"You two keep going. Denise will take good care of you. I'll be right outside." He walked out fast before either of them could say anything. And he stood on the sidewalk in front of that old brick building and put his hands on his knees and breathed like he'd run a mile.
Because being back in that building hearing Denise say, "Last time you looked like a man who'd been hit by a train, saying the words domestic case and financial abuse, and he's counting on her being alone." It had cracked something open that Marcus had spent 3 years sealing shut. And now the thing behind the wall was pushing to get out. and he stood on that sidewalk fighting it down the way he'd fought it down a thousand times. He didn't hear the door open behind him. Marcus, he straightened up fast and wiped his face and turned around.
Sophia was standing there. Denise had given them a break or Sophia had walked out. He didn't know. You okay? She asked.
I'm fine. You did it again. Did what? I'm fine. She came and stood next to him.
The thing you told me at my mother's table. The answer people give when they don't want anybody to look closer. You just did it to me. Marcus let out a breath. You don't miss much, do you?
He said, "It's my job. I read rooms." She looked at him. "And right now, this room is telling me that something happened to you in that building or in a building like that. And it's the same thing you started to tell me last night before your phone rang.
The day you couldn't fix it. Her voice went soft. You don't have to tell me, but don't say you're fine. Not to me. We're past that.
You know, we're past that. Marcus looked at her for a long moment, and he made a decision that he'd been circling for 2 days, ever since she'd whispered a joke about a bed frame and cracked something in him he'd thought was welded shut. "Not here," he said. Not on a sidewalk, but I'll tell you tonight after Lily's down, I'll tell you the whole thing. He looked at her.
But I need you to understand something first. Once I tell you, you're going to look at me different. Everybody does. It's why I don't tell it. So before I do, I need to finish helping you.
I need this Damon thing handled, or at least moving before I hand you a reason to walk away from me. Sophia stared at him. You think I'd walk away. I think you don't know what I'm about to tell you, Marcus. She stepped in front of him, made him look at her.
You drove a stranger to fix her bed. You told a woman you'd known 4 days that she wasn't alone. You put your hand on my heart in a truck so I'd stop shaking. And you think there's something you could tell me that would make me walk away? She shook her head.
You don't know me very well yet, either. Marcus felt his throat tighten. "We'll see," he said quietly. "Tonight," they went back in. By the time they left the center that afternoon, Sophia had a plan and a person and a folder of documented evidence, and Marcus could see it in the way she walked, something she hadn't had walking in.
She had her feet under her. Denise had explained the whole thing. They would preserve every message they'd have a lawyer send Damon a formal letter putting him on notice that his communications constituted extortion and that any release of images would result in criminal charges and civil action and they would do it before Friday so that when Friday came it wasn't Sophia's deadline anymore. It was his problem. He set a clock.
Denise had said we're going to set a bigger one. In the truck on the way back, Sophia was quiet, but it was a different quiet than the morning. The morning quiet had been fear. This was something else. She stared out the window and then softly she said, "I've been so scared for so long that I forgot what it felt like to not be.
I forgot it was even possible." "It comes back," Marcus said. "Slow, but it comes back." "Is that from experience?" Marcus' hands tightened on the wheel.
"Tonight," he said. She didn't push. Renee brought Lily home at 6:00, and the little girl was mostly herself again. Bandage on her forehead, worn like a badge of honor, and she told Sophia the whole slide story again with new embellishments. And Sophia listened like it was the most important story ever told.
And Marcus watched them from the kitchen and felt that cracked place in his chest ache in a way that wasn't entirely bad. They fed Lily and bathed her. and Sophia read her a story. Lily insisted, having decided sometime that afternoon, that Sophia was hers now. And Marcus stood in the doorway and listened to this woman he'd known 5 days do the voices for a picture book and Lily laughing. And something in him that had been clenched for 3 years let go one more notch.
When Lily was finally down, really down. Marcus and Sophia went back to the kitchen. And this time, Marcus didn't make coffee. He got two glasses and a bottle from the top of the refrigerator that had maybe 3 in left in it, dust on the shoulders, and he poured them each a little. And Sophia understood that this meant it was time.
They sat at the table. "You don't have to," Sophia said one more time. "I do." Marcus turned his glass in a slow circle on the table without drinking it. "I've never told anybody.
Not Renee, not Evelyn. Nobody in that whole neighborhood knows I was ever a cop, let alone the rest of it. I've carried it by myself for 3 years, same as you carried yours for 2 months. He looked up at her. And you sat at this table last night and told me your worst thing, so it's only right.
Sophia waited. Marcus took a breath. 10 years on the force, he said. Last four, I worked domestic cases like I told you. And I was good at it.
Real good. because I cared and the guys who care are rare and the women could tell. They trusted me. I got calls at home. I gave out my cell number, which you're not supposed to do, but I did because I couldn't stand the thought of one of them working up the nerve to reach out and getting a machine. He turned the glass.
There was one. Her name was Camille. Sophia went very still. She had a husband. Marcus went on and his voice had changed. gone flat and careful.
The voice of a man walking across ice. He was bad. Real bad. Not the money kind of bad. Like Damon, the other kind.
And she'd been trying to get out for a year and I'd been working her case and we were close. We had a plan. Protective order safe house the whole thing. She was going to leave on a Sunday when he'd be at his brother's. Everything was set.
He stopped. Marcus, Sophia said softly. On the Thursday before, he said, she called my cell. Middle of the day, I was in the middle of something, a court thing, a thing that felt important. And I saw her name and I thought, I'll call her back in 20 minutes.
Whatever it is, it'll keep 20 minutes. We've got a plan. She's fine till Sunday. His jaw worked. I called her back in 26 minutes.
She didn't answer. I told myself she was busy. I told myself I'd try again after. The kitchen was dead silent. He'd found out about the plan.
Marcus said that Thursday and she called me because she was scared because something had changed because she needed her one person to pick up the phone. His voice cracked just slightly and he stopped and got it back. And her one person was in a courthouse hallway thinking a phone call could wait 20 minutes. Sophia's hand had come up over her mouth. She didn't make it to Sunday, Marcus said.
The words fell into the quiet and lay there. Marcus, Sophia whispered. I quit 11 days later, he said. Turned in the badge. Couldn't I?
Couldn't sit across from another scared woman and promise her I'd be there knowing what I knew about myself. That I'd let one wait. 26 minutes. That's all it was. 26 minutes and a court thing I don't even remember now.