The workday passed as slowly and unpleasantly as the last. About an hour before the end of Sarah's shift, Ronan's shadow fell over her desk and she looked up in time to see him drop a large cardboard box of assorted objects onto her desk. She looked at him blankly, waiting for an explanation.
"Yates' belongings," he said in a bored tone. "No need for them anymore. I'd say just get rid of them, but apparently we have to keep it for forty-eight hours to give his family a chance to pick it up."
Sarah glanced down at the box. There wasn't much in it. A couple of folders, a few knick knacks, a water bottle, some loose papers.
"Will they be coming by soon?" she asked him.
Ronan shrugged. "No clue. Who knows if he even has a family? Who cares? Just keep it behind your desk for the next two days and then toss it."
She nodded, but he didn't leave her desk. Instead he lingered, staring from his watch to her with a smirk on his face, until she raised her eyebrows at him.
"Just wondering if they teach you to tell time in secretary school," he said.
"I…don't know if secretary school is a thing anymore," she responded.
"Well, wherever you learned your definition of 'lunch break' then."
Her face flushed. "Oh. I, um…I didn't feel well yesterday."
"Upset about your dead boyfriend?" he asked mockingly.
"My…what?"
"Well I can't think of any other reason you'd get that upset and rush out of here after the news spread. Unless you two were, uh, engaging in some off-the-clock teamwork," he said, baring his yellow teeth in a leer. She narrowed her eyes when she caught what he was suggesting.
He leaned a little closer and said lowly, "You know, if you were going to give it up to someone in the office, you probably should have shot a bit higher than Yates. You didn't even get a promotion out of him before he kicked the bucket."
Sarah stared at him, gritting her teeth in an effort not to respond. She knew he was just trying to get a rise out of her, but something in his expression disturbed her deeply, more so than usual, and she had no desire to push farther. Ronan kept his beady eyes glued on her for a long, unsettling moment before returning to his office.
After he was gone, Sarah took a few deep breaths and stared down at the box. If someone at the company did kill Yates, maybe there would be some clue in there. She doubted that they would have left anything incriminating in there, but there might be something they missed. But the lobby during the middle of the business day wasn't the best place to be rummaging around in a dead man's things. She supposed she could figure out a plan with her frequent nightly visitor—who she was positive would be dropping by tonight, seeing as she hadn't been there the night before. And she was sure he would not be in a good mood.
As she had expected, a knock came at her window around 11:30 that night. Her stomach flipped in anxiety; just how pissed would he be that she had disappeared for a night after basically accusing him of murder? On top of that, how much angrier would he get when she wouldn't tell him where she had been?
She heaved the window up and squinted out into the darkness. Even by his outline she could tell he was tense. Matt slipped in silently while she returned to where she had been sitting at her small kitchen table. He remained standing by the window, just outside of the glow cast by her kitchen light.
"You weren't here last night," he said.
"No," she acknowledged nervously. He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't.
"You know, it's not…a great feeling to have someone call you on the phone and hysterically accuse you of killing someone, and then suddenly become completely unreachable."
Sarah looked down at the table, nervously tracing patterns on the surface with her index finger. "I just...needed some time to think. I told you I wasn't going to talk to anyone."
He laughed harshly, and she winced at the sound. "Yeah. You sounded really convincing, too. Besides, you ratting me out wasn't the only possibility going through my head when I couldn't get in touch with you."
She looked up at him, confused as to what he meant, but he didn't appear to notice. Which would seem normal for any other blind man, but this one was usually inexplicably observant.
"Where did you go?" he asked.
"Not to the police."
"I figured as much, what with me not being dead or in handcuffs. That's not what I asked."
"Does it matter?" she said evasively. "I just…spent the night somewhere else. I needed time to think."
"And…what conclusion did you come to? After all this thinking?"
Sarah bit her lip. "I let you in, didn't I? I guess it…it doesn't make a lot of sense. For you to have killed Yates."
"A ringing endorsement," he said dryly.
"You interrogated a man in his apartment and he was found dead the next day, Matt. What…what did you think it would look like? But I'm not—I'm not breaking my end of the deal. I swear."
"So you never considered going to the police?"
She looked away. Of course she had thought about it. She had dismissed the thought pretty quickly, but it's not like it hadn't crossed her mind. Somehow she didn't think that would go over well, though.
"No," she lied. Her heart pounded as she waited to see if he would catch on somehow, in that way he often did. Instead, he was silent for a long time before he finally spoke.
"Do you have anything new for me?" he asked. Sarah was relieved at the change of subject.
"Yeah, um…maybe. Ronan gave me a box of Yates' stuff that they cleared out of his office. It has some old papers and notebooks and stuff. I'm sure they probably removed anything incriminating, but I figure it's worth a look."
He nodded. "Do you have the box here?"
"No. I have to keep it at work for forty-eight hours in case his family comes to claim it. And I couldn't get a good look with so many people around. Um, if we don't mind waiting a couple of days, I can just wait until the time limit is up and toss it, then we can go back and get it out of the dumpster."
"And if we want it sooner than that?"
"I…can pretend like I left something at work and go back to get it. I mean, I can't get the whole box out the door with the security cameras, but the folders and papers would fit in my purse."
"No," he said immediately. She blinked in surprise. "We'll wait til the forty eight hours are up."
"Are you sure? I've gone back to work after hours before…which I guess you probably remember," she said awkwardly. "I don't think it would draw a lot of suspicion."
He shook his head. "Too dangerous. Someone might catch on. And if someone does come to claim that box, we don't need them figuring out that some of the contents are missing. We'll wait."
She raised an eyebrow. She hadn't realized he had even considered the danger on her end of their bargain. Sarah blinked as she realized what he might have meant when he mentioned another possibility behind her being missing.
He shifted oddly, leaning slightly against the wall, and as the kitchen light hit him a bit more Sarah noticed that he was swaying slightly where he stood. Peering at him closer, she saw that the sleeve on his right arm was torn, revealing a long, deep cut down his bicep, and his lip was bleeding. She frowned and hesitated, unsure where the line was drawn when it came to asking about what he did when he wasn't climbing through her kitchen window.
"Um…are you…are you alright?" she asked uncertainly.
"What?" He seemed confused by her sudden change of subject.
"You look, um…injured," she said, gesturing vaguely at his injuries, although she knew he couldn't see the movement.
He shrugged. "It's nothing. Found a few guys who had cornered a—a teenage girl in a parking lot. A couple of them were…surprisingly quick with the switchblades," he said, gesturing to his bleeding arm.
She winced. "Is the girl okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, she'll be fine. They pushed her around a bit, but they didn't…" he trailed off and Sarah could see his fists clench and unclench. "She'll be alright," he finished firmly.
Sarah fidgeted uncomfortably. She didn't exactly want to send out friendly vibes, but she couldn't very well let him stand there, bleeding from various wounds after saving some poor girl, and not offer him any sort of help.
"Do you, um…" she trailed off, and he tilted his head back, waiting. "Do you need like, a—a bandage, or…ice or something?"
Her question seemed to confuse him again. Was it that weird of her to ask a bleeding person if they needed some medical assistance? I did recently accuse him of killing someone, she admitted mentally. Maybe it is weird.
He started to answer, then turned his head towards her open window suddenly. It almost looked like he was staring outside, but obviously he couldn't be.
"What—what are you doing?" she asked, wrinkling her brow in confusion.
He didn't answer. Was he hearing something out there? Sarah strained her ears, but she couldn't hear anything beyond the usual traffic below.
"I need to go," he said, already pulling himself through the window. Sarah raised her eyebrows, baffled by his sudden exit. He landed on the fire escape and turned back to her for a second. "I'll check in soon. Just don't…don't disappear again. This works better when I can keep in touch with you."
He vaulted off the metal scaffolding, and Sarah leaned back in her chair, relieved at how not-violent the night had gone. They seemed to have almost reached a kind of truce. Sarah paused after the thought, then quickly knocked on the wooden table. No need to tempt any jinxes.
Unfortunately, knocking on wood doesn't always work, and the fragile détente between the two of them was to be short lived. In fact, it would be blown all to hell by the next night.
The next day after work, Sarah hailed a cab instead of walking to the subway stop. She had promised her father she'd go to the police station about his ticket. She assumed it was a long shot, but it wasn't unheard of for police to give the court a recommendation for dismissal or leniency if someone presented a good case. She had no idea what that good case could be in this situation, but it was worth a shot.
As it worked out, rush hour traffic ensured that her cab ride to the police station took just as long as the subway would have—at about three times the price—and by the time she arrived the sun was already getting low. Entering the lobby of the police station, she got in line behind two other people and fiddled with the traffic ticket in her hands.
Sarah zoned out, and she almost didn't notice when the doors leading to the interrogation rooms opened and three men walked through, conversing quietly. A dark skinned officer in uniform, a man in a suit with shaggy blonde hair, and lastly, a familiar dark haired blind man.
Shit. Sarah realized immediately what the situation would look like to him, but it was too late. For about half a second she hoped that he might not know she was there, but he stopped dead as soon as he came through the doors, turning his sightless gaze in her direction. She didn't know how he knew she was there, but there was no doubt that he did.
"Ma'am?" the desk sergeant behind the counter said. "What did you need?"
Sarah hadn't even realized that the two people in front of her in line had already gone, and she was next.
"What?" she said too quickly. "I—um—n-nothing. I don't remember. Bye."
The office raised her eyebrows doubtfully as Sarah hastily shoved the papers back in her purse and made a beeline for the door. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Matt still had his head tilted just slightly in her direction; the officer speaking to him looked confused by his sudden stillness. She could see the vigilante's knuckles turning white as he gripped his cane harder.
Bolting through the doors, she began walking as fast as she could without flat out running. She figured once she was a few blocks away, she could maybe call him and leave a message explaining that she wasn't there about him, and just pray that he believed her and didn't show up at her apartment.
Sarah had just gotten to the intersection when she felt a strong hand grab her upper arm, forcing her to a stop. She knew who it was before she even looked. Turning her head, she saw Matt standing next to her, facing straight ahead. Considering how fast he must have moved to catch up with her speed walking without her noticing, he was remarkably not out of breath.
"I think we should talk, don't you?" he said, speaking lowly so only she could hear him.
"Matt—" she began, but he cut her off.
"You're going to act like you're helping me cross the street, and then we'll find a place to discuss some of the terms of our agreement," he said. His voice was deadly calm, but his vice-like grip told a different story. Any trace of the almost-truce they had come to the previous night was long gone.
Sarah glanced around at the few other people nearby. No one seemed to notice anything off about the situation; to them, she realized, they just looked like a blind man holding onto a friend's arm at a crosswalk. She felt a low hum of panic begin to build in her chest.
"N-no, we don't have to—you don't understand—" She hissed in pain as his grip on her arm tightened suddenly and painfully.
"I think maybe you don't understand. Let me rephrase," he said quietly. "You're going to do as I say and cross the street, or I'm going to break your arm. Is that clearer?"
The crosswalk turned green and began beeping, and he nudged her arm forward. His tight grip on her arm didn't lessen as they crossed. When they reached the other side, he began steering her to the right, though she knew to any potential onlookers it probably still looked like she was leading him. She quickly realized what he was pushing her towards, and her stomach dropped in dread as they approached the opening to a very dark and out-of-sight alleyway. Sure enough, he turned sharply when they came to it, and yanked her a few yards further until they reached a large dumpster. They rounded the side of the dumpster, which effectively blocked them from view of the street, and he let go of her arm roughly, so that she stumbled back against the metal container.
Matt was breathing heavily, and even with his sunglasses instead of the mask, she instantly recognized the look on his face. It was the same one he had gotten when she accidentally revealed his friend's nickname, right before he had lost it and pinned her to the wall. Sarah nervously glanced around her. Almost all of the windows in the building behind him were boarded up, and the alley ended in a brick wall. She eyed the windowsill to her right, which was also boarded up; there was an empty beer bottle within arms reach.
"You know, if you were going to try and turn me in without me catching you, it might have been a smarter move to go to a police station not in Hell's Kitchen," he said, his voice shaking slightly.
"Okay, w-wait. I know what you're thinking—"
"I'm thinking that you just broke your part in our agreement, Sarah, less than twenty four hours after you swore you wouldn't, so give me one good reason why I shouldn't do the same."
She paled at his words. Most of his end of the deal consisted of him not throwing her off a roof, and right now it looked like he meant it when he said he wouldn't be holding up that end anymore.
"I wasn't there about anything to do with you. I swear. I wasn't going to—"
"We'll get to what you were going to do in a minute. What I need to know right now is what you've already done. If the police station wasn't your first stop then my friends are in danger, meaning you have about ten seconds to tell me the truth. Have you already told someone?"
"No. No, I—I haven't. A-and I wasn't going to in there, either."
"Then why were you there?"
Sarah hesitated, holding her purse closer as her mind flashed to the traffic ticket she had shoved inside. The ticket with her father's full name and address on it. She knew he couldn't read the actual physical paper, but he was a lawyer; who knew if he could look up tickets in the system somehow, and figure out the connection between her last name and her father's? If she had her way, Matt would never even know she had a father. Or any family or friends, for that matter. In a perfect scenario, he would believe that she had simply popped into existence and lived her life in a vacuum, with nobody that he could track down if their partnership went downhill. Which it looked like it was about to do. Rapidly.
"You know, when someone takes this long to answer, it's not usually a good indicator that they're about to tell you the truth," he said coldly.
"It…it was for…personal reasons," she said lamely. Her mind was blanking on any possible excuses she could come up with.
"Personal reasons?" he repeated. She could hear the disbelief in his tone. "This is my life you're messing with. The lives of people I love. You can at least come up with a better lie than personal reasons."
"It's not a lie! I just, I can't—I can't tell you. Why I was there. B-but it had nothing to do with you, I swear."
"Really. If it had nothing to do with me, why can't you tell me what it was?"
"I just—you don't need to know," she said, trying to sound firm, but even she could hear the tremble in her voice. "It's not relevant. T-to anything that we're doing."
"So you're telling me," he said slowly, his voice heavy with skepticism, "that your mysterious reason for being in the police station has nothing to do with me? Nothing to do with Orion, or why you're working there? No connection to…any of that at all?"
Except that I was there for the one person who got me involved in any of this in the first place.
"R-right," Sarah lied, tightening her grip on her purse. "No connection."
He nodded slowly, almost looking as if he believed her. The twitch in his jaw was her only warning sign that he didn't. She barely had time to recognize the red flag before he slammed his hands against the metal dumpster on either side of her with a deafening bang. Sarah let out a small yelp, flinching at the sound of the impact so close to her face. Her hands automatically flew up in front of her defensively, but he had already turned away and was pacing the small area next to the dumpster in agitation.
Sarah nervously glanced yet again at the empty beer bottle on the windowsill, then back at Matt, whose broad shoulders rose and fell as he breathed deeply to get himself under control. If she had ever thought that the man was less intimidating in normal clothes than in his Daredevil outfit, that thought was gone now; she could see no difference between the two.
"Last night, I asked you if you had considered going to the police," he said, still pacing. "You lied to me and said no. And now you're lying again."
"I'm not lying—" she protested, but he cut her off.
"Then why is your heartbeat so fast?"
"Because I'm scared, why else—" she stopped abruptly as his words sunk in, staring at him in with mounting alarm. "What…what do you mean, my heartbeat?" she said slowly.
He stopped pacing and turned back to her. For a few moments it didn't look like he was going to say anything, so she was surprised when he answered her. "Your heartbeat. I can hear it. And it's making it very obvious that you're not telling me the truth right now."
She tried to steady her breathing, suddenly very aware of the sound of her heart pounding. But that was in her own ears; there was no way he could hear it.
"That's…n-not possible," she stuttered uncertainly.
Matt cocked his head. "Are you sure about that?"
He took a slow, deliberate step towards her, and sure enough, she felt her heart rate jump as he came closer. He raised his eyebrows pointedly.
"There it goes," he said softly, and her eyes widened. "Clear as day. It changes when you're lying. And when you're scared. And it's not just your heartbeat. Your breathing is erratic, your mouth is dry. Even your blood pressure is higher. Your muscles are tense, like maybe you're thinking about trying to run. Your palms are sweaty; not a lot, but enough that if you actually reach for that bottle you keep glancing at, you'd probably drop it before it can do you any good." He shrugged. "But you can try if you want. I wouldn't recommend it."
Sarah's heart pounded faster with every word he said, and the new knowledge that he could hear it didn't help. She looked from the bottle to him, then shook her head, unable to speak. He continued.
"You have pepper spray attached to your keys, but unfortunately for you those are at the bottom of your bag, and you forgot to pack your stun gun," he stated calmly. "All of the apartments with windows facing us are abandoned. And the only people to pass this alleyway in the last five minutes are already at the end of the block. Well out of earshot. Do you want to hear more?"
A tense silence lingered in the air between them, only now Sarah was painfully aware that to him, it wasn't really silence at all.
"No," she whispered. "I—I think I got it."
"Then let's try this again," he said, taking another slow step towards her until he was less than a foot away, and she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. "What were you going to talk to the police about?"
"I…I can't tell you," she repeated shakily. She kept her eyes trained over his shoulder, trying not to look at him so she wouldn't have to see his reaction.
"Does it have anything to do with that paper in your bag that you don't want me to see?"
Her eyes snapped to his face, which was carefully void of expression. Her stomach twisted. If he could hear a person's heartbeat and blood pressure, of all things, then he could almost definitely read the information on that ticket if she gave it to him.
"You shoved it in your bag as soon as you saw me," he continued when she didn't answer. "And unless you think I'm after your wallet I can't think of any reason why you'd be holding onto your purse so tightly."
"No, I...the paper has n-nothing to do with you or our arrangement. And I'm not giving it to you," she said in a small voice. She held her breath and waited.
Matt leaned forward, slowly placing his hands against the dumpster on either side of her, close to where he had just struck it a few minutes earlier.
"Do you really think I can't just take it from you?" he asked quietly. Sarah clutched her bag tighter.
"I believe you when you say you didn't kill Brian Yates," she said softly. Even behind his dark glasses, she could see him blink in confusion at the sudden conversational shift, and she hurried to continue. "I don't have proof, b-but I choose to believe you anyway, because I have to. Because I have to work with you to get what I want, and—and you're in that same position."
He was very still. Not removing the arms he was using to block her in, but not bashing her head against the dumpster either, so she took that as a sign to continue.
"You can listen to my pulse, or—or whatever you do," she said. "I'm telling you the truth. I wasn't there to turn you in. Maybe the reason why I was there isn't—isn't completely separate from all this. But i-it's not going to affect anything. Please, just…believe me."
The silence after her words seemed to stretch on forever.
Matt pressed his lips together, apparently assessing her before he finally took a step back, removing his hands from their position on the dumpster. Sarah breathed a small sigh of relief that he was no longer trapping her in.
"You accuse me of killing someone, then hang up and mysteriously disappear for a night," he said. "And now you want me to just…take your word that you were in the police station the very next day for some completely unrelated reason? But you can't tell me what? I'm just supposed to accept that on faith?"
"W-well I have to take it on faith that you're won't decide to just up and kill me after I help you take down Orion," Sarah said as steadily as she could manage. "Or even sooner. And—and that's not helped by the fact that you spend half your time threatening me in every freaking alleyway in Hell's Kitchen."
Something that she could have sworn resembled guilt flashed across his face, but it was gone before she could be sure.
"So we're just going on faith, then," he said finally, and she was unsure if it was a question or a statement.
"I guess so," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. He didn't say anything else for several minutes, and finally she ventured uncertainly, "Are…are you going to stop me if I try to leave now?"
Matt considered her for a moment, then jerked his head towards the road. She cautiously skirted around the vigilante, keeping her eyes on him until she was past him.
Sarah hurried out of the alleyway, glancing back when she got to the sidewalk. She could barely see his outline in the shadows beyond the dumpster. When she got to the end of the block she pulled out her phone. She was supposed to have dinner with her dad on Friday night, but suddenly the idea of going there at night—when Daredevil could be prowling about at any time—seemed like a bad one. Daylight hours would surely be a safer bet. He did supposedly have a day job that he had to be at, didn't he?
Once she was confident that she was safely out of earshot of the vigilante, she hit the call button. The phone rang a few times and then went to the generic answering machine. She made a mental note to have him record a real voicemail at some point.
The machine beeped, and she couldn't even muster the energy to sound cheerful as she left him a message.
"Hey, um, I didn't, uh…didn't get a chance to stop by the police station today. I'll do it soon, though. I know that I said I'd come by on Friday night, but I was thinking Saturday would work better instead. Maybe around one? Just, um…give me a call back, and let me know if that works for you. Bye."
Sarah hung up just as she neared the subway station. She fished in her purse for her Metro card and her hand brushed against the traffic ticket that had caused so much trouble. She scowled at it. She wasn't sure which had been the dumber mistake: going to the police station without even considering that Matt—a defense lawyer, for God's sake—might be there, or freaking out and leaving the police station, which had made her look even guiltier.
Unfortunately, in a long list of mistakes Sarah had made that day, the last—and possibly biggest—one had been assuming that two blocks from Matt was far enough to be out of earshot. But she had underestimated how far the vigilante's enhanced hearing could reach, and the words of her voicemail floated back to him like she was merely feet away. As Matt listened to her detailing what time she'd be meeting with the person who had sent her to the police station, he decided that maybe Daredevil could make a rare daytime appearance to find out exactly where she was going, where she was hiding all of these secrets. No one would see him up on the rooftops, anyway.
Matt didn't visit Sarah—as Daredevil or as himself—either Wednesday night or Thursday night, and his absence calmed her nerves slightly as she got in the cab to go to her father's on Friday afternoon. She had stopped by Ronan's office that morning to let him know she'd be leaving early, but he was preoccupied with mysterious phone calls all day, and she had been pleasantly surprised when he merely waved her away with an exasperated hand. She had been certain that her 'long lunch' on Tuesday would jeopardize her chances of getting to leave early.
As soon as Sarah stepped foot in her father's apartment Friday afternoon, she knew he was having a very bad day.
Entire sections of the day's newspaper were in shreds on the coffee table, and large, discolored blank areas spotted the wall where several pictures had been taken down. She spotted them neatly stacked in the corner, face down.
"Hey, Dad," she greeted him hesitantly, looking around the apartment. "What's, uh…what's with the redecorating?"
"I don't like all those pictures," he muttered as he shuffled into the kitchen. "So many people in them, it's—it's cluttered."
Sarah gently picked up the picture laying on the top of the stack. Turning it over, she saw that it was an old photo of her and her parents when she was a baby. She furrowed her brow at the picture before carefully setting it back down and following her father into the kitchen. She glanced at the stack of dishes around the sink. Mitch followed her gaze to the sink.
"The sink is broken," he explained. "It keeps filling up on me when I'm trying to do the dishes. I tried looking at the pipes, but it hurts my back. And I tried buying some of that, uh…" He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word.
"Draino?"
"Yes! Draino. But it didn't work."
She walked over to the sink and turned the faucet on experimentally. The sink started filling up within seconds. Secretly she felt a tiny sense of relief that the sink actually was broken, and that his disoriented brain wasn't just making up reasons why he hadn't been doing the dishes.
"Well, I can try taking a look, if you want? I don't really know anything about plumbing, but I probably can't make it any worse. I think," she added doubtfully. Mostly she just knew they couldn't afford a plumber.
Sarah opened the cabinet doors under the sink and reached in to grab the toolbox her dad kept under there. She accidentally banged her upper arm on the low hanging partition in the middle and hissed in pain, rubbing her arm where Matt's harsh grip earlier that week had left a sizeable bruise.
"You okay, honey?"
"Yeah, yeah. I just…banged my arm on something a few days ago. It's fine."
Sarah settled cross-legged in front of the sink, and gazed contemplatively at the network of pipes under the sink. She didn't see anything dripping or leaking, which was about the extent of her knowledge on things that could make sinks break. She knew enough to turn the small knob in the back to cut off water supply to the pipes; beyond that she was lost.
"You're always a good sport about helping around the house," her dad said. "Very considerate. I was just saying that about you earlier today."
"Yeah? Who were you talking to?" she asked distractedly. Mitch often got confused about when certain conversations had happened. To him, 'earlier today' could actually have been days or weeks ago, if the conversation had happened at all.
"Some men that came by earlier. I don't, ah…don't remember their names. They asked all about my life. They were very nice. Had nice suits on."
Sarah looked up, alarmed. "What men?"
The paranoid corner of her mind kicked into overdrive. Men in suits? Fisk's debt collectors shouldn't be coming here, not anymore. Matt wore a suit when he was being a lawyer, but if he had somehow found out about her father she was pretty sure he wouldn't show up in his daytime attire.
"I…uh…what do you call them? They, they knock on everyone's doors…don't celebrate birthdays."
She felt a rush of relief. "Jehovah's Witnesses?"
"Yes! Those ones. Two of them. I don't think they had high hopes for me, but they came in and gave it their best shot anyway."
Sarah released a shaky laugh. Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course. How bad of a week had she had that her mind immediately turned to criminals and vigilantes as her first guess?
"Well, did it work? Are you a Jehovah now?"
Mitch chuckled, and Sarah grinned at the sound, turning her attention back to the pipes under the sink. At least he still sounded like himself when he laughed. She took the wrench in her hand and whapped it against a few pipes experimentally. They all made a hollow noise except for one, which made a dull clunking noise.
Guess I'll look there, she decided, sticking her head under the sink to get a better look at the offending pipe. Weird noises seem like something a plumber would look for, right?
"I think it's a little late in life for me to find religion," Mitch said. His voice sounded muffled from her position under the pipes. "They gave me a free Bible. Don't know what I'm supposed to do with it, but you can never have too many books, I guess,"
She shook her head, still smiling. "You didn't feel that way when you had to help me move a dozen boxes of books out of my dorm room and into my apartment when I first moved in, remember?"
He didn't answer, and she looked up. The smile slipped from her face when she saw the sad, distant look on his face. Clearly, he didn't remember.
"Hey!" she said, adopting a more upbeat tone. "Can you pass me like a butter knife or a letter opener or something? I think there's something stuck in this pipe."
"Sure, I have an old letter opener in the desk."
She waited patiently while her father shuffled around in the living room, then she heard him huff in frustration.
"What's wrong?" she called into the other room.
"Well, while I was in here I thought I—I'd try to find this ticket. I got it a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to see if you could talk to the police and help me get it taken care of, but I just…don't know where I put it," he said, coming back into the room and handing her the letter opener. At least he remembered what he went into the living room for, she thought.
She leaned back against the open cabinet door. "You mean the ticket you got for driving without a license?" she asked, trying to keep the disapproval out of her voice. "You already gave it to me."
He looked at her for a long moment. "I did, didn't I? You already took care of it?"
Sarah grimaced guiltily. Her first visit to the police station had ended so badly that she hadn't gone back yet.
"Um, I…didn't get a chance. I mentioned that in my message, I think. I went to the police station to see about getting a recommendation for a dismissal but, um, I got sidetracked doing…doing something else. I'll—I'll get it done sometime this week, though. I promise."
She stuck the letter opener into the open pipe and wiggled it around. Something wet, grey, and lumpy splattered out, and she squinted at it. It looked like wet paper, and she could barely make out tiny boxes with handwritten letters in them. It looked like pages from her dad's crossword book.
Sarah pursed her lips and looked up at him, debating whether it would be worth it to ask him why he had been shoving the pages of his book down the drain. If he even knew why. The vacant stare on his face as he looked out the window told her that she probably wouldn't get an answer. Not today, at least. Maybe on a better, clearer day.
"I'm going to hit the little boy's room," he said, and she nodded.
Once she had put the pipe back together, Sarah wiped her hands on the dish towel and cautiously turned on the faucet. The water swirled down the drain easily. She grinned at her small success and wandered out to the living room. When she came to her father's desk, she glanced down at the Bible sitting there, and idly ran her fingers over the embossed cover. She frowned as she looked at the title.
Holy Bible: King James Version.
Something needled at the back of her mind, a nagging feeling that something was wrong, but she didn't know what. For some reason, she thought of Daisy, a devout Jehovah's Witness from her old seventh grade math class who had always carried a Bible with her. Sarah remembered that she had been confused by the title of the other girl's Bible; it wasn't the kind she was familiar with, and the girl had explained to her that Jehovah's didn't use the same version as most other denominations. They used something else. The New World Translation, Sarah recalled.
She stared down at the Bible on the table, a feeling of unease growing in her chest. Why would Jehovah's Witnesses have left her father with a version of the Bible that their denomination didn't use?
"Is that yours?" Her father's voice close behind her made her jump, and turned around to find him looking over her shoulder at the book on the table. "You religious now?"
"No, it's…it's yours. The Jehovah's Witnesses that came by earlier gave it to you, you said. Right?" Sarah tried to keep her voice steady.
He smiled at her vaguely and hummed, clearly not understanding what she was talking about.
"Do you—do you remember, Dad?" she pressed. "You said they came by and you talked to them…about me. Do you remember doing that?"
He looked from her to the Bible, frown lines forming on his face as he struggled to remember. "I…I don't think…I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. He twisted his hands anxiously. "I'm very tired."
She sighed, reaching out to still his wringing hands. "I know. I'm—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push. Just...just don't answer the door for any more men in suits, okay?" Her father continued giving her that same tired, anxious look. "Why don't you go sit in your recliner? I think there's a game on, maybe."
As Mitch settled himself into the old, brown recliner that he had owned for decades, Sarah flipped through the channels on his television, barely paying attention. She stopped when she got to something that looked vaguely sports-like, but she was too busy dwelling on the strange Bible on the desk to register who was playing what.
Turning to her father, she grinned weakly and handed him the remote. He smiled up at her as he took it, but there was something strangely empty about it.
"You know," he said, "you remind me a bit of my daughter."
The statement hit her hard, like she had been punched in the stomach. Of everything her father had forgotten, or been confused about, he had never not known who she was. Not once, not even for a moment. Not until now.
"I, um…I need some air," she said tightly, and Mitch smiled and nodded pleasantly, the way one would to a stranger or a guest. She hurried past him and slid open the door to his small balcony. She made sure to carefully close it all the way behind her, turning her back to the window and leaning over the side of the railing before she started crying.
She had known for a long time that these days would start happening; days when he would be so lost that he wouldn't even know who she was. But of all the days for it to happen for the first time, this had to have been the worst timing possible. A man had been murdered, and she didn't know why or by whom. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen—who apparently had all sorts of crazy super powers—had a habit of popping up unannounced and interrogating her in whatever dark alleyway was most convenient. Her arm was aching, and she had a headache that hadn't left her skull for days now. And even though she wasn't one hundred percent sure anything was off about the supposed Jehovah's Witnesses who had visited her father, something about the whole situation just seemed wrong.
She took a couple of deep breaths, trying not to go into full crying mode. When she starting crying—really, truly crying—she had no way of hiding it afterwards. Her face would get bright red, and her eyes would get bloodshot and not go back to normal for hours. She didn't want to alarm her father when she went back into the apartment, whether he recognized her by then or not.
As she struggled to get herself under control, she was unaware that two stories above her, on the roof of the building next door, Matt Murdock was listening closely, having heard their entire conversation from the time she walked in the door, and now fully aware of everything she had so desperately tried to keep secret.