by Sara Reinke
That bastard! That rotten son of a bitch! How dare he bring up Rich! How dare they think Rich somehow did this to me! Now they don’t believe me anymore. Hell, they probably think I’m strung out on meth, too―and now they won’t protect me if that guy comes back again.
To her dismay, these thoughts didn’t bring her the most pain. Jo had learned a long time ago that she couldn’t depend on anyone else to be her proverbial knight in shining armor. There was no such thing. It had been sometime since she’d had to live her life on constant guard, but not so long ago that she’d forgotten how to do it. She could take care of herself, no matter how great her fear.
The thought that troubled her most was that Jay didn’t believe her anymore. She didn’t know why or how that could distress her as it did. I don’t even know him, for Christ’s sake! And yet that, more than anything else, broke her heart. I’ll probably never see him again. He won’t want anything to do with me now. I’ve lost him, and I…I’ve only just found him.
She heard the linen room door open and froze, her eyes wide, her breath caught in her throat. She was hidden from immediate view, sitting between two laundry carts, but if whoever entered walked more than four steps past the threshold, they’d easily see her.
She heard the soft squeak of rubber-soled shoes against the tiled floor, and she quickly jerked her hands across her cheeks, wiping away the evidence of her tears. She sniffled mightily and cleared her throat, just as one of the nursing assistants stepped into view.
“Hi, Jo,” he said hesitantly, his expression somewhat puzzled. He was a young man, in his early twenties at most, a heavyset, pimple-faced kid named Nathan Gambit. He’d worked on Jo’s ward for the last year, and beyond that, she knew little about him. He seldom spoke to anyone and seemed satisfied to do his work, log his progress on patient charts, punch his time card and retreat to whatever place he called home. She was honestly surprised that he knew her name. To the best of her recollection, they’d never even exchanged cordialities before.
“Hi, Nathan,” Jo said, with a slight cough and another sniff. She stood, swatting her palms against the seat of her slacks.
“Are you alright?” he asked after an awkward moment. He stood rooted in place and seemed visibly torn between ducking out of the room, or grabbing a linen cart as if nothing in the world was amiss.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding with overemphasis and forcing a broad, bright smile. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I’ll get out of your way.”
“That’s okay,” Nathan said. She tried to sidestep around him, but he moved at the same time to get out of her way. Inadvertently, they both moved in the same direction and, when they tried once more, they again stepped into each other’s paths.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan said, his normally pasty complexion blazing with sudden color. He scrambled back and to his left, leaving her a clear path to the door. He stumbled into a laundry cart in the process, tripped over his own feet and crashed to the floor with a startled yelp.
“Are you okay?” Jo asked, trying not to laugh. She offered her hand, but he outweighed her by a good sixty pounds. She contributed little more than leverage as he crawled clumsily to his feet.
“I’m fine,” he said. As he stood in front of her, Jo noticed for the first time how tall he was, nearly half a head again above her.
For a moment, she had a flashback to the night in the mall garage stairwell, the man with the knife towering above her. It felt vividly real; she could almost smell the stink of spilled oil and stale exhaust from the garage and feel the icy chill of winter seeping through the cinderblocks and concrete floor beneath her.
He was tall and thick, she had told Paul and Jay. Taller than either of you, and heavier set. But it wasn’t muscle, even though he was strong. He was sort of fat.
“…at the mall?” Nathan was saying, the word mall snapping Jo out of her reverie.
“What?” she asked, startled. He was very close; too close, and she could smell him now, the fragrance of his clothes. He wore surgical scrubs from the hospital’s laundry, and the same scent of industrial soap that permeated the bed sheets behind them was infused in his clothes.
“I said, do you like that one store, Clancy’s, at the mall?” Nathan asked. “Your earrings. I’ve seen pairs like them―”
He’d reached out as he spoke, drawing his hand toward her ear, and Jo recoiled, slapping his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she said, her eyes widening as she stumbled back toward the linen room door. That smell, Nathan’s smell. She knew that smell. It was his smell, the smell of the man who had attacked her.
“I didn’t mean anything,” Nathan said, shying back, hunching his shoulders. “I just…your earrings…”
“Hey, Jo, are you in here?” Charles Toomis called, knocking loudly against the door before opening it and poking his head through. He smiled brightly. “There you are. You disappeared and Carla said she…” His voice faded as he noticed Jo’s ashen expression. “What is it?” His brows narrowed, and he glowered at Nathan. “What’s going on?”
Charles had once been an amateur bodybuilder, fifteen years earlier, he’d once told Jo, when he’d been in college. Although he was older now, and most of the hard-etched musculature from his weight-lifting past had long-since grown soft, he still struck an imposing figure when he furrowed his brows and squared off against someone. Nathan hunched his shoulders even more, dropping his gaze toward his feet. “Nothing,” he mumbled, scuttling forward, shouldering his way past them both and out of the room.
When he was gone, Jo uttered a warbling sigh of relief, clapping her hand against her mouth. She began to shake, shuddering violently, and Charles stepped toward her. “Jo?” he asked, his brows lifting in concern. “Honey, what is it? What happened?”
Jo shook her head, closing her eyes against the sting of new tears. She leaned against Charles, clutching at him. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I’m just…God, I’m glad you’re here, Charles.”
* * *
She dug Paul Frances’ card out of her purse and ducked into the ladies’ room with her cell phone.
“Metro Homicide, Detective Frances,” he said, answering his line midway through the first ring.
“It’s Jo Montgomery,” she said, and before he could say anything, she continued. “Look, I don’t know what in the hell you were trying to prove by telling Jay about Rich, but you and I both know he’s not the one who attacked me, so just spare me any bullshit, okay? You said to call if I needed your help.”
“Alright,” Paul said, his tone mild and unbothered. “I’m listening.”
She remembered he had two teen-aged daughters and realized he was probably using the same tone of voice with her as he would whenever they’d throw a tantrum. It irritated her, but she furrowed her brows and shrugged past it. I need Paul, damn it. “I saw him,” she said. “The guy who hurt me. I know who he is.”
“What?” Paul said, and now his voice had lost that annoyingly cool tone. He sounded immediately interested. “You saw him? Where?”
“At Metro Hospital. He’s an aide here on the ward where I work. His name is Nathan Gambit.”
“Spell that for me,” he said, and she did. “You’re sure about this? You’re certain it’s him?”
“Yes,” she said, thinking of how near Nathan had drawn to her in the linen room, and how the man who had attacked her shared Nathan’s height, his build, his smell. “Yes, it’s him. I’m positive.”
* * *
“So are you going to tell me what happened in the laundry room?” Charles asked three hours later. They were alone in the ward’s staff lounge, taking their break together, each of them playing with untouched cups of coffee.
Jo shrugged, pretending to be occupied stirring nondairy creamer in a thin, pale stream into her coffee. Paul had told her he would run a background check on Nathan and put the young man under full and immediate surveillance.
“I don’t understand,” Jo had said. “I told you―he’s the one. Can’t you come an
d arrest him?”
“Not with you as the only eye witness,” Paul had replied. “I’d have a hell of a time reporting that you’re a victim, seeing as how you don’t have a scratch on you. And,” he’d added, dropping his voice to a low, conspiratorial tone. “I think the truth would be even harder to explain than that.”
She’d agreed and the matter had been settled. With no physical evidence or eyewitnesses, the only hope they had would be to catch Nathan in the act.
“Jo?” Charles asked, his brows raised expectantly.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Nathan just startled me, that’s all.”
“And before that?” he asked, leaning back in his seat, folding his arms across his broad chest in a paternalistic fashion that Jo always found both annoying and charming. “When you took off out of shift reports like your ass was on fire? I was sitting right over there…” He nodded to indicate a neighboring table. “I saw your face. What’s going on with you, Jo? And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because I know you. I know something’s wrong.”
He had softened, both in the tone of his voice and his posture, and he leaned toward her, uncrossing his arms. He draped his hand against hers and offered a gentle squeeze.
“It’s nothing,” Jo said, and when he opened his mouth to object, she shook her head. “Charles, really, it’s nothing. No big deal. You’re going to think I’m being silly. It’s a guy.”
“That guy I saw you with in the parking lot yesterday?”
Jo blinked in surprise. “You saw us?”
“Yeah, when I was pulling out of the garage, I saw you hugging some guy. Tall, dark-haired, long, black coat. Was that him?”
“Yes,” Jo said. “His name is Jay Frances. I met him Friday night. He…helped me out with some trouble.”
And, oh, God, she was not going to get into that with Charles. When he started to speak, she knew he was going to ask what kind of trouble, and she interrupted to nip it in the bud. “It was nothing, Charles, just…just some car trouble while I was shopping at the mall, getting Laney a gift for the Secret Santa thing. Jay gave me a jump.”
I guess you could say that, she thought, and she had to bite down on her tongue hard enough to stop herself from snorting aloud with sudden, bitter laughter. In more ways than one.
“I must have dropped my ID badge in the garage, because he brought it back to me yesterday,” she said to Charles. “We went out together afterwards, and I…I don’t know. I really liked him. I really felt a connection to him…for the first time in forever.”
“And today is different because…?”
She shrugged, toying with her coffee again. “I went by his house this morning, just to…I don’t know…tell him how I felt. I thought he felt the same way. He seemed to, anyway. But he…he brought up Rich, and now I―”
“Rich?” Charles sat back, his brows raised in surprise. “How the hell did he find out about Rich?”
“His brother is a cop,” Jo said. “A detective with the Metro Homicide division. Jay must have mentioned me to him and he looked up all of the restraining orders I’d taken out on Rich.” She sighed unhappily. “Anyway, Jay asked me about Rich, and the way he did it was like he didn’t trust me. Like he thought I had been keeping it a secret from him.”
Her eyes teared up, her voice growing tremulous, and Jo paused, her brows knotted slightly as she tried to control herself. Damn you, Jay Frances, she thought. She hadn’t cried this much or this readily since she’d been a preschooler.
“I thought he would understand,” she said quietly, pained. “He told me his wife had died, and I thought he would know what it was like. I watched Rich ruin himself―ruin us, and damn near ruin me―and I hid myself in my work because it was safe. I thought I could trust Jay. I have no idea why. I just felt that, and I think he felt it, too―that he could trust me, because he’d been hurt, too. But I guess I was wrong.” She shook her head, managing a short, unhappy laugh. “I told you. It’s nothing. I’m being silly.”
“No, you’re not,” Charles said kindly. “And I’m sorry he hurt you. You want me to go and break his kneecaps?”
Jo laughed, despite herself. “No, that’s alright.” She glanced at the clock and stood. “Come on. We’re due back on the floor.”
“Seriously,” Charles said, collecting their coffee cups and carrying them to a trash can. “It won’t be any trouble. Just me and this guy, Jay Frances, and a rubber-headed mallet. Ten minutes, tops. He won’t be breaking any more unsuspecting hearts.”
Jo reached up and tousled his hair affectionately. “You know, sometimes you’re just too sweet to be single, Charles. Why hasn’t some nice girl snatched you up yet?”
He raised a speculative brow. “Just lucky, I guess.”
* * *
“Jay? Aren’t you going into work today?”
Jay glanced at his housekeeper, Marie, startled from his distracted thoughts. He had poured himself a cup of coffee, and now sat at the breakfast bar in his kitchen with it steaming before him, completely untouched. He had managed to find his way to the shower, and had brushed his teeth and shaved, as well. He was dressed for work, but couldn’t seem to make it out of the house that morning. He kept thinking about Jo, and how things had ended so abruptly and badly between them. I came at her like a jealous boyfriend, right out of high school, he thought, dismayed. Jesus, what’s wrong with me?
“Yeah,” he said, feeling sheepish. Marie stood in the kitchen doorway, her expression uncertain and somewhat confused. Usually, they passed each other briefly and briskly in the mornings, jostling shoulders at the front stoop as she made her way inside the brownstone and he headed toward his car. “I thought I’d drive Emma to school this morning.”
She still looked unconvinced, but nodded as she walked toward the kitchen sink. “You visited with that girl again last night,” she remarked, turning on the hot tap and collecting Emma’s breakfast dishes.
“Her name’s Jo, Marie,” Jay reminded gently. “And yes, I visited with her last night. She came by this morning, too. She left a little while ago.” No sense in Marie picking that up through a second-hand account, namely Emma.
Marie looked over her shoulder, her brow raised slightly. “That hardly sounds proper,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down. “When I was your age, people had plenty to say about an unmarried girl paying call all alone on a man.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jay said, rising from his stool. “I don’t think she’ll be back around anymore. I guess I’ve seen to that.”
He set his coffee cup on the counter beside the sink and headed for the kitchen door. “You sound disappointed,” Marie remarked, giving him pause.
“I am,” he said quietly. “I know what you thought of her, Marie, but you’re wrong. She’s a good woman.” I think she might have been good for me, he wanted to add, but pressed his lips together instead.
He hadn’t turned to face Marie, and could feel her focused gaze upon him from the sink. “It sounds as though you like her,” she said at length.
He smiled sadly, again without turning. “Yes, I do.”
She was quiet again, and he listened to the soft sounds of water splashing as she wiped Emma’s cereal bowl clean. “You know, when my husband, Wallace, died, I felt like a part of me had died with him,” she said finally. Jay turned in surprise. He knew Marie was a widow, but she’d never spoken at any length about her husband. She continued washing dishes, keeping her eyes on the sink. “We were married for thirty-five years, you know. We never had any children. We tried, of course, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. He was my whole world, and when he was gone, it felt like everything had stopped. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I felt like there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill the spaces inside of me that Wallace left behind.”
Jay remembered when Paul had come to him in the intensive care unit and told him about Lucy. Jay had known, of course; on some visceral, primitive level. He’d understood almost from the moment
he’d regained consciousness that Lucy was gone. The pain of the admittance had been crippling and he had gasped for breath. It had felt like an enormous slab of granite dropped across his chest, crushing the wind from him.
“I wanted to die,” Marie said, and Jay understood, because he had wanted that himself. God, so desperately, he had wished to die, to be with Lucy. Nothing had made sense without her. He had been unable to fathom how anything ever again would have purpose or reason or joy.
“It’s a terrible thing to be that lonely,” Marie said. She turned to Jay, taking a towel in hand and wiping soapsuds from her fingertips. “And I lived like that for a long time. I still go home to the house Wallace and I shared, and I still sit up at night sometimes and think about him. I know I’ll see him again someday, and I’m looking forward to it. But two years ago, I met you and Emma, and you have come to fill a lot of those spaces inside that used to belong to Wallace.”
She smiled, walking toward Jay. “I would never wish that kind of loneliness on anyone,” she said, pressing her cool, damp hand against his face. “It’s the kind of thing that eats you up inside like cancer. I know you feel that pain, Jay. I know you’ve felt it ever since you lost Lucy, and I wish with all of my heart, I could give back to you one ounce of the hope and joy you and Em have given to me.”
“Marie,” Jay said quietly, touched. “I don’t―”
She pressed her fingertips against his mouth, shushing him. “What I think of that girl, this Jo of yours, doesn’t matter. What you think of her does―and any fool can see you think a lot of her. She’s touched someplace inside of you the rest of us can’t reach; someplace you’ve kept hidden away since Lucy.”
He blinked at her, struck mute by her earnest sincerity. She patted his cheek and then turned, walking away again. “I don’t know what you’ve done to make you think she won’t be around anymore, but I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be fixed if you just try.” She opened the freezer and stood with her back to him, her hand on her hip as she surveyed the contents. “We’re having rosemary chicken tonight,” she said, pulling out a foil-wrapped package. She spared a glance over her shoulder toward him as she set it on the countertop. “I won’t keep it warm waiting up for you.”
