Page 46 of A Forgotten Mistake

Someone steps up onto the hallway behind us and freezes when they see the gun.

“Police,” Gabriel says as he turns and flashes the man his badge. “Do you know who lives in apartment twenty-six?”

“No one right now. The tenant moved out last week. Is something going on?”

“Have you seen the woman who lives in apartment twenty-four in the last day? Abby Brown?”

“No, I just got off work. I didn’t see anyone,” he says.

“Please go in your apartment.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice as he unlocks his door and hurries inside while I use my foot to push the other door open a little more. If this apartment is set up like Abby’s, that means the light is right inside. I flip it on and my eyes lock on to a fluttering curtain that hangs over the sliding glass door for the balcony.

“They must have left this way,” Gabriel says, but that’s not right.

“No… Abby did,” I say as I sweep the room. Gabriel has my back as I reach the railing and look over at Abby lying unmoving in the alley below.

“Fuck,” Gabriel yells as he turns and rushes back out the door. I look around the room and question when I got so fucking sloppy. If I hadn’t thought about protecting her, if I’d just called the police as I stood over Mitch’s body…

Carefully, I move farther into the vacant apartment. I push open all the doors until I reach the final one. Then I use my foot to slide open the door to the bedroom and look at the blood smeared across the trim of the closet door.

Slowly, I make my way toward it, but I know Mitch’s killer is long gone. I know that everyone is going to assume Abby killed Mitch before jumping off the balcony in some murder/suicide bullshit. But Abby wouldn’t just kill herself. No. If she were going to, she would have given up a long time ago.

I push the closet door open, but as I had guessed, there’s no one inside.

With that, I turn and rush out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out to the alley where Gabriel is kneeling next to Abby.

“She’s alive but unconscious. EMS should be here quickly,” he says. “Did you find anything upstairs?”

“Just some blood,” I respond as I walk over to him.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I hesitate as I realize that most people probably wouldn’t be okay in these situations when someone they know was nearly killed. Where they could still be moments away from death based on the way her head appears to be bleeding. But I’m not like most people. I haven’t seen her inyears. Yet doesn’tthat make me a monster? Shouldn’t people worry and feel compassion no matter who is lying before them?

Gabriel’s face softens and I don’t know why. Does he mistake my hesitation as a loss for words to express my grief over the situation? Should I fake it? I can make others believe things I want them to, so can I make Gabriel think I’m normal?

“Liam, it’s okay to show care for people in other ways,” he says. “Just because you don’t hurt when others do doesn’t mean you don’t care.”

“I’m going to find who did this.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you didn’t care.”

Why is he so goddamn good?

“Paige, a word.”

I look over at the door of Abby’s apartment where Michaels stands and decide that I would rather not have a word with him. I dutifully go back to examining the crime scene and decide that if he really wants me, he can wrestle me out of this room. There’s no fucking way he’s going to win that fight.

“PAIGE, NOW.”

Everyone else in the room freezes. Strangely, I’m the one he seems pissed at, and I’m the only one still doing my job. It’s like he can’t even see how useful I am!

Gabriel approaches and I know it’s all over as he sets a hand on my back and parades me right out of the room like I’m his little puppy. And here I am, wagging my tail the whole way because his hand is pressed gently on my back.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew her?” Michaels asks.

The woman in question is currently at the hospital where she still hasn’t woken up because of the swelling on her brain from impact.

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