Conspicuous Secrets

Chapter Fifty-Three

I was led into a back room where there were three chairs at a metal table, one on one side and two on the other. On the edge of the table, where there was one seat, there was a metal loop built into it. I was directed to that end of the table. The woman uncuffed my hands from behind my back and then cuffed them in front of me. Then, she opened the loop on the table and secured the chain between the cuffs in it before securing it shut. Ah, so that's what that was for—keeping suspects from getting away. After, I was trapped at the table, the woman walked out and left me by myself.

I stared at the blood on my hands and watched it go in and out of focus. I kept myself blinking, trying to keep myself aware of everything going on. Sharp stabs were making their way through my skull by the second. I just wanted to lay down.

I don't know how long I had to sit there in isolation, but I was only feeling worse by the minutes. After a long while, a familiar face came running into the room. Kason. His eyes were red and his face was full of worry. The brown strands of hair on his head were pointing in messily pointing in every possible direction as if he had been nervously running his hands through his hair.

As soon as his deep-blue eyes caught sight of me, they widened and his skin paled. "Delilah." He closed the distance between us and dropped to his knees beside of my chair and raised his hands to touch my face, but held back. His fingers lightly gripped my chin and gently tilted my head to the side so he could see my wound. "Why haven't they checked this out yet?" he asked me, his voice dripping in worry.

"I don't know," I whispered in return. My eyes were filled with tears, from both pain and panic.

"There's so much blood," he spoke, his gaze not leaving the blood on my face.

"Kason."

He looked me in the eyes just as a tear slipped down my bloody cheek. I watched his eyes turn glassy. "Are you okay?" he asked me softly.

I shook my head. "No, Kason. I'm being framed for murder."

Before he could respond, Daniel, his partner, and a medic walked into the room. Kason immediately backed out of the way so the medic could take a look at my head. As the nurse started cleaning up the wound on my head, Daniel's partner took swab samples of the blood on my hands and then swabbed the little part of my hand that wasn't concealed in red. "What's that for?" I asked him as he put the samples in a plastic bag.

"DNA and gun residue," he answered. "We need to see whose blood this is and we need to check for gun residue. If you are the one who pulled the trigger, then there will be gun residue left on your hand." With his bag of samples, he stood up and left the room as the nurse continued to clean the blood off my face and neck.

"Aria and Marla are on their way with some clean clothes," Daniel told me.

I nodded as the man dabbed at my wound with a cloth. "Is my brother coming?"

"He's already here," Daniel said. "He's with a few investigators trying to figure this whole thing out."

I nodded as the nurse leaned away from me and got a wider view of my head. "I'd like to get an MRI done," he told me. "You've definitely cracked your skull."

"Yeah, I've pretty much guessed that by now," I said honestly. "Can I please get some pain killers or something?"

He nodded and finished cleaning the wound. "Of course." After patching it up with a bandage, he climbed to his feet. "That's the best I can do until we can get you to the hospital. There, we will get you in for an MRI then we can stitch it up."

"Thank you."

He smiled kindly. "I'll go get you something for that pain."

I nodded as he left, trying my best to ignore the searing pain in my skull. For the next couple of minutes, I sat in silence. Kason knelt down beside me and placed a comforting hand on my thigh, but after a short while, the nurse returned with a pain killer for me, and Daniel's partner. After taking the medicine given to me, the medic left the room.