Читать книгу THE HIDING PLACE - John Burley - Страница 15

When he thought of that evening, what his mind kept returning to was the blood. There had been so much of it—an impossible amount—more than the human body should contain. It had seeped from the hole between the ribs, pooled beneath the body, congealing into something that was no longer liquid but rather a cooling gelatinous mass on the hardwood. The sole of his shoe brushed it as Jason sank to the floor beside the body for the second time, causing the coagulated puddle to jiggle like a dark lake of Jell-O.

He’d been upstairs in the bedroom when it started, watching a repeat episode from the third season of Mad Men. If the doorbell had rung or if she’d knocked, he hadn’t heard it. What he did hear eventually was the sound of arguing from the floor below. At the outset, Amir’s voice had been calm, reasonable, placating. But as the discussion continued his tone took on a sharper edge, becoming defensive, even angry. Jason recognized the female voice as well, and he’d gotten up, deciding he should go downstairs to intervene.

Then a scuffle—noisy at first, but then quiet and focused. He’d never noticed that before, how a physical altercation becomes progressively quieter as the struggle intensifies. Words turned to muted grunts. Halfway down the stairs, Jason could hear the unmistakable sound of a body striking the wall, the clatter of a picture frame falling to the floor.

That got him running, moving quickly through the living room and into the short hallway leading to the front door.

He saw them go down together, arms clasped around each other in what could’ve been misconstrued, under different circumstances, as a lovers’ embrace. Amir landed on top of her, the air from their lungs making an umph sound as it was simultaneously forced from their bodies. She arched her back, dug for something attached to her belt, and a second later she was driving a clenched fist into the left side of his rib cage. A single strike and Amir lay still—odd, Jason thought, because she hadn’t hit him that hard—and he had time to wonder if maybe Amir had struck his head on the way down, had knocked himself out when they’d contacted the floor. Then she was pushing herself out from under him, was getting to her feet, and there was blood on her hands—too much of it already—bright red and dripping from one fingertip onto the blue jeans of the inert body at her feet.

His eyes fell to Amir, to the area where she’d struck him, only now he could see the blood pumping from a wound on the left side of his torso, the knife lying next to him on the floor. Jason dropped to his knees, stuck his fingers into the hole in the shirt left by the knife, and tore the fabric apart to get to the wound. “Help me hold pressure!” he pleaded, placing a hand over the site, the blood spilling through the small spaces between his fingers. It was everywhere now: on his hands, arms, and clothing. Days later, he’d notice faint crusted remnants clinging to the underside of his fingernails.

She knelt down beside him, taking hold of his forearms as she shook her head slowly from one side to the other.

“He’s gone, Jason.”

“No. He’s not gone. Help me move him to the couch. We’ve got to—”

“He’s dead,” she said, letting the words fill the hallway, the town house, the crater of irrevocable absence above which the two of them now perched.

Not dead, not dead, he thought, for the person lying here had been alive and well ten minutes before, had sat at the bistro table and eaten dinner two hours ago in the kitchen behind them. How can he be dead when the blood is still warm? he wanted to argue, but he realized that was no longer true. The blood—inert and useless now—had already started to cool.

“What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” he cried out, his words filling the hallway, racing through every room of the town house and back again. But, of course, he knew what she had done. She had come here to protect him—just as he’d known she would. Just as she always had.

She stood, fished a cell phone from her pocket, dialed a number.

“Are you calling an ambulance?” he asked, as if this were a situation that might still be salvaged—might still be undone.

“No,” she said. “I’m calling my field office. We’ll need a cleaner.”