Her and her constant need to say sorry. He loved her so damn much he had to laugh. “We’ll get a new one. This one always was too big anyway.” He picked her up, because she didn’t have any shoes, and felt her laugh against his side.
Carl drove them to the hospital in Kane’s car. Ellen had finally been able to let go of her keys, but since they were evidence and had DNA on them, her car was towed out of the way.
“I don’t see any cameras,” Carl said when they pulled out of the garage. Kane lifted his eyes from Ellen long enough to look around, and he didn’t see the bulk of a photographer leaning against the bushes across the street either. It must have been so late they’d gone home. It was an almost insignificantly small mercy.
Ellen was cleaned up and patched up and covered in bits of gauze and given a hospital gown, and while they waited for her keys to be given back, she sat in Kane’s arms and gave her statement. She often had to pull on one of Kane’s hands to remind him to loosen his grip on her.
When they were done, Ellen had the nurse help her to the bathroom and sent Kane out for a break. He went outside and had two cigarettes, lighting one off the other, which he’d always sworn was the sign of a true addict. Then he got a soda, not that he needed the caffeine, and, taking a deep breath, went back in. Ellen had been watching for him and gripped his hand tightly, making the cuts on her knuckles bleed again. Kane focused on finding another piece of cloth to dab them so he wouldn’t scare her with the fury in his expression.
By the time the police had left, it was past three in the morning. The hospital suggested she stay overnight, but she looked to Kane again, so he said, “Does she have to?”
While they waited for her discharge paperwork to be finished, Ellen sat on the bed, leaning hard against Kane. He wanted to tell her he was going to take her to and from work from now on. He wanted to tell her she had to leave that tiny little Bay Village studio and move in with him and a parking garage and 24-hour security. He wanted to erase the sight of all that blood on her from his mind.
What he said was, “It’s my fault.”
Ellen sighed. “Yes, you egotistical bastard,” she said affectionately. “This is all about you.” She waved at the cup of water that was on the bedside table, and he gave it to her.
“You’re saying that to make me feel better, I know,” he said. “But it’s not okay. Not by a long shot.” He’d thought losing her job was the worst thing that could happen to her? He’d been as naïve as those arsonists who’d gone home for Thanksgiving when the whole country was looking for them.
Kane took them home, driving as though the car itself had done the mugging. He got Ellen into the apartment, and she sat on the ruined couch, saying she figured any blood the hospital missed couldn’t make it any worse. Kane went to run her a bath. It was closer to four o’clock now. The apartment seemed to echo strangely in the early hour.
When he came out of his bathroom, he could hear Carl and Ellen talking. He paused at his bedroom door.
“—Assistant DA in the Sex Crimes Unit,” Carl was saying.
Kane wasn’t planning to eavesdrop. He just didn’t realize his feet had stopped moving.
“That sounds like a lot of laughs,” Ellen said.
“Well.” Carl paused. “We get by.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it.”
“Kane always says I take myself too seriously. Don’t worry about it.”
Their heads were bent toward each other. Kane could see them from his corner of the room. “So tonight wasn’t new for you,” Ellen said.
“No. I don’t usually come into the picture until the next day, or whenever the complaint is filed, but... no.”
“Not that today was... the same as what you have to deal with.”
“No.” And his head got closer to hers suddenly, urgently. “But don’t minimize it, Ellen.” Carl shook her shoulder. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing for a man to do, to use his strength over you that way, and you have every right to be traumatized. Thank God you got away. It could have been—”
“I know.” She smiled at him. But in the dim light from the lamp across the room Kane saw her face fall, and her shoulders start to shake. Carl crossed the last inches between them and put his arm around her. Ellen stayed where she was, but her head was naturally cushioned in the crook of his shoulder, and she gave several long, low sobs while Carl said, “That’s it... It’s okay... Go ahead....” And Kane turned away and put his useless hands to work turning off the faucets in the bathroom, though his own sight was blurred and he could hardly see them.
When he came back in, she was sitting up and batting at her face with her hands, sniffing mightily. She said, “No, he feels bad enough already—”
“Your bath’s ready,” he said loudly. Ellen jumped. She leapt up from the couch with such a guilty look at Carl that Kane’s mouth twisted, said, “Ok, thanks,” and dashed past, trying to keep her face turned away from him. Kane let her go and walked over to stand just behind the couch.
“So, she’s finally been able to let some of it out,” Carl said, hooking an arm—the arm that Ellen had been able to show her feelings to, Kane noted sourly—over the back of the couch to look at him better.
“Yeah. I heard.”
“Did you? Okay, good.” He did a double-take at Kane’s face. “Hey, don’t be looking at me all pissed. She had to let down that stiff upper lip; I was just there.”
She was letting it down just fine until this morning, Kane thought gloomily.
“Don’t worry,” Carl went on. “She’s going to be crying on you plenty the next few days. You’ve got to remember, she’ll be reliving the other time, too.” Kane had told him about Edward, because Kane been looking for reassurance that he’d handled that first night the best way he could. “Even though tonight wasn’t”—Carl made finger quotes—“‘as bad,’ she’s going to be going through scenarios in her head for a while.”
“How do I help her?” Kane ground out.
Carl stood up and stretched his arms up over his head, making his back pop. “You know, bud, you can’t solve every problem for every woman in your life. Just be there; I reckon that’s a start. I’m going to bed. I’ll take a cup of coffee about eleven o’clock.”
“You wish,” Kane said automatically, and reluctantly headed back to his bedroom.
Ellen was in the bath for more than half an hour, during which Kane sat and stewed. She seemed to have no desire to sleep anywhere but with him, however, and just as it was getting light, she woke up from the first nightmare, moaning and begging and sweating. Kane stroked her hair and talked to her, and she curled up into a ball in his embrace until she’d stopped shaking.
