Chapter 20 Just the World
Just the World
A blip of unconsciousness and then Anca’s good eye opened, the other parting a slit.
Evan sat on the floor cradling her awkwardly in his lap and she did a double take at his face and then shoved herself up and away from him.
He stood back, giving her a five-foot standoff as she clawed her way up the wall to her feet.
The stained dress parted and he saw blood between her legs, dried on her inner thighs.
The Ninth Commandment, Always play offense, spun into his mind and he grabbed for it to anchor himself.
A murderous instinct seized him—to respond on her behalf, to act, to avenge—but he fought it down, entrapped it in a box with the broken Commandment, buried the box deep.
No emotion was constructive right now except hers.
She drew herself erect, squared herself with heartbreaking dignity. “You were … waiting?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
She shivered against the cold. “Who are you?”
“I’m here to help.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.” No accent, but she spoke with a formality that implied English as a second language.
“No,” Evan said. “You didn’t.”
“So how…” Her trembling hand circled the air, drawing the words she couldn’t form. She’d fallen out of time.
“What do you need?” Evan asked gently. “Right now.”
She blinked at him. Soft, full face, broad nose, strong eyebrows topped with blunt bangs. In any other context, she would have looked youthful, but her eyes were ancient from what they’d seen.
She rested a palm against the door. “… to go inside.”
“Okay.”
“To be alone.”
“Okay.”
“And I need to not move. Just to—not move.”
“Okay. Do you have a key?”
She patted at her thighs, one bare, the other curtained with a ragged fringe of fabric. She shook her head. “I don’t have anything.”
“May I pick the lock for you?”
She swayed on her feet, hugging herself around her midsection. “Please.”
He extracted a triangle pick and tension wrench from his lower left cargo pocket, inserted them, and opened the door as easily as if he had a key.
She stared past the violated lock and across the threshold. “I’m that unsafe,” she observed, nodding, agreeing with the words as she spoke them. “I’ve always been that unsafe.”
“Right now you are safe,” Evan said.
“I don’t feel safe.”
“I know.” He held the door for her. “Where would you like me to be?”
Her gaze moved to him. It was as though she’d forgotten he was there. “Outside.”
“I will wait,” he said. “Right here.”
She moved into the apartment, closed the door. The dead bolt clicked, and then came the rattle of the security chain.
He heard her collapse—the slap of her palm against the floor, the soft thump of her body.
Silence.
More silence.
And then a deep wail, a pained gasp, a brief paralyzed silence. And then keening.
Evan squatted outside the door.
He’d heard so much across his operational years, but he’d never heard sounds like the sounds she was making. His stomach twisted. Measuring his breaths, he rubbed his palm across the top of his head, realized he was doing it, stopped.
He summoned the Fourth Commandment: Never make it personal. Useless. He discarded it, too.
The sobs kept on.
Quietly, he lowered himself down and sat with his back to the door. The hall smelled damp, wet boots and soggy carpet.
He waited. Waited some more.
She quieted. He could hear her wet breathing. Her fingernails scraping lightly across the floor. Then silence.
More waiting.
“Are you still there?” Her voice—hoarse but steadier.
“I am.”
“The cross fell. From my door. I would like the pieces.”
“Okay.”
A moment later, there was a jangling of the chain. The door opened a gap. Her hand squirmed through. He passed her the two wooden pieces.
The door closed. Relocked.
A gentle thunk. Her forehead leaning against the far side of the door? Once again he could make out her breathing.
“What…” A screeching intake of air interrupted her, an echo of a sob. When she spoke again, she’d gathered herself. “… do I do now?”
“Maybe a sip of water?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
Footsteps trailed away.
A full two minutes passed.
Footsteps trailed back.
Again her voice came through the door. “Now … now what?”
“Medical attention would be helpful.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want anyone looking at me.”
“Okay.” For a time he breathed along with her. “Are you cold?”
“Yes. I am cold. So very cold.”
“Maybe find some other clothes to warm up. Put the dress and your shoe in a bag.”
“A bag?”
“Like a grocery bag.”
This time she was gone for longer.
And then: “I have on a sweater. And a wool skirt. And my trench coat. And boots.”
“Are you still cold?”
“Yes. So cold. I need … I need to shower.”
“You might … You might consider not doing that right now.”
“Why not?”
“In case you decide to do a rape kit.” The harshness of the term landed bruisingly, even on his own ears. “Forensics, I mean.”
“For what?”
He pictured that entry in Osman’s phone, YngTl69, who’d sublet the basement apartment in which she’d been raped. “To help catch those who did this to you.”
“This is the world,” she said. “Sin and separation. This is just the world.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I don’t need a kit. I don’t need to catch anyone. Those who did this to me, they will answer.”
He was confused. “How?”
“In the only way that matters.”
He chewed his lower lip and sat with that a moment. “Either way you might reconsider going to the hospital. You can decide there what you want to do. And what you don’t want to do.”
Silence.
“I can call an ambulance.”
“No ambulance,” she said. “I can’t afford an ambulance.”
“I can pay for it.”
“No,” she said. “Thank you. But no.”
“A taxi.”
Sudden impatience: “Who are you?”
“Evan. My name is Evan.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Why are you…? How did you find me?”
“A young woman from the subway saw what happened to you.”
Long pause. “Miniskirt. Gentle eyes.”
“Yes. She told a … someone and they told me. An associate tracked you through surveillance cameras. And I followed the trail.”
“Why?”
“Because I help people.”
The door pulled open, snapping the security chain taut, showing a sliver of face. Intense light blue eyes, sweat-tangled bangs, permanent-markered expletive scrawled on her cheek. “Why do you help people?”
“It’s just what I do.”
Her eyes flicked down. “There is blood. On your shirt.”
He followed her gaze. Sure enough, a thin trailing pattern of crimson drops marred the side of his shirt, elongated downward in the direction it had erupted from Osman’s nose.
“Yes,” Evan said. “Sorry.”
She studied him. “Can I trust you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Can you trust me?”
Her stare picked across his face. “My condition forces me to have radical trust at inconvenient times. But I’ve never experienced a time this inconvenient.”
He wondered at her condition but now was not the moment to ask.
He shuffled through acceptable responses, but his repertoire had nothing for this.
He considered the little speech he sometimes gave, found it just as useless.
It came apart like the last two Commandments, but he reassembled it, turned it on its head.
“Ms. Dumitrescu,” he said, softly. “I’d like you to look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself: Do I look dangerous?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Dangerous to you?”
She didn’t speak but he felt the sharp intelligence of her gaze as it X-rayed him. She was looking straight through the mask of his features right into him. She searched. Searched some more.
The door closed firmly in his face.
The chain unhooked.
It opened.
Anca stepped forth.