long to keep him from breaking the skin. I needed to do something fast, but the pain was distracting me as, in the way of a coral snake, he ground his jaws.
Already mentally counting the cost of my deed, already mourning the loss of the peace I’d found in the desert, I moaned with regret as I twisted to force my upper body down toward his legs.
I allowed myself one whispered “goddamn,” then held my breath and closed my eyes and mouth tightly, in anticipation of the blood that would gush when I reached down with two free fingers and pulled the tourniquet away from his leg.
I’ve done it again, I thought afterward, and this time I don’t even have a badge. I’m fucked.
Thirteen
What was it made me take a chance like that? Questioning him before he got a safety net in the criminal justice system and Miranda rights, that logic dissipated in the smell of warming blood. Logic. That’s right, I was trying to find out where he’d put the bodies. Or was it also, just a little, wanting to reassure myself that I was still physically strong enough to take down a guy like this without help?
Plenty of time to think about all that later. For now I crawled to the back of the van where I could avoid the blood still running through the grooves in the floor and allow myself to recover from a mild shock, concentrating on bringing my breathing rate down so my heart would follow suit. Trusting there was no one outside the confines of the van to hear me, I screamed as loudly as I could, which settled me some. Then it was time to face the music. I hate music.
First taking off my blood-soaked garden gloves and hooking them over the top of my cargo pants, I unsnapped my side pocket and pulled out my cell phone. It was important to appear cool and in control of the situation, like I was still a professional. I cleared my throat and practiced a couple times, “Hi, Max? This is Brigid Quinn. Hi, Max? This is Brigid Quinn,” until I could say it without choking. Max was programmed in, and my thumb shook over the Call button for a moment, thinking of how to spin this.
Then I thought, maybe not call Max first, maybe call Carlo instead. Explain everything to Carlo right off the bat before anyone else got to him and gave him the wrong notion of what had happened here, of what I had done in self-defense. I paused further, immobilized by the thought of Carlo coming down to the wash and seeing me awash in blood.
No, that wouldn’t work. Instead, I thought, I could sneak home, get cleaned up, and then, without the blood, explain rationally and calmly what had happened in self-defense.
I paused yet again.
In that pause, while I sat on the floor of the van gazing at the filthy dead thing, I remembered the moment when Paul, of the cello and truffle oil, looked at a crime scene photo and told me he couldn’t bear to have me in his world.
I’m sure there are other people who have experienced The Moment themselves. The kind where you’ve been one sort of person up to this point in your life. Then you’re in a doctor’s office, or at home, or at work, and someone, someone you might have always trusted, walks into the room and makes what is likely an offhand remark they’ll never remember, but the comment rocks you at your deepest, unhinging whatever you had been. You think you’re so tough, never realizing how fragile you are until you break. It happens that easily, that quickly. Paul was one of the moments. This was another, and beyond that, nothing can explain or justify what I did.
With an unbearable ache in my gut I thought about losing Carlo, and thought I would not, could not, survive the loss of the one happy thing in my entire existence. I’d waited too long for him and I would not drive him away the way I’d driven away every other civilian in my past. If I lost my husband I would not survive, and I would not take that chance. It would be so much simpler not to tell Carlo or anyone else about this.
How about I just say I panicked? And I went a little nuts. I tore my eyes away from the body, closed the phone that made the same