Page 37 of Bidding War

This cannot be happening.

“Well, it is.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

Anderson nods once. “You’re shaking again. Do you need to sit?”

But I’ve lost all my words. Instead, I lean against the wall, and a shaky “How?” rises out of my soul.

He gulps and gestures to the wall behind Neil. There’s a deep dent in the plaster. And a streak of blood down from that spot. I hadn’t noticed it before. Anderson fingers the hole some, then says, “Pretty sure it’s a stud.”

I frown up at him. “That’s the weirdest thing to say about someone who attacked me?—"

“In the wall, June,” he says patiently.

It’s all too strange to think about. “You’re fine, though.”

He frowns at me.

“You’re bruised and battered, but you’re alive. I don’t get how he’s dead, and you’re alive.”

“When I punched him, I think the impact sent him careening back against a stud in the wall. Hit him just right at the base of his skull … that’s why he stopped bleeding. No more heartbeat.” He gives Neil a shove forward, and sure enough, there’s a ton of blood down the back of him.

A wave of nausea strikes, and I have to turn away. I’ve never been squeamish before. Blood has never bothered me. I’ve seen lots of bar fights, and god knows, when I get my period, there’s plenty of blood. But this is different. This is someone I was making out with. Someone I had … well, not feelings for, but someone I liked. At first, anyway. “Oh god.”

Quietly, Anderson says, “We can’t stay here forever, June.”

“I know that!” I hiss at him. I’m not actually mad at him—I’m grateful beyond imagining that he was here. It’s just that it’s impossible for me to cobble my thoughts together right now, and I don’t know what to do.

Okay. Lawyer hat on. First of all, thank god there’s no doorman. He’d see this … no. He wouldn’t have. If I had a doorman, Neil would have waited until we were in my apartment to start his shit. He would have strangled me or found some other way to kill me after he raped me. Or before … he didn’t seem to care what order he did things in—the bastard had his hand on my throat before he ever got anywhere. Maybe he is a necrophiliac.

Was. Maybe he was a necrophiliac.

I shiver thinking about it. Point is, I am so fucking glad I don’t have a doorman, because I’d be dead right now. Whatever Neil wanted from me doesn’t matter. He’s the dead one. Not me. And we have to deal with his body in a safe, legal way.

I take a breath. “We should call the police.”

“No.”

I blink at him for a moment. “No?”

Anderson scrubs his hand through his hair, and I hope he’s not spreading Neil’s DNA. “Think about it, June. What happens if we call the police?”

I frown. The words come out numbly. “They come and ask us what happened. We tell them exactly what happened because neither one of us is in the wrong here. They tell us to get to the hospital to get checked out and probably tell us not to leave the city until their investigation is over, and when they find out we’ve told the truth, everything is fine.”

He gives me the saddest smile. “It is sweet that you think it would go that well.”

I have the strangest feeling he’s being patronizing, but I don’t think he means to be. Right now, I’m dazed, and I know it. Maybe he’s thinking more clearly than I am. I can’t tell. But I want his input on this. “How do you think it would go?”

He sighs, staring at Neil. “The police come and ask us what happened. We tell them because we’re innocent enough, right? But I took karate and Muay Thai as a kid. Great for defense, but not so great when it comes to a dead body because now it looks like I’m a hothead who got out of control?—"

“How would they even know that? You’re being paranoid.”

“I won awards at state,” he says with a shrug. “I stopped doing it before I got to high school, but it’s not that hard to figure out that I’ve had some training. That will be used against me. My dad, for all his important friends, has important enemies, too. Even if the cops didn’t want to come after me, some of Dad’s enemies would just to prove to my father that they could. There are a thousand ways this will go very, very wrong, June.”

I close my eyes. “Why does everything we do have to revolve around your father?”

“Because he?—"

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