Angels Fall

crime didn't mean she had to knock herself silly. "Wait. She didn't have a pack on." Reece shrugged hers off, tossed it aside, then dropped to the ground.
    "She must've fallen harder, and I think she hit her head—bumped it, anyway—on the ground, or maybe on the rocks here. She stayed down a minute. Her hat fell off. I forgot that. Her hat felloff, and when she shook her head—like she was a little dazed—there was a glint. barrings. She must have been wearing earrings. I wasn't paying enough attention."
    "I'd say you're wrong about that. What did he do? Move toward her?"
    "No. No. She got up, fast, lunged at him. She wasn't afraid, she was pissed. Seriously pissed. She was screaming at him— I couldn't hear, but I could see. He tossed her down. Not a shove this time. And when she fell, he straddled her."
    Recce got down, looked up at Brody. "Would you mind?"
    "Sure. No problem." He planted a foot on either side of Reece.
    "He held out a hand. I think, but she wouldn't let up. She propped up on her elbows and kept at him. Her mouth was moving, and I— in my head—heard her screaming and bitching. Then he got down."
    "He more than sat on her, put his weight down to hold her," she said when Brody crouched. "Oh." She wheezed out a breath when Brody followed directions. "Yeah, like that. Nothing playful, nothing sexual— at least from my view. She was slapping out at him, and he held her arms down. No. don't!" Panic spurted into her when Brody clamped his hands over her wrists. "I can't. Don't."
    "Take it easy." He kept his eyes on hers as he loosened his grip, shifted his weight. "I'm not going to hurt you. Tell me what happened next."
    "She was struggling, twisting under him. But he was stronger. He yanked her head up by the hair, rapped it down hard. Then he… then he put his hands around her throat. She bucked, tried to throw him off, she grabbed his wrists, but I don't think she had much left in her. Wait… he pinned her arms down with his knees, to stop her from hitting out. I forgot that, too. damn it."
    "You remembered it now."
    "She kicked out, trying to get some leverage. I guess. Her feet hammered against the ground, and her fingers dug into the ground. Then they stopped. Everything stopped, but he kept his hands around her throat. He kept them there, and I ran. Get up, okay? Get up."
    He merely shifted so he sat on the ground beside her. "Any chance she was still alive?"
    "He kept his hands around her throat." Reece sat up, brought up her knees and pressed her face to them.
    He said nothing for a few minutes, just let the river run beside them while clouds shitted shadows over rock and water. "I figure you're the glass-halt-empty type."
    "What?"
    '"Glass is probably more than half empty because it's cracked and what's in it's leaking out. So you see this happen and you think, Oh God, guilt, guilt, despair. I saw a woman murdered and couldn't do anything to stop it. Poor her, poor me," he continued. "Instead of thinking, I saw a woman murdered, and if I hadn't been where I was when I was, no one would have known what happened to her."
    She'd propped her chin on her knees to study him while he spoke, and now cocked her head. "You're right. I know you're right, and I'm trying to look at it that way. Still, you don't strike me as the glass-is-half-full type."
    "Half full, half empty, what the hell difference does it make? If there's something in the damn glass, drink it."
    She laughed. Sitting where a woman had died only the day before, Reece felt the laugh rise in her chest and break tree. "Good policy. Right now, I wish to God it held a nice chilly Pinot Grigio."
    After pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, she pushed to her feet. "Reenacting it left signs. Footprints." she said as he rose. "Dents in the ground from the heels of my boots, flattened dirt, handprints. You don't have to be Natty Bumppo to see a couple of people were here, fought here."
    Brody walked off a few feet to break off a fanning branch of willow and began sweeping it over the disturbed ground. "He's smart," he said as he cleared off the tracks. "He drags or carries her ott, out of sight of the river, the canyon, then he gets a branch like this from another area, comes back, makes sure neither of them dropped anything. Have to keep your cool."
    He straightened, studied the ground. "Pretty clean. Natty might be able to see something, but I'm an amateur. Could be, maybe, you bring in a team of crime-scene experts, they'd