Stop it! he told himself sternly. There were many possibilities, like a car wreck, shrapnel, fell on something, bobbed when she should have weaved, and still, he knew what he knew. Marc moved silently back to their den, mind busy counting the ways he'd make her man pay if he was the one responsible.
Five minutes later, Angela still hadn't come in and Marc went back out, even though Dog was with her, not liking it that there was no noise. She was in the farthest, darkest corner of the porch, out of most of the wind, and if not for the sounds of her pen scratching on the paper, he thought he would have missed her. How could she see so well to write in total darkness?
"Something about the way my eyes work. What's the temperature?"
Using his lighter, Marc checked the small stick-on disc he had watched her put up earlier, "Either 30 or 28, can't tell which."
"Thanks."
"Sure." he lit a smoke, staring into the thick shadows around them. "I need to ask you something."
Angela closed her notebook. "Shoot."
"Was calling me a way to make him see you don't need him, so that you can get what you want? Are you using me against him?"
Angela flipped on her penlight as she stepped toward the rail, letting him see the truth on her face. "Not in the way you're thinking. He isn't coming back for me, intends to keep my son. I have to show him that I can not only make it on my own, but do it well."
"Why wouldn't he come back for you?"
Fathomless grief flashed in her eyes, and Marc drew in a sharp breath at the pain there, understanding something awful had caused it, something she wasn't going to tell him yet.
"I'm a burden."
"You're not a burden. Look how well you've survived on your own."
She shook her head, and he could hear the anger, the disappointment. "I was never allowed to be this person. He sees only what he's created."
She looked up at him, the bags under her eyes almost like bruises, they were so dark. "He heard the calls too and knows I'm on my way. He doesn't think I'll make it and doesn't expect me to bring help that he can't handle, so yes, I am using you, but only in the ways you've agreed to, nothing more."
Marc knew she wanted to be done with it for now and pointed at the small, black discs he had set out, "Those are alarms, motion and heat sensors." He picked up a rock and a stick, tossed them in different directions and almost immediately, two different tones chimed loudly from his wristwatch.