-- DAN
CHAPTER 14
Diedra herself felt adrift, somewhere far away and warm and comforting.
Objective, objective, stay objective.
She decided to throw another question at him. What would be good, what would be good? She traced squiggly patterns on his shoulder with one finger and drew in a deep breath. “Okay...what do you think about the death penalty? For or against?”
Matt grimaced, and didn’t answer immediately. “I’m hesitant to say. How do you feel about it?”
“No, no, I asked you first.”
“Well...okay. I’m opposed to taking life. In general. Ninety-nine percent of the time—no, more than that, more like ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine, I want to preserve the sanctity of human life.”
Diedra stopped drawing the patterns, but kept her hand on his shoulder.
“...But?”
He exhaled slowly. “There’s... It’s... Okay. A few years ago this guy grabbed a seventeen-year-old girl, took her to some hideout somewhere, and he forced her to write her last will and testament. Then he killed her.” Diedra’s eyes darkened, but she didn’t interrupt. “He mailed the will to the girl’s family, and told them the girl was still alive, and that he was going to release her. Instead he waited until the body was too decomposed to provide any decent forensic evidence, and he called and told them how to find it.”
She nodded. “I think I read about that.”
“Yeah. Well, then the same guy abducted a nine-year-old girl. Nine. And he killed her too. And then he called the first girl’s family, and told them he was coming after their other daughter.”
“They...he got caught, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s on death row now. But stuff like that happens every day. People get killed, or they get maimed...damaged so bad they can’t heal. Their whole lives, taken away from them, from them and everyone they love. Thinking about those girls, it horrifies me already, but can you imagine what that would have been like if she’d been your sister? Or your daughter?”
Diedra watched him intently. He didn’t say anything for several moments, just stared at the ground. Finally, quietly: “Yeah, I’m for the death penalty.”
“So...you’re thinking it would show other people what happens when you commit crimes?”
“Crime rates are awfully low in countries that use it a lot.”
“Good grief, Matt, isn’t that kind of fascist? I mean, shouldn’t we try to come up with a better way to prevent crime than saying, ‘Hey, do this and we’ll kill you?’“
He shrugged. “Nobody has so far. A word you just used: ‘prevent.’ There’s no prevention. Cops only show up anymore once something’s already happened.”
“Okay, so, what, you think we should have more patrols? More cops on the beat? Somebody to keep the crime from happening in the first place, instead of just punishing the people who did it?”
He looked down at her, and she drew back a little. His lips moved, on the verge of forming words, and she felt his muscles bunch up where she touched him. Five seconds, ten, he stayed that way. Then he dropped his eyes—and missed the sudden flash of insight on her face. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “More beat cops would help.”
He’d almost spoken up, almost let something out; a terrible truth, just under the surface. Silent and hidden, like the creature in his painting. She shivered, all the more so because she thought she might know what it was. She said, “But you know the budget isn’t there for that.”
“Yeah. I know. Because the government can’t allocate the right funding, people die. Then the cops come and put all the pieces in the proper plastic bags, and hope they can figure out who did it.”
Suddenly he took her hand, and his whole body relaxed. “Hey, I’m really sorry, let’s change the subject. I didn’t mean to drag you down.”
Diedra’s brain felt loose in her head. She smiled a little. “Come on, let’s go. It’s getting late.”
# # #
Matt hadn’t thought he could feel like this again.
Driving back to the LaCroix, they stopped at a mall to go to an Orange Julius—she got strawberry, he got the traditional orange—and both of them had just reached the slurpy, mostly-foam part at the bottom of the cups when Diedra parked the Civic in the apartment manager’s reserved spot.
She took one last pull on her straw and licked a fleck of pink foam off her lower lip as she turned to Matt. He slowly reached out and took her cup from her, set it on the dashboard, leaned over and kissed her.
Her lips and tongue were cool, and tasted like strawberries. She made a small sound in her throat as they kissed, not quite a moan. It drove him wild, but immediately he felt the pitchfork twist in his guts.
After their lips parted, Matt sighed, unhooked his seat belt and picked up the cups.
“I guess we should go in,” she said softly.
On the way into the building Diedra quietly took his hand, and Matt didn’t know if his feet would stay on the ground or not.
Inside, after they dumped the empty cups in a public trash can, Matt followed Diedra past the elevators to the door of her apartment. She pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the door, and turned to him before she opened it.
“Matt...” she lowered her eyes demurely. “I’ve had a great time tonight. Would you...like to come in? For a while?” She touched his side. Very lightly.
Oh God. Oh God. There’d been nothing...no one since Glory, but he couldn’t...he just couldn’t... Suddenly the pitchfork twisted even tighter, and the wound filled up with salt.
“I, uh, I can’t, really, I...” Her forehead wrinkled. He was blowing this, and knew it, and backpedaled a few steps anyway. “I’d like to, really, but I can’t, um, I have to go. I, uh, I had a really good time tonight too, though.” Stupid, stupid, that sounded patronizing, dammit!
Her eyebrows drew together. “Oh...okay. So, do you want to call me? ...Or just wait till we run into each other in the hall again?”
He came forward, took her hands in his. “Diedra, you’re so smart, and beautiful, and—I’m sorry, I know I must seem like a lunatic, I just...I do want to see you again. Maybe...maybe tomorrow? I’ll come by the office?”
She let him hold her hands, but didn’t return the pressure. “Sure. If you want.”
Pain filled his eyes, his face, and her expression softened. “Matt, are you okay? Do you want to talk about this? Whatever it is that’s bothering you?”
He made a tortured sound. “Yes. Yes I do. But...not...not right now. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
He released her hands and turned and moved down the hallway, through the glass doors, into the darkness outside.
# # #
Just inside her apartment, Diedra leaned against the door and ran her tongue over her lips. She could still taste him, still feel his body through his shirt. Aloud she said, “Well. That was surreal.”
If what she suspected were true...for one thing, it would go a long way toward explaining his bizarre behavior.
A new feeling, an icy thrill rippled through her. Objectively, intellectually, she called herself a stupid, reckless fool, and promised herself she’d stay as far away from Matt Sinclair as possible.
But she knew she wouldn’t.
She’d never been infatuated and terrified at the same time before. The taste of him danced across her tongue. She savored it.
AUTHOR’S NOTES FOLLOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION.
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3 comments:
Overall I really like this section, but I worry that Matt is still too much of a cipher. I mean, he’s got backstory in spades, but that doesn’t come to light until later in the book, and I’m afraid he’s still a little too anemic at this point. I want readers to care an awful lot about him, and in light of that, I might end up revealing a few things regarding his past – maybe involving Glory – earlier than I’d intended.
if your objective is to make readers care about matt, you've achieved it.
That's definitely one of my objectives. :)
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