chatter." He looked down at his feet, aware of his own blank tone. Glad that he felt just that way inside. "That day, she shouldn't have gone with them."
"Did someone try to talk her out of it?"
"Sure." He'd thought he'd convinced her not to go, too tired to recognize the set expression on her face and the determined light in her eyes. When she'd left, he'd been sleeping, dosed up on the pills they all swallowed down to find a few hours of relief from the high temperatures and the tension. Until he woke up and found her note tucked between his fingers, he hadn't known what she'd been planning. "She didn't listen."
Erica had only heard what she wanted to hear. About the wisdom of going out that day. About what was going on between her and Griffin.
Jane picked up a cookie from the glass plate in front of her, then put it back down. "What happened?"
"Ambush. Particulars are a little sketchy, as everyone was busy trying to stay alive. They took fire and jumped off the trail. But when they realized she wasn't with them, they headed back, at their own considerable risk. They found her sitting down, holding her arm. She'd been hit in an artery. Bled out in a matter of minutes."
Jane pushed the platter of cookies farther from the table edge. "Oh." Her voice was tight, as if there was a hand around her throat. "That's terrible."
Griffin gazed off into the distance. "This one kid, Randolph, he put her body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Her blood stained his vest from his shoulders to his waist. It was the first thing I noticed when he returned. That, and the way tears had turned the dirt on his face to mud."
Griffin had been sitting against a wall of sandbags, idly watching another guy squeeze cheese onto a granola bar, razzing the man about how the combo made him sick to his stomach. They'd been laughing.
Then Randolph had been standing there. Without a word, Griffin had known. He'd gotten to his feet, then stumbled toward the spot where they'd placed Erica. "I saw her," he told Jane now. "The dirt in her hair, the stiffening wetness of her sleeve where the blood was already drying, the dusty laces of her boots. One had come undone, and as I stood there, Randolph knelt down and retied it for her."
His brain had clicked away, cataloging each of those items and more, as if storing them for some later test. The details had seemed to fill a yawning black chasm opening up inside him - leaving no room for anything beyond those cold, bare facts. Leaving no room for any feelings. He'd gone icy inside then, and three days later become completely - perhaps permanently - frozen.
At the time, he'd thanked God.
He was still grateful.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Jane said.
Puzzled, he looked at her. His loss? It was Erica who had lost everything. But he nodded, knowing it was expected of him, knowing a man who hadn't been rendered entirely numb would be expected to acknowledge Jane's expression of sympathy.
"That's the kind of story you signed up for," he said. The librarian in her would surely back away from it, right?
"No," she answered, calm. "That's the story you signed up for."
The reminder tapped at the ice inside him. Why couldn't she leave this alone? His jaw clenched. "Jane - "
"I worked with an author who is a famed outdoor adventurer," she said. "In his book, he related a tragedy that happened to one of his teams on a mountain climb. They'd stopped for lunch. As they finished, she stood up to reach for something - but had forgotten she'd unclipped from the safety line. Just like that, she went off the side of K2. Gone."
Griffin pressed against the wall, his shoulders digging into the plaster. "And?" he said, wary.
"And he wrote it just like that. He put it on the page with as much emotion as if he was describing the wind catching his sandwich wrapper. I had to help him include the emotion. You'll have to do that too."
He didn't have the emotion! He didn't want the emotion!
Shaking his head, Griffin pushed away from the wall. "I don't need your help, lady."
"Aw." She no longer appeared the least bit sympathetic. "And I was just getting used to honey-pie."
Advice, mockery, he didn't need any of it. He set his sights on the door. He only had to pass