Dark Country (Detective Loki from Prisoners Fan Fiction)

Part X: Tip-off

When I awoke I found David sitting with his body hunched forward on the edge of the bed. He’d been intently staring at the floor, and from his occasional blinking, it was apparent that he was processing something in his mind. He also appeared to be shaking a bit. I reached up and glided my hand over his bare back to jar his attention. “Good morning.”

He turned his head sideways and looked at me from the corner of his eye. He gloomily and with little enthusiasm replied, “Morning.”

“Is something bothering you?”

He pursed his lips, and made a fist of his hand as he rested his head on it. “Work issues.”

As I recalled his story from the night before, I got the feeling that this wasn’t all that was plaguing him. “Don’t dwell too much,” I advised for what it was worth. “I know what you’re going through is stressing you out, but don’t internalize it.”

“That’s easier said than done,” he said as he squinched his eyebrows together. “Everything is always so hard for me.”

“It doesn’t hurt to at least try,” I said. “It’s difficult, but you always have me. Sometimes a listening ear is all one needs.” He looked back at me with a faint smile, then turned his eyes again to the floor. My eyes wandered to the prominent tattoo of the 8-pointed star on his neck. I tried to discern the symbol inside the star, but the ink had long faded. “Can I ask you a question?”

Seeming perplexed, he nodded yes.

“That tattoo …,” I said running my finger over the outline of it. “Is it supposed to mean something?”

With a slight grin, he said, “I was a teenager when I got it. It’s the Star of Ishtar. She’s the Babylonian goddess of war and love.” His grin became wider now, and he scratched his head a bit. “I was into mythology and that kind of stuff when I was kid. Like these Zodiac symbols on my fingers,” he said now holding his right hand flat out before me.

“That’s cool,” I replied while imagining a younger version of David reading stories like The Odyssey. Perhaps it was a way of escaping reality, and I couldn’t blame him one bit. “So, you have the day off today, too, right? Unless you have something else to do, I think we should get away for a while and drive to the next town. I still haven’t had a chance to do some shopping, anyway. Something always keeps coming up.”

“Yeah, and I don’t expect to be called in today,” he said as he put his shirt back on. “That kid, Alex Jones, he’s still missing but there’s not much I can do about it for now.”

“Exactly,” I said affirming his train his thought. “You know, I was serious when I told you last night that I wanted you to move in.”

He didn’t immediately say anything and didn’t show any kind of emotion or hint of one. I always got nervous when he reacted like this: it was as if he blanked out or altogether stopped thinking. It reminded me of the hollowness one feels like when they’re about to lose something, and can’t do anything about it. “It’s been a few years since I’ve lived with someone,” he finally said.