A Light Left On

Hannah put her hand in his before she could rehearse another reason to refuse. Twenty minutes later, carrying a bag of clothes, her badge, and her mother's old wooden box, she stepped through the front door of Damen's house.

He took the bag from her shoulder. "You are staying here tonight. Tomorrow, we can decide what needs to happen next."

The certainty in his voice steadied her until she saw the man stationed beside the entrance. Beyond him lay a marble hall, a staircase, and rooms so quiet that her damp shoes seemed unreasonably loud.

Damen followed her gaze. "That is Anthony. He stays downstairs. There is another man at the gate."

Anthony nodded politely, his eyes remaining on her face. She appreciated the effort more than she could explain.

"Marco will arrange for your apartment to be secured," Damen continued. "I can have someone collect the rest of your things. We will replace your phone number, and tomorrow a driver will take you to the clinic."

The list moved faster than she could think. "Please stop for a moment."

He went still.

She tightened her grip on the wooden box. "I know you are helping. I just got here, and I cannot tell which of those things you are asking me about."

He looked at her for a long second. She waited for impatience and hated that waiting felt automatic.

"All right," he said. "What do you need first?"

The question was so simple that it exposed how overwhelmed she was. She looked down at her wet cuffs.

"I would like to change my clothes."

He picked up her bag. "I can manage that."

The guest room overlooked a walled garden. A lamp glowed beside a bed with a pale quilt; the bathroom beyond it had heated tiles. Damen set her things on a chair and showed her the lock on the inside of the bedroom door.

"My room is at the other end of the corridor. If you need anything, you can knock or call."

"Do people usually have to make an appointment?"

He looked back from the doorway. "You do not."

After he left, she stood beneath the shower until her hands stopped trembling. She washed the rain out of her hair, put on loose cotton trousers and an old gray shirt, and realized she had no idea whether guests in houses like this were allowed downstairs in socks.

She went anyway. Hunger was beginning to make her light-headed, and she had already made that mistake once.

Damen was in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled back, studying a pot on the stove. He turned when she entered. His gaze moved briefly over her damp hair and bare face, lingering just long enough to make her aware of both.

"I did not know what you liked," he said. "There is soup."

"Did you make it?"

"No. Mrs. Alvarez would prefer that I stayed away from her knives."

"That is a surprising restriction in this house."

He glanced at her, then smiled. It changed his face enough to make her look down.

They ate at the kitchen island instead of the long table she had glimpsed through an archway. The soup was rich with chicken and lemon. Damen put bread beside her bowl, then sat with his own food, as though he understood she would find it easier if he ate, too.

"I need to tell the police about the apartment," she said after a while.

"Marco photographed it before anyone moved anything. We can arrange for you to make a report tomorrow. You have the messages."

She nodded, grateful for an answer that did not pretend one call would settle everything.

"I do not want to change my number tonight," she added. "My patients' families sometimes use it when they cannot reach the clinic."

"Then we will leave it alone."

She looked at him. "That was easier than I expected."

"I am attempting to improve. You gave me very specific feedback in the hall."

Her laugh surprised them both. For the first time since opening her apartment door, she could take a full breath.

Later, alone upstairs, she set her mother's box beside the bed. She could still see the photograph on her pillow whenever she closed her eyes. The soft mattress did nothing to quiet the thought that Evan had known exactly where to put it.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Hannah sat up before she could stop herself.

They paused outside her door.

"It is Damen," he said. "I am putting water and a charger on the table outside. You do not need to open the door."

She waited until he had gone, then brought them inside. Beside the glass was a folded note with the house's Wi-Fi password written in neat black ink. There was something almost unbearable about such an ordinary consideration arriving in the middle of everything else.

At half past one, she gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs.

Damen sat in the living room, reading with his glasses low on his nose. The sight was so unexpectedly intimate that she stopped in the doorway.

He took them off. "Is the room all right?"

"The room is perfect. My head has objections."

"Would company help?"

She nodded. He moved the papers to the far end of the sofa, making space.

She sat with her feet tucked beneath her. The room smelled faintly of woodsmoke. For several minutes, neither spoke, and he did not seem to require conversation as payment for being there.

"I found cake," she said eventually. "In the refrigerator."

"That is an excellent development."

"It looked expensive. I thought I should establish whether it belonged to somebody."

"At this hour, possession is usually enough."

She fetched two forks and the plate. When she returned, he had put away his phone.

They shared the cake from opposite sides of the plate. She told him about a child at the clinic who insisted that every person taking his temperature first take the temperature of his dinosaur. Damen asked what kind of dinosaur. Nobody had ever asked that before.

"A stegosaurus," she said. "He has a difficult home life and a very healthy stegosaurus."

Damen listened without interrupting. She found herself telling him more, about the carpenter who brought repaired furniture to the clinic instead of money, and Denise's talent for making a supply cupboard feed a neighborhood.

"You love it there," he said.

"Most days. Some days I love it and want to hide in the bathroom for ten minutes."

"Those do not sound mutually exclusive."

She watched him turn his fork between his fingers. "What do you do when you want to hide?"

"I make everybody else leave."

"That sounds much more efficient."

His smile faded slowly as their eyes met. She became aware of the warmth of his thigh near hers, of how carefully he had left the distance between them. She wanted, with an intensity that embarrassed her, to lean into it.

Instead, she asked, "Why are you still awake?"

"I have trouble sleeping sometimes."

"Then I am interrupting your hiding."

"You are improving it."

She looked down at the nearly empty plate. Her chest felt tender in a way fear could not explain.

Sometime later, her head grew heavy. She meant to sit upright, but the sofa was warm and he was turning pages beside her. As she drifted, a blanket settled over her knees.

She caught his wrist without opening her eyes.

"Will you stay for a little while?"

His hand turned beneath hers, holding it lightly.

"I am staying."

She slept.

In the morning, she woke beneath the blanket with Damen's chair drawn close to the sofa. His book lay open on his knee. Before she could decide whether to wake him, Marco appeared in the doorway and lowered his voice.

"Falcone has been asking questions about last night."

Hannah sat up. Damen opened his eyes immediately.

"I know that name," she said. "Evan told me Victor Falcone could make him untouchable."