“Actually, I will.” He gave commands to save, lock, and shut down.
“You’ve got your own work tomorrow.”
“I’ve rescheduled some things.” He walked her out, secured the doors. “I spoke with Richard and Beth. They’re coming to meet Nixie tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I’d asked for quick but I didn’t expect immediate.”
“Actually, they’ve been talking about taking another child. Have just put in applications. And Richard tells me Beth hoped for a girl this time. They both see this as a kind of sign.”
He laid his hand on the base of her neck as they walked to the bedroom and rubbed what she thought of as his magic fingers on the dulling ache. “Fate’s a fickle and often insensitive bitch, isn’t she?” he commented. “And yet, there are moments you see the work. If their daughter hadn’t been murdered, they would never have looked to take a child into their home. If a friend of mine hadn’t met the same fate, I wouldn’t have met that little boy, or paid mind to him, thought of suggesting they might give him a home.”
“If Grant Swisher hadn’t helped Dian Kirkendall, he and his family would still be alive.”
“Insensitive, yes. Still, now Nixie will have a chance for a life with Richard and Beth. She’ll grow up knowing there are people in the world who try to balance the scales.”
“You don’t say if Sharon DeBlass hadn’t been murdered, you and I wouldn’t have met in the first place.”
“Because we would have. Another time, another place. Every step of my life was bringing me to you.” He turned her, kissed her forehead. “Even the ones on the darkest road.”
“Death brought us here.”
“No. That’s discouragement talking. It’s love that brought us here.” He unhooked her weapon harness himself. “Come now, you’re asleep on your feet. Into bed.”
She stripped, climbed the platform, slid in. And when his arm came around her, she closed her eyes. “I would’ve found you,” she murmured, “even on the darkest road.”
The nightmare crept in, stealthy feet tiptoeing over her mind. She saw herself, the small, bloody child, packed into a blinding white room with other small, bloody children. Fear and despair, pain and weariness were thick in the room, crowding it like yet more small, bloody children.
No one spoke, no one cried. They only stood, bruised shoulder to bruised shoulder. Waiting for their fate.
One by one they were led away by stone-faced adults with dead eyes. Led away without protest, without a whimper, the way sick dogs are led away by those charged with ending their misery.
She saw this, and waited her turn.
But no one came for her. She stood alone in the white room, with the blood that coated her face, her hands, her arms, dripping almost musically onto the floor.
It didn’t surprise her when he walked into the room. He always came, this man she’d killed. The man who’d broken her and ripped her and beaten her down into a quivering animal.
He smiled, and she smelled it on him. The whiskey and candy.
T
hey want the pretty ones, he told her. The good ones, the sweet ones. They leave the ones like you for me. No one will ever want you. Do you wonder where they go when they leave?
She didn’t want to know. Tears slid down, mixed with the blood. But she didn’t make a sound. If she was quiet, very quiet, maybe he would go and someone else would come. Anyone else.
They take them to the pit, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I warn you if you screwed with me, they’d throw you into the pit with the spiders and snakes? They say: Oh, let me help you, little girl. But what they do is eat you alive, bite by chomp by bite. But they don’t want you. You’re too scrawny for them, too bony. Do you think they don’t know what you did?
He came closer, and now she could smell something else. Rot. And her breath began to hitch even as she fought to hold it in.
Killer. Murderer. And they leave you to me.
When he fell on her, she screamed.
“No. Eve, no. Shhh.”
Fighting for breath, she locked her arms around him. “Hold on. Just hold on to me. I’ve got you.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “Easy now. I won’t let go.”
“They left me alone, and he came for me.”