She stared. “You hit me.”
“Oh. God.” He staggered back, wanting to get away. Hit the wall by the fireplace, and felt his legs going weak. Let himself slide down it. The drywall cool through his shirt. He had that same disconnected feeling he’d had in the alley, that sense of standing outside of himself and outside of time.
The way he had raised the gun. Stared down the barrel at the man on the ground. Realized, a half second before he did it, that he was going to pull the trigger.
Half a second before he had swung at her, he had known that he would. Known it that same way. The same way…
The same way he had killed someone.
Push it down.
Jenn said again, “You hit me.”
Push it
He saw the look in the man’s eyes, the way he, too, had known what was coming. The moment fear had hit, as all that he was and all that he had was taken away.
Push
The kick of the gun in his hand. The same right hand that stung from hitting the woman he loved.
What had he become?
A dangerous man. A killer.
A monster.
Jenn said, “Get out,” but Mitch could barely hear her. His mind was filled with a static roar and a video of what had happened after he pulled the trigger. The way the man’s body had jumped as the bullet slammed into his chest. The spreading circle of red, moving slower than he would have guessed. The faint and final exhale, barely audible over the ringing in his ears.
He had killed someone.
Jesus Christ. He had killed someone.
All the waves of emotion he had been walling away crashed with tidal force. Horror and shame and guilt and especially fear. For days he had been telling himself to push it down, to lock it away. Hiding from what he had done. Bargaining with the devil, but never looking him in the eye.
But now it was right in front of him. He wasn’t the strong man he had tried to pretend he was. The cold calculator, the one who had acted like this was a game and he could play a role.
He was just Mitch. That’s all he had ever been. All he ever would be.
He buried his face in his hands and wept.
THE SHOCK HAD COME FIRST. No one had hit her, ever. This didn’t happen to her. Her cheek burned, and her brain felt scrambled. She touched her fingers to her face to check it was all still there.
When she looked at Mitch again, she saw something happening in his eyes. Something terrible. For a moment she was afraid he would hit her again, but then he staggered back as though he was the one who had been struck. Hit the wall and slid down it. His hands were shaking and his face was pale. He looked like he might vomit.
“You hit me,” she said, incredulous. The words making it real. “You hit me.”
He said something, but she didn’t hear it. “Get out.” Anger replacing fear. Ready to scream at him, to kick and slap and claw. To beat him out of her house if she had to. To fight him if he dared.
But instead of moving toward her, he collapsed. His head fell to his palms, and he made a terrible choked sound, and his chest began to heave.
He was crying.
She was surprised to feel her rage ebb. The last days had been a constant swing from one primal emotion to another-exhilaration to terror, lust to loneliness, rage to sympathy. She was wrung out, weak on her feet. Standing over the lover she hadn’t planned on taking, the man who had killed to protect her and then mistrusted and hit her, she didn’t know what to think. Where to stand.
“I didn’t call the police,” she said softly.
He didn’t respond. His tears were slowing, but he looked like a glass vase hurtling toward a marble floor.
“The detective had run the credit cards for that night. That’s why he came here.”
“What did I do?” His voice thin and aimed at his lap.
“I’ll live.”
“Not that. I mean, yes, that too.” He looked up at her. A little boy’s face tracked with tears. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. But I meant-”
“In the alley.”
He nodded.
She sighed. Lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor a few feet away. “I’ve been wondering how you were so calm.”
“I haven’t let myself think about it. Not once. I just decided that I would pretend it was something that had happened to someone else. The old Mitch. And that the new Mitch would break free from that. Rise from the ashes. And not just from that. From everything.” He wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. “I wanted to be, I don’t know… strong. Decisive. Able to take care of you. More like”-he turned away, barely whispered the words-“more like Alex.”
She didn’t respond. Wasn’t sure how much she wanted to comfort him. Or even who he was, exactly. The new Mitch, the old Mitch, the Mitch on her living-room floor. It was too much to deal with.
Finally, he said, “What did you tell the cop?”
“I told him I didn’t know anything about it.”
The words brought his head up, and he looked her in the eye. “You did that for me?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her cheek hurt, and she tasted copper from where her teeth had cut the inside of her mouth. “I was scared, I guess.”
He nodded. “Scared I understand.”
They sat on the floor, not touching, not looking at each other. She could hear the faint sounds of life going on around them, but she felt apart from it. In a bubble.
Then she heard a voice from the door.
IAN HAD BROKEN every traffic law racing from the martini bar to Jenn’s apartment. It was Saturday night, and after eleven, but even so, he made it in fifteen minutes, Davis’s calm voice ringing in his mind as the chemist explained what it was they had stolen.
When he found her front door standing open, he imagined the worst. Forced himself to keep moving anyway. “Hello?”
There was a long silence, and then he heard Jenn’s voice. “Come in, Ian.”
He stepped inside, closed the door behind him. Until last week he’d never seen the inside of her apartment. Now, as he rounded the corner into her living room, he felt almost at home. Until he saw her and Mitch sitting on the floor.
At first he thought maybe they had been attacked. But by the weary way they both looked up at him, he realized it was something more complicated than that. Her cheek was bright red. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” she said, looking not at him but at Mitch. “We have bigger problems.”
“You don’t have any idea how true that is. You know how we assumed this was a drug deal? It wasn’t.” Ian took a deep breath. “It was something much, much worse.”
CHAPTER 31
GOD, he loved predictable people.
Bennett was used to watching, to spending long hours staring at someone’s window. Waiting for the five minutes that justified days or even weeks of patience. It wasn’t his favorite part, but he’d developed a kind of Zen about it.
But watching the chick’s place hadn’t required much patience thus far. Victor’s hunch had been right. She was at the center of everything. Each member of this little drama had stopped by. Even a cop: Around ten, Bennett had gone to piss in the alley, and was just walking back when he saw the sedan pull by. Municipal plates going the wrong way on a one-way street. Police, gotta love them. Enforce the rules for everybody else.
He’d taken a seat on someone’s stoop, dialed Victor on his cell. “There’s a cop going into her apartment.”
“Uniform?”
“Detective. Alone.”
There had been a pause. “OK. There’ve been some developments on this end too. I applied a little more pressure. We may be moving ahead faster than anticipated. Maybe even tonight.”
“Great news. Any specifics I need to know?”
“Not on a cellular line. What’s your read on the detective?”
“Not sure. If he stays more than twenty minutes, or any others show up, I’ll call. Otherwise it’s likely nothing.”