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"'Сause you are loved
You are loved more than you know
I hereby pledge all of my days
To prove it so
Though your heart is far too young to realize
The unimaginable light you hold inside"-Light, Sleeping at Last
Ordinarily, Detective Benoit Blanc would’ve been suspicious of Marta Cabrera the moment he set eyes on her. From the eavesdropping by the window to her bloodstained shoe, it would've been a shut case to any other P.I.—seemed as though Harlan Thrombey was murdered by his own nurse. But…but then:
“He needed a friend.”
Benoit smiled tenderly, and his heart, frozen over by the family and the Massachusetts wind, thaws. “Does having a kind heart make you a good nurse?”
And that was the start. In his eyes, at least. The metaphorical hand stretching out over the gap between them, the warmth lighting them up. They could be friends, he thought.
Yes, wouldn’t that be something?
Then there was Ransom’s trial. A wreck, if Benoit was being truthful: it lasted for far too long, took far too much effort. The boy had told them he had a good lawyer, and he hadn’t been lying. Didn’t do much good in the end, though—life sentence for murder, conspiracy, arson, obstruction of justice, blackmail, theft, and two counts of attempted murder. Neither of his parents was there for the sentencing, going through their own messy divorce, and none of the other family members wanted anything to do with Ransom or Marta any longer, both criminals in their eyes.
And at the end, Ransom turned to Marta and grinned. “Like I said,” he called from across the room, eyes wild, “your life is going be hell, you vicious little—”
“We’re free to go,” Benoit murmured to her quickly, taking his coat and rising to his feet. He blocked Ransom from view, standing right in front of her. His hand stretched out over the gap between them.
Marta was wide-eyed, shaking with both fear and suppressed anger, and when she looked up at him, he knew she was not really seeing anything at all. Poor girl. She hadn’t deserved any of this. She swallowed heavily, blinked hard—he tried again.
“We can get lunch. On me, o’ course.”
They weren't friends yet. But they could be, and that was enough for now.
Her throat spasmed as she swallowed again, and by the mist in her eyes, she had been fighting back tears. “Okay,” she finally said, and to encourage her he turned his Southern boy smile up to eleven watts.
She took his hand.
It was a February nice afternoon, a few degrees above freezing and a light dusting of snow falling from the pale gray sky. They paused of the steps on the courthouse as Marta turned back to take it in one last time. Quietly, so soft he almost hadn’t heard her, she said, “Fuck him.”
“Fuck him,” Benoit agreed, and offered her his arm. “So, what’d you have in mind for lunch?”
“Donuts,” she quipped. He couldn’t have helped it—he burst into unrestrained laughter, and she cracked up too. Her smile could light the world end to end, corner to corner. “I’m serious, let’s go get donuts.”
“Dear girl, lead the way! Donuts it is.”
Friends. That really would be something.