Halfway Gone

The next day came quite quickly for Kim, but it was only because she’d been forced to rest by the nurses when they caught her up four o’clock in the morning, pacing back and forth across her room. Kim didn’t blame the nurses for being angry at her though. All she could ever think about was the note Nick had shown her that kept her up all night.

It sent chills down her spine every time she thought about it. How could someone send something that horrible to someone like that, repeatedly?

It was early in the morning when Nick walked into Kim’s room with a small grin on his face. It was the first time he smiled since Rosie passed away. Kim didn’t notice it though, as she was tired. Her whites of her eyes were red, and she was sporting bags under her eyes dark brown eyes from the lack of sleep.

“How much longer do I have to be here?” Kim asked, as soon as she saw Nick.

The brown, curly haired man walked to the end of the bed and pulled the clipboard off the board. “They want to keep you here for a while under observation,” he responded as he turned to the next page.

For a moment, Kim found it strange the doctors wanted to keep her here. After all, she’d been responding well to the medication and she was healing quickly. “What for?” Kim questioned.

“Uh…” Nick turned to another page. “Sleep patterns. You haven’t been sleeping?”

Kim frowned. She was surprised the nurses recorded her sleeping patterns. “The note you showed me yesterday kept me up,” she grumbled, stifling a yawn.

Nick sat down on the chair next to the bed and let out a small sigh. “Kim, you didn’t deserve it,” he declared. “You didn’t deserve any of this happening to you – just like how Rosie didn’t deserve what she got.”

“I just feel like I could be doing a lot more than just sitting on a stupid bed all day and night,” the blonde complained. The death she was trying to solve needed her. She hated being stuck in a bed all day and night, doing nothing about the case. It made her feel hopeless.

“I know where she is,’ he stated. The small grin on his face he was wearing before was now gone. He was serious.

“What do you mean, Nick?” Kim asked, confused. “Who is ‘she’?”

“Rosie,” he said softly. “Her body – it’s here.”

“Nick, how do you know this?” Kim said, running a hand through her soft blonde hair.

“I read it on one of the nurse’s clipboard when she wasn’t looking,” he explained. “Her body is in the morgue below us, but I don’t know when the hopsital plan to release the body back to Mr and Mrs Fowler.”

Kim blinked, wondering how she was supposed to feel about what she’d just heard. For some reason, she didn’t believe what she’d heard from Nick, yet there was something inside her telling her to believe him. “Are you sure it was Rosie’s name?” she asked. “Not anyone else’s name?”

“Yes,” he assured. “Even her details were written down on there.”

An idea slowly began forming in her mind. She smiled to herself as a spark of excitement slowly grew in her body. “How sure are you about this?” Kim asked as stared down at her lap. She needed to be sure. She needed him to be sure.

“Very,” Nick clarified.

Kim nodded once, re-thinking the thoughts that came to her mind. She looked up at the young man before her, staring. “Nick, you remember the day I went to the morgue to confirm Rosie’s body, then afterwards, I called you straight after?” Kim reminisced.

“Yeah,” he answered. “That was the first time you told me your theory.”

“I remember I only spotted those bruises on her neck, but nothing else since the rest of her body was covered,” the blonde explained. “And if I get to examine Rosie’s body properly, I’ll have an idea how she was… well you know, killed.” Kim flinched at the last word. “It’ll help, and I can’t just stay here knowingly Rosie’s body is a couple of floors below me. I may even figure out what the weapon was.”

“What do you mean?” this time, it was Nick who was confused. “You think there’s a murder weapon? What about the drugs the coroner found in her body?”

“That’s what the corrupted police said. They ruled Rosie’s death as a suicide,” Kim remembered. She ran her hands through her long hair, agitatedly. “Nick, I don’t know what to think. But I have this hunch telling me to run down to the morgue and find out how she actually died.”

“I know,” he sighed yieldingly. “Me too.”

“Nick, I have an idea,” Kim said softly, as she looked into his eyes. “What if we snuck down to the morgue and got to examine Rosie’s body again? What do you think of that, Nick?”