Seize the Night

me.
    This was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do … because as I held her and quieted her tears, I realized how much I still cherished her, treasured her, and how desperately I wanted her to think only well of me, though we would never be lovers again.
    “We did what was right. Both of us. If we hadn't made the decision we made eight years ago,” I concluded, “you wouldn't have found Ben, and I would never have found Sasha. Those are precious moments in our lives your meeting Ben, my meeting Sasha. Sacred moments.”
    “I love you, Chris.”
    “I love you, too.”
    “Not like I once loved you.”
    “I know.”
    “Better than that.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “Purer than that.”
    “You don't need to say this.”
    “Not because it makes me feel rebellious and noble to love you with all your troubles. Not because you're different. I love you because you're who you are.”
    “Badger?” I said.
    “What?” I smiled. “Shut up.” She let out a sound that was more laugh than sob, though it was composed of both. She kissed me on the cheek and settled into her chair, weak with relief but also still weak with fear for her missing son.
    Sasha brought a fresh cup of tea to the table, and Lilly took her hand, held it tightly. “Do you know The Wind in the Willows? ”
    “Didn't until I met Chris,” Sasha said, and even in the dim and fluttering candlelight, I saw the tracks of tears on her face.
    “He called me Badger because I stood up for him. But he's my Badger now, your Badger. And you're his, aren't you?”
    “She swings a hell of a mean cudgel,” I said.
    “We're going to find Jimmy,” Sasha promised her, relieving me of the terrible weight of repeating that impossible promise, “and we're going to bring him home to you.”
    “What about the crow?” Lilly asked Sasha.
    From a pocket, Sasha produced a sheet of drawing paper, which she unfolded. “After the cops left, I searched Jimmy's bedroom. They hadn't been thorough. I thought we might find something they overlooked. This was under one of the pillows.” When I held the paper to the candlelight, I saw an ink sketch of a bird in flight, side view, wings back. Beneath the bird was a neatly hand lettered message: Louis Wing will be my servant in Hell.
    “What does your father-in-law have to do with this?” I asked Lilly.
    Fresh misery darkened her face. “I don't know.”
    Bobby stepped inside from the porch. “Got to split, bro.” By now the coming dawn was evident to all of us. The sun had not yet appeared above the eastern hills, but the night was doing a fade, from blackest soot to gray dust.
    Beyond the windows, the backyard was no longer a landscape in shades of black but a pencil sketch.
    I showed him the drawing of the crow. “Maybe this isn't about Wyvern, after all. Maybe someone has a grudge against Louis.”
    Bobby studied the paper, but he wasn't convinced that this proved the kidnapping was merely a crime of vengeance. “Everything goes back to Wyvern, one way or another.”
    “When did Louis leave the police department?” I asked.
    Lilly said, “He retired about four years ago, a year before Ben died.”
    “And before everything went wrong at Wyvern,” Sasha noted. “So maybe this isn't connected.”
    “It's connected,” Bobby insisted. He tapped one finger against the crow. “It's too radically weird not to be connected.”
    “We should talk to your father-in-law,” I told Lilly.
    She shook her head. “Can't. He's in Shore haven.”
    “The nursing home?”
    “He's had three strokes over the past four months. The third left him in a coma. He can't talk to anyone. They don't expect him to live much longer.” When I looked at the ink sketch again, I understood that Bobby's “radically weird” had referred not only to the hand-lettered words but also to the crow itself. The drawing had a malevolent aura, The wing feathers bristled, the beak was open as if to let out a shriek, the talons were spread and hooked, and the eye, though merely a white circle, seemed to radiate evil, fury.
    “May I keep this?” I asked Lilly.
    She nodded. “It feels dirty. I don't want to touch it.”
    We left Lilly there with a cup of tea and with hope that, if it could have been measured, might not have equaled the volume of juice she could squeeze from the lemon wedge on her saucer.
    Descending the porch steps, Sasha said, “Bobby, you better bring Jenna Wing back here as quick as you can.”
    I gave him the