Chapter 2: The Gift and the Accusation
Her finger didn’t point to Number Five. It veered, almost of its own will, to the right. “Him,” Delaney said, her voice a dry rustle in the quiet room. “Number Two. And Number Four. They were the ones in the alley.” She let her hand drop to her side, flexing the stiffness from her fingers. She didn’t look away from the glass. She couldn’t.
Colson, Number Five, hadn’t moved. His faint, knowing smile was gone, replaced by that same placid calm. He looked like a visitor to an art gallery, mildly bored.
“Just those two?” the officer asked, his pen poised over a notepad.
“Yes,” Delaney said. The word felt like a betrayal, but she didn’t know who she was betraying. Herself, maybe. “Just them.”
The officer nodded, satisfied. “Okay, Delaney. Thank you. That’s very helpful. You can go.”
She walked out of the station into a brittle, sunlit afternoon. The world felt too sharp, too bright. She pulled her coat tight, but the chill was inside her bones.
A week bled by, sluggish and thick with unspoken questions.
“So they just let them go?” Mia slurped her iced coffee, her eyes wide over the straw.
They were at The Grind, a cramped café a block from campus. The air was warm with the smell of burnt coffee beans and steamed milk. Delaney picked at the edge of a chocolate croissant, her appetite gone.
“Yeah. They had alibis for later that night. Solid ones. So they’re just… creeps in an alley, not murderers.” Delaney shrugged, trying to mimic Mia’s casual tone. It fell flat.
“And the other guy? The one who stepped in?”
Delaney’s chest tightened. “What about him?”
“I dunno. He was there, too. Didn’t they bring him in?”
“I don’t know.” It was a lie. She did know. She’d checked the local news online every few hours, her heart pounding as she scanned for any update, any name. Colson’s name hadn’t appeared. He hadn’t been arrested. The two guys from the alley had been picked up, questioned, released. The quiet one with the glasses had walked free from the station, back into the world. Back onto her campus, maybe. The thought was a live wire against her skin.
“Weird night,” Mia concluded, moving on. She launched into a story about her terrible date, and Delaney tried to listen, nodding in the right places. Her gaze kept drifting to the window, to the people passing by on the sidewalk. Ordinary people. Harmless.
After Mia left for a study group, Delaney stayed. She pulled out her sketchbook, needing the calm of lines on paper. She was trying to capture the slump of the buildings across the street, the way the afternoon light gilded the dirty brick, when a shadow fell across her page.
“Delaney.”
She knew the voice before she looked up. Flat. Calm. It had replayed in her head all week.
Colson stood beside her table, a ceramic mug in one hand. He wore a dark sweater, the same glasses. He looked like any other grad student, maybe in philosophy or literature. Completely ordinary.
“Hi,” she managed, her pencil freezing mid-line.
“Can I?” He gestured to the empty chair opposite her.
She nodded, because saying no felt impossible, rude even. He sat, placing his mug down with a soft click. He didn’t speak right away. He looked at her sketchbook, his head tilted.
“You’re good,” he said. “The perspective on the fire escape is off, though. The angle’s too steep.”
A flicker of irritation cut through her fear. “It’s a sketch. Not a blueprint.”
He smiled then, a real one that softened his sharp features. “Fair enough.” He took a sip of his drink, then set it down, his fingers tracing the rim. Around and around. “I saw you at the station. Through the glass. It’s all a mirror from your side, but you can sort of… feel the eyes. You know?”
She didn’t know. The thought of him sensing her there, of knowing she was judging, measuring, sent a cold prickle over her scalp.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said, his gray eyes locking onto hers.
“For what?”
“For telling the truth. For not pointing at me.” He said it simply, like he was thanking her for passing the salt.
Her mouth went dry. “You didn’t do anything.”
“They didn’t know that. You didn’t know that.” He held her gaze. “But you saw what they were. Aggressive. Predatory. And you saw me. You made a distinction. That matters.”
“I just… I said what I saw.” She fumbled with her pencil, dropping it. It rolled toward him. He picked it up, his fingers brushing hers as he handed it back. The contact was brief, electric. She snatched her hand back.
“Most people don’t,” he said softly. “They see a situation, they panic, they lump everyone together. You have a good eye. For details.” He glanced again at her sketchbook. “In more ways than one.”
He stood up then, the conversation apparently over. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say thanks. It’s… a heavy thing, being accused. You saved me from that.” He gave her one last, lingering look. “Take care of yourself, Delaney.”
He walked out, the little bell on the door jingling behind him. She watched him disappear into the stream of students on the sidewalk, her heart hammering against her ribs. He hadn’t asked how she was. He’d stated it. He’d thanked her. He’d left her feeling like she owed him something, and she couldn’t figure out why.
Two days later, in the basement studio that always smelled of turpentine and dust, she found the package on her stool. It was a simple white box, no note, resting atop her messy taboret.
“Did you order more supplies, Laney?” called her studio mate, Rafael, from across the room where he was sanding a stretcher bar.
“No,” she murmured.
She lifted the lid. Nestled inside, on a bed of crumpled tissue paper, was a complete set of Sennelier soft pastels. The vibrant, expensive French ones she’d coveted in the art store window but could never afford. They glowed like jewel dust against the white paper.
Her breath caught. She lifted one—a deep, velvety ultramarine. It was cool and perfect in her hand.
Rafael wandered over, whistling. “Whoa. Someone’s got a secret admirer. Those are, like, a hundred bucks a box.”
“They must be for someone else,” she whispered, but she knew they weren’t. Her name was written in small, precise letters on the inside of the box lid. Delaney.
There was no signature. No card. But as she ran her thumb over the rich pigment of the pastel, she remembered a voice in a sun-drenched café. You have a good eye. For details.
She looked at the half-finished painting on her easel, a cityscape at night. The blacks were muddy, the blues inadequate. She looked back at the gift in her hands, a spectrum of perfect, profound color.
A thank you, he’d said.
It didn’t feel like a thank you. It felt like a down payment. She placed the pastel back in the box, gently, as if it were made of glass. Her fingers were stained a faint, brilliant blue.