Page 20 of Hey, Daddy

“As long as my lawyer is present,” Shasha interjected.

“Yes, that’s no problem,” I confirmed.

The next few hours went exactly how I expected it to.

Last night, after watching the footage, all of Nastya’s recounting of the night lined up with what we’d seen on the tapes.

About halfway through the interview, we got word that the other camera angles from the other businesses also corroborated her story.

An obnoxious beep had John, the lawyer, and me looking over at the two Semyonov siblings.

Shasha looked at his sister and said, “Check it.”

“No phones.” John shook his head. “Once we’re done we…”

“She has no choice but to check it. Unless you want to be blocking her medical emergency from being taken care of,” Shasha barked.

John blinked. “What?”

“It’s fine,” Nastya lied.

That’s when I noticed the fine sheen of sweat on her face.

Was she nervous?

What was…

“It’s not fine. Fucking check it,” he barked.

Nastya sighed and reached for her purse.

“What…” John started to stand up but it was Shasha who said, “She’s diabetic. Terrible at managing it, diabetic. If she doesn’t check it, she could go into shock. Fuckin’ don’t say a word until she’s finished.”

All the while Nastya grumbled under her breath.

“What type?” I asked.

“One,” Nastya grumbled as she pulled out insulin, a syringe, and her phone. She immediately tucked the insulin and syringe back into the little pouch she’d pulled it out of after checking her phone.

She sighed, long and loud. “I don’t have any stupid food.”

“What do you need?” I asked, already standing up.

“Fast carbs. Juice first. Whatever you have after that is fine.” Shasha looked at his sister in concern. “Thought you had alerts set up so that you would know if you needed to deal with it before it got this low.”

“I might’ve turned them off.” She shrugged. “They’re loud and obnoxious.”

Shasha shook his head, murder in his eyes.

I headed out of the room to the vending machine and got an apple juice out of it before taking it back.

When I twisted the top off and handed it to her, she grimaced. “Hate apple juice.”

“Only juice in the vending machine,” I apologized before heading back out for the candy bar.

There was this vicious thing inside of my chest that was telling me that I needed to fix her, and fast. I didn’t like the idea of her sick in any way, and I was too up in my own feelings to diagnose why I felt that way.

After inserting five bucks, I got her a Snickers and a package of Muddie Buddies and came back to her.

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