Alex reaches for the bat and he almost stops her, willing to take this on, wanting to clear their bed--their house, the place he'd made safe for her in a way few places had ever been--of the sudden, shocking violence of a thing neither of them had expected. It takes effort to stay where he is, reminded of his promise only a few minutes earlier. He watches instead, Alex's fingers closing around the neck of the bat, lifting it up and bringing it to rest at her side, the end thunking against the floor.
It's nothing more than that, but then it's something else. After Sandow's call, he'd tried to let the evidence in her Lethe file, that copy of the police report and all the rest, stand on its own--with one exception. There'd been a clip he'd found on YouTube, some pull-at-the-heartstrings local news piece about the girl who died. Helen. Hellie. A troubled life cut short, the usual thing. Darlington hadn't thought much of it at the time, but maybe because they've both said her name, maybe because of the lateness of the hour and the lingering uneasiness hanging over the room, he thinks of it again now.
Of the quick flash of a photo, one of those youth sports league things almost everyone has a copy of, stashed away in some box in the attic. Darlington's is from the soccer league he'd begged to join, him and his teammates at nine years old, all gap-toothed smiles and scrawny limbs. Helen's hadn't been soccer. Baseball. Softball. The difference didn't matter, exactly.
There's a lurch and stutter inside him, quick and sharp. He looks at the easy curl of Alex's fingers--the fingers of her right hand--around the bat, and remembers the wide left-handed arcs of blood in the photos, against the walls and counter and furniture. Everywhere.
Darlington doesn't know what to ask, how to ask it, his eyes still fixed on Alex's right hand. The bat fits so easily within it.
no subject
Alex reaches for the bat and he almost stops her, willing to take this on, wanting to clear their bed--their house, the place he'd made safe for her in a way few places had ever been--of the sudden, shocking violence of a thing neither of them had expected. It takes effort to stay where he is, reminded of his promise only a few minutes earlier. He watches instead, Alex's fingers closing around the neck of the bat, lifting it up and bringing it to rest at her side, the end thunking against the floor.
It's nothing more than that, but then it's something else. After Sandow's call, he'd tried to let the evidence in her Lethe file, that copy of the police report and all the rest, stand on its own--with one exception. There'd been a clip he'd found on YouTube, some pull-at-the-heartstrings local news piece about the girl who died. Helen. Hellie. A troubled life cut short, the usual thing. Darlington hadn't thought much of it at the time, but maybe because they've both said her name, maybe because of the lateness of the hour and the lingering uneasiness hanging over the room, he thinks of it again now.
Of the quick flash of a photo, one of those youth sports league things almost everyone has a copy of, stashed away in some box in the attic. Darlington's is from the soccer league he'd begged to join, him and his teammates at nine years old, all gap-toothed smiles and scrawny limbs. Helen's hadn't been soccer. Baseball. Softball. The difference didn't matter, exactly.
There's a lurch and stutter inside him, quick and sharp. He looks at the easy curl of Alex's fingers--the fingers of her right hand--around the bat, and remembers the wide left-handed arcs of blood in the photos, against the walls and counter and furniture. Everywhere.
Darlington doesn't know what to ask, how to ask it, his eyes still fixed on Alex's right hand. The bat fits so easily within it.