The police came at 12:40. I know because I kept staring at the clock over the counter.
One of them crouched down in front of my chair with rain still on her jacket.
Faye: He was in my studio. He sat at my wheel and waited for me.
She asked to see my hands, so I turned my wrist over.
Four marks, dark as ink, where his fingers had been. She touched them and I pulled back.
Faye: He squeezed until I heard something move.
Then she asked about the photo of the man from the alley.
Faye: It's on my phone. Upstairs. In my apron.
We drove back to Kiln Yard. Marcy's car came in behind us with her high beams on.
Marcy: Oh my God. Oh my God, Faye.
She got me against her coat and held on. She smelled like the bar and cheap perfume.
Marcy: Who did this? I'll kill him. I'll actually kill him.
My studio looked like I left it, except for the chair.
It was pulled out from my wheel and turned to face the stairs. So he could watch me come up.
Marcy: That sick fuck.
The officer went over the door, the rail, the handle of the extinguisher. Twice.
She said there were no prints. Not one. Not even mine.
Faye: So he was never here.
She said that was not what it meant. She didn't say what it did mean.
That was when the phone rang. Not mine. Mine was gone from my apron pocket.
A cheap phone, sitting in my clay bucket, buzzing against the plastic.
Marcy: Don't touch it.
My hand shook too hard to swipe. Marcy did it and put it on speaker.
Coyle: There she is. I knew you'd come back for your toys.
The room went very small.
Coyle: You hit me with a fire extinguisher, you dumb little bitch.
Coyle: Where did that get you? Now I have to be rude about it.
The officer was writing fast. Marcy had both hands over her mouth.
Faye: The police are right here. They can hear you.
Coyle: I know. I counted them coming in.
I went for the blind. The officer got my arm and pulled me back into the wall. Hard.
The back of my head hit plaster. Her fingers dug into the marks he left and my knees went soft.
Faye: Let go. Let go of me.
She let go and said sorry. There was a new red print on my arm.
Coyle: Don't bother, sweetheart. I'm not in the yard. I'm close, though. Closer than they are.
Coyle: You talk again, and I come back for the one in the green coat.
Marcy made a sound like all the air leaving her.
Coyle: I'll let my friends have her first. Then I'll cut her up and leave her where you can find her. You can take pictures of that too.
I believed him. Every word of it went in and stayed.
Faye: You touch her and I'll put your face on every wall in this city.
There was a pause. Then he laughed, low, like I had told him a joke he liked.
Coyle: There it is. There's the one who likes to take pictures.
The line went dead.
The officer bagged the phone in a glove and said it would be checked. She said it gently, like that would help.
I already knew. It would come back wiped clean. Like the rail. Like the chair. Like everything he touched.
Outside, a man stood at the gate in the rain with no umbrella.
Gideon: Your wrist.
He lifted my hand. His thumb found the skin just under the marks and stayed there.
He was close enough that I could see rain on his jaw, and for one second my body forgot the whole night.
I hated that.
Faye: Are you following me now?
Gideon: I was in the neighborhood.
Faye: That's not an answer.
Gideon: No. It isn't.
Gideon: Lock your door. Both locks. Sleep where you have to be loud to get in.
Faye: That's not advice. That's a list.
Gideon: It's what I've got.
He walked out into the rain. My wrist stayed warm where his thumb had been.
Marcy drove me home with her hand on my knee and the radio off for once.
She made a bed on my couch and said she wasn't leaving.
I sat on the floor with my back against the front door and my camera in my lap.
A car went by slow. Then it came back and went by slower. I didn't turn off the light.
Nothing had changed. No prints. No name. No proof. Just a phone call and a promise that had not run out.
I kept hearing a man at a gate tell me to lock the door, and I sat there until the window went gray.