as he hung his head. "I got to thinking that, well, maybe it was because she had you on the side. Just maybe."
"And not because she caught you with Sami's tit in your hand?"
"I screwed up. I screwed up bad. Shelley and me, we'd been fighting some, and Sami-" He broke off, shrugged. "She'd been coming on to me awhile, and that day, she says how I should come on into the back and help her with something. Then she's rubbing against me, and she's got a lot to rub against a man. She's got her shirt undone. Hell, Fox, her tit was right there. I screwed up bad."
"Yeah, you did."
"I don't want a divorce. I wanna go home, Fox, you know?" Misery coated the man-to-man appeal. "Shelley won't even talk to me. I just wanna fix it, and she's talking around town about how you're going to skin my ass for her in court, and shit like that."
"Pissed you off," Fox prompted as Block frowned down at his boots.
"Jesus, Fox, it steamed me up, sure, then Napper's trash talk on top. But I've never gone after somebody like that. I've never beat on a man when he's done that way." Block's head lifted, and the confusion covered his face again. "It was like being crazy or something. I couldn't stop. I thought maybe I'd killed you. I don't know how I'd live with that."
"Lucky for both of us you won't have to."
"Damn, Fox. I mean damn. You're a friend of mine. We go back. I don't know what... I guess I went crazy or something."
Fox thought of the boy laughing, swallowing itself. "I'm not going to press charges, Block. We never had any problems, you and me."
"We get along okay."
"As far as I'm concerned, we don't have any problems now. As for Shelley, I'm her lawyer, and that's it. I can't tell you what to do about the state of your marriage. If you were to tell me that you want to try marriage counseling, I could pass that on to my client. I might be able to give her my opinion, as her lawyer and her friend, that she try that route before going any further with the divorce proceedings."
"I'll do anything she wants." Block's Adam's apple rippled as he took a hard swallow. "I owe you, Fox."
"No, you don't. I'm Shelley's lawyer, not yours. I want you to promise me that when Chief Hawbaker lets you out, you go home. Watch some NASCAR. Gotta be a race on today."
"Staying at my ma's. Yeah, I'll go on home. You got my word."
Fox went back out to Wayne. "I'm not filing charges." He ignored Gage's muttered curse. "Obviously I'm not hurt. We had an altercation that looked more serious than it was, and is now resolved to the satisfaction of both parties."
"If that's the way you want it, Fox."
"That's the way it is. I'm grateful you came along when you did." Fox held out a hand.
Outside, Gage cursed again. "For a lawyer, you've sure got a bleeding heart."
"You'd have done the same. Exactly the same," he said before Gage could object. "He wasn't responsible."
"We'd have done the same," Cal affirmed. "And have. Why don't you come up to the center and watch the game?"
"Tempting, but I'll pass. I've got a lot of reading to do."
"I'll drive you home," Gage told him.
But for a few moments the three of them stood, just stood outside the station house looking over the town that was already under a cloud.
Chapter Eleven
FOX SPENT A LONG TIME READING, MAKING HIS own notes, checking back over specific passages Quinn had marked in the journal.
He juggled and mulled, and read more.
No guardian ever had succeeded in destroying the Dark. Some gave their lives in the attempt. Giles prepared to give his, as no other had before him.
No precedent for whatever mumbo-jumbo Dent had used that night in the woods, Fox considered. Which meant he couldn't have been sure it would work. But he was willing to risk his life, his existence. Hell of a gamble, even considering he'd sent Ann, and the lives in her, to safety first.
He has gone beyond what has been done, what was deemed could be done. The blood of the innocent is shed, and so it will be, my love believes, dark against dark. And it will be my love who pays the price for this sin. It will be blood and fire, and it will be sacrifice and loss. Death