Had he really said that?
Had he really promised to come back?
Or had I invented it—pulled it from the fog of my fractured memory, woven it from fragments of other conversations, other rooms, other promises that had never been made?
"You're my greatest creation."
The words echoed.
"I'll come back for you."
But he hadn't come back.
He'd left without saying goodbye.
Or maybe he'd said goodbye, and I'd forgotten.
Or maybe I'd never known.
I didn't know.
I couldn't know.
And not knowing was worse than knowing the worst possible truth.
I set the photo down on the desk and stood up.
My legs were stiff from sitting. My back ached. The clock on the wall said it was almost dawn—or maybe dusk, I couldn't tell anymore, the light through the curtains was the same grey it had been for hours.
The wall.
I walked to the far end of the studio, where the patchwork of photographs and documents covered the plaster from floor to ceiling. The red string glinted in the dim light, connecting faces to names, names to places, places to bodies.
Mercy Logistics.
The dispatcher.
The guard.
The warehouse.
The office.
The bodies.
The blood.
All of it connected.
All of it leading somewhere.
Somewhere I couldn't see yet.
But I would.
Soon.
I had to.
