Page 66 of Little Deaths

He had a damp cloth cupped to his face and his skin and clothing were stained with ash and smoke, but he looked alive and mostly unhurt, except for what appeared to be a few superficial burns. As they got closer, she caught the familiar tang of whiskey. His clothes were soaked with it. It took a moment longer for it to sink in what that meant.

She nearly fell over with the force of her relief; it washed over her in a violent tide, threatening to sweep her away. Opal had been the closest thing she had to a friend in this place. Her best friend lived across the state, and her mother and sister lived across the country. With Marco gone, she was all alone. Rafe was her only ally, and the idea of losing him was surprisingly painful.

The fact that he could betray her the way he had and still elicit this sort of response was a little bit like being betrayed all over again. Except this time, the betrayal came from herself.

One of the cops broke off from the group to stride over to her. It was Officer Lambert. “Ms. Blake,” he said. “We should really stop meeting like this.”

“I don’t appreciate the gallows humor.” She jerked her head towards Rafe. The fire had gotten close enough to singe his clothes. “Not after seeing this investigation be treated like a joke.”

Lambert had the good grace to look chagrined. “I’m just trying to do my job, ma’am.”

She had a sense of distant anger, one that had been tamped down for years. Women in the public eye didn’t get the luxury of showing emotions; it branded them as temperamental, difficult to work with. Some men claimed to like it when women were angry—when they got emotional, even—but what they really liked was emotional impotence: half-baked emotions, not fully-formed, that expended themselves before they became inconvenient, most frequently after sex.

Do a better one, she wanted to snarl.

But maybe holding back had been a good thing. Because after a moment, Officer Lambert said, “That reminds me. I got the results back from the lab. The note that you gotwaswritten in blood—but it was animal, not human.”

“Dog blood,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

Danni’s hand tightened around Powderpuff’s leash. “Did you find them?”

“Not yet.” His eyes met hers, blue and earnest. “But we will.”

How can you promise that?She felt that bitterness claw its way up her throat.There’s so much you already haven’t found.

The firefighter escorting Rafe came over and Lambert turned, obviously grateful for the interruption. “Half the room is burned black,” she told the police officer. “But the structural integrity is sound. From what this gentleman was telling me, it sounds like arson.”

“Itwasarson,” Rafe insisted. “I saw him start the fire myself.”

Officer Lambert perked up. “Can you describe the suspect?”

“Yeah,” Rafe said. “He was wearing some kind of devil mask and a device that distorted his voice. Apart from that, I really couldn’t say. Black robes, just above average height. Maybe five-eleven, six-foot even.” He shrugged and then winced, rubbing at his shoulder. “Somewhere in that ballpark.”

“You could tell all that from being tied down?” Officer Lambert asked skeptically.

Tied down?Donni glanced at Rafe, who gave the cop a cool look. “I’m just four inches shorter than most of these doorways. When I saw him go through it, he had a whole head of air above him. So yeah, I think I could fucking tell.”

Donni thought again about anger, and the rules for displaying it, and how little those rules seemed to apply to men.

“Maybe,” Rafe said, “instead of treating us like we’re the fucking suspects, you could do your jobs and see who bought black robes and devil masks from the store recently.”

“Well, I would,” Officer Lambert said, returning Rafe’s cold stare with one of his own, “but keep in mind it’s nearly Halloween, so your assailant is competing with every Tom, Dick, and Sally as they all gear up for trick-or-treat.” He turned to Donni, affecting a slightly more compassionate air. “Are there any people you can think of who might wish you—or your son—harm?”

Now Rafe was watching her intently. She angled herself away and caught a glimpse of Christophe across the street with the rest of the onlookers.

“Christophe Walters,” she said, which made Rafe jerk. “He’s been coming on to me pretty aggressively since my husband died, and a handful of times before.”

"Aggressive how?”

“He’s cornered me a couple times and grabbed my arm at a bar.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. Donni knew what he was thinking. The pieces had just fused themselves together. But as slimy as Christophe was, she was pretty sure even he wouldn’t kill his own mother. “I don’t think he’s the killer, though,” she added nervously, looking at Rafe’s blank face.

“No one ever does, ma’am.” Lambert made a note on his pad. “Did threaten you?”

(You’re going to need someone in your corner, now that your husband’s gone)