Page 50 of The Wedding Party

“I’ll be in touch,” I say, standing up and walking around the coffee table, only to turn back to face him. “I might never have known about Carrie. Why’d you tell me?”

I expect him to say he was beating Carrie to the punch, but instead, he says, “Because I didn’t tell him.”

Chapter Forty-One

CARRIE

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

I count to try to calm my mind. It’s something my counselor, Mr. Jordan, taught me right after my brother died. While I’m counting, the things that scare me can’t find their way into my head. I control them. They don’t control me. Once I have control, I can decide how and when I allow myself to see beyond the numbers.

But it’s not working.

I sit up, eyeing the TV playing a remodeling show about a forever home, the happy premise of family and home almost too much to endure. I will never have the perfect life I once dreamed of—no, I was living the perfect life. It’s been stripped away from me. Oliver is dead. I reach for the remote and cry out with the pain in my stomach. It rips through me, and with it, any control I’m harnessing fades. I’m back in the attic, covered in blood with Andi leaning over me. No, Agent Castle. She’s not my friend.

“How did you end up naked and in the attic, Carrie?” she demanded.

Why was I in that attic? And naked?! I wouldn’t ever, and I mean ever, walk around naked. I was scared. I remember being scared. I repeat those words over and over in my head, and they are meaningful, even if I can’t understand the root of their creation. I was scared. So very scared.

My mind flashes with images of me and Oliver in the hotel room. I was still in my party dress—a red, sparkly dress he’d loved—and he’d removed his suit jacket and tie. We were fighting, screaming at each other. The room starts to spin and spin. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing away the idea of that fight, and yet, I can see myself shove his unmoving chest. I can see him grab my wrists and pull me to him as he says, “Calm down, Carrie. You know I love you.”

And then I’m just blank. I don’t know what happened after that.

I had on my clothes. He had on his clothes.

Make-up sex, I think. We always had make-up sex.

But that would mean I was with him when he died. That would mean I killed him, and I didn’t kill Oliver. God no. I love him. I want him back.

Dampness clings to my cheeks, tears pouring in sheets now. I didn’t kill him. No. No. No. I know I didn’t kill him. That is not who I am. But I can’t tell Agent Castle we had a fight. I can’t tell anyone. I’m alone. I’m so damn alone. My body quakes with tears bursting from my eyes. The room goes dark, and then I’m transported back to the moment I ran into the hotel room and found Oliver dead and covered in blood. Monitors start going off and suddenly a nurse is beside me.

She sputters out, “Oh . . . God,” and then calls out, “Help,” and then louder, “I need help!”

It’s then that I realize I’m on the floor and don’t know how I got there. There is a sharp pinch in my arm, and I look down to find my IV has ripped from the vein, blood spurting everywhere. I try to grab it and stop the bleeding, but my hand catches. My gaze jerks with my arm, and I find the silver cuff. Oh God, I’m cuffed, a prisoner in my own hospital bed. They think I killed Oliver. I look down again to find blood seeping through my gown over my belly. There is just so much blood. I’m drowning in blood, mine and Oliver’s.

Chapter Forty-Two

I’m sitting at our kitchen island staring at a box with a red ribbon. I don’t know who the box is from. I don’t know why I am just staring at it and not opening it. Surely it’s from Oliver. He’s always surprising me with little gifts.

“How’s the soup?”

I jolt from the haze of a memory. Or—no. That wasn’t a memory. A dream? I don’t know. The drugs are working a number on me. No more drugs. I’m going to tell the doctor no more drugs. I can’t even figure out what is real and what is not right now. For a moment, I almost ask if Oliver is really dead. Some part of me hopes I’m just so drugged I’m having nightmares. But then the ache in my belly, the very real ache, assures me that no, this is not a nightmare. Someone stabbed my fiancé to death, and apparently they came at me as well.

“Do you want me to get you something else?” the nurse asks, snapping me out of my reverie and back to her. “We have a few choices,” she adds. “I can show you the menu.”

The last hour comes back to me. The doctor came to see me, standing at the railing of my bed. “Tell me what drugs you take.”

I’m still far from clearheaded, but I am also a nurse. I understand that he needs to know my medications. “I treat migraines and a bad back with beta-blockers, a muscle relaxer, and a cocktail of supplements for inflammation and general wellness. As an ER nurse, I’m exposed to quite the bucket of germs.”

“How often do you get migraines?”

“Since I started on the beta-blockers last year, about once a month. Prior to that, they were once a week. Stress brings on the migraines and, again, the ER. It gets to me at times. I assume I’m presently too medicated to deal with that problem.” What I don’t tell him is that I often use beta-blockers for panic attacks. That’s not his business or anyone else’s. No one knows. No one will ever know.

I’m hazy on the rest of our conversation, but I do remember him arguing with the police officer outside my door about my cuffed arm. Now I have some long plastic thing around my wrist that connects to my IV stand. It’s more comfortable and probably not very secure, but it’s not like I plan to run. Plus, it seems I have a full-time nurse guarding me, at least at the moment, which can’t be a good use of resources.

“The grilled chicken is quite tasty,” the nurse adds. Katy, I believe she told me to call her.

“No,” I say, feeling as if I was more clear minded with the doctor than I am now. They must have drugged me again. “No, thanks,” I add again, my voice a bit stronger. “The soup is fine.” I reach for the bread on the plate, hoping it might soak up some of the drugs in my system, too drugged to know if that is really a thing. I’m a nurse, yes, but I’m a loopy nurse.