Angels Fall

it wasn't weird to touch it when it was folded in a drawer.
    Okay, he admitted, it was weird.
    But it didn't take long to go through the dresser: she didn't have much. The woman traveled light, he decided.

    The kitchen drawers were another matter. This was where she put the weight. It was all ruthlessly organized. No jumble. Obviously the woman didn't know the meaning  of junk drawer  . He found measuring cups, spoons, whisks—why would anyone need more than one?—and sundry kitchen tools and gadgets.
    There were several whose purpose eluded him, but they, like her pots and pans in the cupboard below, were tidily stored.
    He found a nested stack of bowls, casserole dishes in a couple of sizes. Again, would anyone need more than one?
    In the next cupboard he found what he recognized as a mortar and pestle, with the bowl filled to the brim with pills.
    He pulled it out, set it aside.
    Brody went into the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet all the bottles he'd seen before were there, lined up on the shelf. And empty.
    Little booby traps, Brody thought, with another simmering surge of anger. Clever bastard. Because they wanted to ball into fists, he shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the walls. Neat block printing again, he noted, nothing scrawled. But with some of the words overlapping there was a sense of frantic. Certainly of madness. The detail of having some of the words travel up from the floor onto the wall, or back down again, was a good one.
    Whoever did it was very deliberate, very careful, very smart.
    Brody got the digital camera he'ed brought along. He took pictures from every angle he could manage in the tiny room, took close-ups of the entire question, then of individual words, then of separate letters. When he'd documented the room every way he could think of, he leaned against the jamb. No way she could come back in here with this. He'd just go down to Mac's, see it there was something he could use to get the marker off the floor, the tub and tiles. No big deal. He could pick up some paint while he was there. Room that size wasn't going to take more than a quart, probably. A couple of hours, tops, and that would be that.
    It wasn't like he was buying her a rug or anything.
    Mac asked questions, of course. Brody figured you could probably buy toilet paper in the Fist without eliciting questions, but that was about it. Anything else was going to come with a: So what're you up to?
    He didn't say anything about painting at Reece's. People were bound to get the wrong idea if they found out a guy was doing household chores for a woman he was sleeping with. In short order he—a man who considered anything domestic above brewing coffee a form of hell on  earth—was back in the bathroom, on his hands and knees, scrubbing.

    REECE TURNED the door handle gingerly. She hated that it wasn't locked. She hated the throat-dosing fear that Brody was lying inside hurt, or worse.
    Why was he still here? She'd expected him to drop back in downstairs with her key long before her break. But he hadn't, and his car was still outside.
    And the apartment door wasn't locked.
    She eased it open. "Brody?"
    "Yeah. Back here."
    '"You're okay? I saw your car and didn't…" She stopped a couple of paces into the room, sniffed.
    "What is that? Paint'"
    He stepped out of the bath with a roller in his hand, paint specks on his hands and in his hair. "It ain't the perfumes of Araby."
    "You're painting the bathroom?"
    "It's no big deal. You've probably got two feet of wall space all told."
    "A bit more than that." Her voice was full of emotion. "Thank you " She walked over to take a look. He'd already done the ceiling, and all the cutting in around the tiles, had primed the walls. The color was a pale, pale blue, as if a cloud had dipped, very briefly, into the lake and absorbed a hint of its color. None of the red letters or smears remained anvwhere.
    Reece just leaned against him. "I like the color."
    "Not a lot to choose from if you want a quick cash-and-carry at the mercantile. Though they had a nice Pepto-Bismol pink that caught my eye."
    Now she smiled, and kept leaning. "I appreciate your restraint and your illustration of good taste. I'll have to pay you back in food."
    "Works for me. But if you want the rest of this place painted, you're on your own. I forgot I hate to paint."
    Now she turned to him, nuzzled. "I can finish it up after my shift."
    "I started, I finish." He caught himself pressing his lips to the top