Chapter 11
Ross
Sergeant Ross was in his office at half past seven, as he was every morning, with the blind half up and a mug of coffee in one hand and a newspaper folded back to the crossword.
He looked up when Tom came in. He did not stand. He took in the bruise along the jaw, the cut on the ear, the unshaven face, the old coat, and his own face did not change. It was a good face. It had been built for this: for the moment a man comes through the door with something terrible on him. It stayed calm. It stayed kind.
"Close the door," he said.
Tom closed it.
"Somebody hit you."
"Yes."
"Do I need to know who?"
"No."
"Sit down."
"I'd rather stand."
"I'd rather you sat." Ross put the paper down. "Tom. I've known you sixteen years. I know when you want to hurt something. You've got a look. It's the look of a man who wants to hit the wall. If you're going to do that, I'd like you to do it sitting down, so I don't have to explain a broken window to Facilities."
It was said with such weary good humor that Tom almost smiled. He sat. The chair was hard and low, an old wooden one, with a cracked leather pad. He had sat in it a hundred times. He had sat in it the day his father died, and Ross had come round the desk and put a hand on his neck and said nothing for ten minutes.
"You took the call out," said Tom.
Ross did not move.
"The second call. From the woman at the bus stop. Linda Hayes. Ten-thirty-nine. She said it was a spray can. She asked them to tell us." He kept his voice level. "It was in the system, and you cut it from the summary."
"Who told you that?"
"I heard it."
"You heard it."
"On Thursday. In the archive. I sat there with the headphones on."
"Pam Hollis."
"It doesn't matter who."
"It matters a great deal." Ross raised his coffee, looked into it, and set it down again. "She's got twenty-six years in. She's three years from her pension. I'd have thought she'd have more sense."
"Don't."
"I'm only saying."
"Don't touch her, Dave."
"I'm not going to touch anyone." Ross leaned back. The chair groaned. He put his big hands flat on the desk, and looked at Tom with a patient, unsurprised interest, like a doctor hearing the history of a long illness. "What do you think I did?"
"I think you read the log. I think you saw there was an update. I think you saw it was forty seconds before the shots. And I think you decided it wasn't relevant, and told Bell, and told Mike, and took it out."
"That's all true."
Tom stared at him.
"All of it?"
"All of it. I'm not going to lie to you." Ross's voice was low and steady. "Of course I read the log. It's my job. I read every line of every call on every incident I supervise. I saw the second call at about nine the next morning. And I thought, well. There's a problem."
"A problem."
"A problem. Yes." He nodded. "I thought, if this goes in, it changes the whole shape of the thing. It doesn't change the law, mark you. It doesn't change what you knew. But it changes the picture. It puts a caller in the middle of it, a nice ordinary woman, saying please tell them. It puts a clock on it. Forty seconds. A jury would eat that alive."
"A jury."
"The family's lawyer. The press. A hundred people on the courthouse steps." He spread his hands. "I thought, what does this serve? It's not going to bring him back. The officer didn't hear it. The Board would have reached the same conclusion. The only thing it would do is give a lot of people a stick to hit you with."
"So you protected me."
"I protected you."
"And Mike."
"And Mike. And the department. And the next officer who has to make that call, in the dark, with his heart in his mouth, and who'll be a little more afraid next time, because he's seen what happens to a man like you." He did not raise his voice. "That's my job, Tom. That's what a sergeant is. A sergeant is a person who stands between his men and the weather."
"And the boy?"
"What about him?"
"Who stood between him and the weather?"
Ross looked at him.
For a long moment he said nothing. Outside the window, a van went by on Pine Street, with its radio on. Somebody laughed in the hall. The clock above the door ticked, and the ticking seemed to grow louder and louder, until it filled the little office like a swarm.
"I'll tell you something," said Ross.
He rose. He went to the window, and stood with his back to the room, and put his hands behind him. Against the glare he was a dark square shape, heavy and stooped. When he spoke again it was in a different voice, flat and old.
"In nineteen ninety-six," he said, "I shot a man."
Tom did not stir.
"I was twenty-six. I'd been on the force three years. It was a domestic. A tenement on Marsh Road, a Saturday, a woman screaming. I went up the stairs. There was a man at the top, in a doorway, with something in his hand. He was shouting. He took a step toward me." He paused. "I fired once."
"Dave."
"It was a phone. A cordless phone. He'd been trying to call 911. He'd been, his wife was on the floor behind him, and he was trying to dial. And I shot him in the throat." His voice did not change. "He lived eleven minutes."
The radiator ticked.
"There was an inquiry. They cleared me in a week. The sergeant sat me down afterwards, a man called Fitz, you never knew him, and he said, You did what you had to do. I said, I killed a man with a telephone. And he said, You did what you had to do, son. And I'm going to see you never have to say another word about it." Ross turned. His face, in the shadow, was very gray. "And he did. He kept it. For twenty years. He kept every word of it off the record. And I thought, that man saved my life."
"He didn't."
"He did, Tom. He kept me a policeman. He kept me a husband and a father. He kept me out of a cell and a bottle and a quiet little room with a rope." Ross's mouth worked. "I owe him everything. I don't know how to pay him back, except by being him."
"For me."
"For you. For Hughes. For Mike. For every poor bastard who's going to make the worst decision of his life in two seconds and live with it for forty years." He came back across the room and sat heavily on the edge of the desk. "That's the deal. That's the only deal there is. We keep each other. Because nobody else will."
"And the people we kill?"
"They're dead."
"That's all?"
"What else is there?"
Tom stood up.
He did it slowly. He felt very tall, and very light, as if the floor had fallen away a few inches. He looked down at the man on the edge of the desk, the big, kind, tired, pouchy face, the gray mustache, the gentle bloodshot eyes. He had loved this man. He loved him now. It was a terrible thing, to feel it so clearly, and to feel, beside it, a cold white blade of something that was not hatred, and not contempt, but was much worse.
"I think there's him," he said.
"Who?"
"The man on the stairs. With the phone."
Ross's face did not move.
"What was his name?"
"Tom."
"What was his name, Dave?"
"I don't."
"You don't remember."
"I remember."
"Then say it."
Ross's mouth opened. It stayed open. In the gray light, Tom saw something happen in his face that he had never seen there before: a slow, helpless, dreadful collapse, as of an old wall giving way from the inside. The big shoulders sagged. The hands lifted, and hung, and dropped.
"Raymond," he said. It was barely a breath. "Raymond Mitchell."
"Thank you."
"He was thirty-one."
"Thank you."
"He had a daughter." Ross put his hand over his eyes. "She was four. I looked her up, years later. I never. She's a nurse now. In Tucson."
Tom did not say anything. He stood in the office with his hands at his sides and let the silence stretch. It was a long one. It went on, and on, and it did not feel like a victory. It felt like standing on a dock at the end of a day, in a cold, thin light, with a boat gone.
"I'm going to tell them," he said.
Ross did not look up.
"Not today. Not yet. But I'm going to." He took a breath. "I wanted you to hear it from me first. I didn't want you to find out another way."
"You'll destroy us."
"I know."
"You'll destroy Mike. You'll destroy me. You'll bring the whole building down, and for what? So a, so a woman can sit in a kitchen and know that her son was shot by mistake? She knows that. We told her. The chief said it on television. A tragic decision. What more does she need?"
"She needs to know he said it's paint."
"Nobody can prove that."
"I can."
"You can't prove a thing."
"I can say it." He stopped. "I can say, I heard him. I wasn't certain, Dave. I'm not certain now. But I'm certain enough. And if I say it, in my own name, under oath, then it's true. Because I was there."
"And what if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll have been wrong in the right direction."
He went to the door.
"Tom."
He turned, with his hand on the knob.
Ross was sitting on the edge of the desk with his hand still over his eyes. He did not look like a sergeant. He did not look like a father or a friend. He looked like a very old child who has been told that the house is to be sold.
"I'd have done it for you," he said. "I'd have kept it forever."
"I know," said Tom. "That's what's wrong with it."
The chief sent for him at eleven.
It was a summons, not a request. A secretary rang down to Records and said that Chief Hall would like to see Officer Walker in his office at eleven-fifteen, and would he please bring a clean uniform. He went. He walked up the stairs in his dress blues, with the bruise showing on his jaw, past the framed photographs and the flag, past a small silent crowd of administrators in the corridor, who looked at his face and looked away.
The chief's office was on the sixth floor. It was a long pale room with a blue carpet, a wall of windows, and a desk the size of a small boat. A model of an old patrol car stood on a shelf. In the corner, in a case, was a stuffed owl. The chief had been given it on his twenty-fifth anniversary and had never found the heart to move it.
He rose when Tom came in.
He was taller than Tom remembered. Fifty-eight, thin and gray, with the stoop of a man who has leaned down his whole life to hear what people say. He had very long hands. He took Tom's in both of them, and held it, and looked into his face with the grave and tender concern of a family doctor.
"Tom," he said. "Thank you for coming."
"Sir."
"Sit. Please. Will you have tea?"
"No, sir."
"I will, I think." He poured it himself, from a pot on a tray, a thin pale stream, and sat down across the desk with the cup between his hands. "I've been wanting to talk to you for some time. I hope you'll forgive me for not doing it sooner. These last weeks have been, as you know, a little unusual."
"Yes."
"How is your family?"
"Fine, sir."
"Anna's well."
"Yes."
"And your daughter. Emma. She'd be eleven?"
"Yes, sir."
"A lovely child. I met her at the picnic." The chief smiled. "She told me she wanted to be a marine biologist. I said I thought that was an excellent idea, and she said, Do you? Most people say it's not practical. I said, Practical is overrated. She seemed to like that."
Tom said nothing.
The chief sipped his tea. He set the cup in its saucer without a sound.
"I'm going to be direct," he said. "I've heard that you've been making inquiries."
"Yes, sir."
"About the shooting."
"Yes."
"That you've been to see a witness. And Detective Bell. And that you've had access to, certain files."
"Yes."
"And that you spoke to Sergeant Ross this morning."
"Yes, sir."
"I'd like to understand what you're thinking." The chief folded his hands. "I don't ask as your chief, you understand. I ask as a man who has a great deal of respect for you. I read your record when this began. Sixteen years. Eleven commendations. A Medal of Valor in two thousand fifteen, for pulling a woman out of a burning car. You're one of the best officers I've had."
"Thank you."
"I'd like to keep you."
"Sir?"
"I'd like to keep you." The long face leaned forward. "I'll be plain. I don't think anyone is served by this inquiry. You were cleared. The review was thorough. And the case is closed. I would like to leave it closed. For you. For Anna. For the family of the young man, who have, I promise you, suffered quite enough."
"They haven't been told the truth."
"They've been told what the facts permit."
"That isn't the same."
"It's all the law can give."
"Sir." Tom's voice was quite steady. "The second call. From Linda Hayes. It was in the log. It was not in the report."
"I'm aware."
"You're."
"I'm perfectly aware." The chief did not blink. "I was told about it on the sixteenth of October. The sergeant brought it to me. We discussed it. I concurred with his judgment that it was not material."
The room was silent.
Tom had expected many things. He had expected anger. He had expected a veiled warning, or a subtle threat. He had not expected this: the long gentle patient face, the quiet voice, the confession offered up like a plate of biscuits. He sat in the leather chair and felt the whole floor of the building shift under him, one level down, then another, as if the stairs he had climbed all his life had been going down.
"You knew," he said.
"I knew."
"From the beginning."
"From the second day."
"And you went on television."
"I did." The chief inclined his head. "I said that the officer had acted within policy. That was true. I said that the tragic fact was not known to the officer at the time. That was true. I said nothing I could not support." He lifted one long finger. "That is what a public statement is for, Tom. It is not for telling everything. It is for telling what is useful and what is true. Where they overlap, you speak. Where they don't, you wait."
"Useful to whom?"
"To everyone."
"To the boy?"
"The boy is dead."
It was said without cruelty. It was said as one says the road is closed. It sat in the long bright room like a stone.
"Let me tell you what I propose," said the chief. "I would like you to retire. Not in disgrace. In honor. I will see that you are given the full pension, twenty years' credit, though you have only sixteen. The City Council will approve it; they owe us a favor. There will be a letter of commendation in your file, and a small ceremony, at your convenience, or none, if you prefer. There is a job waiting for you at the Harlow Savings Bank. They like to hire ex-officers for security. It pays well. It's quiet."
"Sir."
"In return, you will say nothing. Not to the press, not to the family, not to the lawyers. You will let this lie." He smiled, sadly. "I appreciate that this will not be easy. You are a man of conscience. But there are different kinds of conscience. There is the kind that makes you speak. And there is the kind that makes you protect the people who depend on you."
"Like Mike."
"Like Mike."
"And Pam."
"And Pam. And Detective Bell. And your wife." The chief spread his hands. "I wouldn't wish any of them harm. I have no wish to see anyone prosecuted. But if this inquiry goes forward, if new information is placed before the Board, certain questions will be asked. Who knew? Who said what, when? And I'm afraid that the answers will not all be kind."
"That's a threat."
"It's a description."
"It's a threat, sir."
"Tom." The chief laid his hands on the desk. His voice was low and clear and entirely without heat. "I've been a policeman for thirty-six years. I've buried eleven men. I've signed forty widows' pensions. I've sat in kitchens at four in the morning and told a woman her husband was not coming home. I've done all the things a chief has to do, and I have done them for one reason: so that the next officer can go out the door, and do the job, and come back."
He leaned closer.
"I will not have it brought down. Not by you. Not by anyone. This department is a great fragile thing. It has taken me my whole life to hold it together. It can survive a tragedy. It cannot survive a scandal."
"Then it shouldn't."
"I beg your pardon?"
"If it can't survive the truth." Tom stood. "Then it shouldn't survive."
The chief did not move.
He sat very still, with his long hands on the desk, looking at Tom with a face from which, one by one, every particle of tenderness was draining away. It did not become hard. It simply became empty, as a house is empty when the furniture has been taken out. Behind the eyes, for a moment, Tom saw something small and far off and frightened.
"I see," said the chief.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"You may go."
"Thank you for."
"You may go, Officer Walker."
He went.
At the door he looked back, once. The chief had turned his chair to the window. He sat with his back to the room, a tall gray shape against a vast bright wall of glass, and the little stuffed owl stood in its case in the corner with its wide, glassy, enormous eyes.
Anna came home on Wednesday evening.
She came alone. She let herself in with her key, and put her bag on the table, and stood in the kitchen with her coat on. The house was clean. He had cleaned it. He had spent two days on it, scrubbing floors and polishing glasses and scraping at the black smear on the third stair until the wood showed pale and raw. He had not slept. He had not eaten, much. He sat at the table, with his hands in front of him and a pot of coffee, and watched her take off her gloves.
"Where's Emma?"
"At Beth's. I wanted to talk first."
"Okay."
"Is that coffee?"
"I'll get you a cup."
"Sit." She went to the cupboard. She took down the blue mug, the one with the chip, and filled it, and sat opposite him, with her back straight. Her face was pale and drawn, with deep marks under the eyes. She looked as if she had not slept either.
"I've been thinking," she said.
"So have I."
"I want to say something first. And then you can. Is that all right?"
"Yes."
"I went to work yesterday. I did a double. And at about four in the morning I was in the break room, and I was alone, and I just sat there. And I thought, what do I actually know?" She turned the mug. "I know my husband. I know him better than anyone. I know that he's a decent man, and a careful one. I know that he would never, never hurt a child on purpose."
"Anna."
"Let me finish. I know that. And I know that something happened that night that you won't, that you haven't told me. I know you've been carrying it. And I've been so angry. At you, for not saying. And at myself, for not asking." Her voice trembled, and she steadied it. "And I thought, I'd rather know. Whatever it is. I'd rather know the worst thing than go on guessing."
He looked at her for a long time.
He had rehearsed it. In the car, in the shower, in the dark. He had a speech. It began with I want you to understand, and went on through a series of careful clauses, each one a stair, each one leading down toward the thing at the bottom. He had practiced the order. He had planned to stop at certain points and let her speak.
He opened his mouth, and none of it came.
"I killed him," he said.
The kitchen was silent.
"I killed him. Not by accident. Not, not as a tragedy. I mean, I did it, and I didn't have to, and I think I knew, or I could have known, or if I'd just stopped for one second." He swallowed. "He said it was paint. He was holding it out. He had both hands up. A woman had called to say it was only a can. My partner knew. The sergeant knew. The chief knew. Everyone knew, and nobody told me, and I'd lost my earpiece, and I was so frightened. I was so frightened, Anna. And I fired."
She did not move.
"He was trying to go home. That's all. That's all he was doing. He ran because he'd missed a court date for painting a wall, and he was afraid his mother would find out. And I chased him, and I shot him, and I've been telling everyone ever since that I thought my life was in danger."
"Did you?"
It was so quiet that he almost did not hear.
"What?"
"Think your life was in danger?"
He thought.
He made himself do it. He sat at the kitchen table, in the light of the little lamp, with the roosters on the dish towel and his wife's gray eyes on his face, and he went back to the alley, and the fence, and the orange glow. He saw the hood. He saw the hand. He tried to find the fear. He turned over every stone in the dark garden of that night, one at a time, and under each there was only a boy.
"I was afraid," he said. "That part's true. I was afraid. But I don't think I was afraid of him."
"Of what, then?"
"Of the call. Of a gun. Of the thing I'd been told." He pressed his hands to his eyes. "I'd been told for nine minutes that there was a man with a gun, and I'd been, I'd been waiting, for it. The whole time. I was already, I'd already, I had it in my head. And then I saw a hand go into a pocket, and it was like. It was like a door shutting. There wasn't any room."
"So you didn't see him."
"No."
"You saw what you'd been told to see."
"Yes."
She nodded, very slowly.
"All right," she said.
She stood up. She went to the sink, and ran the tap, and stood with her back to him, with her hands braced on the edge of the counter. The water ran and ran. She did not turn it off. He could see the line of her shoulders, and the small hard knot of her spine through her coat.
"I don't forgive you," she said.
"I know."
"I'm not going to say I do. I don't know if I can. I don't know what it's even, what I'd be forgiving." She was crying quietly, her voice thick. "And I'm not going to say I'm leaving, either. Because I'm not. I thought about it. I sat in Beth's kitchen with a suitcase. And I thought, I could just go. And I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because you told me."
He stared at her back.
"All those weeks," said Anna. "You didn't say it. You sat in the dark and let me worry. You lied to Dr. Evans. You lied to me. But tonight you came in and said it, in plain words, and I thought, that's the man I married." She wiped her face on her sleeve. "He's not good. Not just now. But he's there."
She turned off the tap.
"What will you do?" she said.
"Tell them."
"Who?"
"Everyone. The Board. The DA. The family. The papers." His voice shook. "I'm going to write it down, all of it, the second call and the frame and the old man at the window. And Mike. I'm going to say what Mike heard. And what Ross did. And the chief."
"They'll charge you."
"Probably."
"With what?"
"I don't know. Manslaughter. Perjury. Something." He drew a breath. "I might go to prison."
"For how long?"
"Years."
She said nothing.
"I'll understand if."
"Don't." She came back and sat down. She put both her hands over his, on the table, and held them very tightly. They were cold. They were shaking. "Don't say what I'd understand. I'm not there yet. I need to sit here for a minute and not understand anything."
They sat.
The clock in the hall ticked. The refrigerator hummed. A late bus went by on the road, its lights moving across the ceiling. Neither of them spoke. After a while she bent her head, and rested her forehead on their joined hands, and stayed there, with her hair falling over her face, breathing.
"Emma will have to carry it," she said, into the table.
"I know."
"She's eleven."
"I know."
"She'll see you on the news. Other kids will say things. You'll be the man who. And she'll have to, to go to school, and sit there."
"I know. I know." He bent over her. "I'd give anything. I'd give my life, I'd give, I'd rather. But I can't. I can't un-ring it. I can only." He stopped. "I can't make it be true that it didn't happen. I can only make it be true that I said so."
"Is that enough?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"Because it's all there is."
She lifted her head. Her face was swollen and red. She looked at him, and he saw the nurse come back into it, slowly, the plain brave steady creature who had stood at a thousand bedsides and said it's going to hurt now, and then it's going to be over.
"She'll carry it anyway," said Anna. "Won't she?"
"What?"
"If you don't tell. She'll carry it. She'll just carry the wrong one." She sniffed. "I see it. I've been thinking about that all day. A child can carry almost anything. If it's true. It's the other thing that breaks them. The thing nobody will say."
He could not speak.
"I'll tell her," said Anna. "When it's time. I'll tell her you did a terrible thing, and then you told the truth about it. I'll tell her both."
"Both."
"It's the only way I know how to say it."
The doorbell rang at midnight.
They were still at the table. They had made more coffee. They had eaten, slowly, a plate of toast, as people do after a death. Anna had gone to the window and drawn the curtain and come back. They were sitting in the soft silence of two people who have said everything and have nothing left to say.
"It's late," said Anna.
"I'll go."
He got up. He went down the hall, and put his hand on the chain, and looked through the crack. In the glare of the porch light, in a long dark coat, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, a man was standing on the step.
It was Mike.
He was shaved. That was the first thing. His face was gray and clean and raw, with a small nick on the chin, and his hair was wet and combed back. He wore a tie. It was crooked, and it did not match the coat. He looked like a man who had dressed for a job interview or a funeral and did not know which.
Tom took the chain off.
"Hey," said Mike.
"Hey."
"Can I come in?"
"Of course."
They stood in the hall. Mike shifted from foot to foot, and wiped his shoes on the mat, and wiped them again. He did not seem to know what to do with his hands. He took them out of his pockets and put them back.
"I'm sober," he said.
"I can see that."
"Four days. I haven't had a drink since Saturday." A small shaky smile. "I'm told it's the first step."
"I'm glad."
"I went to a meeting. In a church basement. A guy gave me a coin." He laughed. "I don't know what it's for. I put it in my pocket."
"Mike."
"I called Bell."
Tom stopped.
"This afternoon. I went to her office. I sat in the little room, the one with the table, and I said, Detective, I lied. I told her about the update. I told her what I heard. I told her what Ross said, and the pamphlet, and the, all of it." He was speaking quickly, as one pulls off a bandage. "She didn't say anything. She just listened. And then she put down her pen and said, Do you understand that this is a false statement under oath?"
"What did you say?"
"I said yes."
"And?"
"And she said I'd be suspended. Pending investigation. Maybe charged." He shrugged. "She said I should get a lawyer. I said I'd like to, but I'd have to find one that wasn't Price."
Tom could not answer.
"I'm not asking for anything," said Mike. "I know you're mad at me. I just wanted to say it to your face. I'll testify. Whatever you're going to do. I'll say what I heard." His voice caught. "I've been hearing it every night. I'd like to say it aloud, once, to someone with the power to write it down."
"Mike."
"What?"
"Come here."
He held out his arms. Mike stared at them for a moment with a look of utter disbelief. Then he stepped forward, and they closed round each other in the narrow hall, two big men in overcoats, clumsy, awkward, with their chins on each other's shoulders. Tom felt the rough wool against his cheek, and smelled soap and rain and cold, and felt, through his own ribs, the thick slow hammering of his friend's heart.
"I'm sorry," said Mike.
"I know."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"I know."
They stood there for a long time.
When they let go, Anna was in the kitchen doorway. She had her arms folded, and her face was wet. She did not say anything. She looked at Mike, and Mike looked at her. Then she turned, and went to the stove, and put the kettle on.
He lay awake that night until dawn.
He lay on his back in the dark, with Anna's slow breath beside him, and looked at the ceiling. He was not afraid. He was not anything. He felt as though a thick gray fog had lifted from a landscape he had been walking in for weeks, and he saw it now, quite clearly, in a flat cold light: a long road, a few bare trees, a small house in the distance.
He knew what he had to do next.
It was not the Board, or the DA, or the papers. That would come. That would be a machine of paper and lawyers and cameras, a thing that would take him over and carry him off. He did not mind. He would let it come.
But before that, there was one thing.
I have to see her.
It came to him with great simplicity. It did not feel like a thought. It felt like the answer to a question he had been asked a long time ago, by someone who had been waiting patiently at the edge of a room.
I have to tell her myself.
Before anyone else. Before the lawyers. Before the news.
She should hear it from the man who did it. In her own house. With her own eyes on my face.
He knew what Price would say. He knew what Anna would say. He knew the rule: no contact with the family. He knew it was dangerous, and probably wrong, and certainly foolish, and that it might wreck what little case he had.
He did not care.
Beside him, Anna stirred.
"Can't sleep?" she murmured.
"No."
"What is it?"
"I'm going to see her."
He felt her go still.
"Who?"
"The mother."
For a long time there was no answer. Then, in the dark, he felt her hand find his, under the sheet. It was warm and dry. It held on.
"Tomorrow?" she said.
"Tomorrow."
"I'll come with you."
"No."
"Tom."
"No. I have to go alone."
She was silent.
"Then I'll wait in the car," she said.