The Deadly Trade by Barbara Kyle

Author:Barbara Kyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Published: 2023-06-22T16:23:15+00:00

20

I dabbed my chin with a wet dishtowel, wiping away the last of the blood.

“No loose teeth?” Trevor asked, clattering with my broom and dustpan.

I shook my head. No.

“Well, that’s something.”

I was sitting at my kitchen table. He was sweeping up glass from the smashed window in the kitchen door. We were waiting for the police to arrive. I’d called Detective Rourke to report the attack.

“Why do they even make doors like this?” Trevor said in disgust as he swept. “Just break the glass, reach inside, and unlock the latch. It’s a fucking invitation to bust in.”

“It’s way old. This was a coach house.” Built in a trusting time when the idea was to enjoy the view outside, not barricade yourself in. I thought it but didn’t say it; it hurt to move my jaw much. My stomach muscles ached too, like after you vomit. I hadn’t thrown up, but the terror of the attack had left me feeling trembly, cold.

Trevor dumped the glass from the dustpan into the garbage. He came and took the towel from me, went to the sink and rinsed it, wrung it out, and brought it back. I waved it away. The bleeding between my teeth had stopped.

He shook his head sadly. “Jesus, Nat, look at you.”

I looked down. My cotton shirt was splotched with blood that had dribbled from my mouth. One spot, still wet, stuck to the skin of my breastbone.

“You need to get out of that shirt. “

“Nothing to wear.” I pointed up. My bedroom. “They tossed all my clothes and pissed on them.”

“Seriously? Shit.”

“No just piss. I hope.”

We shared a bleak smile.

“How about your landlady over there in the big house? She’d have something.”

“She’s not home.”

“Well, let me go see if there’s something to salvage.” He went upstairs.

I sat still, hating being alone for even a minute. When the two men had left me gasping on the floor of my bedroom, I’d staggered down the stairs and outside and seen their car reversing from Mrs. Carson’s parking area. I saw the license plate. I hurried back inside, every step spiking more pain, and called Trevor. The moment he answered, I told him to get out, told him they were coming for him. “Get out now.” Then I’d hobbled across the flagstone path to Mrs. Carson’s house and knocked on the door. No answer. I remembered that when I’d come home her car was gone.

Trevor came back downstairs with a clean T-shirt. “Found it in the back of a drawer.”

He turned away while I unbuttoned the bloodied shirt and pulled it off. My bra edge was tacky with blood, so I took it off too. I pulled on the big T-shirt, my fingers trembling.

I hadn’t told Trevor what bothered me most in the wreckage upstairs. They’d taken a photo out of its frame on my nightstand, my favorite picture of me and Julia. She was twelve, me ten. Her arm was slung around my shoulders, a sly grin on her face, and I was laughing my head off at something.

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