When Darkness Falls(46)

He’d gone out of Lydia’s without his jacket. “No.”

Devon longed to touch her, to pull out the ponytail holder and drag his hands through her hair. But he didn’t dare step closer. “Should we go?”

He tried not to look at the way Haley’s faded blue jeans hugged her body as she turned her back to him to leave the hotel.

“There’s a restaurant down the street. We can walk,” Devon said.

He didn’t trust himself alone with her in a car. He kept a few feet between them as they walked along Riverside Drive. It was a four-lane road. Cars zipped past, and though they were far from downtown Los Angeles, the exhaust was thicker than in any area of Chicago he’d ever walked through. The air felt gritty.

“It’s so long since I’ve seen you outside for more than a few minutes,” Haley said.

“The sun’s down.”

The words came out automatically, but it was true. Devon had walked last night. He could walk tonight. His heart beat evenly, his breathing felt free.

They took a back booth at Smokey Joe’s, a diner two blocks from the hotel. Empty tables surrounded them. Either the economy had gotten to the diner or it was an Early Bird Special type of place that cleared out by eight.

Devon ordered a seltzer with lime and insisted Haley get dinner, since she hadn’t eaten all day. He fiddled with his straw as they waited for the food. He opened his mouth to say something about Lydia’s theory, cleared his throat. No words came out.

? ? ?

“So why did you come out here?” Haley asked once the waiter had brought her chicken salad sandwich and another seltzer for Devon.

Devon squeezed another lime slice into his soda.

“Devon?”

“Sorry.” He stared at his hands. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about with what changed your mind.”

“What do you mean?” Devon said.

“I came home from Milwaukee, we had this long talk, we had sex, and it seemed like things were going to be okay. Then you left.”

Haley bit into the sandwich. The bread was like chewing on twigs.

Devon shifted in his seat, sipped more water. He looked away from her. “I had another dream the night you got home. After you fell asleep.”

“And?” Haley pushed the sandwich to one side on her plate. She’d try eating the coleslaw that came with it instead. She didn’t feel hungry, but starving herself wouldn’t help her keep a clear head. She’d learned after the Brian break up that the exhaustion that came with not eating enough made it that much easier to spiral down into a dark mood.

“I don’t know how it started, if there was anything before this, but I was in an alley.” Devon stared at his hands, folded them, and made a steeple out of his fingers.

“And?” Haley said. “You can tell me.”

Keeping his head down, Devon went on. “I attacked her. Strangled her. Left. I was moving fast. Not running, my feet weren’t touching the ground, but not flying, the way sometimes you do in dreams. It was almost like I moved so fast I didn’t have a body anymore. Like I melded with the air. That’s when I usually wake up in a sweat. Sometimes it seems like right away, but sometimes there’s a blank time when it’s like I go into regular sleep.”

Haley’s fingers ached from gripping her fork while he spoke. She set it down. “And this time?”

Devon raised his eyes to look at her without lifting his head.

“This time I wouldn’t let myself fade away. After what Lydia said, I had to find out what happened next. I wasn’t really seeing, didn’t know where I was, until I smelled the hardwood floor smell of our building. I felt like I was watching myself from far away. I took off my clothes and got in the shower, and when I looked at my hands there was blood, but I rinsed it away. Everything rinsed away. I dried off, put the towel right back over the shower rod where it had been. Grabbed my clothes, took them in our bedroom and tossed them on the chair where I’d put them the night before. And got in bed with you.”

Haley swallowed past a lump in her throat. She remembered that morning, smelling fresh shampoo from Devon.

It only means he took a shower during the night. After his nightmare.

“And then?” she said.

“I wanted to keep myself awake until morning so I’d know I hadn’t been dreaming, but I couldn’t help it. I slept, had another dream, this time about something else, and in the morning, none of it seemed real.”

“And now you think it was.”

“I checked the news Monday morning. After you left for work. There was another murder. A woman was strangled to death.”

“You think you could have done that?” Haley sat back, her body flattened against the booth. She was surprised she hadn’t heard about the crime, but she’d been so happy that day because she’d felt life with Devon was on track again that she’d tuned out almost everything else.

Devon closed his eyes for a moment. Opened them again. “No. The rational me doesn’t believe that. But it fits with so much. How can I rule it out?”

At least he realized he was being irrational. Haley held onto that thought as she struggled for words that might convince him to come home and talk to Dr. Richardson about all of this.

Dishes clattered somewhere near the front door, making both of them jump.