Angels Fall

 have to do with me regressing to tugue states and writing all over my bathroom?"
    "What if you're not the one who wrote all over the bathroom?" Her head hurt; her stomach was raw from churning. Since she was too tired to walk to a chair, she just sat on the floor and leaned back against the refrigerator. "If you think someone is doing a Charles Boyer on me, you are as crazy as I am."
    "Which scares you more, Reece?" He crouched down so their faces were level. "Believing you're having another breakdown, or that someone wants you to believe it?"
    Everything inside her trembled. "I don't know."
    "Since it's a toss-up, play along with me. What if you saw a woman murdered, an act no one else witnessed. You reported it, and word got around. What it the killer got that word—or, as we considered before, he saw you. He didn't get away clean, after all. Covered his tracks, sure, but he didn't get away clean."
    "Because there was a witness," she whispered.
    "Yeah. But the only witness has a history of psychological problems with their roots in violence. He can use that. Not everyone believes her anyway—new in town, a little shaky on her pins. But since she's persistent, why not give her a little push on those shaky pins."
    "Well, God. Why not just shoot me in the head and get it over with?"
    "Another murder, people are going to start taking you seriously."
    "Posthumously."
    "Sure." Still got some of that steel in there, he thought. Maybe it had a couple of dents in it, but it would hold. "But give her some of those subtle little nudges and chances are she does one of two things. She breaks down, runs naked in the street singing show tunes, or she runs and has her breakdown somewhere else. Either way, her claims as a murder witness are likely to be dismissed."
    "But that's . .
    "Crazy? No, it's not. It's very smart, and very coolheaded."
    "So, instead of believing I'm a complete emotional and mental disaster area, you want me to believe a killer is stalking me, breaking into my apartment and trying to gaslight me." He took another pull of beer again. "It's a theory."
    Sometime in the last minute, as what he was saying sank in, her throat had gone desert dry. "The first  option is easier. Been there, after all, done that."
    "I bet it is. But you don't take the easy way."
    "That's a strange thing to say to someone who's been running away from everything, including herself, for the better part of a year."
    "If that's how you see it, maybe you are a little whacked." He rose and, almost as an afterthought, held out a hand to help her to her feet. After a moment's hesitation, she took it. And she faced him.
    "How do you see it?"
    "I'm looking at a woman who survived. Her friends, who were next thing to family, all killed—one of them right in front of her, while she's shot and left for dead. Trapped in the dark, bleeding. Everything she knew and cherished was taken, for no rhyme, no reason, so she was left with a shattered sense of security and an endangered sense of what some would call sanity. She's standing here two years later because she's been fighting her way back, step by step, at her own time, her own pace.
    "I think she's one of the strongest people I've ever met." Her breath hitched in and out. "I guess you don't get out much."
    "There you are." He smiled a little, tapped his finger on her forehead. "Right in there. Get some things together; you better stay at my place tonight."
    "I can't take this in."
    "You will." He poked into the grocery bag. "Would this be dinner?"
    "Oh  shit  ! The scallops!"
    He knew she was all the way back when she leaped toward the bag and dug down. "Thank God I had them bagged with an ice pack. They're still cold. Something to be said for keeping the thermostat low."
    "I like scallops."
    "You haven't seen food you don't like." Then she braced her hands on the counter and just closed her eyes."You won't let me fall apart. You just won't let me."
    "I told you once before, hysterical women annoy me."
    "You told me once before you were hot for neurotics."
    "Yeah, I did. Not only is there a difference between hysteria and neurosis, I've decided you're not neurotic enough for me. So I'm just going to use you until something better comes along." She rubbed her gritty eyes. "That's fair."
    "When it does? You can still cook for me."

    "Thanks." She dropped her hands and looked at him. "You held me while I cried. Annoying for you."
    "You weren't hysterical. You were hurting. Just don't make a