“No, not really.” Maddie leaned back against the chair. “What if they don’t find him?”
“They have a significant amount of information to go on, Maddie. They’ll find him.”
Maddie grabbed the afghan from the couch’s armrest and tugged it around her body.
“And if they do, there’s the trial in which I have to go over this story again and again. Either way, what bliss.”
“I know this isn’t easy, but you’re doing the right thing.”
Sighing, Maddie looked at the grandfather clock on the opposite wall. She watched the pendulum swing back and forth, back and forth. Tears stung her eyes. She thought, You’re a healer, damnit. Why can’t you heal yourself? But the why didn’t matter. No matter what happened from this point on, Maddie was never going to be the same. Never. And she knew that even if they caught the man who’d done this, she knew she’d still looking over her shoulder—maybe not for him, but for all the others like him.
Closing her eyes, Maddie pretended to fall asleep. She forced her breathing to an easy pace and a feigned a contentment she’d not known since this hell had begun. The nightmares–God, they were awful. She had yet to sleep without them, and even the drugs couldn’t drive them away. They writhed about in her mind, strangling it with images of him, images of what she’d gone through, and of what she could never have believed were possible.
“It’s good you fell asleep,” Yolanda whispered. “You need your rest, Maddie.” Maddie could feel her tucking the afghan around her body. “I wish I could help more. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
Maddie could feel tears welling behind her closed eyelids, and she wanted to throw her arms around Yolanda and wallow in a motherly embrace her own mother had never given. Maddie was a successful product of human sexuality, one of the expected aspects of marriage and an important aspect of life. Unfortunately, her father had not warmed to this aspect of life and had abruptly asked for a divorce before Maddie had turned even a year old. After her father’s departure, Maddie had been a dutiful child, the medical school prodigy who had gained her mother’s approval with grades and achievements until she had died four years ago of ovarian cancer.
Her mother’s hatred of Maddie’s father had tried to sharply focus Maddie’s negative feelings about men. Maddie had only wanted to please her mother; she’d never fallen in love, never had the time or desire or whatever else it was that might have sparked such a drive. And now she wasn’t so sure it was a choice. This habit had only been reinforced by that rapist. She’d never felt so violated, so dirty, so helpless.
The gentle hands stopped tucking her in, and Yolanda walked away. Maddie knew this by the sound of the floor creaking under Yolanda’s weight and the sound of her retreating footsteps. And when she was sure she was alone, Maddie opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. It was then the tears came, silent and hot as they streamed down her face. Always before, she’d wiped them away, but not this time. Somewhere deep inside, Maddie ached. Her body trembled, but she forced the sobs deep inside where no one would hear them.
Maybe if she spent enough tears, the pain would lessen and eventually subside, leaving Maddie to go on with her life. There had to be a point at which enough would be enough, didn’t there? But her body seemed overwhelmed with them, and the streams never waned. She forced herself to stop crying. “Don’t think about it,” she hissed. “There’s no point.”
Despite her will to keep her eyes open, they grew heavy, and her body resisted movement, as though she were back in her dentist’s office wearing a gas mask before he filled a cavity.
I don’t want to sleep, she thought. Sleep leads to dreams. Regardless of her wishes, however, unconsciousness claimed her and wrapped her for a time in its numbing blanket.
Chapter Seven
While Gabriel knew it made no sense to drive back to the scene of the accident, he couldn’t seem to help himself—and Donner had been no help at all, as usual. He’d slipped out the firehouse door and waited by Gabriel’s truck until the fireman had given in.
Thirty minutes later, he parked along the silent country road. As Gabriel got out and slammed the door closed behind him, he exhaled a flurry of steam. The temperature was holding at about 20 degrees. Luckily, no new precipitation had fallen in the last few days to muck up the road conditions. Dead grass crunched beneath his boots as he walked the area with the dog.
Lost in his own world, Gabriel tried to imagine Maddie’s ordeal. He had done the same thing with Jessie, as if he had been responsible for knowing—as if that would somehow lessen his guilt.
Donner yapped at him, ducking his head and heading toward the fence, near the place they’d found Maddie. Gritting his teeth, Gabriel immediately remembered the hellish scene and the surreal glow of the police lights bathing the world in blue and red. Maddie’s broken body convulsing in the cold night air.
It had been two weeks, and he still dreamed about her. Except sometimes she was dead. Sometimes nobody came when he called for help. Sometimes the dream played on just as the real events had done. Sometimes he found himself holding his sister, not Maddie. Those were the nights he made himself stay awake afterwards. Clenching his teeth, he shook his head. There were some things a person wasn’t meant to forget. Ever.
A harsh wind whipped the bare branches back and forth. Gabriel drew the collar of his coat higher round his neck, and he began prancing in place, trying to keep warm. Still, a pit of cold lodged in his stomach as he stared at the ground in front of him.
Despite Gabriel’s reluctance to walk around that spot, Donner jerked insistently at the leash. Donner moved toward the bushes and nuzzled the grass. Something gold flashed there. “What in the world?” Gabriel knelt and grabbed a stick that he used to pick up a ring with a crest on the front. Frowning, he realized the large, thick band must have belonged to a male. He set it in his palm and wondered if it could have belonged to the rapist. Considering the location, he knew it was possible. But how had the cops missed it?
Giving Donner a long last look, he lightly jerked the leash, leading the dog back toward the truck. “Let’s go, boy.” Gabriel opened the driver’s side so Donner could get in then closed it back again.
Gabriel pulled out his cell and punched the number for the police department. When someone greeted him, and he asked to speak to David Ferguson. Another pause, and David’s voice filled the line. “This is Officer Ferguson.”
“Gabriel Martin here. I found something that may be linked to Maddie Gilcrest’s case.” He scrutinzed the crest engraved in the gold. “I need to give it to you. You want me drive it in, or you want to meet me at the site?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Gabriel snapped his cell shut. Frowning, he knew this had probably been left behind by the perp. It was an important link. It had to be. Without understanding the impulse, Gabriel walked back to his truck and pulled his camera from the glove box. He set the ring on the hood of his truck and snapped a couple of shots–one from a distance and one close up before sliding into the car and putting the camera away. Then he reached to the floor of his truck and grabbed his extra pair of work gloves before opening his tackle box and grabbing one of the extra ziplock bags that he slid the ring into.
Grabbing the newspaper from the dash, he turned to the entertainment section and found the crossword puzzle. Although most of the guys read the paper, none of them liked to work the puzzle, just him, and so he relished a few minutes spent figuring it out.
He was in the middle of trying to guess a six-letter word for agree that started with the letter ‘c’ when he saw the dark flash of David’s police shirt pass in front of his window. Gabriel rolled it down.
“You said you had something.”
“Yeah.” Gabriel nodded, set the paper back on his dash, and dropped his pen next to it. He opened the door and held out the ring. “What do you make of this?”
“Where did you find it?”
“Next to where I found Maddie. That�
�s why I think it might have something to do with her case.”
“How the hell did we ever miss that?” David leaned close and peered at it, frowning as he shook his head. He grabbed the bag.
“I don’t know. How is Maddie doing?”
David peered at the ring from a different angle. “She’s pretty rattled, but she’s holding up well considering the perp threatened to kill her if she ratted.”
Gabriel cinched his fingers into fists as tension corded his neck and shoulder muscles. “Do you think he’s serious or just trying to keep her quiet?”
David picked up the small bag. “Who knows?” After he closed the zip-lock on it, he ran his finger across the crest as though familiar with it.
Gabriel’s heart rate sped up, and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets just to find something to occupy them. “What does your gut tell you?”
“That he’s trying to keep her quiet.” He slipped the bag into his pocket. “If he’d really wanted to kill her, he could have done that from the start. She was too badly hurt to put up a fight.”
An image of Maddie with her bruised face and broken arm filled Gabriel’s head. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Still, better to be safe than sorry. We’ve beefed up the patrols in the neighborhood where she’s staying.” David glanced at the ground. “Can you show me where you found this?”
Gabriel nodded and started walking to the patch of ground where he’d found it. Donner whined and scratched at the window. Gabriel shook a chiding finger at him. “I think you’ve been more than enough help in this case.” He headed to the fence, just a few feet from where Maddie had lain and pointed to the grass. “Damned dog led me to it.”
“Just like he led you to her, eh?” David knelt down and brushed his fingers across the dead grass, peering closely to see if his fingers would dredge up anything else.
“I’ll probably be out here a while. There’s no need for you to wait on me unless there’s anything else you need to tell me.”
“Nothing I can think of,” Gabriel replied.
“Did you find anything else?” David asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “No, that was it. It should help with the investigation, shouldn’t it?”
“First of all,” David said, “We have to make sure this is related to the case. It could be a coincidence.”
Frowning, Gabriel nodded, “Yeah, it could, but I don’t think so.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see how things turn out.” He headed back toward his vehicle. “I’ll contact you if I need anything else. You know where to reach me in case you remember something.”
“Of course,” Gabriel replied. He walked back to his truck, watching as the cop strode away.
* * *
Back at the station, Gabriel sat in front of his computer and looked at the pictures he’d taken. The laptop screen tended to enhance the smallest details. Donner lay sleeping at his feet.
“What’s that?” Ramsey asked, staring at the screen as he entered. He pulled out a chair and sat next to Gabriel.
“Evidence, I think.”
“Evidence?”
Gabriel ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back while propping his feet on the chair across from him. Something troubled him about the way Ramsey stared at it. “Does it look familiar?”
Shrugging, Ramsey touched the crest. “No, it doesn’t. But,” he added. “It does appear to be a formal piece of jewelry, doesn’t it?”
“I thought as much.” He pushed the keys on the laptop to enlarge the picture. “So did David, I think. Perhaps he even recognized the meaning of this crest.”
“What makes you think that?”
Gabriel rubbed his chin and thought about the shift of emotions in David’s eyes as he gave the ring to the cop. “The surprised expression on his face when he saw the ring. It was like he knew something he wasn’t about to share.”
“Maybe it had nothing to do with the ring. Maybe it had to do with the case.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Gabriel said and shook his head. “He was reluctant even to tie the ring to this case, even though I found it very close to where Maddie was that night.”
“What are you going to do now?” Ramsey asked, watching as Gabriel folded the paper and shoved it back into his jeans pocket.
“Call my brother. Perhaps he might have some idea what’s going on.”
“I’m heading home for a couple days off,” Ramsey said. “I’ll catch up on the details when I get back.” He walked to the door as Gabriel picked up the telephone and punched his brother’s work number.
Once a secretary greeted him, he asked to speak to Sam and waited until he heard his brother’s voice.
“Are you in the middle of anything major?” Gabriel asked.
“If you’d call a skunk infestation so big animal control can’t control it, little brother,” Sam responded. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk to you about a police case I’m sort of involved–”
”Sort of involved with?” Sam blurted. “In what way? What sort of case are we talking about?”
“I’m not in trouble, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Gabriel replied. “There’s just something that doesn’t add up with this case, and I could use your input.”
“You want to come here or meet me there?”
“I’ll drive there. I’ve always wanted to see a skunk infestation,” he retorted.
“I only wish the city council shared your enthusiasm,” Sam finally said. “Be here at five, and we’ll grab a burger.”
“Will do.”
Gabriel hung up the phone and wondered what his brother would say, how this case would affect him. To Gabriel’s knowledge, his brother had never worked a case that might remind him of Jessie’s murder. Perhaps, in fairness to Sam, he should have warned his brother, but something kept him from talking about it until he had to.
Gabriel reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. As he headed out the door, he shot Donner one last look. “The messes you get me into.” Shaking his head, he walked outside and slipped into his truck.
Chapter Eight
“I’d like to drive to my house to get some things.” Maddie sat on the couch and waited for Yolanda to reply, but the woman simply dunked her tea bag in the steaming cup she held. “Would that be all right?”
“Are you ready for that?”
Maddie grabbed her cup from the table and slipped the tea bag on the saucer into the steaming water. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know. But I’d like some of my own things.”
Yolanda took a sip and set her cup back on the saucer. Wispy tendrils of red hair framed her face as they curled about it in loose ringlets. “If you’d like to tell me what you want me to get, I’ll go for you.”
Maddie also took a sip and set the saucer and cup on the table. “And are you going to be there to do that for the rest of my life? Are you going to be able to make me feel like this never happened?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
Maddie touched her arm. “I know. “But you can’t protect me from this, can you? While I can hide for a while, I can’t lie low forever.”
Yolanda straightened the table runner, her fingers trembling. “When did you want to go?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.” Maddie pushed the bangs from her eyes as she peered out the window at the late afternoon sky, the light glistening on the frosted panes. “It’s getting pretty late today, and while I think I can handle the drive during the daylight, I’m not sure how I feel about the evening.”
A soft tap came from the front door, and Maddie’s gaze snapped to it. The slouch immediately left her shoulders and back as she stood on trembling legs, her arms at her sides, fingers splayed apart expectantly.
“Easy, Maddie.” Yolanda trudged from the living room to the front door. As she slowly opened it, she saw a young blonde woman wearing a white button-down shirt and navy twill pants standing there. “May I help you?�
�� she asked, searching for signs of familiarity.
“Is Maddie here?” The woman shoved her hands in her pockets and peered intently at Yolanda.
“Yes, but she’s not having any visitors.”
”I’m Tammy Ballard, an old friend. I’d just like to speak with her for a few minutes.”
Yolanda slowly edged the door open just wide enough so the woman could step inside. Once Tammy had entered, Yolanda closed the door. “She’s really not expecting company.”
“I won’t be long.”
Torn, Yolanda finally gestured to the living room. “She’s in there.” As Tammy headed down the hall, Yolanda followed. Together, the two women crossed the threshold. Although Maddie wore a puzzled expression when the other woman entered, her lips quickly twisted into a frown.
Tammy turned to Yolanda. “Would you excuse us for just a few moments? I’d really appreciate it.”
Yolanda planted her hands on her hips, planning to balk, but Maddie caught her eye and shook her head. “It’s all right, Yolanda. I’ll talk to her.”
“Okay.” She nodded at Maddie. “But if you need something, you call.”
“I will.”
Maddie waited until her friend had disappeared down the hall before gesturing Tammy to have a seat. She grabbed her mug just to give her hands something, anything, to do to keep busy. She peered down at the light brown liquid half filling her cup. “Would you like something to drink? Tea, perhaps?”
“No, thank you.”
“How did you know where I’d be, Tammy?”
“We have common friends at the hospital.” Tammy ambled across the room and perched on the recliner next to the couch.
“Why did you come?” Maddie took a drink and set the mug on the table. She placed her good hand in her lap and mentally calculated just how much longer she would have to wear this cumbersome cast. “I told you I didn’t need counseling. That hasn’t changed.”
“Maybe I’m not here to counsel you. Maybe I’m just here to see how an old friend is doing. Why can’t you accept that?”
Maddie focused on her thumbnail, focusing on an uneven part that needed to be trimmed. “I’m fine.”
Silent Scream Page 6
