Eclipse

THE CLIENT

ECLIPSE - CHAPTER 4:

The door to the interrogation room locked behind Elena with a heavy metallic clunk that echoed all the way down the grey hallway.

Mr. Cole was waiting by the water cooler, pretending to be on his phone so the guards would not ask him why he was pacing.

"How did it go?" he asked as soon as she was close enough. He lowered his voice. "Does he remember anything?"

"He does not remember," Elena Blake said. She did not stop walking. "He remembers everything except the six hours that matter. Kindergarten to burgers. Then blackout. Then blood."

Mr. Cole followed her. "Elena, that is... that is a terrible defense. No jury will believe 'I do not remember' when he was found covered in blood holding the victim."

"I know," she said. "That is why we are not using that defense. We are using 'Someone else did it and locked the door to frame him.'"

They pushed through the double doors into the lobby. Reporters were still outside, pressed against the glass. Flashes went off when they saw the black tuxedo.

"Elena, your car is still at the shop," Mr. Cole said, checking his phone. "The mechanic said the transmission part will not come until tomorrow. Do you need me to call you a car?"

"No," Elena said. She was already pulling out her own phone. "I will call Ethan."

She dialed. He picked up on the second ring. He always did.

"Ethan. Can you pick me up? County prison. My car is in the mechanic."

"On my way," he said. No questions. That was why he was her best friend. "Ten minutes."

She hung up and stood outside under the awning, ignoring the reporters shouting, "Ms. Blake! Is Marcus guilty? Ms. Blake! Is Eclipse over?"

Mr. Cole stood next to her with an umbrella, even though it was not raining. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

"I am fine," Elena said. But her hands were cold.

Ethan's old Honda pulled up ten minutes later, exactly. He did not get out. He just unlocked the passenger door from inside.

Elena slid in. Mr. Cole waved and went back inside.

Ethan drove. He did not turn on music. He knew she hated music when she was thinking.

"You saw him," he said after two blocks.

"Yes."

"How is he?"

"He does not remember how Kayden died," Elena said, staring out the window. "He thinks the sky went dark. Like an eclipse."

Ethan glanced at her. "Do you believe him?"

Elena did not answer. She looked at her hands. Her nails were cut short, no polish. Lawyer hands.

They pulled up to her brownstone. She got out. Ethan parked and followed her up.

She unlocked her three locks and pushed the door open. The apartment smelled like old coffee and paper. The walls were still covered in Marcus. Hundreds of pictures. The fridge still had his face on the energy drinks.

Ethan watched her from the doorway as she dropped her bag, took off her blazer, and stood in the middle of her bedroom, looking at the walls.

Then she started pulling them down.

Not fast.Carefully, She reached up and ripped the first poster down, the big one from the world tour. Then the next one. Then the magazine cutouts. Then the Polaroids. The tape ripped paint off the wall. She did not care.

"Elena, what are you doing?" Ethan asked.

She did not stop. She pulled down the picture above her bed, the one of Marcus and Kayden laughing with their arms around each other. She pulled down the ticket stub frame. She pulled down everything. Her arms were full of paper.

She dragged a cardboard box from her closet, the one she used for old case files, and started stuffing them all in. Posters folded, pictures crumpled. All of Marcus Hale, going into a box.

Ethan stepped forward. "Hey, hey, stop. What are you doing? You have had those since college. Only I know how much that wall means to you."

Elena shoved the last poster in and closed the box flaps. Her breathing was hard.

"He is not my crush anymore," she said. Her voice was shaking, but trying to be cold. "He is my client. He was arrested for murder. He is facing life in prison. I cannot have a crush on my client. I cannot walk into court with his face on my milk carton and pretend I am objective. Only you knew, Ethan. Only you knew I liked him. And now no one can know. Not the jury, not the judge, not the press. I cannot be a fan. I have to be his lawyer."

Ethan just stared at her. He had known her since she was eighteen, when she hid an Eclipse album inside a Constitutional Law textbook so no one in the library would see. He had never seen her throw anything away.

"You do not have to destroy your room to be a good lawyer," he said quietly.

"I do," she said. She pushed the box under her bed with her foot, hard. "If I keep looking at him like that, I will not see the case. I will see the guy I waited eight hours to see in the rain. And that girl cannot defend him. Only Elena Blake, twenty-eight and zero, can."

Ethan looked at the bare walls. There were faded squares where the posters had been. The room looked bigger and emptier and sadder.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, El. What is next for your client?"

Elena walked to the kitchen, poured herself water with a shaking hand, and picked up her phone.

She dialed a number from memory. The direct line for the county judge who handled emergency releases.

"This is Elena Blake, counsel for Marcus Hale," she said when someone picked up. Her voice was suddenly perfect, calm, undefeated. Ethan watched the transformation happen in real time. Fan Elena was gone. Lawyer Elena was back. "I am filing an emergency motion for pretrial release with an ankle monitor. My client has no prior record, is not a flight risk, owns property in the state, and is presumed innocent until proven guilty. He was released into police custody after a traumatic event with no memory of the event. Keeping him in county prison is prejudicial and dangerous given the media attention. I will act as his temporary legal guardian and third-party custodian. The department can release him to his residence tonight with monitoring. I am sending the filing now."

She hung up. Ethan stared.

"You just got a murder suspect released to go home? Like that? With a phone call?"

"I sent a fifteen-page motion at six AM while you were bringing me chicken," Elena said. "The phone call was just the reminder."

An hour later, her phone buzzed. Motion granted. Release with ankle monitor. Curfew. No travel. Must remain at primary residence under supervision of counsel, but with counsel's discretion to move him for safety due to media.

Elena closed her eyes.

Marcus Hale was going home.

---

Across town, Marcus Hale walked through his own front door for the first time since they had taken him away in handcuffs.

The police had washed his white polo. The blood was gone, but he could still see it. They gave him back his black hoodie, the one they had used to hold his hands. He was holding it in his hand now, not wearing it.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. The air conditioning was still too cold. Mrs. Smith had cleaned. She had cleaned everything. The marble floor where Kayden had lain was shining. There was no blood. No outline. No sign that his best friend since kindergarten had died there.

Except the spot.

Marcus stared at the spot on the floor of his bedroom where Kayden was last. He could see it exactly. The way his head had lolled. The way his light blue shirt had been soaked. The way his eyes had stared at the ceiling.

He was still wearing the washed white polo. It was too clean. It felt wrong.

The ankle monitor on his leg beeped softly. Green light.

He looked at the spot. And then, without thinking, the song started playing in his head.

He could not stand it.

He ran.

Out of the bedroom, down the stairs, through the triple-locked front door that was now unlocked, past the security guards who shouted, "Mr. Marcus! Curfew!" He kept running, hoodie in hand, white polo flapping, ankle monitor beeping faster, down the hill, into the street, past the reporters who were still camped outside his gate.

He kept running until his lungs burned and he stopped under a streetlight, bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard, the song still playing in his head on loop, louder than the traffic.

It was perfect how we had it a couple years ago...

---

Elena was getting ready to sleep.

She had taken a shower. She had put on an old t-shirt, not an Eclipse t-shirt, just a plain grey one. The box under her bed felt heavy, even though it was just paper. Her bare walls felt strange. She had finally thrown away the energy drink cans with his face on them.

Her phone rang. Loud in the quiet apartment.

Unknown number, but the area code was the county police department.

She answered immediately. "Elena Blake."

"Ms. Blake, this is Officer Daniels. We have your client, Marcus Hale."

Elena sat up straight. "What happened? He is supposed to be on home curfew with an ankle monitor."

"He broke curfew, ma'am. We found him about six blocks from his house. He was... he was intoxicated. He was running in the street in his polo shirt, talking to himself. We picked him up on his parole check. He is not violent, but he is not making sense. He keeps asking for Kay. We brought him to the station because we did not want the press to see him like this and cause a riot. Can you come?"

Elena was already pulling on pants over her sleep shorts.

"I am coming," she said. "Do not let any reporters in. Do not question him."

She hung up and ran out of her apartment, across the hall, banging on Ethan's door. He opened it in pajama pants, half asleep.

"Ethan! Drive! Police station! Marcus!"

Ethan did not ask. He grabbed his keys and his hoodie and ran.

They drove fast through empty late-night streets. Ethan ran two red lights. Elena did not tell him to slow down.

At the police station, Officer Daniels was waiting. He led them to a side room, not the interrogation room. Just a waiting room with plastic chairs.

Marcus was crouched on a chair in the corner. Not sitting. Crouched, like an animal. His white polo was dirty again. His hair was wet with sweat. His ankle monitor was blinking red now. His black hoodie was on the floor next to him.

He was shaking.

"Marcus," Elena said softly.

He looked up. His eyes were red, unfocused. He smelled like alcohol. Strong.

"They found a bottle of whiskey in his kitchen," Officer Daniels said quietly. "Half empty. He must have drunk it after release. We did a breathalyzer, he is way over. But given his condition and his release conditions, we did not book him for violation. We called you as his guardian. You said you would take responsibility. Why did you not take him back to his own house?"

Elena looked at Marcus, then at the officer. "I do not have his keys. I do not have his passcode. His house is sealed and his security system needs his fingerprint and code, which he cannot give right now. And the press is camped there. I cannot take him there tonight. I am taking him to my house. Log my address as temporary custodian location. I take full responsibility."

Officer Daniels wrote it down, frowning but nodding. "Okay, Ms. Blake. You are responsible. Monitor must stay charged."

"I understand."

She signed a form. Ethan and Elena each took one of Marcus's arms and lifted him. He was heavier than he looked. He leaned heavily on Elena.

They half-carried him to Ethan's Honda. Ethan drove. Elena sat in the back with Marcus, his head lolling against her shoulder, breathing whiskey and grief.

They pulled up to her brownstone. Ethan helped her get him up the five flights. Her three locks clicked open.

Her apartment, with the bare walls where his pictures used to be, now had the real person.

Ethan and Elena laid him on her bed. Her bed. The one bed in the apartment. The sheets were plain white. She had thrown away the Eclipse sheets that afternoon.

Marcus fell onto her pillows, and slept off,face up, towards the ceiling, where his poster used to be. Now there was just a faded square.

Ethan looked at Elena, sweaty from carrying Marcus up the stairs, worried. "Do you want me to sleep over? On the couch? Just in case? I can stay downstairs, or on the floor. Only I know you live alone and he is... he is a murder suspect, Elena. Are you sure you should be alone with him?"

Elena looked at Marcus. At his split lip. At his ankle monitor blinking red against her white sheets. At his white polo, dirty again, washed of blood but now dirty with street dust.

She walked to her nightstand, opened the top drawer, and showed Ethan just enough for him to see the black handle.

"No," she said quietly, her voice steady. "You should go. If Marcus does something funny, I have a gun. I am licensed. I know how to use it. I have never lost a case and I do not intend to lose my life in my own apartment. I will be fine."

Ethan stared at the drawer, then at her. He knew she was not bluffing. Elena Blake did not bluff.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay Text me if you need me."

"Sure I will" she said with a smile

Ethan nodded and left, closing the bedroom door softly behind him, but he sat on the stoop downstairs with his phone on loud, just in case.

Elena sat on the edge of her own bed, next to Marcus. She had not turned on the main light, only the small lamp on her nightstand. Her bare walls glowed.

Marcus was breathing heavily, drunk, exhausted, broken. His eyes were half-closed, staring at the ceiling where his own face used to be.

He murmured something. She leaned closer.

"What did you say?"

His voice was slurred, barely audible, like he was singing in his sleep, like he was back on the floor with Kayden.

"Wish that we were leaving a catastrophe..."

Elena froze.

It was a line from their song. The song she had made him sing on the floor with Kayden the night Kayden died.

She stared at his face. The man from her walls, now in her bed, in her house, drunk, ankle monitor beeping against her sheets, singing the lyric that was stuck in his head the night his best friend died. Her gun was in the drawer next to her hand.

And for the first time since she took down every picture and put them in a box under the bed he was now lying on, Elena Blake, the undefeated lawyer who never lost, felt her heart break for her client.

--