The city was crumbling, she thought.
She was crumbling.
At the porch, she hesitated. Yellow tape fluttered at the door. The windows were boarded up. Elizabeth touched flaking paint and thought of all the things that had died on the other side of the door. Five days, she told herself. I can handle this. But her hand shook when she reached for the knob.
She stared at it, disbelieving, then snapped her fingers shut. She stood for a long minute, then retreated in disarray for the first time since pinning on a badge. It was just a place, she told herself. Just a house.
Then why can’t I go inside?
Elizabeth got back in the car and drove, houses flicking past, sun dropping behind the tallest trees. It was only as the road bent in a long, slow curve that she realized she wasn’t going home. The houses were wrong, the ridgelines and the views. But, she kept driving. Why? Because she needed something. A touchstone. A reminder of why she’d become a cop in the first place.
When she found Adrian, he was ten miles out of town in a burned-out building that used to be his home. It sat under tall trees at the end of a half-mile drive, a once-fine farmhouse now little more than ash-heap walls and a bone of chimney. She stepped out under a spinning sky, and the wind, on its lips, carried the faintest taste of smoke.
“What are you doing here, Liz?” He stepped from the gloom.
“Hello, Adrian. I’m sorry for just showing up like this.”
“It’s not really my house, is it?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then, what?”
“Prison. Thirteen years.” She ran out of words because Adrian was the one who’d made her what she was. That made him a god of sorts, and gods terrified her. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit.”
“You were just a rookie. We barely knew each other.”
She nodded because words, again, were inadequate. She’d written him three times in the first year of his incarceration, and each one said the same thing. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done more. After that, she’d had nothing else to offer.
“Did you know…?” She turned both palms to finish the sentence. Did you know your house was burned, your wife gone?
“I never heard from Catherine.” His face was a slash of gray in the gloom. “After the trial I never heard from anyone.”
Elizabeth rolled her shoulders against a final rush of guilt. She should have told him years ago that his wife had left, his house had burned. She should have gone to the prison and told him face-to-face. She’d been unable to bear it, though, the thought of him locked up, diminished. “Catherine left three months after your conviction. The house sat empty for a while, then one day it burned. They say it was arson.”
He nodded, but she knew it hurt. “Why are you here, Liz?”
“I just wanted to check on you.” She left the rest unspoken: that she was looking at murder charges of her own, that she was hoping for insight, and that she might have loved him, once.
“Would you like to come inside?”
She thought he was joking, but he picked his way through scrub and rubble until orange light touched his skin. It was the old living room, she saw. The floor was gone, but fire burned in the fireplace and made sounds as it settled. Adrian added wood, and the light spread. Around her, she saw ash, swept back, and a log dragged in as a seat. Adrian’s hands were stained, too; and Gideon’s blood still showed black on his shirt. “Home sweet home.” He said it flatly, but the hurt was there. His great-great-grandfather had built the house. Adrian grew up in it, then deeded it to his wife to cover his legal bills, if necessary. It had survived the Civil War, his bankruptcy, and his trial. Now, it was this shell, tumbled and damp beneath trees that had seen the sweep of its history.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Elizabeth said. “I wish I could tell you where she was.”
“She was pregnant when the trial started.” Adrian sat on the log; stared at the fire. “She lost the baby two days before the verdict. Did you know that?” Elizabeth shook her head, but he wasn’t watching her. “Did you see anyone out there?”
“Out there?” She indicated the fields, the drive.
“There was a car, before.”
He seemed adrift and vague. She squatted beside him. “Why are you here, Adrian?”
Something flickered in his eyes, and it looked dangerous. Anger. Intent. Something sharp and cruel, and then suddenly gone. “Where else would I go?”
He lifted his shoulders, and the vagueness returned. Elizabeth looked deeper, but whatever she’d glimpsed was gone. “A hotel. Some other place.”
“There is no other place.”
“Adrian, listen-”
“Did you see something out there?”
It was the same question in the same voice; but if he was worried about something in the night the worry didn’t show. The fire consumed his attention, even as Elizabeth stood. “Was it horrible?” she asked, and meant prison. He said nothing, but his hands twitched, and scars glinted like ivory in the light. Elizabeth thought of her youth, and of all the times she’d watched him move through the world: the way he stood at his desk and at the range, how he’d worked a witness, a crime scene, the bureaucracy. He’d worn confidence like a smile, and it was strange to see him so still and quiet, his eyes withdrawn beyond the smoke. “Would you like me to stay awhile?”
His eyes drifted shut, and she knew the answer was no. This was a communion, and she, in his mind, was just a kid he’d once known. “It was nice of you to come,” he said, but the words were false.
Go away, he meant.
Leave me to suffer in peace.
7
Ramona lost track of time in the blackness of the silo. Her world was damp earth and heat and concrete walls. The door was a metal square that gave a fraction of an inch before the lock outside clanked.
“Somebody…”
It was a whisper, her voice already broken.
“Help me.”
Something fluttered high in the silo, a bird maybe and trapped, too. Ramona lifted her face, then scratched at the door, her nails torn by rusted screws and cracks in the metal. Another hour passed, or maybe it was a day. She drifted and slept and woke to a spear of yellow light. It flicked the length of her body, and she saw grime on her hands and arms. Hope sparked in her chest, but died when he spoke.
“Time to go, Ramona.”
“Water…”
“Of course, you can have water.”
He pulled her through the door, her feet dragging. It was still night, but barely, the moon a hint of gray as headlights made shadows dance on the silo. She blinked, but his face was a blur.
“Here.” He gave her a bottle, and she drank too much, choking. “Let me help.” He guided the bottle to her lips, tilted it. She wanted to scream or run, but could barely move. He used a damp towel to wipe black soil from her face and arms. She watched in quiet terror as he lifted the hem of her dress and used the same towel to clean her legs, the touch intimate but chaste. “Better?”
“Why…”
“I’m sorry?” He leaned closer, one hand on the soft place behind her knee.
She licked cracked lips. “Why?”
He smoothed hair from her face and stared into her eyes. “Ours is not to wonder why.”
“Please…”
“It’s time to go.”