Perhaps she’d rather I talk about anything other than herself because her mind wanders. I’m certain she thinks of her mother again. Or her father. It’s given away by the drop of her gaze and the slower rate of her breathing.
“Do you want to know what I think?” I ask her and my throat is suddenly tight.
Confusion is apparent in her dark brown eyes and I’m certain she almost asks, about what?, but instead she only nods a yes. Maybe two cups has already been two too many.
“I think it will all be all right but it will take a few days and you’ll be just as anxious every day. Each day more anxious than the last until they have another name. Someone else to blame for your father’s death. I think that’s what you’ll need to move past the worry.”
“It will be all right?” Skepticism laces her question. It’s almost sarcastic.
“With the note I left, no one will want to pin it on your mother. They’ll have someone else in mind.”
“Who?” she asks in a single breath.
“Someone who deserves to die.”
“You’re an angel of death,” she says as if it’s fact and I can only laugh. “That’s what they tell me.”
My amusement is a short but deep rumble in my chest. Her hips sway slightly and I pat the bed next to me, getting her attention.
I wait for her as she walks slowly to the very end of the bed and sits. I’m well aware she can see me, really see me if she looked up. Her eyes would have adjusted to the dark by now. My pulse races and just as she’s about to, just as her thick lashes raise, I tell her to go turn off the light first.
“Turn it off and come back.” She hums and doesn’t hesitate to rise from the bed, making a soft groan.
She can’t see me yet. Not yet, not just yet. Panic flows through my veins as the floor creaks with her gentle movements and she turns off the sole light that was on in the bathroom.
“So you are an angel of death?” she asks as the light disappears with a soft click.
“I don’t decide, though? Do I?” I say to her, bringing her attention back to the conversation as she comes back to me like the good girl she is.
“They’re going to die, regardless. I simply pull strings so it flows easier. So they kill each other and the victims, the ones who would fall pray to them otherwise, are reduced. That’s not so wrong, is it?”
Delilah’s quiet, so silent that I hear the moment the plastic cup, nearly empty now, hits her bottom lip.
“Like your cases. The ones they tampered with and never solved. They made that decision and it led to … whatever it is it leads to …” I debate confessing, but I can’t help myself.
I can practically feel the way her pulse ramps up when I tell her, “I did you a favor, I closed them.”
“This isn’t the game we play,” Delilah says, not asking about the cases I know she seeks answers to for refuge. I should have known better. She doesn’t care about those cases right now. Not in the least. There’s only one murder on her mind. “Did she do it because he hit her? Can you tell me that?” Back to her mother …
No. The answer is there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Then I would have to tell her. And that’s a depressing conversation for another day.
“If your mother had pressed charges, what do you think would have happened?”
“He would have been found guilty. He would have kept it quiet and they would have split.” Tears muffle her words.
“Not to him … to her. What would have happened to her?” I have to remind the disappointment in me that she’s too close to it and too uncertain of so many things. Too conflicted like Cody can be. It’s not her fault that she didn’t think of the other piece. No one ever thinks of the other one. The victim and what’s left behind. As if a punishment makes those wrongs all right.
Her inhale is quicker, louder, but she remains silent.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Finally. We agree on something tonight. The pieces are in motion, and there’s nothing left to do but allow the dominoes to fall.