Page 17 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“He’ll probably be okay,” Arlo said, and I couldn’t tell if he was happy about that. “He’s a little groggy, but once the EMTs get here, they’ll be able to treat him better than I can.”
Peering around him, I could see the overindulgent idiot lying on his side, held in place by Arlo’s gentle hand on his shoulder while he knelt before him. He looked dazed, his eyes slowly sweeping around as if trying to figure out where he was and what was happening. His chest rose and fell more than it should, but no shuddering or heaving gasps. I’d seen enough overdoses to see that this one was probably going to make it. That still didn’t answer my question of how to handle the mess that was going to come from this, but that would have to wait.
“Seems he’ll live,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I assume you called 911?”
“Someone did.”
“Ah,” I said as I texted David at the front desk to alert him that uniformed men were about to make an appearance. He would know to send them up without hassle, and while he would probably ask a few questions, I was still relatively sure he wouldn’t run off and tell my mother. At least, I hoped that’s what was going to happen. God, I would hate to be disappointed in him. I rather liked him. “Alright, everyone, leave the room andstay out of the way of the nice men who are going to come and take care of our overly indulgent friend here. After that, you’ll need to leave. The party is over the minute someone almost dies.”
Arlo watched as the people began filing out of the room with a few nervous glances toward Arlo and the man lying on the floor. I ensured everyone left, praying they had the sense to stay out of the way of the emergency workers when they showed up; otherwise, I would have to start corralling people again.
“Interesting,” he said, leaning over the man and checking him again.
“Do you find the near-death experiences of others interesting?” I asked, suddenly wondering if it would bother me if he answered yes. “Are you waiting until he’s more cognizant to see whether he saw a light at the end of the tunnel? To see if his grandmother decided to visit him and scold him for consuming all those drugs?”
“I can’t figure out if you’re being flippant about death or the afterlife.”
“Both? Neither? Either?”
He shook his head. “You remind me of my oldest brother, who doesn’t like answering questions. And no, I’m not waiting to see if he saw some glimpse of the afterlife. I was referring to the way you cleared the room with barely any effort.”
Confused, I glanced back at the doorway, finding the hallway still clear of people trying to gawk. “Were they supposed to ignore me?”
“It took me several attempts to get someone to listen to me,” Arlo explained. “That was until the woman you called Lydia showed up and took control.”
“See? It’s not just me then.”
“She did it through aggression and overwhelming force of personality. You managed it without raising your voice.”
I couldn’t explain why, but I felt my stomach shift uncomfortably at his words, though that definitely wasn’t helped by the intensity of his stare. Suddenly, the gaze that had seemed interesting and insightful now felt piercing. I wasn’t so vain and arrogant as to believe I was immune to being perceived by another person; I wasn’tthatgood at hiding my true self, or as cold as my mother. That didn’t mean I liked the idea that someone could see something about me I had never seen before, especially when it was just the feeling but no answer as to what he was seeing.
Then again, maybe that was a good thing. It wasn’t often that someone interested me and put me off balance by doing next to nothing. How long had it been since someone had made me feel uncomfortable?
Before he could say anything else, a shriek came from somewhere in the penthouse, and I felt my face go cold. I turned to see someone in the hallway; hand pressed to her mouth as she stared into the bathroom. Frowning, I got up as other people took up the cry, some stumbling away, and others staring into the bathroom. I didn’t need to see what was happening when I could make a damned good guess.
“I thought...I thought someone was just taking too long,” the girl whispered, turning her face away as I stopped at the door and sighed.
“Another one?” Arlo called from the bedroom, peering over the bed.
“Not quite,” I said with a wince. I had thought myself a delightful brat for picking the black tiling for the bathroom, a decorative choice that had already been done to death, and its status as a cliché had been about as tempting as my hedonistic lifestyle. I hadn’t considered what it would look like with someone’s blood pooling on it, and I decided I wasn’t a fan of the combination.
The woman was slumped against the wall of the shower stall, her head down, concealing her face beneath a curtain of thick hair. Her arms were in her lap; her forearms were a horror of raw meat and gristle where she had sliced them open from the crook of her elbow to her wrists. A pained sigh escaped me when I saw the instrument she’d used, one of the two straight razors from a particularly fantastic rendition of Sweeney Todd I’d seen a couple of years ago at a theater. They had used actual straight razors in their show because they couldn’t afford props that didn’t look like cheap plastic, even from the audience, and now I regretted getting them sharpened before putting them on display in my sitting room.
“Ward?” Arlo called softly, and I shot him a grimace before shooing people away as I heard the front door open and a call from what I had to guess was the EMTs.
Sighing, I grabbed the door and closed it, leaving only a crack. Enough to block the sight but allowing access to get to the body. There was no point trying to see if the woman had survived the obvious suicide attempt. I didn’t need to be a medical expert to know the chances of surviving that much blood loss were zero.
Arlo looked at me curiously as the EMTs came thundering down the hallway, apparently shown the way by my guests. We both moved out of their way, Arlo taking the time to tell them what had happened and what he’d done, enough to let them do their job.
“There’s another woman in the bathroom down the hall,” I told them with a sigh. “But uh...there’s no need to rush to her.”
“Why’s that?” one of the two EMTs asked as they began working on the man, who was beginning to mutter as he was moved.
“Unless you can make someone less dead,” I said with a shrug.
“Go,” his partner told him with a nod. “I’ll shout if he starts to crash.”
The first EMT got up and followed me down the hallway, Arlo drifting casually behind us. His lips pursed as he stepped into the bathroom and bent to examine the girl, keeping out of the blood that had pooled in my shower stall. He pressed fingers against her throat and tilted her head back, but I wasn’t surprised when he shook his head and stood up to give me a pointed look before moving back to the guest bedroom.
