Green Desert - Chapter 1.5.3 - Pí‘oro

I set the remaining rags on the table and nearly tripped over the phone cord. I bent over, my back complaining, and picked up the receiver. It incessantly buzzed, letting me know it was off the hook.

“Pí‘oro, could you dampen a couple of these?”

The sheriff’s office had hung up. Did they think I was a crank call? I put the receiver back on its hook on the wall and turned back to the table. The blonde girl’s face was covered in blood, Vata wiping it with a rag. The girl was still topless, but she covered her chest with her sweatshirt. Her elbows were all bloody, too.

“Pí‘oro dearest?” Vata snapped. “Could you dampen a couple rags for me?”

“Yes, dear.” Vata could be a bit snippy at times.

I took the top two rags––old hand towels, a wedding present, I thought––and carried them to the sink.

What was Vata planning to do with this girl after we healed her? And what about the crazy foreign kid in our driveway? Would the police take him away?

I turned on the cold tap, let the water soak into each towel in turn. Not sopping wet. Just damp.

If the blonde was mixed up in it, as she seemed to be, and not an innocent bystander, would the cops want her, too? Would they want to search our house looking for her?

I lay the wet towels beside the dry ones on the table. Vata picked one up and began cleaning the girl’s forehead wound.

If the cops did come looking, we’d have to lie.