Chapter 25

Amber burst into the private hospital room and was greeted by the sight of her bandaged brother in a green hospital gown sitting at the edge of his bed.

“Anson!”

She immediately ran over and threw her arms around his neck.

“Amber…oof!”

Her brother patted her on the back, “You can let go now. You’re kind of suffocating me…”

Oh…

Quickly she pulled back and wiped a teardrop that had escaped her eye. Anson smiled at her and touched her trembling chin with his good arm. One of his eyes was still swollen purplish blue but at the very least, he could open it now. And the fact that he was sitting up and swinging his legs back and forth meant that he was getting stronger.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, pulling up a chair next to his bed. She looked at him from head to toe, trying to size him up and see if he was in any kind of pain.

“It still hurts here,” he touched his shaved scalp gingerly and pointed to his abdomen, “and here but otherwise I feel good.”

She frowned eyeing the bandages on his arm and legs, “The doctor said you almost died.” The memory of a grieving family in the ER flashed across her mind. It was a selfish thought, but she had been relieved that it wasn’t Anson under the white sheet of that particular hospital bed.

To put his sister’s worry at ease, Anson waved his unhurt hand nonchalantly in the air, “You know how the doctors are, they make a mountain out of a molehill so they can charge us a hand and foot for a simple band aid.”

Then it was his turn to frown, he took a peek at the nurse’s station outside the observatory window. The policeman was standing there with his arms crossed, watching their every move. Nurse Betty was nowhere to be seen.

“That guy said you’re turning in some kind of evidence in a few days’ time. Is that true?”

At his question, Amber inhaled sharply, and her gaze quickly fell on her lap though there was nothing to see there. She just couldn’t meet her brother’s eyes. How could she tell him that there was no evidence? How could she take away the only hope he had left for freedom?

“Amber?”

They had grown up together and knew each other inside out. There was no lie she could tell him without him finding out.

She rubbed her palm against her skinny jeans, feeling the roughness of the denim and her fiery red hair tumbled down past her shoulders, shielding her face, “It was Liam Smith, wasn’t it?” Her voice was barely audible.

Anson sighed, “Yeah.”

“He screwed us over,” Amber hissed, feeling her blood boil.

“I don’t want you to do anything stupid,” her brother leaned forward and parted her hair like a curtain, searching her eyes. Finally, she looked up and met his pair of bright green eyes. It was like staring into a mirror and seeing her own reflection.

“I won’t.” She forced a smile. “I took the photos of the blueprint.” That part was true. She wasn’t lying. But Anson wasn’t buying it.

“Then why haven’t you passed it to him yet?” her brother pressed on.

It was her turn to sigh.

“Fabian’s a good person…” her voice trailed off as she recalled Fabian driving her to the hospital. He had insisted on coming with her, but she had stopped him. She did not want him to know that her brother was a murder suspect. At her insistence, he had driven home with the agreement that she would return to his place after repacking her items from Margaret's place.

“You speak of him as if you’ve fallen for him.”

Her brother was no fool and Amber could only smile awkwardly at him. Seeing her smile like that made his eyes go wide. Even the swollen eyelid opened all the way.

“Oh. My. God…you’re in love!”

His voice boomed across the room and the policeman quickly opened the door to check on the Banks siblings, “Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah…my sister’s in love!” Anson shrieked in a high-pitched voice, trying to hold down his laughter. In all his eighteen years of life, he had never seen her sister crush on anyone, not even when Robert Pattinson from Twilight visited Ma’s Bakery one day out of the blue. She didn’t even realize who the megastar was.

“Am not!” Amber shot back, standing up from her chair with her cheeks puffed out.

The policeman blinked, unsure of what to say, “Um…okay…carry on.” He stepped out and closed the door behind him and continued to stand to watch outside.

“Anson Banks, watch your mouth! Or I’ll have you run over myself…” Amber waved her finger at her brother, but he wasn’t listening to her.

“Oh, my sister’s in love…” He burst out laughing, holding onto his stomach, “Ah shit, it hurts to laugh…”

His laughter was contagious and soon Amber joined with giggles of her own, enjoying the sound. It felt good to laugh again.

“What do you plan to do?” Anson asked after their laughter had died down. This time, the volume of his voice dropped down a notch. There was a policeman standing watch outside after all.

“I’m going to meet up with Liam tomorrow night,” Amber tried to make light of what she was saying. The truth was, she planned on drawing a confession out of Liam Smith and sending a live recording of it to Detective Grant. She was counting on the blonde detective to come to her aid in time if things got ugly. Her success was a long shot, but she had to give it a try.

“What about Fabian?” her brother held her eye.

She could tell that he was worried about her. Amber stretched out her hands and clamped them over his. And as she did, fleeting images of young Anson flashed before her eyes. She saw him as an eleven-year-old, crying his eyes out at their parents’ funeral. Then she saw him eating morsels of stale bread under an abandoned bridge before he fell sick from food poisoning not long after. He had cried for their mother then. The image was soon replaced by a laughing Anson with an offer letter from Stanford. How happy he had been that day.

A smile appeared on her soft cherry lips then, and vigor renewed. She had to be strong for her brother, even when the rest of her world was falling apart.

“He’ll understand.”

I hope he’ll understand.

***

Heavy footsteps climbed up the staircase as V greeted its master in its usual chirpy voice, “Mr. Williams, would you like to turn down your bed?”

“No thank you, I’m heading to the study,” was the reply. Fabian had just returned home and though he was exhausted from the lack of rest, his mind remained alert.

“Extract the relevant files that were downloaded V,” he ordered as he stepped into the study. The lights automatically turned on and the computer came to life.

“Yes sir.”

He pulled out his swivel chair and slumped into it, curling his fingers. There was a sense of foreboding as he accessed the files, but he took the plunge anyway.

Two hours later, Fabian leaned back in his chair. He took a breath and held it. Then he let it go, feeling the strength flowing away with the exhalation.

Fuck.