Power Struggle

by Carolyn Arnold

  “You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he says, coming at her with the agility of a linebacker.

  “You’re not going to get away with this.” She lifts her arms to cover her face, and he lowers himself over her. His massive body swallows her, seemingly without effort. She struggles beneath him and feels her power ebb as waves of defeat pulse through her. But she can’t give in. This is a fight for her life.

  He holds up the gun, pointing it at her. “Do you want it quick, or nice and slow?”

  Her head is pounding from the way he pulled on her hair, and it’s hard to think clearly. She considers jerking her knee up swiftly, but it would only send him jutting forward toward her. She’d also be risking him firing the gun in the process.

  “We have time before you go out. You want a goodbye present?” His face lights into a sneer. He runs his tongue from her chin to the side of her eye. “You have never had it so good, bitch.” He leans back and places his gun on the coffee table her grandmother gave her.

  At this moment, with her life flashing before her yet again, she remembers something her grandmother had told her once. “Madison, we’re better than men in three ways. We’ve got the looks, the brains, and the ability to see things through.”

  He begins unlatching his belt.

  Madison’s focus keeps drifting to the table and the gun he had forfeited in a rush to pleasure himself—and violate her—but she can’t be caught looking at it.

  Maybe if she plays along, he’ll lose interest. Willingness often does that to people like him.

  “You are a big man,” she says.

  “Don’t worry. It will only hurt a little bit.” He laughs, and she feels him hardening against her.

  She can’t go out like this. She won’t. She refuses.

  She reaches out and touches his chest.

  His head is still angled down as he works on his belt buckle, but he raises his eyes to look at her. He grips her hand and squeezes it so hard it feels like her wrist is going to snap.

  “Please, I just want to see all of you.” Bile rises in her throat at the words, but she forces herself to swallow it. “I love a man’s chest.”

  He stops moving. “You are into this now?”

  Seconds pass. She wishes she could read his thoughts, but her mind is only on one thing—survival. “Please. Just let me see you.”

  “You first, sweetheart,” he says with a smirk.

  He puts his hands on her lower abdomen, and she almost reaches for the gun, but it would be premature. It isn’t time. Yet.

  He finds the hem of her shirt and rips the material up her torso until she’s lying there exposed, her breasts covered by only her bra now.

  Her stomach tosses, but she keeps calling on what her grandmother had taught her. She will prevail. She will endure. She will survive.

  His hands wrap around her and unclasp her bra. “I should just strangle you with this.”

  She needs to detach from what is happening, to place herself out-of-body. She closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them, she does her best to act seductive.

  “Now show me yours,” she purrs.

  He sits back and lifts his shirt over his head.

  She has a second, at most. She shifts toward the table and grabs the gun. She pulls the trigger, and the bullet burrows into his left shoulder.

  Constantine drops his arms. His shirt is left bunched up beneath his armpits, and his crimson blood pulses from the wound, spreading across his chest.

  Madison screamed and bolted upright, heaving for oxygen in short, choppy breaths.

  “Maddy?” Troy rolled over, reached out for her, and pulled her close. “It was just a bad dream, baby.”

  But it hadn’t just been a dream. No, it had actually happened.

  Tears fell down her cheeks, and she wanted to burrow under the blankets, find safety in her own bed, but that security had been robbed from her.

  Troy peered into her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She didn’t, not really, but her shrink had told her that the more attention flashbacks were given, the sooner they’d fade into obscurity. And she had thought they mostly had. What she hadn’t shared with Troy was that she’d had the odd dream about her brush with death ever since Barry had died. The memories would resurface and images would spark in her mind, but they hadn’t struck as a full-fledged flashback like this in a long time. She threaded her fingers in Troy’s blond hair.

  “I’m on a case right now…” A weak start, but that’s all she could get herself to say.

  Troy’s brow pinched in confusion. She looked away from him at the sound of her chocolate lab, Hershey, padding over. He rested his head on the edge of the mattress, his eyes on her. She petted him, soaking up enough comfort to take a deep breath.

  “I think Constantine is back.” The words came out without her thinking them through, and she wished she could shove them back in.

  “He’s what?” Troy sat up. “What do you mean you think he’s back?”

  Even in the limited light of the room, she could see concern in his knotted brow and the set of his mouth.

  “The victim was Jimmy Bates.” She put his name out there and watched as his identity sank in.

  “The man who killed your grandfather?”

  She nodded.

  “You really think that Constantine’s back, though?” he asked. “He’s in the system. If he came back to the United States, we’d know about it.”

  She didn’t say anything, just held eye contact.

  Troy sighed. “Right. He’s got connections.”

  They sat there in silence. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him what she had learned at Club Sophisticated, how a witness had placed Constantine in town a couple of nights ago. He could, after all, be anywhere in the world by now. If he was coming for her, surely she’d have heard from him already. She took a few steadying breaths.

  Troy was still peering into her eyes, and she feared he would be able to read her mind. She could either wither back inside herself, burying herself beneath platitudes that her imagination was overreacting, or she could be honest with the man she loved about everything she knew. But Troy was all about running on facts and logic. If she told him about Constantine being spotted, he’d insist she remove herself from the case.

  “Why do you think Constantine killed Bates?” She detected judgment and skepticism, but his laid-back facial expression said that wasn’t his intention, telling her those implications were all in her mind.

  “He was stabbed multiple times, like a former victim of Constantine’s,” she started, laying a foundation for him. “And Bates’s father was the numbers man for the Russians before he went to prison.”

  “Yes, I remember that,” he replied.

  “Well…” Her heart raced as she tried to decide if she should tell him everything. His staring was insistent, waiting for her to go on. She could share some things with him and hold back the eyewitness. But given the way he was watching her, she had to say something.

  She suddenly became aware of her damp cheeks and how intensely the nightmare had affected her. A great sense of vulnerability washed over her.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

  Her brief hesitation communicated the answer—a lot.

  “I’m here for you. You know that, right?” His eyes were liquid emeralds, piercing hers with intensity.

  “I know.” She let the two words out on a staggered exhale. The longer she held his gaze, the more her defenses melted away. And as secure as she felt next to him and as soothed as she was by the logical platitudes she kept feeding herself, one truth remained. “I’m afraid,” she admitted out loud.

  Her confession ran over his features as shadows cast across his face, and his jaw tightened. He reached for her and pulled her closer. He leaned his forehead
against hers. “Everything will be all right.”

  As much as she wanted to surrender to his words, to believe them, he couldn’t guarantee anything. She drew away from him. “You don’t know that.”

  “If I have anything to say about it, you will be.” Rage danced across his face. “Have you told Winston all this? About your suspicion that Constantine is back in town?”

  She shook her head.

  Troy’s gaze was drilling through her now, and she knew she had to tell him more. But to admit Terry suspected Constantine’s involvement in the murder would only amp up Troy’s concern, as would telling him about the eyewitness who saw Constantine. She shared the rest with him, though.

  “Huh,” Troy said when she was done. He got up from the bed, raking a hand through his hair, and started pacing along the foot of the bed.

  Was he mad at her? At the situation? Not mad at all? Just worried?

  He stopped and stared at her. “When did the flashbacks start up again?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I haven’t been doing well ever since we lost Barry.”

  “So that’s when they came back?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “More or less. It started out with quick flashes of images. I’m just more aware of my mortality, I guess. And then how close I came to dying…” She swallowed roughly. “I thought the flashbacks were behind me for good. They’d stopped for a while.”

  “Have you been having other nightmares like the one you just had?” He was cross now, as if he could have prevented her suffering somehow.

  With the intensity of his emotion, she best be forthcoming. “I’ve had memories come up, images, but nothing as severe as this nightmare. Not in months.”

  He held her in his steady gaze.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” she said.

  “I want you to go see your shrink lady first thing this morning.”

  She glanced at the clock on Troy’s dresser. 7:05 AM.

  “You mean Dr. Connor.”

  “Whatever her name is. That isn’t important. Talk to her about all that you’ve been feeling and experiencing. She’s helped you so much already.”

  A part of her hesitated to admit it, but he was right. She’d come to see value in talking about her feelings to an objective thirty party and had kept going to the woman even after the mandated period was over.

  And ever since Barry’s murder had been solved, she had a standing biweekly appointment. This was supposed to be her week off.

  “I want you to see her first thing this morning,” he repeated.

  “But—”

  He walked over, sat on the bed next to her, and pressed a finger to her lips. “No buts. Take care of you first and the job second.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two.”

  He nodded. “I know, but if you don’t take care of yourself, then you’re not good for the job.” He stared at her, waiting for his point to sink in.

  “Fine. I’ll be at her office the moment it opens.”

  “Good girl.” Troy smiled, something he rarely did.

  “Don’t gloat.” She shook her head and smirked. “It’s not nice.”

  He laughed, but it was brief. “And after you meet with Dr. Connor, you’re going to come clean to Winston about your suspicions about Constantine. We should probably bring Andrea in, too. It might be best if you took yourself off the case.”

  “No. Not happening.” She shook her head adamantly. “And why do we need to bring the police chief in on this?”

  “First of all, she’s my sister. Second, as chief, she has the right to know if one of her detectives thinks a Russian hit man is back in town, don’t you think?”

  “Fine.” The concession tasted bitter.

  “And I’ll be there with you. It’s nonnegotiable.”

  “What? Why?” Had she lost all her independence since committing to this relationship? “Isn’t it your day off?”

  “I’ll be there,” he replied firmly.

  “I’m not going to meet with anyone until I check in with Richards this afternoon at two to see how he made out with the autopsy. I’d rather have more proof about Constantine’s involvement before making it a thing.” She had the right to make some stipulations of her own.

  “So this afternoon?” Troy drew in a deep breath. “God knows, I’m a patient man,” he teased, implying that it was hard to put up with her. He’d be right, though. Even she knew she wasn’t an easy person to deal with sometimes. She was as stubborn as they came. “I’ll give you until three o’clock,” he said. “And hey, I know I’m the last person to get worked up about pretty much anything, even less so when there’s no concrete proof, but you need to watch your back, Maddy, just in case you’re right about Constantine being back.”

  Her stomach knotted with her lie by omission. Constantine’s being back wasn’t a case of if she was right; it was a matter of if the man was still in town. Maybe if she shrugged off the serious undertone with deflection…

  “In case I’m right?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I shouldn’t even let you out of my sight for the next while. I should just have you removed from the case. I do have some pull, you know.”

  “Huh, but you know if you did either of those things, I’d—”

  “You’d what, Knight? What would you do?” He grabbed her side and started tickling her.

  She was laughing and pawing at him to stop, but she had no real desire to turn this man’s love and affection away. She leaned toward him and kissed his mouth as he cupped her head, his fingers in her hair. She moaned, and with that, he lowered her back onto the bed and they made love.

  -

  CHAPTER

  12

  “MADISON, PLEASE TAKE A SEAT.” Dr. Tabitha Connor gestured to the couch from where she was sitting in an egg-shaped chair, a notepad on her lap, and a pen in her hand, poised over the paper. She was watching Madison, but there was no judgment in her gaze or even a trace of irritation over the fact that Madison had been standing outside her office before it opened.

  “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me now.” Madison sat down, grabbed one of Dr. Connor’s many throw pillows, and hugged it to herself. “I had quite a graphic dream—nightmare, actually—about Constantine last night.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Dr. Connor extended the invitation in a warm and charming manner that encouraged Madison to talk. For a woman in her midsixties, Madison saw her more as a friend than a mother figure. If she had made Madison view her as the latter, Madison would never have been able to open up. Chalk that up to a troubled relationship with her mother, but that discussion would require another session, if not several.

  Madison shared the details of the dream. “It felt so real. It was like I was living it all over again. I haven’t had something hit me so hard or so clearly in a while.”

  “Traumatic memories have a way of resurfacing periodically. The mind, while strong, is also delicate, and a person can only process so much at a time emotionally.” Dr. Connor settled back into her chair. “You have made remarkable progress, but you should still expect some flashbacks to occur, as they have been recently.”

  “Watered-down ones until now, really. Flashes of images. I’ve been able to pull myself out and stop them before they’ve become debilitating.” When the flashbacks first started, they’d made her react much the same way as she’d woken up this morning—in a heap of sweat, panting for breath, with her vision pinpricked. When they struck during waking hours, they had been impossible to hide from anyone around her.

  “Maybe instead of suppressing these images,” Dr. Connor began, “let yourself experience and be with them as we’ve discussed.”

  Madison nodded. Dr. Connor knew everything that Madison had been through with the Russians and had helped her to get her flashbacks unde
r control through a method called EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It helped her process the emotional tie to her stressful memories and provided a way for her to break them apart and diminish their effect on her. It involved journaling and “being with” her feelings. But it was one thing to let the thoughts drift in and out, and another—a much more painful thing—to sit with them, to put them on paper. She’d always convinced herself she didn’t need to do these things, that it was something other people needed to do to heal and move forward, but not her. She’d justified herself by saying that she didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in the haunting memories or sitting around journaling. After all, her job required her full attention and most of her time.

  “You have been through a lot lately—the loss of your friend, taking a big step forward with Troy by moving in.” Dr. Connor gave her a gentle smile. “Those are huge life changes.”

  Madison let her gaze drift past Dr. Connor.

  “What do you think it was that triggered your nightmare?” Dr. Connor rested her hand on her notepad, and despite Madison having inserted herself into the doctor’s day, she was being patient and accommodating. She was as professional as if Madison had booked an actual appointment.

  “There’s an investigation that started yesterday…”

  “Madison?” Dr. Connor prompted gently. “I sense that you’re drifting on me a bit.”

  Madison met the doctor’s eyes. “The man who was murdered is the man who killed my grandfather.”

  Dr. Connor didn’t say anything. She was a specialist at utilizing the power of silence.

  Sweat trickled down Madison’s back. “When I saw the body, I didn’t feel what I normally do. In fact, I felt nothing. No remorse that he was dead, no empathy for him at all.” Madison would prefer Dr. Connor’s approval, but the doctor was stoic and just perched on her chair, clinging to everything Madison said. “Usually, I struggle with detaching myself from murder victims, but with him…” What she was thinking was almost too harsh to verbalize. But keeping it to herself was slowly eating her alive.