Auf'd (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book Two)

Chapter 4

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Once Kori left and Belinda helped Victoria clean up, she decided to go check on Caleb at the hospital. She'd gotten word he was admitted due to shock, and because he seemed to be alone now that April had died, she wanted to make sure he was okay. Victoria had students to attend to at the music school with the spring recital coming up, and then they had plans to go for a walk. So Belinda psyched herself up for a hospital visit, and found her way through the maze to Caleb's room.

The balloon she'd picked up at the gift shop snagged on the door handle. Maybe not the best gift to bring a man, but Belinda felt funny going empty-handed and flowers were most certainly out of the question. She got the ribbon untangled and gave Caleb a small wave. Once she was in the room, visiting him alone no longer seemed like such a brilliant idea. What was she supposed to say? She barely knew him.

"You look more lucid today," was her profound opening line while she struggled to knot the balloon around his bed frame as it flapped in her face. The stupid thing had easily knotted itself around the door handle. When she finished, loose hair electrified by the balloon stuck to the sides of her face. 

"I feel more lucid too." Caleb smiled weakly, his brown curls pushed into a faux-hawk on top of his head. "Were you the one with me when...when...?" He gestured to indicate the rest of his thought.

Belinda picked up her end of the story. "You meandered on stage while I was giving my super boring thank-you speech."

Caleb wiggled to sit up straighter, but slid right back down. "Oh...sorry. What I remember is kind of blurry."

"Trust me, it was for the best." At this point, her nervousness during her speech was like a weird dream. She took a seat on the edge of the teal bedside chair. Couldn't hospitals have better color schemes in the rooms? "I'm sorry you had to find April."

Caleb blinked a few times. "I liked her, you know. How often can you say that about a boss?"

"Did you work for her long?"

"Couple a years."

"Were you apprenticing?"

That seemed to catch him off guard, and he raised his eyebrows quizzically.

"I mean, do you plan to go into fashion yourself?" she said.

Caleb kind of laughed. It was the lightest expression she'd seen on his face. "I doubt I'll keep working in fashion now." Maybe this industry was too stressful for him. He didn't seem to handle it well. His face darkened again. "I wonder...I wonder if I could've prevented this."

Belinda patted his wrist as his eyes zoned out. "Don't torture yourself. I know it's normal to think that way, but it only makes you crazy." And Belinda had experienced her share of that since her last year in high school. It wasn't worth it.

"It's just...sometimes you know things and you don't think it matters in the long-term. But...but maybe it does matter." His face tensed and he clenched the bedsheet.

Maybe it was time for a change of subject. "Did you get in touch with your family, or Riley?"

Caleb came to again and he quirked his head. "Who?"

"Riley." Belinda circled her hand in the air. "When we were waiting for the police, you told me you needed to talk to Riley. I thought maybe it was someone else at the show." Though she'd looked through her list of people backstage and didn't find any Riley. He could have been in the audience.

"I did?" Caleb said with a little too much enthusiasm. "Wow. I must've been really out of it. I don't know any Riley." From the clarity in his eyes, Belinda knew he wasn't out of it right that moment, and he was hiding something. There was a Riley in his life somewhere. Why did he lie about it?