Page 8 of Leather & Lark
Why should I care how he looks at me? What he thinks? He knows nothing about me or what this is or why it had to be done. He doesn’t know about the promise I have to keep.
“He’s a fucking stranger,” I tell myself out loud when my thoughts just aren’t enough. “After tonight, you’ll never see him again.”
I take a few steps forward to watch as Conor helps to heave the body ashore while Batman climbs out of the water to ditch his gear on the rocks. When he’s done, they hoist Merrick’s corpse into their arms, Conor grabbing hold of the limp legs while Batman takes the arms. With a few grunts and minor stumbles, they make it to the road, dropping the body at my feet.
For a long moment, there’s only the sound of their panting breaths.
The two men watch me. I watch them back. A thick curtain of silence descends. It’s as though they’re waiting for me to break out in a song and dance routine, but I’ve forgotten all the lyrics. I can’t remember this choreography or what I’m supposed to do.
Conor’s head tilts, and the epiphany strikes me in the face.
I press a hand over my heart and gesture toward the body sprawled across the road.
“Oh … my God … that’s so horrible … what have I done …”
More silence. An owl hoots from the shadows of the forest.
“Such a tragedy …” I continue as I dab at my dry eyelashes. “So sad … I will never forgive myself.”
“Feckin’ Christ Jesus,” Batman whisper-growls. “Typical.”
“Excuse me?”
“Typical,” he says again, striding forward to stare down at me. “You’re somebody’s perfect little princess who gives literally no shits about some innocent guy who got caught in your path of destruction.”
The protest I start making about Merrick’s “innocence” is lost as Conor slides a hand across Batman’s chest in an attempt to diffuse him. “Hey man, come on—”
“Always depending on someone to come and clean up your feckin’ messes for you,” Batman continues, growling his way through Conor’s wary protests, his accent surfacing once again. “Sailing through life with barely a mark, no matter who gets in your way.”
I surge forward and eliminate the distance between us, stopping so close that I can smell the sweet mint of his breath above the scent of the lake water. My expression is nothing short of lethal as I glare into his masked face. “Would this be a good time to remind you that I am your client? Or later? This is yourjob, remember?”
“No, it’s not.”
“But I thought you were a fucking cleaner.”
“You thought wrong, Blunder Barbie.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I have no feckin’ choice.”
Batman gives me his back as he bends to pick up Jamie’s slack arm, hoisting the corpse onto his shoulder with a grunt. When hedraws close to me with a glare, I don’t flinch, though my heart etches my bones with every hammered beat.
“You don’t know me,” I hiss.
His glare sears my skin. “And I don’t want to,” he says.
I watch him walk to the tow truck with the body slung across his shoulder. My eyes never stray from his form as it slips into shadow, not even when Conor stops at my side.
“I’m sorry about him,” Conor says, his voice low and quiet as he clutches the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “He’s just … yeah. It’s not been a good night for him. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but it’s nothing personal. And he’s just been doing this too long, I guess.”
I nod and peel my gaze away from the tow truck where Batman is busy wrapping the body in plastic and then a blanket. Though I hear his labored grunt as he hoists Merrick into the back of the vehicle, I keep my attention on the forest. The trees beckon me to find a quiet place where I can sit with my thoughts. Maybe I could find some peace, if the world fell silent, just for a little while—
“We’ll come back with the boom truck tomorrow night and get the car out of the lake. I’ll clean up anything left on the road tonight,” Conor says, interrupting my fleeting fantasy. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, but I don’t look his way. “Batman there … he can be rough around the edges, but he’s as solid as they come. We’ll get it done. We’ll make sure nothing links you to this place. No records. No evidence. Soon it will be like the whole accident never even happened.”
“Right,” I whisper, but my smile is fleeting. If it was supposed to reassure him that I’m totally fine, it failed. When I glance in Conor’s direction, I can see the concern flicker in his eyes, eventhough the rest of his features are obscured by his mask. I try a little harder with that smile of mine. “What accident, right?”
“That’s right,” he says with a laugh. He probably thinks it’s just a half-hearted, lame joke when he walks away to help the disgruntled Dark Knight fetch his scuba gear from the rocks and place it in the car. And though a faint trace of a smile lingers on my face, waiting for when they both pass by, I feel more alone than ever beneath it.
