Ray — Tuesday night, November 17, to Wednesday morning, November 18, 2026
“Call somebody,” Nadia said.
June had stopped crying. She sat sideways with her injured leg out, refusing the soup Ray had warmed because she didn't want him to think she was feeling better. She had said as much. The bowl stood between them, giving off its faint vegetable smell.
“It's swollen,” Nadia said. “Neither of us knows what it is.”
“I can see.”
“Then call.”
Ray had his phone in his hand. He'd got it out to check the time, and now it looked like something he was withholding in front of them. He could call. He pictured explaining where they were, somebody saying stay on the line, the lights coming through the trees. June would be glad to see strangers. He could bear being arrested more easily, at that moment, than he could bear her being glad.
“You can talk,” Nadia said. “I'll talk to them.”
He put the phone in his pocket.
June gave a dry, ugly laugh. “There you go.”
He almost told her to be quiet. It was on his tongue, the voice he had used outside, and he swallowed until it passed. The edge of the phone pressed against his hip. He moved it to the other pocket.
Nadia sat on the edge of the other chair. She looked tired enough to be ill. There was a red groove on her wrist where his grip had twisted the sleeve. He wanted to say he hadn't meant to do that. He had meant to stop her. The fabric had come between his fingers and her skin; he remembered being glad of it. He kept looking at the mark as if it had happened later.
“I can get a car,” she said.
He looked up.
“My sister's. She'll let me take it.”
“For what?”
“We get June out of here. She needs help.”
June said, “Both of us.”
“I know.” Nadia didn't look away from Ray. “A proper car. She can sit. I can bring things back.”
His first feeling was disappointment. It was such a small plan. He had thought she was about to offer him something he hadn't been able to imagine.
“I've got a pickup.”
“And she won't get in it with you.”
He looked at June. Her eyes were open, fixed on nothing in particular.
“You said you'd come back,” she said to Nadia.
“I did.”
“You shut the door.”
“Yes.”
The word stayed in the room. Nadia rubbed her wrist, then stopped when she saw him notice. Her hand went back to her knee, fingers spread flat.
“So now you're going to do it again,” June said.
Nadia turned toward her. “I'm trying to get you out.”
“You got out.”
“I didn't, did I?”
Ray looked down. He had pulled her back. She'd stumbled once on the way uphill, then kept walking, her coat still tight in his hand. He could feel the twisted sleeve against his fingers now.
He got up and carried the cooling soup to the counter. The bowl was still almost full. There were fingerprints in it where June had gripped too hard. He didn't know what to do with the soup, put it in the refrigerator or throw it out, and stood holding it until Nadia asked him to put it down.
“If anybody asks,” she said, “we were staying somewhere. She hurt herself. We go and get help.”
“That's what you tell them.”
“Yes.”
“And how do you explain the rest?”
“What rest?”
“Being gone.”
She pressed her palms against her knees. He could see her thinking about the question instead of him. It frightened him more than being lied to.
“People will be asking,” he said.
“I know.”
“They already are.”
She watched him. Her attention had changed, and he wished he'd kept quiet. He wanted her to ask where he'd been that morning. He could tell her about the little room, Ortiz sitting across from him, letting him finish. He waited, but Nadia didn't ask.
Nadia said, “Then we don't have all night to work it out.”
Outside, something wet brushed against the siding. A branch. He knew the sound and disliked it anyway.
June moved her foot and made a small involuntary noise. Nadia went to her, though June turned her head away. The blanket had fallen off her lap. Nadia picked it up, arranged it without touching the foot, then found the bowl was gone.
“She hasn't eaten.”
“She didn't want it.”
“She said she didn't.”
He could still put it in front of her. She could still eat or refuse. He brought the bowl back. June took it. There was no victory in watching her lift the spoon, only the brief release of not needing to decide something else.
Nadia asked where the bread was. He passed her the loaf and she made toast in the old toaster, standing with one finger on the lever because it didn't always stay down. He had meant to replace that thing for years. The bread began to smell warm. He was suddenly hungry.
“You have to hold it,” he said.
“I noticed.”
She didn't smile, but he heard the old impatience of a person at a task. It gave him back a moment of Monday, before she had known the whole shape of the day. He found plates.
“Another,” she said.
She put the third piece in front of him without looking. He hadn't asked for it. He held the plate with both hands while the toaster cooled.
He ate it standing beside the sink. The first bite scratched the roof of his mouth. Nadia sat and June let her hold the bowl while she shifted her leg. They moved carefully together, each annoyed by how slowly the other understood. When the bowl was level again Nadia let it go at once.
He had known Elise Warren could be afraid of him. That had not stopped him killing her. Afterward he'd made a great deal, privately, of how frightened he had been of exposure, what he thought she might say. There had been spite too. He'd liked ending the argument. Remembering that pleasure now was worse than remembering the fear. It was available to him still, sickeningly near, and he didn't want another woman to become a set of details he carried without anyone to interrupt him.
Nadia put her plate in the sink.
“I need to get to my daughter.”
He turned the tap on too hard. Water struck the plate and spattered his shirt.
“I know,” he said.
“No, you keep saying it.”
He shut the water off. June was watching him now too. He could make them stop talking. He could leave them here, drive home, tell Ruth the window had taken longer than he'd expected. There were still ordinary hours available to him if he could get himself through this one. He didn't want to go home to them waiting behind him. He wanted the room to change.
“You'd come back alone,” he said.
Nadia's face didn't brighten. He was grateful for that and hurt by it.
“I can get Alma's car.”
“That isn't what I said.”
“Alone.”
“And you tell her what?”
“That I need it.”
“She'll ask where you've been.”
“She's my sister. She'll ask a hundred things.”
It was the first answer that made him believe she might do it. Not because it was reassuring. He could hear a real woman called Alma asking her hundred questions. He wanted to know what Nadia would say about him to a person who knew her well enough to hear something wrong. He wanted to be out of the room when she said it, and remain there to hear.
“You don't take her up here.”
“You said alone.”
“I'm saying it again.”
Nadia glanced at June. June had stopped eating.
“She thinks you're going to leave her,” Ray said.
“I'm right here,” June said.
He felt himself flush. There was an older driver at the yard whose wife did that, answered questions people had asked him. Ray couldn't stand her. He apologized to June, and she looked away.
Nadia said, “If I go, I come back.”
He heard each word separately. There was nothing under it that he could check. He could ask for a promise, but she would give him one. He could make her say his name.
He went outside. The damp air was cold on his wet shirt. His dropped apples were still beneath the pickup. He crouched and reached one without getting down on the ground, then a second. The last was beyond him. He sat on the running board holding the two apples in his coat pockets. From inside he heard the women talking, too low for words. He let them.
She could go straight to the police. He imagined the little room, her taking the chair he'd sat in, Lena leaning forward to hear something he didn't want heard. Nadia would know what to tell first. He could see that too. She would not begin with the door.
That ought to have settled it. It was a clear enough picture to make him stand and reach for the cabin door. Then he saw himself going back in and saying no, and the long night ahead of them, his refusal having to be renewed every time he looked at either woman. The freedom he'd arranged for himself had become this: no place he could go where somebody wasn't waiting for his next decision.
He took the apples inside. June had shut her eyes. Nadia had pulled the blanket over her without asking this time.
“Morning,” he said. “I'll take you into town in the morning.”
Nadia stood. Her knees had stiffened; she held the edge of the table.
“What time?”
“Early.”
“Tell me.”
“Six. Soon after six.”
She sat down again. She didn't thank him. He put the apples beside the bread. He had wanted some sign of what he'd done, and the only visible change was that Nadia looked more tired.
They slept badly. Ray had the chair with the straight back. Once he woke to June calling for water, and Nadia reached it before he could get up. Once he woke and couldn't see Nadia and went cold all over before he found her on the floor beside the other chair, folded into a space too small for her. He stayed awake after that, listening. By five his mouth tasted of toast and old sleep.
He put the kettle on. Nadia sat up before it boiled.
“You said.”
“I know.”
He made coffee because he could not think without it. She drank half a cup standing up. June was awake, her face turned toward the table. He moved her chair back into the utility room and waited while she reached it slowly along the wall. He found her coat and put it within reach. She pulled it over herself, missing one sleeve, and would not let him help with the other.
Nadia bent beside her. “I will come back.”
June's eyes moved to the outside door. Nadia followed the look.
“I know,” she said.
Ray let her finish without hurrying her. There was so little to finish. June wanted the water nearer. Nadia moved it. She asked if June needed anything else, and June didn't answer. After Nadia came back through, Ray secured the inner way and went outside with her.
Outside, Nadia paused beside the pickup. He had the keys in his hand. He could tell her to go back in. He felt the power of it without pleasure, the way a man felt the weight of something he had carried too far and could not put down without making a mess.
“Ten,” he said. “Back here by ten.”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
“Ten.”
He opened the passenger door. It was a little after six when they left. She watched the road through the wet glass. He turned the heat up, then down because the fan was so loud. For part of the drive neither spoke. He knew a turn where deer sometimes stood in the road and slowed for it. Nothing was there.
“What does your daughter like?” he asked.
Nadia didn't turn.
“What?”
“For breakfast. I was thinking you could—”
“Don't.”
He gripped the wheel. She hadn't raised her voice. That made it worse. He could have said he was only asking. He could have reminded her what she'd done last night. He let the words go on being hers, and drove.
Closer to town he asked where she wanted to get out. She named a place near shops he knew, somewhere she could walk from. He had intended to pick the place himself. He said it was fine.
At six forty he pulled over at the town edge. A delivery vehicle was parked farther along. Somebody was moving inside a lit doorway. Not a rescue, nothing arranged for Nadia. A morning beginning without him.
He took money from his wallet.
“For what you need.”
She looked at it, then took it. He was pleased she took it, though she could buy a ride to the police with the same money. He knew that before he handed it over. Her fingers were very cold.
“Basic things,” he said. “Whatever you think. And the car.”
“Yes.”
She opened the door. He wanted her to look back before she got out. She did, because her coat had caught under the seat belt, and for an instant he mistook the movement and smiled.
She saw. The sight of her seeing it made him want to call the whole thing off.
“Nadia.”
She waited, one foot on the ground.
“You know about the door.”
Her mouth tightened. She looked older than the photograph.
“I know,” she said.
He could shut his own door, get out, make this another few minutes she had failed to get away. She was close enough. She knew it too. Her hand stayed on the open passenger door.
He looked through the windshield. “Ten o'clock.”
She stepped away. The door closed gently, not the slam he had braced for. He watched her straighten her coat. She put the money in a pocket and began walking. She did not run or look back.
He waited until she'd gone past the delivery vehicle. At the corner she stopped, and he could have sounded the horn. She moved on before he did.
On the drive home he kept lifting his right hand from the wheel, reaching for the place where the paper bag had been. He'd left the groceries at the cabin. There was nothing there to steady. He put his hand on his knee.
Ruth had sent a message asking him not to come in noisily because she'd only just got back to sleep. A second message corrected a measurement on the list she'd made for Wednesday. He read them after he parked outside the house, a little after seven. The measurement made no sense until he opened the photograph of the list.
Then he saw what she meant. He could get that size. He sat for another minute with the photograph bright in his hand, glad of a question he knew how to answer.