At some point later, from inside the room, came the specific sound of a key turning in a lock, which was a sound Rex heard and which produced a single response from him in the dark.
He laughed.
Elizabeth, from the pillow, said, "The door needed to be locked."
"The door was already closed," Rex said.
"It needed to be locked," she reiterated, displaying the specific dignity of someone who had locked a door for a reason they were unwilling to explain further. "It's a different thing."
"It is," Rex agreed.
And there was silence for a whole minute.
"Stop laughing," Elizabeth said.
"I'm not laughing," Rex said.
He was laughing.
She was quiet for a moment.
"This is not what I planned for this week," she said.
"No," Rex agreed.
"I planned to conduct a professional analysis and maintain appropriate boundaries and then go home to Alexander in a week and have everything be exactly as it was."
"How is that plan going?" Rex said.
She was quiet for a long time.
