“Take the pills, Charles.”
He takes the pills.“You’re crazy, Marin.”
As I stand, I notice his eyes drop to my hands.Not my face.My hands.Specifically, the pocket where I keep the key to the bedroom door.
He looks away.Quick.Casual.
Too casual.
I collect his dirty dishes.Walk to the door.
“Every time you call me crazy,” I say over my shoulder, “I add a day.”
I close the door.Stand in the hallway.Listen.
From behind the door, Charles’s voice.Quiet.Calm.The calm one is always worse.
“Marin?”
I don’t answer.
“I know we’re not upstate.”
I walk downstairs.My hands are steady.My breathing is even.My heart is doing something I refuse to acknowledge.
He’s guessing.He has to be guessing.
But Charles doesn’t guess.Charles knows.
29
Luke
The last panel goes up at 4:17.I know because I check my watch the way I always do when I finish a job—not because the time matters, but because finishing things deserves a timestamp.Emily used to say that.Mark the moment, Luke.Otherwise it just bleeds into the next one.
I clean up the way I always do—scraps in a garbage bag, adhesive capped, utility knife folded and pocketed.The basement looks different now.Padded walls, sealed seams, weatherstripped door.A room designed to keep sound from getting out.
I stand there for a minute.Listening.
Nothing from above.No muffled voice.No bedframe groaning.
It works.
I take the stairs up and find Marin in the kitchen.She’s got fresh coffee on, hair pulled back, a dish towel over her shoulder like she’s been cleaning.She smiles when she sees me—wide, easy, the kind of smile that’s designed to make you feel like everything is fine.
Everything is not fine.There’s a man strapped to a bed twenty feet above her head.But you’d never know it.She’s selling so hard the house itself almost believes her.
“All done?”she says.Bright.Like I’ve been fixing a shelf.
“All done.”
“How is it?”
“Quiet.”
“Perfect.”She folds the dish towel.Sets it on the counter.Pours me a cup of coffee without asking if I want one and slides it across like this is something we do.“What do I owe you?”
I give her the number.She’s already reaching for her phone before I finish saying it.Transfers it, done.Clean.Professional.Transaction complete.
