Page 86 of Hack
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Archer stretched out in his bed, thinking over the case he was working. It was a simple one. A wife who was convinced her husband was cheating on her. The thing was, the husband wasn't. What he was doing was feeding a gambling habit. Sadly, this one was on dog fighting, and that was something that Archer couldn't tolerate. If a person wanted to hit the casinos and spend their fortune that was one thing, but putting innocent dogs in danger was another.
After collecting the evidence for the wife, he'd called a friend with the local police department and reported the dogfighting ring. The location was a couple of hours out of the area, but he knew that the information would be passed on to the right people and things would be handled. The dogs would be rescued, and hopefully, those actively involved with the fights would serve time in prison.
The time away from the house did him good. It had been nearly two weeks of watching Carter withdraw into himself. They talked, even shared dinner together most nights, but they'd gone from being intimate lovers to more like casual friends. Their conversations were simple, talking about the weather, the news, and talking about how they'd spent their days.
He wasn't as worried about Carter now. He wasn't depressed. It was more he was just in deep thought, like he was doing a total reevaluation of his life. He was eating well, and he'd been hitting the gym in the basement hard, his body toning, and didn't that just make it harder for Archer to watch? He longed to feel Carter up against him again. He wanted to run his hands over those newly formed muscles and be able to taste his skin again.
As far as he knew, Carter hadn't talked to anyone on the team. He'd been fielding messages from Faith, letting Carter know about them, but he hadn't pushed him to call her or anyone else. It wasn't his place. And while the team was worried about him, Archer assured them that things were okay. There wasn't any reason to worry.
A soft knock on his door came as a shock. "Come in."
The door slowly opened and Carter stood against the frame, staring at Archer. "Hey."
"Hey." Archer could barely make out Carter's form in the dim moonlight that came through the window. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I was…" Carter took a deep breath. "Can I stay in here with you?"
Archer's breath caught. Carter sounded so vulnerable, almost like a child asking a parent if they could sleep in their bed after a nightmare. "Of course. Come on in." He moved from the center of the bed to one side, then lifted the blankets back so Carter could slide in.
"Thanks." The bed dipped as Carter settled beside him.
Archer didn't close the distance between them. He made sure Carter was covered and then stayed where he was. He didn't want to assume anything. Whatever had brought Carter to his room would hopefully become clear on its own.
They were silent for several minutes, then Carter turned and rolled to his side so he was facing him. "I'm sorry I've been so hard to be around."
"You haven't been. You've been quiet, but not hard to live with. I know you need time to work through whatever is going on in that head of yours." He resisted the urge to reach out and caress his fingers down Carter's arm.
"I had to make some decisions." Carter tucked a hand up under his chin, almost as if drawing into himself.
"And like I said before, you take all the time you need to do that."
"You've been great giving me my space. Thank you. I think if anyone had pushed me, I would have left."
"I know. It's why I've told the team to stay away. Why I haven't handed you the phone each time they've wanted to talk to you."
"You get me," Carter said softly. "They wouldn't understand the way you have. For them, the best way to handle things is to get right back to work, but I couldn't do that. I needed time."
"They can be a bit pushy." Archer smiled.
"Which is why you were the perfect person to come find me. I'm not sure I would have let anyone else be around me. You've given me space and that helped me more than you know, but I also know it hasn't been easy on you."
"I'm just fine. You don't need to worry about me."
"But I do." Carter closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. "I've done so much thinking. Too much maybe, but I had to get things straight in my head. There was so much. A lot of shit I'd tucked away over the years and refused to face."
Archer didn't say anything. He wasn't sure what to say.
"I needed to accept that Angel and Beth are really gone and that nothing is going to bring them back. I think in some way I thought that killing Lyle would bring them back to me. I mean, I know that's not possible, but I thought that by making him pay for what he did, it would make losing them not so painful. I know it doesn't make sense, but I thought killing him would be freeing, but it wasn't. It just fucked me up even more."
Archer couldn't resist reaching out and gently placing his hand over Carter's arm this time. He wanted him to know he was there, he was listening.
"I thought killing him would be easy, which physically, it was. What wasn't easy was seeing a side of me that I hadn't expected. The hate, the aggression, the insanity, I hadn't expected that. I didn't expect the guilt. I mean, I killed the man who raped and tortured my daughter, why the fuck should I feel guilty for that?"
Archer understood every bit of it. "Because you're human. You're a good person and most of us who are good can't kill without some kind of guilt. A human life is a human life, even if that person is evil. I'll never tell you that you were wrong to kill him. He needed to be stopped, and no matter what, he will no longer hurt anyone because of what you did. But I think I'd worry about you if it didn't bother you just a little bit. As a cop, I felt the same way. The few times I'd had to kill people, it was always their life or mine, their life or an innocent victim, but still, I had to work through the guilt. Cutting off a life isn't something anyone who is sane wants to do, but sometimes, it's what needs to be done. You did what needed to be done."
Carter shifted to his back, but he took Archer's hand with his and held it against his chest. "It needed to be done, but not by me, and not the way I did it. I slaughtered him. The way I killed him made me a monster just like he was. I've tried to justify it in my mind a million different ways, but I can't. A simple bullet between the eyes would have worked. I didn't have to stab him the way I did. I didn't need to…" He sighed. "How can you look at me the way you do after knowing what I did? I can hardly look at myself."
