September Song
"It's no use hovering in the shadows, Mr. Reese. I know you are there."
Reese smiled to himself as he glided through the doorway and down the dusty book-lined hall.
He was glad for the warmth of Headquarters after the bone-chilling gusts that had propelled him along the avenue. Even this late in the morning, the sunlight was wispy; a change in the weather, which had been unsettled for several weeks, was upon the city at last.
In the Library's inner sanctum, he found Finch hunched over his computer keyboard, tapping away at a merry pace.
"And how did you know I was there? Are my covert skills getting rusty?" Reese didn't try to hide the chuckle in his voice as he deposited the steaming cup of Sencha green tea next to his friend's left hand.
Finch turned and regarded his associate with undisguised amusement.
"I was kidnapped, Mr. Reese. I was not rendered deaf, blind, or incapable of smelling a cup of dark French roast coffee. I could tell you had entered the building several minutes ago."
This, above all else, was what Reese had missed during Finch's forced absence: this sense of purposeful camaraderie, the feeling of order and direction that he got from the older man's leadership.
He had worked several cases with Carter and Fusco when Finch was missing. To his immense relief, the team had performed with consummate efficiency. They had saved four innocent numbers and put two less-than-innocent goons behind bars. Only one number had to be killed to protect an unsuspecting victim.
The prime mission was not aborted during Finch's absence.
But without that astounding mind at the helm, Reese had felt unsettled, disordered. Certainly he knew what to do in each particular instance: which file to check, which weapon to use, which informant to pressure. But he wasn't sure he always saw the larger picture. He didn't feel that he had as many facts at his disposal as he needed. He felt as though he was operating blind.
With Finch gone he was adrift; the confusion, distraction, and guilt threatening to swamp him as the days piled up. He wanted to know how everything fit together, to have an explanation that covered all the facts.
But most of all he wanted his command structure, his ordered routine, reestablished.
"I see you took the opportunity of my absence to abandon Antoine's for a new bakery."
Finch took a tiny bite of a twisted doughnut from the orange cardboard box Reese had brought.
"Do Antoine's crullers no longer suit you?"
"Keeping in fighting trim, Harold."
"And yet you've dropped several pounds, haven't you?"
Reese shrugged, sipped his coffee, and deflected. "Have you got anything for me today?"
"We do have a new case. I'll give you the details in a moment. But first take a look at this surveillance tape of our Detective Carter and her boss working through a few issues earlier this morning."
Reese leaned over Finch's shoulder to peer at the computer screen. The little scene at the precinct house unfolded like a high-definition television show.
With Fusco's help, they had been able to upgrade the quality of the spy camera hidden in the ridiculous bobbing doll which faced Carter's desk. Now the moving image was much less grainy and a powerful mic picked up almost every word spoken within a forty foot radius.
Reese occasionally thought to ask Joss if she knew she was on camera at the office. But this was a topic, like several others, that they left unexplored in the interest of preserving the peace in their relationship.
The days he spent with her were too few and too precious for petty arguments.
Now he watched Joss at her desk, typing a report, tilting her head often to consult a notebook bent open beside her computer. A strand of hair escaped from her ponytail and flopped over her left eyebrow. He wanted to push back the flyaway hair, smooth it behind her ear. He wanted to unloosen her hair. He wanted to take out the little silver hoops from her ears and unbutton her shirt and do all the other things he had last done ten days ago.
It seemed such a long, long while since then.
"Here's where it gets interesting, Mr. Reese." Finch broke his reverie and drew his attention back to the unfolding scene.
He watched as Lynch, Carter's burly captain, approached her desk. He loomed into her personal space, his loose belly almost touching the side of her head. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, adjusted her expression into one of mild inquiry, and looked up at Lynch with a thin smile.
Reese wanted to break the man's jaw. He was sure Joss wanted to do the same.
Instead she opened her eyes wide and cocked her head to one side as the captain spoke.
"I've got a new assignment for you, Carter. We are setting up a special detail to provide extra security at tonight's charity ball. Naturally, all those big wigs cutting a rug in one place make it a prime attraction for the city's finest thugs, so NYPD will be out in force, like always."
Lynch shifted his weight back slightly, as if anticipating a blow from his subordinate.
"But we have another job for you. One of the guests is Paul de Bursac, some French financial hot shot. We got information that somebody is planning to try to assassinate him tonight. Your job is to protect him. That FBI agent Donnelly asked for you in particular."
Carter's frown contorted her entire face and she stood to try to level the conversational playing field.
"But I just worked a double shift yesterday wrapping up that Luboff case, Captain. I need to go home. See my son."
"Come off it, Carter. Your son is fifteen. He can spend a few hours without his mommy. If he can't, you need to get him back to the shrink, pronto."
Carter took a deep breath as if to challenge her boss, but she swallowed her objection and sat down again heavily.
Reese saw Finch's jaw clinch as he adjusted his glasses.
When he spoke, Finch's tone was low and precise.
"I think I'll renew my research into Captain Lynch's after-hours activities. I seem to recall we have some new images that he might find difficult to explain to his wife. You need to pay the captain another visit, Mr. Reese."
"Will do."
The surveillance tape rolled on with Reese catching only parts of the rest of the exchange.
Lynch gave Carter the particulars of her assignment, the hotel's address, the start time for the event, the names of other cops who would be working with her.
The captain discussed in fragmentary fashion the nature of the threat to Paul de Bursac.
In his role in the top echelons of European financial institutions, de Bursac had become the public face of the current push for austerity. Using caustic terms that brooked no opposition, he had championed tough measures to accompany the bailout loans which were required to keep the economies of several Mediterranean nations afloat. These drastic measures – the "de Bursac Plan" they were called – forced the debtor governments to cut pension programs, fire workers, and increase taxes. The devastating hardships suffered by ordinary citizens as a result of the de Bursac Plan were well documented. As was the intensifying hatred aimed at the author of these strict austerity measures.
Threats against Paul de Bursac were numerous and multi-national in nature. Reese listened as Lynch described to Carter credible information collected by Interpol and passed on to the FBI identifying potential assassins from Spain, Italy, and Greece.
The drumbeat of threats had increased in the past several days. And the setting of a glittering charity gala in New York City offered a tempting setting for an assassin bent on making a big splash on a global stage.
"So how do we fit in with this, Finch? Is de Bursac our new case?"
Watching Joss under pressure from her captain made Reese anxious and restless. He wanted to go to the precinct to help her, or strangle her captain, as soon as possible.
"Yes and no, Mr. Reese." The older man's vague look seemed designed to irritate.
"We do have information about a threat that may come to a head tonight at the charity ball."
"And you don't think she can handle it alone?"
"Oh, quite the opposite. I have every confidence in Detective Carter's abilities in this situation. But we have additional information that suggests that the person in danger tonight will be someone other than Paul de Bursac.
"Your assignment, Mr. Reese, is to protect Madame Victoire de Bursac. Not her husband."
Reese took in this new angle on the case.
"So what's the threat to the missus? I can't imagine some laid-off Greek postal worker wants to assassinate her, do they?"
Finch sighed as he moved from the computer to the glass pane which served as their strategy board.
"I'm not sure yet. Only that she too is in danger tonight."
Turning stiffly, Finch taped onto the glass a head shot of their number and gave Reese the details he had been able to collect so far.
Reese thought Victoire de Bursac made a striking figure with her sleek mane of pure white hair above smoky brown eyes flecked with copper. According to Finch, she had been born in the horse country of southern New Jersey and had attended exclusive boarding schools Reese had never heard of in western Massachusetts. She had spent her junior year of college at the Sorbonne where she had fallen for the dashing Paul de Bursac, then a student of economics and finance at Sciences Po. The couple had been married for twenty-five years and had three adult daughters.
Reese leaned against the bookcase at the far side of the room and folded his arms across his chest.
"Horses, country clubs, fancy schools. Why don't you go to this ball tonight, Finch? This charity crowd seems right up your alley."
"I'm flattered that you believe my resources place me in this elevated company. But I think the skill set required here is more in your realm, Mr. Reese."
Unmoved, Reese offered a second line of resistance.
"So how am I supposed to get into this shindig? Or have you got that all figured out too?"
"Indeed I have. I've called upon an old friend for assistance."
"Old friend?"
"One well connected in these rarefied circles. Zoe Morgan."
Reese pushed himself off the bookcase and squared his shoulders. He didn't want to threaten Finch, exactly, but he did want to crowd his space a little to express displeasure, so he took two long strides forward.
"How's this supposed to work?"
Finch looked amused and entirely at ease, even as Reese deepened his frown and edged closer.
"At my request, Ms. Morgan was able to acquire tickets to the gala. As is fitting for the occasion, she will be wearing extremely expensive jewelry on loan from a very famous purveyor of fine things on Fifth Avenue. I believe even you would recognize the establishment, Mr. Reese."
Reese put Finch's plan together.
"And Tiffany's will only loan out all these million dollar gewgaws if Zoe is accompanied by an armed body guard. So that's where I come in."
Finch seemed extraordinarily pleased with himself.
"Exactly. Ms. Morgan is expecting you at 7:30 sharp, Mr. Reese. You will have my limousine and driver at your disposal this evening."
"But I don't have a thing to wear." The adolescent tone was entirely on purpose. Reese wanted to sound as sulky as possible, given that neither the client nor the circumstances appealed to him in the slightest.
"On the contrary, Mr. Reese. If you check the closet in the spare room you will find a new tuxedo tailored to your measurements. Or at least your measurements as they were five months ago.
"You didn't get any taller during my absence, did you, Mr. Reese?"
The monkey suit fit perfectly.
As he fastened the cufflinks in the stiff white shirt, Reese called Joss. He wanted to talk with her, assess her mood, give her a heads up. To spend some time with her, even if just on the phone. But she didn't answer.
During the weeks since he had returned with Harold, they had carved out only a few moments alone.
They met at Reese's Chinatown loft or the room above Pooja's restaurant. One morning he caught Joss at her apartment after Taylor had left for school.
Once she asked him to stay overnight at her place, saying she knew it would be alright with Taylor.
But Reese had declined. He still felt like an intruder somehow, like a weekend houseguest staying too long past breakfast on Monday. She didn't insist then or ask again.
So as the fall days grew short, they met like illicit lovers, stealing time out of their lives with other people to be together for a few precious hours.
He would send a text message with an address and a time. She would respond with an approval or an alternative.
This waiting game they were playing felt furtive, weird. But he didn't see a way out.
He phoned her again as he stood on the street corner a block from the Library watching the town car glide to a halt. She didn't answer.
Nor did she respond to his third call from the limo forty minutes later as he waited for Zoe to emerge from her townhouse.
The cool September wind stiffened as the sun set, scattering flame-colored leaves that had collected along the cobbled sidewalk. Reese stirred from his thoughts as Zoe, clutching a rich green cape at her throat, stepped gracefully over the piles of leaves and slid into the car beside him.
Carter watched from her post just beside the kitchen's swinging door as the sparkling guests fluttered two-by-two into the ballroom.
She felt hurried and unsettled by the way this sudden assignment had screwed up her plans for the day.
No time to go home, or change clothes, or leave a note for Taylor, or eat something, or answer John's phone calls before arriving at the hotel for a walk-through with Agent Donnelly.
She hadn't worn a top coat when she left home that morning and the walk from the subway in the evening gloom had chilled her thoroughly. Her black crepe pant suit and burgundy button-down shirt looked seasonal enough, but offered no insulation against the brisk change in the weather that had swept through the city that day.
The cavernous room would grow warmer as bodies filled it, she supposed. But as she waited she couldn't suppress the shivers that scurried up and down her back.
Everything seemed in order from what she gathered from Donnelly. Meticulous and careful like she was, he seemed to have anticipated every detail of the security arrangements. She wondered for the fiftieth time that day why she had to be present at all.
She felt unnecessary here, trapped between two authority figures she couldn't buck.
Lynch was a pig, plain and simple. But he was her captain and she had to obey his lawful orders or risk demotion.
Donnelly was different: smart, sincere, and much too interested in her.
And in John. She believed that the best way to keep the Feds off John's ass was to stick as close to their investigation of him as possible.
She hoped John appreciated her efforts. She thought he did.
In the weeks since he brought Harold back, John had been a sometime presence at best. She knew he had spoken twice by phone with Taylor; she hoped he knew how much he had helped her son. Taylor seemed lighter, so much easier than he had been in a long while.
But easier wasn't exactly the word she would use to describe her relationship with John. They found time to be together when they could manage it, but it wasn't enough. Whenever he texted an address and a time, she tried her best to say yes, but it wasn't always possible. When he resisted her invitation to stay overnight, she kept her mouth shut and didn't mention it again.
She felt like she was waiting for something, but she didn't know what.
She did know that ten days without touching him seemed like an eternity.
Scanning the room, she tried to count the tables sprawled across the glossy floor. After counting twenty-five tables seating twelve patrons each, she lost track and decided that she didn't really need to know how many guests were here, just the location of her principal.
At that moment, she saw Paul de Bursac enter the room. The light surrounding him seemed to bend and pulse with a strange intensity as he moved toward her. The excited buzz in the place paused a beat as every person noted his arrival.
De Bursac was handsome in a grand and untouchable sort of way. He was not tall, shorter than John certainly, but commanding all the same. His blond hair was swept straight back from a high forehead and his nose arched in a style that demanded attention. In an old movie, Joss thought de Bursac would have been played by Leslie Howard, with that gallant air and flawless carriage that asserted an aristocratic heritage even if he didn't actually have one.
He was desirable in an elemental way. Joss felt her own pulse speed up in response to the arrival of such a magnetic alpha male. She was sure every other female heart in the room was similarly moved by his powerful presence.
By de Bursac's side was his wife. Joss had seen photographs in the briefing folder Donnelly shared. But as usual, the pictures didn't capture the dynamic of the living person. Victoire de Bursac was not beautiful by any conventional standards; but she was arresting, you couldn't take your eyes from her.
Joss admired the fact that she had chosen to let her hair go glacier white. The steel gray sheen of her sleeveless gown revealed a sculpted neck and powerful shoulders under ivory skin. Her dark eyes were cloudy and heavy-lidded, perhaps the lingering result of trans-Atlantic jet lag, Joss guessed.
Large sapphire and diamond drop earrings and stark white gloves to the elbows highlighted her face and throat. She carried a small evening bag encrusted with sparkling jewels and shaped like a fantastical bird.
Only de Bursac appeared unaffected by the handsome glamour of his wife. Joss noted that he scanned the ballroom with a searching gaze that seemed to pin everything and everyone in its penetrating beam.
But his regard never lighted on the woman by his side. In similar fashion, Madame de Bursac kept her eyes carefully directed away from her husband.
As Joss reflected on the anomaly of two such striking people bound together but so coolly disengaged, Agent Donnelly caught her attention from the far corner of the room.
He nodded to indicate that with the principal in place at last, their work was under way.
The evening proceeded according to plan.
Guests, infatuated with their own fame or wealth, mingled and laughed in small clusters. Servers passed trays laden with straw-colored Champagne in faceted crystal flutes.
The silent auction attracted considerable attention, despite the painful ugliness of the oil paintings on offer. The master of ceremonies, a talk show host famous for his filthy mouth, cheered the crowd with inside jokes and praise.
The vision of the rich enjoying their pretty privileges while soothing themselves with donations to a worthy cause rankled Joss considerably. Though it wasn't her job to judge, she just couldn't help it. The comfortable congratulating the comfortable just plain stuck in her craw.
There were no signs of a threat to de Bursac as the night wore on.
She watched Donnelly prowl the periphery of the ballroom like a tense panther while the other officers stood at their stations, eyes trained on the Frenchman and his table.
Joss had managed to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach until the file of waiters began their parade from the kitchen. The guests were regaled with a sumptuous multi-course feast that she guessed must have consumed a good portion of the one thousand dollars a head they had paid to attend the event. Her insides rumbled in protest and she searched her pockets for a stray stick of gum.
After the dinner was cleared an orchestra materialized and guests happily took to the parquet dance floor.
She saw John then.
He moved in loping strides to the center of the platform and paused with his back to her.
Even viewed from the rear, the broad set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, the slightly pigeon-toed gait of his walk sparked firecrackers in her already unsettled gut.
She wanted to run across the floor and embrace him.
But he was waiting for someone else. A tall slender woman glided into the curve of his arms and the pair turned in slow circles around the floor.
Joss pressed back against the wall, hoping the shadows cloaked her completely. She examined the other woman intently.
The orange of her long-sleeved dress was a rich flame which recalled the autumn leaves. Its matte jersey fabric outlined her form without clinging and swayed gently as she moved. When John turned them, Joss was startled to see that her sheath, modestly gathered in front, draped behind in a dramatic cowl that laid her body bare from the scapula to the dimples just above her ass.
Complemented by the fiery tones of the dress, her heavy auburn hair fell in long waves over one shoulder. Joss could see the flash of the large emeralds that dropped from her ears. The long matching necklace was reversed so that its green and white jewels contrasted with the confetti of rosy freckles spilling down her back.
She was beautiful. They were beautiful together.
She fit John as if they had been made for each other. As he held her, swaying rhythmically, his fingers rested comfortably in the long groove of her arched spine. His legs moved fluidly between her thighs as she parted them. Their hips nestled together in a natural accord, as if dancing were something they did every day of their lives.
This elegant woman fit him. She was sophisticated, sexy, smiling, easy. She was what he wanted.
Joss swallowed hard, her eyes burning. She tore her attention away from John and his partner when the dance ended and they returned to their table.
Paul de Bursac had also taken to the dance floor and Joss was grateful for the necessity of focusing on him instead.
As he whirled around the room, his gaze was intent on the lithe dark-haired woman he held in a tight embrace. Not his wife, certainly not one of the blonde daughters Joss had seen in the file photos, this woman seemed to effortlessly command his undivided attention.
Out of the corner of her eye, Joss saw John place a finger to his ear and speak into the air as he watched the Frenchman and his consort execute an elaborate foxtrot across the floor.
Was Finch on the line? Was John here on an assignment? Was de Bursac his target as well?
The possibility that John was on the job comforted Joss slightly. Maybe this elegant woman was only an asset. Maybe Joss could wish her away entirely. Maybe pigs could fly.
Donnelly dispersed her gloomy thoughts by suddenly appearing at her side.
"Look sharp, Carter. I'm going back into the kitchen to speak with two of the wait staff. Gonzalez says they were acting suspicious, whatever that means. I'll be on the line if you need me."
"Will do. Everything looks under control here."
Joss scanned the room for de Bursac. He had left the floor and resumed his seat next to his wife, his dance partner nowhere in sight.
The next events seemed to unfold in a slow motion pantomime although Joss was vaguely aware that only a minute must have elapsed from start to finish.
She saw John leap from his chair, bowling over several pairs of dancers as he raced for the imperiled de Bursac's table. Automatically, she surged forward when he did, trusting his instincts as much as her own.
A woman's shrill scream erupted as Joss skittered to a stop at the table.
She saw Victoire de Bursac bent backwards in John's arms, her face contorted in pain or rage or both.
Above the hem of her long white gloves, a hypodermic needle jutted from the crook of her elbow, its point still embedded in her vein. Joss could see a ruby drop of blood clinging to the entry wound on her ivory flesh.
John laid Victoire on the floor and bent over her to take her pulse. Joss knelt opposite him, passing her hands quickly over the prone woman to check for signs of further injury.
"Medics! Get an ambulance here now!" Joss barked the order at a uniformed police officer standing beside her.
Victoire's eyes were rolled back into her skull in ghastly fashion, her mouth gaping and twisted. A bubble of saliva caught at the edge of her lip.
Then she shuddered and the eyes rolled into their natural position, focusing at last on Joss.
"I'm murdered! My husband did it."
John stuttered in response to this stark accusation.
"That can't be true. I- I saw you. You injected yourself. I saw you do it."
A deep sob shook her frame as she turned her dark eyes on him. Her voice was clear and firm.
"My husband did it. He murdered me."
With another convulsion, Victoire lost consciousness.
His fingers pressed into her neck, John updated the report on her pulse in a low, quavering voice.
"Thready. She needs help now."
Joss stood to glare at the cop next to her. "Get that bus here now."
She turned to another officer who was holding back the goggling crowd.
Pointing at Paul de Bursac, she issued a second order.
"That man is her husband. Cuff him and get him out of here. Book him for assault."
After that, the grim gears of tragedy and the law meshed in their familiar rotation.
The hypodermic needle was bagged as evidence and sent to the crime lab for expedited processing.
The police hustled a protesting Paul de Bursac out of the sparkling ballroom and into a squad car.
Only a few professional photographers were on hand, but every one of the assembled guests had a cell phone to record the shocking events. The stricken woman's accusation would be posted on the Internet within the hour.
Medics cradled Victoire de Bursac's limp body into the ambulance and sped her to the emergency room of nearby St. Seraphia Martyr Hospital.
Donnelly fled downtown to witness the booking of his principal on charges of assault and attempted murder.
Carter commandeered a police van for the ride to the hospital.
Reese vanished into the darkness.
The doctors labeled the cause of death an acute hypoglycemic encephalopathy. Carter understood this to be a grave insult to the brain caused by a massive overdose of insulin.
They guessed that the injection witnessed at the ball was the last of several Victoire de Bursac had during the course of the day. As a result of the many hours of delay, the insulin poisoning overwhelmed the emergency room's corrective treatment.
She died at 12:47 a.m. without ever having regained consciousness.
Reese paced the narrow span between Finch's chair and the bookcase while the older man pinpointed Joss's location.
All the lamps in the Library were extinguished, leaving the watery glow from the computer screen as the only source of light. Reese unknotted his bow tie and discarded it on a book half-pulled from the shelf.
When Finch determined that she was still at the hospital, Reese descended into the frigid night to walk the ten blocks to St. Seraphia's.
He wanted to make this right. He wanted to reverse somehow all the awful events of this night and more.
He wanted to make the de Bursacs whole again.
He wanted to accept Joss's invitations to dinner at her place. To go to a movie with Taylor, to play chess with him, to watch the Knicks with him. To sleep at their apartment.
He wanted to wake up in the morning with a woman and a boy smiling at him.
He looked for her on each floor of the hospital block, systematically stalking every dingy corridor, his hands bunched in the pockets of his black jacket, the collar still popped against his neck.
On the third floor he raided a vending machine. The snacks were stale, but edible he hoped.
When he found her, she was alone, seated in an isolated fifth floor waiting area. She was hunched forward on the orange plastic seats and she kept her head in her hands, even though he was sure she had heard his approach.
She was shivering. He wanted to touch her, to press her to his chest. But when she didn't look up, he simply removed his tuxedo jacket and placed it across her shoulders.
"There really wasn't anything you could do to prevent this, you know." His voice echoed harshly in the empty space, but he hoped it was comforting all the same.
"Maybe. But that doesn't take away the horror of it."
She looked up at him with tears brimming along her reddened eyelids. Other tears had dried in faint tracks down both cheeks.
He handed her the partially crushed package of peanut butter-filled crackers. She picked at the orange crumbs without a word.
"She was lying." He was as blunt and firm in his assertion as the dead woman had been in hers.
"But why, John? What would drive her to lie with her last breath?"
He sat on the cold chair beside her and stared at the flickering bulb of the lamp at the abandoned nurses' station.
"I can't answer that. I do know what Finch told me this evening. He said Paul de Bursac was having an affair. Some French journalist. When Finch described the woman, I told him that was who de Bursac was dancing with."
Joss remembered de Bursac's turn around the floor with the unknown brunette and John's brief phone conversation.
"So that's what made her do this? Jealousy? Despair?" Joss shook her head.
"She should have just kicked his ass to the curb and left him."
John shifted his shoulders and puffed out a small sigh.
"Maybe. But look at it this way. Now it's suicide and murder in one blow."
"What do you mean?"
"She committed suicide, but arranged the evidence to make it look like murder. She must have been planning this for weeks, maybe months. He's the diabetic, not her. The needle belonged to him so his prints are all over it. She was wearing gloves. So he'll be convicted. She'll be avenged. She murdered him."
Joss groaned as she worked out the inevitable conclusion.
"You saw what really went down. But you can't testify. And anyway her dying declaration trumps everything. So instead of a classic murder/suicide, we've got a suicide/murder."
He felt guilty. His number had died before he could intervene. Joss had suffered a mirror-image failure too. They had both screwed up. He more than she.
He had seen Joss shrink against the wall as he danced with Zoe. He had wanted to run to her then, embrace her right there in front of everybody. But he didn't.
He couldn't do anything about the de Bursacs.
Or about the damn emeralds, which were paste. Or the goddamn orange dress, which was very real.
He didn't know how to make any of this better. He had run out of words.
So he stood and extended his hand to her. With a firm grasp, he drew her behind him down the murky hospital corridor. The faded green of the walls and tiled floor, the wavering lights, the quiet, made him feel like they were floating underwater.
They nodded at a sleepy nurse who passed them in the hall.
He tested each door handle until he found one that turned without resistance. He pulled her into the darkened room and closed the door behind him.
"What are you doing?"
He could feel the tension pulsing through her arm and wrist into her fingers as she looked at the oxygen canisters huddled in a corner of the empty room.
He glanced out through the metal blinds which sliced across the face of the harvest moon hanging low and golden in the sky. The window frame rattled softly under the assault of frosty September gusts.
"What I wanted to do all evening."
He took her in his arms and pulled her close, holding her palm over his heart. With his right hand he tapped a rhythm against her waist. They began to move slowly around the room.
Dancing.
He wasn't much of a singer but he could carry a tune. To him, the minor key of the song fit the melancholy mood they shared. He hummed its plaintive melody into her hair.
Oh, the days dwindle down
To a precious few…
September, November…
And these few precious days
I'll spend with you.
These precious days
I'll spend with you.
After three turns around the cramped space she whispered into his shirt.
"This is weird."
"Yes."
He didn't mind if she didn't.
"You're weird."
"Yes."
She arched her back a bit to look up at him, her eyes wide and soft.
"Gonna change?"
"Never."
"Good."
She pressed her face into his shirt again and soon he could feel her humming along with him, the vibrations of her body warm under his hands.