A/N—Thank you all so much for commenting on that last chapter. I'm finding it difficult to get back into the swing of things with writing, and every word of encouragement means a lot!

In answer to someone's PM, yes, Raoul is pretty much out of the picture now. The poor guy has his hands full with a bickering family, company woes, a will to settle and other problems. Perhaps I wasn't quite fair to him—he is essentially a very nice guy, but not who Christine needs.

Onward.

The Measure of a Man

Chp 26 Blizzard

2018

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The skies were leaden, pressing down with the sharp smell of impending snow on the wind. Christine slammed the mailbox door, remembering to lock it, clutching the pile against her chest, then tightened the collar of her coat with one hand and trudged back up the sidewalk to her flat, stomping the snow off her boots at the door. It was miserably cold.

She tossed the handful of mail onto the counter and sighed when it skittered across to fall on the floor. Nothing was going right today. Parking on campus had been hell, and she'd discovered after a futile search that the reference materials she'd needed for her next paper had been checked out already from the library. Tossing her coat and gloves across the table, Christine added water to the electric kettle and pressed down the switch, reaching for teabags and her favorite mug. Maybe caffeine would help.

The letters had scattered across the floor and she bent to gather the fallen items, sorting as she rose. The usual ads, flyers, bills, and miscellany. A brightly-colored tri-fold caught her eye and she set the rest aside. College of Graduate Studies, Travel Study Courses, Summer Term and Intercession.

The kettle boiled and clicked off and she poured water over her teabag, absently dunking it up and down while perusing the flyer. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she had never been out of the country. There had never been enough money.

Film and Theater in Toronto: Discover the Hollywood of the North, Summer in Salamanca: Spanish Language Immersion, Wildlife of the Galapagos...she flipped to the section on history and trailed a finger down to Europe. Renaissance Art in Italy: A Tour of Cities and Museums, King Arthur to the Roman Occupation: The Prehistory of England, The Protestant Reformation in Germany, Paris and Provence…

Reluctantly she set the brochure aside and removed the teabag, adding milk and sugar, carrying the steaming mug over to the deck doors and looking out across the snowy field. Paris and Provence. Someplace warm. France in the summer, a chance to practice her language before next year's exam, heat rising from hazy fields of lavender, the Louvre, the Opera Garnier, the shops and restaurants...maybe bicycling through some little town with a summery hat and a basket with cheese, bread, chocolate, and wine.

She could afford it; the tuition wasn't that much and she could find a cheap flight—the back of the plane got there as fast as the first class section. Room and board provided, and she could take an extra week or so to explore.

But not by herself. Reluctantly Christine pushed the fantasy aside. How much fun it would have been to have maybe gone with Meg, or even Erik. He'd mentioned that he had lived there once, and spoke the language fluently. She could have practiced with him, and had someone to tour the country with, could have aced that language requirement upon return.

The Girys had French ancestry, even relatives back there, but Meg would never be able to go, not with her practice schedule. She couldn't afford to miss one of the endless rounds of auditions and performances, not as a rising dancer. Meg had dreams and aspirations, a career that was ascending. No, she wouldn't be able to take a month off.

And not Erik, either. They'd parted with stiff apologies on each side, pointedly avoiding being at the checkout lanes at the same time. He must have left the Market immediately, avoiding her; she'd not even seen his car in the parking lot.

Christine set the mug aside, rubbing at the sting behind her eyes. She was tired, so tired, of being alone.

The shadows had lengthened into a cold and heavy darkness, with the Eames chair surrounded by a puddle of yellow light as if keeping the restless spirits of the night at bay. He closed the cover of the book, pushing the mug aside. The coffee, made hours ago, was surely cold. He wanted a finger of Scotch but that small comfort was denied him, and he snapped off the reading light.

Might as well go to bed.

Erik climbed the stairs, passing through the cavernous living room with its silent piano. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd set to work again on the score. He had the idea now, just needed the lover's theme to complete it. He set the house alarm and headed down the hall.

As usual the bed beckoned and repelled, a stark reminder of what might have been. Seeing her this afternoon had been an accident, a cruel twist of fate, an chance opportunity ruined-he'd gone and botched it so badly, the rush of relief at seeing her turning to anger, his temper slipping, seeing again the fear and anger in her face as she'd pulled away from him.

God he was tired of being alone.

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The small aircraft was shuddering hard, buffeted by winds so turbulent it seemed a giant hand had seized and was shaking it about. The glass before him splintered, a spiderweb of lines from the hailstorm. There was a searing flare of blue-white-purple, and then a loud crack…lightning, terrifyingly close. The drum of hail became a roar so loud he could not longer hear her screams behind him. Fighting the controls, he desperately looked for any place to land, but in the roaring darkness it was next to impossible. The small craft was descending without his help, and Erik reached over to slam his hand down on the EPIRB, hoping the plane would stay intact enough for them to locate the wreckage with the beacon. The windshield crumpled inward, ice and water spraying through the cabin. The screaming winds tore at the cabin, a black and white maelstrom of sound and debris. The small craft was flung sideways, spiraling downward...

He jolted upwards, sheets tangled around his legs, heart pounding and voice hoarse, the sounds wrenched from his throat still echoing in his ears. Shuddering, Erik bent over, swallowing the bitter taste of bile and raking hands through his hair, down his chest. He was intact, the bed motionless, safe.

His daytime memory held no recall of the sounds of that horrific night. Those details were reserved for his nightmares. The force of the snapping trees, the freezing torrent through the shattered windshield, the desperate attempt to keep the wings level and nose up, the sudden plummet and the onrush of the slope and vertical cliff; these were the things he remembered.

PTSD, they called it.

Erik swung his legs to the side of the bed and staggered toward the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face, then stripped off the sweat-soaked t-shirt and flung it in the bin. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep; he'd lost his chance for the night. Erik glanced at the bed, remembering with a rush her warm body curled against him, and pushed the thoughts away. He'd lost that chance as well.

Patrons turned at the blast of cold air, their snarls turning to sneers of contempt. "Shut the damn door," someone snapped, and he stumbled in, collapsing on a barstool. Only one tonight...he needed to stay sharp in case the call came through.

He ignored the television above the bar, with its empty-headed bleached blond reporter, swaddled in layers of scarves and a parka, breathlessly talking about the latest wreck on the highway. The weatherman gleefully informed the viewers that the front was arriving faster than predicted, and heavy precipitation was expected. No shit. It was winter, what did they think was gonna happen? Back on the set, the relentlessly perky anchor and her jutting silicon breasts faced the camera and reminded everyone to be safe out there.

Buquet slammed the last of his beer and turned to stare out the window. No word for a week now. What was he supposed to do? Sit here 'til he rotted? Maybe he'd have to push things a bit. If only he could figure out how to get past those cameras and security system he'd just do it and be done.

He rolled over, silencing the alarm. Morning already. His eyes felt like sandpaper; he'd retrieved the book and read for hours, unable to sleep. Slowly he scooted into an upright position, carefully moving his sleep-stiffened body. What a wretched night. Erik reached for the tablet on the nightstand, idly flicking through the morning news, reading the occasional article, dismissing most of the political ranting and entertainment sections. One article on music caught his eye and he clicked on it. It opened in Yahoo and the blinking 1 in the upper right corner demanded his attention. You have mail. He frowned…that was a dead account, or so he'd thought. He opened it, not recognizing the sender. The message sent a rivulet of ice down to his stomach.

Not all of us has forgot Carla and what you did.

Abruptly he was wide awake, frozen in the warm bed, pulse pounding behind his eyes. What the hell? Angrily he jabbed the X closing the note, but reopened it a minute later, staring at the accusing words, noting the sender's name. A moment's searching showed it as a deactivated account…but the date was this past weekend. A very recently deactivated account.

There was no way to locate for the sender that he knew of, but flagged it as spam and blocked the sender just in case.

The message followed his thoughts downstairs and into the kitchen, hovering on the edges of his thoughts as he irritably punched buttons on the coffee machine. Carla. She'd been out with someone, that final night of her life, but whom? He racked his thoughts for the thousandth time since her death. Not Piangi. Erik knew what the media did not, that the Italian tenor had finally reached his limit with Carla's lies and manipulation. He'd thrown her over for a nubile young thing in the chorus. Alberto Piangi went through women like water.

But whom. He knew with a bone-deep certainty Carla had not taken her own life. She was far too self-absorbed for that, never displaying a shred of remorse, guilt, or self-pity. She took, she used, she moved on. From him as well. A divorce was inevitable, he'd seen what he'd become reflected in her eyes, an angry, ugly man.

Could it be that she'd moved on from someone else as well, someone who didn't take the news well? Always a possibility, but in that case, why murder her?

Across the city, the snow continued falling.

"Jesus, Chris...why didn't you ever tell me any of this?" The silence stretched out between them, heavy and painful. Meg's hazel eyes filled with tears and she squeezed her friend's hand tightly. "I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known. Couldn't you have..."

"I didn't tell anybody," Christine's voice was a broken whisper. "Who would have believed me? He was the golden boy, the track star, the football hero. His parents ran the country club scene."

"Your mom would have," Meg said gently. "And I would have. And your dad. And my mom too."

"Yeah, but Mom was going through chemo then, remember? With that breast cancer scare? She was so sick...I didn't want to add to her problems."

Meg took one last sip of her wine and regretfully pushed away the glass. The apartment was dim, only the flickering light from the fireplace giving any illumination. Christine had called that afternoon in tears, and begged to come up for just a little while. The quaver in her voice had warned Meg this was no casual request and she'd rapidly agreed, calling in excuses to miss a meeting with the wedding caterer, knowing her mother would be thrilled to have a free hand with some of the preparations. She'd hugged her friend at the door and Christine had started shaking, tears seeping from her reddened eyes. Meg had drawn her down to the sofa in front of the fireplace and offered a glass of wine, holding her hand.

It had been easier for Christine to get the words out in the darkness, the words coming in a cascade of guilt, shame, and fear. Horrified, Meg had done her best to listen without asking questions. "I'm so sorry. I feel like I should have known, should have figured it out. You always hated him, that bastard."

Turned sideways on the couch, legs drawn up underneath an afghan, Christine nodded shakily. Meg sat silently for a minute, slowly putting the pieces together. "So that's why you've never really had a good relationship, huh? Bad memories?"

Christine blotted her eyes again with the shredded tissue. "I guess. I mean...I got some things, you know, over with in college...I felt like such a loser...but I never really liked it. It was always just something to get through."

Meg squeezed her hand again. "That sucks for you...so much. But Chris, did you tell Erik any of this? Try to explain it?"

She shook her head miserably. "No. I just...freaked out. And I'm sure he thinks it was all his fault."

"God, Chris, you have to talk to him. Let him know, I mean...something. You like this guy, right? And he likes you?"

"I thought he did. Now...I don't know." A lone tear slid down her cheek. "He was so angry with me. I've really screwed it all up, haven't I?"

He stumbled in the snow, cursing how it seeped into his boots. Damned pants kept coming untucked. Viciously he wedged them down again and moved forward. With the rate the snow was coming down it would cover his tracks and the car's too, soon. That was a good thing. He pushed on.

Ahead through the trees the house sat, a different white against the snow, the windows darkened. It had been hours….surely even the battery backups were dead by now. No generator, either, if he was any judge. The guy might not even be home. Buquet patted his pocket. He'd brought a little insurance, though, just in case.

He raised the binoculars and squinted, numbed fingers holding the Bushnells as steady as possible. No red lights on the cameras, on the driveway the furrows from tires leading away from the house...hot damn, he might truly be in luck.

Buquet edged forward, out into the open slope of lawn. He'd be in range soon, but if caught he could always claim he'd had car trouble and gotten lost, looking for help.

Nothing happened, no alarms, no floodlight, no motion-sensor-moving cameras. He staggered up to the deck doors, in keeping with his role as lost driver. No lights, nothing. It took only minutes to cut the panes and reach inside, turning the lock. A swift kick and the lower pane shattered, and he moved the metal rod aside, pulling the upper and lower deadbolts, and stepped inside.

"That's it, then," Erik groused, as the early evening newscaster cheerfully reminded everyone where shelters were available.

He'd woken to a chilly bedroom. When the bedside lamp had failed to respond he'd checked the breakers, then raised the blinds. The entire neighborhood was dark, street lamps and houses buried under a fresh layer of ice and snow. Cell service was still up and a quick check revealed a power outage on the south end of town. Erik had tossed another blanket on the bed and crawled back in, hoping to find the situation improved when morning came.

It hadn't been.

Khan called, having seen the morning news, and invited him over with a promise of pancakes and hot coffee. Erik had gratefully accepted, bundling up and taking twice as long to make the commute across town. The front had turned into an ice storm, sweeping in from the Canadian coast. Heavy snow blanketed the city and surrounding counties. He'd ended up spending the day as it became apparent that the substation repairs were going to take much longer than anticipated.

"Why don't they bury these things underground?"

"They couldn't hike our rates that way for the repairs," Khan said reasonably.

"Think how much they could raise them to do the burial, though?"

Khan laughed and gathered the coffee mugs. "You're more than welcome to spend the night," he called over his shoulder, taking them back into the kitchen of his tiny apartment. "God knows I've slept enough at your place. We can have another game."

"I can get a hotel room."

"There's not a room to be had, I'd wager. You saw they'd closed the interstate; every person out there has already grabbed one for the night. Of course, you're always welcome to freeze in your house, if that's what you want. I'm sure the floor in front of the fireplace is very comfortable."

"Fine." Erik rolled his eyes, stood and reached for his coat. "I'll go check on things and grab my overnight stuff."

"You might bring back a pizza, assuming anything's open. You know what I like. No mushrooms, though," he said firmly. "And extra onions."

"Can do."

"Let yourself out. I'll go put some sheets on the bed."

Erik pulled the neoprene mask snuggly down over his damaged face and tugged on heavy gloves before stepping out carefully into the evening. If anything the wind whistling between the buildings was more biting than it had been hours ago, and it was already dark this far north and late in the year. Maybe he'd have that pizza delivered instead. Assuming anyone was delivering.

He didn't really want to spend the night at Khan's place, even if the man kept a spare bedroom. Both valued their privacy, despite the long friendship. Once upon a time there had been a plan to send a young relative over to attend the university, and Khan had rented a two-bedroom unit with that thought in mind. It had never come to pass, though, and he'd kept the unit anyway for emergencies, but Erik hated to be beholden. Maybe the house wouldn't be bad.

Though he drove at a crawl with the traction control flashing, the Mercedes fishtailed twice before he could get back to the house, and Erik took the icy driveway at a run. He hesitated briefly, debating whether to leave the car idling, but surely it wouldn't take more than a minute to gather his kit bag and a change of clothes; the car wouldn't cool off that quickly. He slid the key in the lock, opening the front door, and stepped in, reaching for the alarm panel before the twenty second countdown kicked in.

The panel, though, was dark and the house as well, colder than he'd expected. Still no power. Well, definitely Khan's tonight. There was a decent bottle of red in the kitchen that would go well with pizza, but first, he'd grab the laptop from downstairs. He'd left it on the keyboard, intending some editing of the soundscript later on. He could do that just as easily over there. Erik dropped the gloves on the kitchen counter and set the wine next to them. Won't forget it that way, and headed down the hall, slipping loose the buttons of his overcoat.

The lower level was unpleasantly cold, the stairwell utterly dark. Erik felt his way into the workroom, edging along the wall. Somewhere on the bench was an LED flashlight. He found it and clicked it on, blinking in the sudden glare of light.

There was an unfamiliar scent in the room, stale and sour. A spilled chemical? No. Nothing like that, the jars were still neatly lined up and sealed. The innate wrongness of the situation was becoming harder to dismiss. He froze, senses tingling, and swept the compact light around the room. Something was off. The laptop sat dark and silent atop the keyboard where he'd left it, but the cabinet door beside it was slightly ajar. Frowning, Erik stepped into the living area.

A chill breeze swept the room., the sheer draperies fluttering at the French doors. He had only a moment to register the sense of movement before a dark shape came at him, striking a heavy blow across his shoulder. The light flew and shattered, as together they tumbled through the door back into the workroom.

"Where is it?" heavy and foul, a voice hissed in his ear. Erik twisted like a cat, but the long wool coat was making it impossible to break away. A hand struck his face, strong blunt fingers in a ragged glove pressing against his mouth, cutting off his air, cracking his head hard against the wall in a shower of sparks behind his eyes, and Erik slammed one knee upwards between the other man's legs. His assailant fell back, retching and gasping, shoving Erik hard. "Goddammit, you bastard!" He stumbled to the right, one arm raking the workbench desperately. Hammer, screwdriver, anything…

The figure lunged at him again, and he heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer being drawn back, cocked, as his assailant gasped and panted, flailing about, reaching for him.

His fingers clawed frantically at the work table's surface, rolling on something thin. Strings...the violin he was repairing. Erik scrabbled for the catgut wires, looping them and twisting, whipping them over the other man's head as the figure struggled, striking at him, tightening, tightening, hearing the surprised gasp and choking sputters. The man's hands grabbled at his, raking his flesh with dirty nails, and Erik viciously twisted the makeshift noose, the wires cutting into his palm. Him or me.

He managed to get a finger on the weapon as the intruder viciously kicked, a heavy boot crashing against his bad leg. He fell, one hand still fighting for control of the gun, pointing it upwards, their combined weight dragging on the trigger. At this close range, the discharge was deafening.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this update. :) We are about 2 chapters from the end, I think.

Please review...it feeds and encourages the author!

~R