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“Where else would I be?” I ask bitingly, though it’s not him I’m angry with.
He slings his sweater over his shoulder and buckles his pants. “She really had a go at you. I was afraid you might’ve gone to confront her.”
I could say something nasty about his constant fear for my safety, but manage not to.
“I’m not done reading it yet,” I say and turn back to the screen, my cheeks hot and my breath catching on the lump in my throat. My baby is going wild in my belly too.
I’m so angry I would explode at Mark if we didn’t stop talking long enough for me to finish reading and get my thoughts in order, and I don’t want that. Luckily, he seems to sense that, and walks to the kitchenette without saying anything else.
The rest of the article is more of the same. Poking holes and mocking the investigations I’ve been a part of, calling into question my expertise and even wondering whether it would have been better had I never gotten involved in the first place. The smell of freshly brewed coffee reaches me just as I read the last sentence:How many deaths could have been prevented had Eva Lah not gotten involved?
How dare she? I almost died several times over working on those cases. I risked everything to get justice for the victims and almost lost everything too. How dare she?
“Sounds to me like a bunch of jealous bullshit,” Mark says as he sits down next to me. The sound of him placing his cup of coffee hitting the table is like a gong going off.
My phones and laptop are still chiming and buzzing and I slam the lid shut and turn both the phones off before attempting to stand up in a huff, which in my current state is just not possible to do. Mark’s phone has been ringing too, but he’s ignored it while waiting for me to process the article.
“I have to respond to this,” I say. “But how do I do that without making it worse?”
“Do nothing for now,” Mark suggests. “Your results and success speak for themselves and will continue to. More so after we catch this killer.”
I appreciate his belief in me, I do, but I can’t leave this hanging.
I turn my phone back on and walk to the kitchenette, hoping that there’s a pastry or three left over from yesterday’s meeting. I do have to respond, but I need a clear head and a plan before I do. Sugar will help that.
My phone starts ringing before I even reach the fridge. It’s my mom, so I pick up.
“Just checking if we’re still on for dinner tonight,” she says cheerily yet guardedly at the same time. She must’ve seen the article already too. My parents get up early and are subscribed to the paper.
“I don’t know, it’s not the best time,” I say, since I had completely forgotten about the plans we made. “I’ll call you back in a bit.”
“We saw the article, Eva,” Mom says. “Don’t take it to heart. It has no basis in fact and your father and I are both appalled that Delo even printed it. It’s supposed to be a reputable paper. Dad has already cancelled the subscription.”
It’s clear from her tone that she’s possibly even more upset about the article than I am and the lump in my throat is so large now it’s preventing me from responding.
“You need a break, Eva,” she says. “So come home. Dinner’s at six, but you can come earlier if you want.”
Mark is speaking to someone on the phone too, so I can’t ask him if he remembered the dinner and what the plan for today is.
“I’ll call you right back, Mom,” I say and hang up, because I don’t want to burst into tears. Damn hormones, failing me at precisely the wrong time.
It’s not even what Hana wrote in the article. It’s how nice and considerate everyone is. That’s what I can’t handle. Or maybe it’s the fact that I do blame myself for the latest death. Would Tara have been killed if all the papers hadn’t touted me as the savior who will bring this killer down swiftly?
I somehow manage to tell Mark about the conversation, and a lot of the other things bothering me about the article. It requires a lot of pauses and starts and stops.
“Go spend the day with your family,” he says. “It’ll take your mind off things. I’ll be there for dinner.”
“I don’t need to take my mind off things,” I say. “I need it on this, so we can catch this killer.”
“Sojer’s cousin just called,” he says. “He wants to me meet today to look at the roof. He says he might be able to start fixing it right away. And we both need some healthy distance from this case.”
Over the year, he’s talked a lot about trying to separate work from our private lives, but hasn’t been able to do it yet, and neither have I.
He chuckles and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “We need to fix our house too, Eva. And there’s good people working on this case. They can miss us for one day.”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I say and lean on him.
I’m a lot calmer now, my mind clearer. It’s his closeness and what he said, but also the fact that my racing thoughts have already started coming up with the perfect response to the article. One that will both negate all Hana wrote and hopefully call out the killer too.
We spoke about this last night, Mark and I, and agreed it would be stupid to stick my neck out to try and flush this killer out. But the cards are on the table now, and I’d be even more stupid not to play them to our advantage.
I want to go home too. But a collapsed roof isn’t the only thing preventing us from doing that. Catching this killer is too.
