.
"Sometimes, not now." She flopped down on her back next to me and picked up one off the books and started reading.