Silent Song

by Ren Benton

  If he needed physical proof, she could show him the scars on her forearms and hands, as soon as her hands loosened their white-knuckled grip on one another.

  Raymond glanced at the file. “You struck him with the club a few more times, but not enough to incapacitate him or even knock the knife out of his hand, doing little to no damage with each swing.”

  She’d seen the pictures of Fogle’s body. The brutal damage to his skull. The blood. She didn’t remember him bleeding or weakening or even flinching. He’d seemed unstoppable to her.

  Raymond flipped to another page in the file. “Fogle’s postmortem showed one fractured rib on his left side and multiple bruises to his arms, legs, and torso, but nothing aside from the head injury serious enough to have required medical attention if he’d gotten away.”

  Every single thing he’d done to her required surgical repair.

  “Then he slashed your throat.”

  That she felt. Like being unzipped. She’d known instantly she was broken beyond repair.

  She croaked, “Correct.”

  “By then, your heart was racing with adrenaline. Your blood fountained up to those high old ceilings, what — ten, twelve feet?”

  Lex turned on him. “You seem to have a gruesomely thorough understanding of the details. Is this really necessary?”

  “I’m getting to the part that confuses me.” Raymond raised his hand so his throat was cupped in the bend of his thumb and fingers. “If I compressed your carotid for just three or four seconds, you’d pass out. What I don’t understand is how, after sudden loss of blood flow to your brain, you remained on your feet long enough to cave in the skull of an attacker you couldn’t put a dent in before he cut you open.”

  He forgot to mention that her hands were numb and covered with blood, too.

  She pinched her thumb and forefinger together. It took months of occupational therapy to retrain her to hold a pen.

  Lex had the explanation she lacked. “People can get superhuman strength in desperate times.”

  “Sure,” Raymond agreed. “I once saw a firefighter lift a tree off his partner that had to be moved out of the road later with a crane. The difference is, he didn’t do it while losing four pints of blood.”

  Lex braced his hands against the table and emanated hostility. “What do you want from her?”

  Raymond ignored him this time. “Do you remember anything after Fogle cut your throat, or are you taking the DA’s word for it that you’re his killer?”

  Gin remembered the arc of blood — bright red, fake looking — as she fell. In her memory, she never hit the floor, cutting directly to waking up in intensive care. “No one challenged that story during the trial.”

  “No one had to. Your lawyers knew the jury would see clear self-defense, and the prosecutor had too big a hard-on about being in the news to be bothered with the likelihood there was an actual killer still on the loose.”

  Lex’s hands balled into fists on the table. “You think Houle did it.”

  Gin’s head jerked again.

  “He had the opportunity. He was in the house. And he didn’t have” — Raymond glanced down at the file — “class four hemorrhage with hypovolemic shock.”

  Her breath leaked out. “He called 911.”

  Lex snarled. “After he took pictures of you bleeding on the floor. What a hero.”

  She didn’t examine the compulsion to poke holes in this logic — she followed it blindly, desperately. “He’s not a hero. He’s a scavenger. It’s not his style to charge in to save me from an attacker and risk his own neck, and if he had, he’d have made himself front-page news. How would he even get the drop on a guy in a frenzy swinging a knife?”

  “That would be difficult.” Raymond gave her a flat stare. “Unless Fogle knew him and thought he was safe.”

  No. They were making a lot of leaps. This was all purely conjecture.

  The tears leaked through her denial. “He sacrificed Ryan to a murderer to get the scoop on crime scene pictures?”

  Raymond placed a box of tissues on the table in front of her, as if he thought her hands could unclench to take one. “I doubt he planned to be involved in a murder. Being on the scene when you summoned the police to haul away your stalker would have paid pretty well. He might have underestimated Fogle’s violence. When his photo op became a murder, he killed Fogle because he couldn’t leave him alive to tell the police about their partnership.”

  He should have let her die.

  Why didn’t he just let me die?

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Raymond suggested, “A scrap of guilt?”

  Lex had a more plausible answer. “More likely he calculated the cash value if you were alive to exploit further.” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “It’s galling to be grateful for the bastard’s greed.”

  Swallowing hurt. Breathing hurt. Living hurt. This couldn’t be real. “Is there any chance we’ve all been watching too much Investigation Discovery and are overreacting?”

  “It’s all speculation,” Raymond confirmed. “If there was any hard evidence, I’d be harassing the NOPD to reopen a ten-year-old case they closed to their satisfaction. But overreacting and alive is always better than underreacting and dead, so I advocate erring on the side of paranoia while you’re in my jurisdiction.”

  “You think he’s a killer, but there’s nothing you can do?”

  “Not until he crosses a line into current illegal activity.”

  Lex walked to the window and looked through the blinds. “At least he’s not lurking around the car anymore.”

  Not knowing Houle’s whereabouts was worse. Gin stood, her legs too stiff to wobble. “Ethan’s out there by himself.”

  Raymond tried to be reassuring. “You’re the one he seems fixated on.”

  She wasn’t reassured. “That didn’t protect my brother.”

  Shock had been unkind to Gin, so Lex put her in the passenger seat and took the wheel.

  She leaned against the window, staring blindly at the scenery. “I don’t know what to do.”

  For a planner, decider, and implementer, uncertainty would add another layer of horror to what was already a nightmare. Lex had no meaningful recommendations for action, but he could keep her busy until more knowledgeable reinforcements arrived. “You’re going to eat something and soak in the tub while I call a security company.” Which he’d meant to do yesterday. Melanie’s media circus had displaced it in his priorities. “When they get here, we’ll figure out the next step.”

  “We were snowed in. Just the two of us. No phone. No security system. If he’d wanted to come through the snow...”

  “That didn’t happen,” he reminded her. “We have the alarm now. We have the phones. We have an idea what the threat looks like. We’ll look out for each other, and we’ll have professionals looking as soon as they can get here.”

  She flinched as if struck and fumbled at her pocket for her phone. “Oh god, I forgot he’s been talking to my mother.”

  Lex would wager all ten of his fingers that Simone Greene was on Houle’s mile-long list of contacts as a willing participant. She didn’t have the sense to blacklist a media connection who sold photos of her dead and dying children.

  The phone rang in Gin’s hand. “Hey.” Her expression sharpened at the choppy, rapid-fire words buzzing through the speaker. “Slow down. What... Ethan? Ethan!”

  She stared at the now-silent phone. “The connection dropped. I couldn’t understand him, but he sounded frantic.”

  Lex had already given the engine more gas. “We’re almost there.”

  He had about a half mile to figure out how to help Ethan and keep Gin out of danger at the same time.

  The dips and bumps in the driveway became violent when traveled with urgent speed, but that didn’t stop Gin from unfastening her seatbelt. She flung herself out the door before the SUV came to a complete stop.

  Lex swore, left the keys in the ignition, and raced after her.

/>   Ethan met them halfway down the front steps, face ashen, hair jutting at wild angles.

  Gin pulled him away from the house he’d fled, and Lex herded them both toward the relative safety of the SUV. “What happened?”

  “Chris was in an accident.”

  The explanation invited a thousand more questions, but Gin asked the only one that mattered. “Did you get a flight yet?”

  “If I don’t leave right now, I’ll miss it.”

  Lex opened the back passenger door for him. “Then let’s go.”

  The drive to Denver provided time for answers between updates from Ethan’s dad, who relayed information as Chris’s sister received it from hospital staff. Lex needed most of his attention to find the fastest, safest route through traffic, but he got the gist of what was going on in the back seat.

  The stunt driving camp wasn’t the culprit. Chris got T-boned three blocks from home when another driver ran a red light.

  Ethan swiped at his damp cheeks. “He’d have been safer with other adrenaline-junkies on a closed course.”

  Gin smoothed his hair into a semblance of its usual style while he took another call, this one from Maisie, who promised to be waiting for him when he landed.

  Ethan’s chest hitched with suppressed sobs. “I wanted him not to go, but this isn’t what I had in mind.”

  Invisible bands tightened around Lex’s chest as soon as the peaked roof of the airport appeared in the distance. Gin’s directions through the looping maze of roads successfully guided him to the drop-off zone in front of the terminal. His sympathy was certainly with Ethan, but he had five seconds to get out before Lex shoved him out and sped away from this airborne hell.

  Ethan was out the door in three.

  Gin followed him. “Park. I’ll find you.” She slammed the door and ran after Ethan.

  Lex’s heart galloped wildly in his chest. He could find his way to a parking garage. He was less confident about finding one woman in a building the size of a small city if she had more than a thirty-second head start.

  Any other day, he might have parked and waited, but not an hour or two after being informed a potential murderer had a continued interest in her.

  He abandoned the SUV.

  An attendant blocked his path. “Hey! You can’t leave your car here!”

  “Do you have valet parking?” Anyplace this monstrously huge had to. He opened his empty wallet. Shit, shit, shit, that fucking rental agent had cleaned him out. He poked through all the compartments until he found a tightly folded emergency bill of uncertain denomination and stuffed it in the blustering attendant’s hand along with the keys. “Park it, tow it, I don’t care.”

  He’d figure it out later. After he found Gin.

  He caught a glimpse of Ethan’s pompadour before it was swallowed by the crowd. He wove through the press of slow-moving bodies until he spotted Gin’s curls and veered in her direction. He caught up when she stopped to exercise some celebrity clout and southern charm to arrange an escort to rush Ethan through lines.

  Lex grabbed a handful of her shirt to make sure she didn’t leave his sight again.

  “Chris is in surgery.” Ethan stared at the phone clenched in his hand. “I’m not going to know what’s going on.”

  Gin squeezed his arm. “Maisie will meet you at the airport, and she’ll tell you everything you missed.”

  “I’m not just screwing around with him,” Ethan whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  She brushed away his tears. “You’re not going to have to find out. Go before they give your seat away.”

  Lex unfroze one arm enough to give Ethan a stiff hug and mumbled some vaguely supportive gibberish. He was ready to bolt as soon as Ethan darted through the security checkpoint, but Gin remained immobile, staring at the flight list.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “I want to wait in case his flight gets scrubbed or he misses it.”

  The bustle, the announcements, the screaming of engines merged in an endless, torturous blur. Through his smeared vision, he saw Ethan’s escort return and give Gin a thumbs-up.

  She turned toward Lex. Whatever she saw made her hook an arm around him for support. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  “If I do, drag me out of here by my feet. I don’t want to die in an airport and be stuck haunting it.”

  She steered him toward an exit he could barely see. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the phobia wasn’t limited to actual flying. You could have waited in the parking lot.”

  He couldn’t make a sensible argument for protecting her while on the verge of paralysis, so he pretended to be the strong, silent type.

  They stepped outside. Canned air was replaced by exhaust. A headache chased the fumes into his sinuses and up behind his eyes, concentrating on the right side, building until he had to close the lid to keep the ball from popping out of the socket.

  Gin looked along the row of cabs and shuttles disgorging passengers at the curb. “Where’s the car?”

  Lex grimaced. “Yeah, about that.”

  “Hey!” The attendant who yelled at him earlier skirted around a clump of Japanese travelers and thrust a claim ticket toward him. “My good friend Freddie ran over here to take care of your car. It’s against the rules, but I told him you’re good people and needed a little kindness today, and he was happy to help.”

  Gin took the ticket and the hint. “We’ll be sure to personally thank Freddie for his kindness.”

  The attendant winked at her and went back to shouting at drivers who didn’t move fast enough to suit him.

  Gin read the ticket and chose a walking direction.

  Lex stuck to her side like a well-trained dog. “I hope you can afford to thank Freddie because I’m tapped out.”

  “If I can’t, I’m sure his kindness will extend to pointing me toward the nearest ATM.”

  She found the valet station in the east parking garage. Her thanks evidently met with Freddie’s approval because she got the SUV, paid the parking fee, and was driving Lex away from hell within just a few interminable minutes.

  He closed his eyes and pressed his throbbing forehead against the cool window. The crisis was over. He could stop feeling like lukewarm death any time now.

  Instead of taking him home, she drove to a hotel. Lex didn’t protest as she guided him through the lobby, got a key from the desk, and put him in an elevator.

  He had to say something in self-defense when the elevator doors opened, though. He closed his eyes against the assault on his swimming vision. “Is the carpet moving?”

  “It’s kind of an aggressive geode pattern, but it should be safe to walk on.”

  He trusted her to guide him to their room without geologic upheaval.

  She opened the door. “The carpet is calmer, but one of the walls looks like a marble countertop.”

  He pried open one eye to get his bearings. “They’re committed to a theme.”

  “At least it’s behind the bed. Once you’re down, you don’t have to look at it.”

  He sat on the foot of the bed. The mattress sank invitingly under his weight.

  Gin pressed a bag of almonds and a bottle of water from the mini fridge into his hands. “Chew on this. I’ll order room service.”

  “Sit for a minute.”

  She sat stiffly beside him.

  She’d been thrust into the role of caregiver again because he’d spun completely out of control at the sight of an airport. “Sorry.”

  She sighed and relaxed against his shoulder. “Shut up. We look out for each other. It’s my turn.”

  Not for long. She’d had a much more traumatic day, and he was done adding to her burdens. “Want my nuts?”

  She summoned a crooked grin. “Desperately.”

  They split the snack. Then he curled around her and closed his eyes while she read from the menu for the hotel’s restaurant. None of the options sounded more appealing than remaining down and out with her hand stro
king his hair, so he let her choose for both of them.

  Room service was delivered by the manager, along with a complimentary basket of essentials guests arriving without luggage might require, such as toothbrushes and disposable razors. “Please allow me to upgrade you to a suite.”

  Gin confined him to the block of space near the door. “We’ve had enough shuffling around for one day, but thank you for offering.”

  The manager’s gaze darted around the room as if cataloging all the ways the accommodations would be judged substandard and planning who would take the blame. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Just privacy, please.”

  He finally left, actually bowing as he backed out the door.

  That degree of servile consideration never boded well, in Lex’s experience. “There’ll be a news crew in the parking lot when we check out.”

  Gin lifted the domes from the plates. “I’ll gently remind him you have thirty million Twitter followers and suggest an alternate exit would spare his hotel the most devastating review of his managerial career.”

  “You’re adorable when you’re politely vicious.”

  “You have terrible taste in women.”

  “My taste is exquisite. My problems arise when I settle for less than I want.”

  She looked askance at him. “Want a pen to jot down that song I heard fall into your brain bucket?”

  It made a dull clang that would never see an album, but following it to the source might yield better material. “It needs work, but I’ll take a fork.”

  One plate held barbecued salmon, quinoa, and grilled zucchini. The other starred braised short ribs, broccolini, and something called boniato, which they decided after a taste test must be a variety of sweet potato. Rather than debate who got what, they shared everything.

  Lex realized he hadn’t even considered the possibility of skipping a meal in nearly two weeks. The food was good, but the company brought him to the table. “I barely notice what a chore eating is when I’m with you.”

  Gin tossed him a pad of paper from the desk. “Don’t let that one get away, poet. I’m going to take a shower.”