Page 36 of Over Her Dead Body

Lisbon was not predictable.

The man shifts his weight. “I can revise the report.”

“No.”

Relief crosses his face.

Briefly.

I open the folder. Three pages. Bad sentences. Worse conclusions.

“You wrote that she seemed normal.”

He glances at the page as though someone else may have put the words there. “She appeared composed when she reached the airport.”

“After abandoning a professional obligation, purchasing a ticket to a city where she had no business, spending the night with a man you cannot identify, and leaving the country after the man watching her vanished.”

He hesitates.

I close the folder.

“What an extraordinary definition of normal you have.”

His face changes then.

I enjoy the moment when people realize they have misunderstood the room. It is a small pleasure. There are so few reliable ones.

“I can fix it,” he says.

“No,” I tell him. “You can’t.”

The man by the door moves before he can offer another poor solution. One hand clamps his shoulder. The other catches his wrist and drives it down against the edge of the desk.

The wrist gives first.

Then he does.

There is a wet snap and a sound punched out of him. Then he is screaming, his hand hanging wrong, folded too far back, fingers jerking as if the nerves are trying to escape the bone.

“There,” I say. “Now you’ll have a better appreciation for the use of both hands.”

His face is wet. Sweat and tears have become indistinguishable.

“The next time Emma Calloway so much as breathes differently, I want to know. Where she is. Who is beside her. What happened immediately before.”

He nods once.

“If she touches her hair, include it. If she overcorrects with humor, include it. If she smiles before she answers, I want to know who asked the question.”

Another nod.

“Find the man who disappeared.”

“Yes.”

“Identify the man in the apartment.”

“Yes.”