Blood in the Courtyard

Clara followed the blood through the kitchen.

At the open back door, she stopped.

Vince lay between two men beneath the courtyard lights. A length of metal protruded from his side. His shirt had been cut open, and somebody was holding folded towels against him.

He was looking up at the sky.

For a moment she couldn't hear anything.

Then sound returned all at once: Owen on the phone, Eli asking for more light, Damian saying something so quietly that everyone leaned closer to listen.

"Vince."

Her voice hardly reached the door.

Damian turned.

He came across the courtyard and blocked her view.

"Go upstairs."

"What happened?"

"An accident."

"What accident?"

"He fell at a site."

She looked at his shirt. A dark mark crossed the white cuff.

"Then take him to a hospital."

"Walter's coming."

"He needs more than Walter."

"There's a team on the way."

She tried to step around him.

His hand closed on her arm.

"Clara."

She looked up at him.

Not the man who had fed her dinner. Not the husband who had carried her bags from the airport.

His face was controlled, almost empty. She had seen it once before, in the rearview mirror outside a hospital.

The memory frightened her.

She pulled free while he turned to answer Owen and went to Vince.

His eyes moved toward her.

She knelt where she wouldn't touch the metal or get in the men's way.

"It's Clara."

His hand lay open on the tiles. She took it.

The tattoos covered scars she had never examined closely before. Pale lines. A thick ridge across one knuckle. Old damage beneath familiar skin.

"Do you want me to call someone?" she whispered. "The police?"

His fingers moved against hers.

"No."

A terrible effort for one word.

She bent closer.

"Then tell me what to do."

His mouth moved.

She couldn't hear him.

Damian crouched beside her.

"Let them work."

"He's frightened."

Her husband looked at Vince, then at her.

"I know."

It was the first honest answer he had given her.

She stood because he had asked quietly this time.

Walter came through the gate with two other people carrying equipment. A van reversed close to the back entrance. Instructions replaced the confused voices.

Clara watched them surround Vince.

Owen touched her shoulder.

"Come with me."

***

Upstairs, he opened her suitcase and began putting clothes inside.

Clara stood in the middle of the room.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking you back to the project."

"My flight's the day after tomorrow."

"I've changed it."

He worked quickly, taking hangers from the wardrobe and laying them flat without folding the clothes.

"Where's Damian?"

"Downstairs."

"I want to speak to him."

Owen stopped.

"Please change."

She looked at the blood on her robe.

Vince's blood.

"Are we running away?"

He didn't answer immediately.

That was an answer of its own.

"Your team expects you," he said. "Go back. Do your work."

"Don't talk to me as though I've asked for a calendar reminder."

He set down the clean clothes.

For the first time since she had met him, she saw him struggle to find words.

"I need you out of this house tonight."

She sat on the edge of the bed.

Downstairs, a door slammed. Somebody called Damian's name.

She thought of his chest beneath her hand less than an hour ago, warm and steady while he slept.

"Is he going to die?"

"Vince?"

She didn't say whose name she meant.

Owen understood anyway.

"Not if we can help it."

Owen turned toward the window while she found her shoes.

"Did he ask you to pack for me?"

"Yes."

"Did he say how long?"

"No."

Clara folded the clean shirt back over her arm.

"I unpacked yesterday."

He looked at the open drawer.

"I know."

"That sounds stupid, doesn't it? Vince is downstairs, and I'm talking about packing."

"It doesn't sound stupid."

She sat for another moment, looking at the drawer that held both their things. Then she took the small bottle of hand lotion and put it in her bag. Damian always stole it in winter and denied knowing where it had gone.

"Tell him to call me," she said. "Even if he doesn't know what to say."

Owen nodded.

She searched his face, trying to tell whether that was a promise or only an acknowledgment. He picked up the suitcase before she could ask.

Downstairs, someone moved quickly across the tiles. Both of them turned toward the sound.

She changed.

***

A black SUV waited outside.

Nate drove. Owen sat in front. Clara was alone in the back with her handbag on her knees and a coat she couldn't remember putting on.

Damian came out before they left.

He opened her door and crouched slightly to look inside.

"Go with Owen."

She caught his hand.

"Come too."

His thumb moved over her fingers.

"Can't tonight."

"Tomorrow?"

He looked at her.

She hated him for not lying.

Then she hated herself for wanting him to.

"Don't come home until I tell you," he said.

"It's my home."

"I know."

"You can't just send me away."

He bent and pressed his mouth to her forehead.

"Get there safely. Be angry afterward."

Before she could stop him, he closed the door.

***

They had been on the highway less than half an hour when Nate glanced at the mirror.

"Owen."

"I see it."

Clara looked behind them.

A pair of headlights followed at a steady distance.

"Eli?" Nate asked.

"Yes."

Then, farther back, another vehicle moved into the spill of light.

Its headlights were off.

Nate's hands tightened on the wheel.

Owen picked up his phone.

"Take the next exit," he told Nate.

"That's not the airport road."

"I know."

Clara watched the dark shape behind Eli's car.

Then another.

Owen spoke into the phone, giving instructions she couldn't quite understand.

Their SUV turned off the highway.

Eli kept going.

The headlights disappeared behind the curve.

Clara sat very still.

"Whose car is he driving?"

Owen looked at her in the mirror.

"Damian's."

She understood, and wished she hadn't.

***

At the airport, Owen stayed close enough that she could have touched his sleeve without reaching.

They went through security. Sat at the gate. Bought water neither drank.

She waited until they were on the plane before asking.

"Where's Eli?"

"There was a collision."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

"Hurt?"

Owen's hand tightened around the armrest.

"His leg. He's being treated."

"And Vince?"

"Through the worst of it."

She closed her eyes.

A flight attendant asked whether she needed anything.

Clara shook her head.

After takeoff, she turned toward Owen.

"What does my husband actually do?"

He looked straight ahead.

"The businesses you've seen."

"And the ones I haven't?"

Silence.

"Somebody hurt Vince. Somebody followed us. Eli nearly died so they wouldn't follow me. Don't insult me."

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I can't tell you what I don't know."

"How much do you know?"

He put the glasses back on.

"Enough to get you here."

She turned to the window.

Beneath them, cloud covered the land she had just left.

***

Nate appeared at the project the next day.

Not openly. A cap at the far end of a courtyard. A man reading his phone outside the guesthouse. The same gray trainers on the station platform.

Clara was never certain until he wanted her to be.

Damian called once that week.

Thirty seconds. Was she safe? Did she need money? Was anybody asking questions?

She asked when he was coming.

He said, "Soon as I can."

Then his number stopped connecting.

Owen's did too.

By June, she hadn't heard from any of them in weeks.

At night she called the hotel, the club, every number she had ever saved for a man who belonged to Damian's world.

One by one, they rang into silence.