Giving her the space she’d asked for, I’d backed off…and it’d gotten her killed. She’d done the deed herself.
***
I woke up to shouting.
Shouting of curses, ‘oh my God’ and ‘get her down!’
It was only after getting outside that I saw what everyone was so upset about.
There was a woman hanging from the tree.
A woman had hung herself.
A woman. Had hung. Herself.
What the fuck?
It was only as I got closer, that I saw all that beautiful hair, that I realized just who that woman was.
A sick knot of dread filled my stomach, and until I saw her face, I tried to pretend that the distinctive red hair wasn’t who I thought it was.
But the confirmation of seeing her face was the final nail in the coffin.
The woman that’d killed herself in the middle of an Iraq desert was the woman that I’d been full-on crushing on since I’d arrived in this hell hole.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“What do you think happened?” the kid next to me asked.
The kid was on his first deployment, and other than a few hiccups here and there, he was mostly a good addition to the team.
His brother—his literal brother—wasn’t. Where this kid was solid, his brother was liquid.
His brother also had zero tact, didn’t care for authority, and said what was on his mind whether it was appropriate or not.
Which happened right then as he came up, staring openly at the still slightly swaying body.
I swallowed hard and walked forward with a knife.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Someone grab the body,” I murmured softly.
Someone did, and I sawed through the rope with my knife, thankful that I kept it sharp.
The weight suddenly was gone, and moments later Sarah’s body was no longer hanging from the tree.
I swallowed hard as I felt bile rise up my throat.
“Hey, Gibbs. Maybe now she’ll give you a chance!” Brownie, the young asshole kid that was a brother to the not-asshole kid, said. “We all know that you like her. She probably wouldn’t mind at this point.”
I closed my fists and stared at the kid who had no idea what kind of danger he was really in.
I wasn’t his captain. I wasn’t his superior. I was a grunt, same as him.
What I was not was a pushover.
Which I let him know moments later when I reared back and punched him straight in the mouth.
The kid fell over like a tree, hit the ground hard, and laid there while he caught his bearings.
I left while I still could under my own steam.
Walking to her quarters, I joined quite a few others that were trying to figure out why.
Chapter 5
Don’t ask me for relationship advice. I’ll have you knocking on windows with a bat.
-Katy’s secret thoughts
Katy
My heart was pounding. My ears were ringing, and I was fairly sure that if I couldn’t get my heart rate under control in the next twenty seconds, I might very well die of tachycardia.
“You’re sure?” I croaked.
The haggard-looking man, Detective Hastings, nodded. “I’m sure. I double-checked myself. You have roughly a few days until his sentence is completed. I left your dad a memo about it this morning.”
Hastings looked like he’d have rathered swallow fire than tell my father, the chief of police, that a man that he’d put away for only two years was getting out. A man that had threatened me, and gone away, for the smallest possible offense because not enough evidence could be found to send him away for everything.
By the time I got up and walked into the sunshine, I was freezing cold.
Everything in me, everything I felt and worked for over the last two years, was now about to be taken away from me.
My new job? Likely gone.
People didn’t like to work with other people that brought drama to the workplace. They also didn’t like to put their employees in danger.
My new place? Likely about to be taken away from me.
The moment that Jakobe got out, he’d find me. I knew that from the deepest part of my heart.
Those words that he’d said all those years ago were at the forefront of my mind.
I won’t forget, baby. When I get out of here in two years, and I will, don’t think I won’t, I’ll find you. And when I find you, I’ll rip that carefully constructed life right out from under you. Everything you ever wanted? It’ll be gone.
My hands shook as I took the first step that led down to the parking lot.
The second step my knees were wobbling.
By the fourth step, tears were streaming down my face.
My hospital scrubs, soiled by a day’s worth of work, ripped when I hit my knees.
“Katy?”
I couldn’t catch my breath.
The panic attack hit me so fast and hard that I didn’t have time to prepare.
One second, I was in the here and now, and the next I was flashed back to the day that would forever be the worst day of my life.
***
“Babe, can you answer the door?”
Woodenly I got up and walked to the door, just as he’d ordered—and it was an order. I wasn’t fooling myself to think he’d request anything of me.
If I didn’t obey, I’d have the shit beaten out of me.
Had the shit beaten out of me on a regular basis.
“Hello,” I said, staring at the man on my front porch.
It was the detective again.
He was staring at me, taking in my multitude of bruises, and not missing a single thing.
“You ready yet?”
I gave him a blank stare.
“You ever get ready, you know where to find me.”
At the police station.
A place I would never, ever visit.
One, because if I visited, my father would find out what I looked like in about half a second. Two, because my father and I had a falling out when I’d decided to stay with Jakobe instead of taking his advice to stay far, far away from him.
“Who was that?” Jakobe finally exited the bathroom.
He’d been in there for an hour now.
Probably jacking off on the toilet like he did all the time now.
“The detective,” I answered honestly.
I’d learned the hard way to always answer honestly. He always found out when I lied, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of doing that this time.
If I didn’t lie, I gave him fewer reasons to hurt me.
Except, this time, he didn’t follow the same pattern.
Before I could even flinch, I felt his fist hit my face.
Before I could fall all the way to my knees, I felt his foot come out, and slam down so hard on my leg that I heard the audible snap of my thigh breaking.
The next thing I knew, I had a boot coming to the face, and it was lights-out-Katy.
The next time I woke up, it was to find the detective standing over me. Lights illuminated the area behind him, making him look like he had a weird aura that was playing over him. Blue. Red. Blue. Red.
Over and over again, the lights changed.
“You okay?” he repeated.
I blinked. “Alive?”
He frowned. “Yes, you’re alive. I came back to ask you if you knew who that black car belonged to across the street, and found your boyfriend beating the shit out of you. Do you remember that?”
I shook my head, though it didn’t surprise me.
Jakobe beat me a lot.
Though he was usually a little more careful about who he did it in front of.
His mom and dad? No problem.
His sister? Again, no biggie. Apparently, I was in need of some ‘punishing to get me in line.’
O
ther people that weren’t directly related to him? That was a big no. He was very careful, and I never showed any outward signs of abuse—at least not anything that wasn’t covered by clothing—most of the time, anyway.
“No,” I said. “I can’t.”
And I couldn’t. I could literally remember nothing from since I’d gotten home from work.
“You have what I think is a hairline fracture in your jaw. Also, some cracked ribs, a broken femur, and some major bruising.” He hesitated. “Are you ready to file anything yet?”
He sounded so hopeful that it was hard for me to deny him. So, I didn’t.
“Yes,” I breathed.
***
“Katy!”
My eyes blinked open, and I finally became aware of the body that was wrapped around mine.
He was talking slowly, and super soft so nobody but I could hear what he was saying.
“Honey, you’re scaring me,” I heard that deep, masculine voice say again.
Instead of the terror that I expected to roll through me at knowing that I was in a man’s arms, nothing but contentment sank into my bones.
“I can’t believe you gave me a ticket,” I finally said, feeling terrible for scaring him, even if he had given me a ticket a few days ago.
His chuckle had me lifting my head to find him sitting, ass to the steps, with me in his arms and between his upraised legs.
His shiny, black boots were pressed in close to my body, and he was practically cocooning me with his.
I felt a wave of thankfulness that I didn’t end up going to the main police station. That I’d gotten to go to the second precinct that was on the opposite side of town as the main one.
This one was new, small, and rarely used by anyone that wasn’t a detective.
In fact, I was more than curious what Officer Gibbs was doing there, but I was just thankful that he’d caught me before I’d collapsed fully, and recognized that I wasn’t in a good way.
“If I’d known that you were my neighbor and a nurse, I wouldn’t have given you one,” he rumbled.
My eyes finally moved to his face, his eyes in particular, and what I saw there wasn’t pity, but tenderness.
“What does me being a nurse have to do with anything?” I wondered, finally realizing that we weren’t the only ones here for the show I’d just performed.
“Nurses save our asses when shit hits the fan,” a man said. “Don’t you know that, girl?”
I decided correcting them on my profession wasn’t the best course of action right now, mostly because it’d invite more questions, and I was in no way, shape, or form in the mood to talk.
I looked at him and realized rather quickly that the man was gorgeous.
You know that guy off of Grey’s Anatomy? The one that died in the plane crash, and everyone and their brother was pissed off about being killed off? McSteamy. Yes, that one. The hot, graying man that was tall, muscular, and had the prettiest blue eyes in the world?
Yeah, this man looked like him, only bulkier with blue eyes. And he wasn’t wearing hospital scrubs.
No, this man was wearing the same freakin’ outfit as Logan. Only tighter. Which I thought before wasn’t possible. Apparently, though, it is.
Jesus, what did they put in the water here?
It took the man turning to the side, however, that caused me to realize I knew him.
Well, knowing was a relative term. I knew of him.
Jonah Crew was the younger half-brother of one of my father’s SWAT buddies. He’d gone away to the military when I was young, and I hadn’t realized he’d even come back.
He’d aged well, though.
Like a fine wine.
Yum.
“Yeah?” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “That’s cool, I guess.”
His lips kicked into a grin.
“Can you stand?” Logan asked.
I could, but I didn’t want to.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life right here in Logan’s lap, but I wouldn’t.
I was a strong, kick-ass woman.
I wouldn’t allow this man to see me so puny.
“Yes,” I answered, showing him that I could, indeed, stand on my own two feet.
I was wobbly, though, and he noticed that within seconds of my feet being planted solidly on the ground.
Logan stood up and took hold of both my arms.
“You drive?”
I raised a brow at him. “I sure didn’t float here on my broom.”
So, I got snappy when my weaknesses were aired out for the whole freakin’ world—or the town police station—to see. So sue me.
“I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay,” he told me, still holding on to both arms.
I pursed my lips, then nodded. “I did. But I’m okay.”
He gave me a skeptical look.
“Okay,” he finally said. “But I’ll be checking on you tonight.”
I pulled away and then started to power walk toward my car that was parked in the first visitor parking spots that were at the front of the lot.
The second I was inside my car, I turned the air on full blast and closed my eyes as humiliation made its way through my bones.
Not only had I gotten very bad news today about the man that had ruined my life, but also I’d made a fool out of myself in front of some of the hottest men on the planet!
Growling under my breath, I shoved my keys in the ignition and then started the piece of junk up.
It started with a cough and a belch of smoke, then backfired.
I turned to see the men watching me, and I groaned.
“Of course, they’d still be standing there,” I grumbled to my car. “You’ve got the worst timing in the world when it comes to fucking me over.”
Two months ago, when I’d purchased the car, I’d thought, hell yeah! I got a new car! It’s going to be all shits and giggles from here on out!
Except it wasn’t. It was shit, but definitely not giggles.
The car itself, my father had said, was a lemon.
A lemon being a piece of shit car that, despite being new, continuously produced problem after problem.
I’d had it in the dealership’s garage more than I’d driven it.
And by now, the customer service center at the Toyota place knew me better than I knew myself.
The car sputtered again, and I decided I better do what I had to before my car decided that it didn’t like being alive after all.
Chapter 6
I don’t mean to brag, but I’m from Texas.
-Coffee Cup
Logan
I’d just taken the first step that led down to the parking lot when something, an odd sensation or something, made me turn to survey the area surrounding me.
Nothing was there, and I almost wanted to go get my Maglite from inside and shine it around the edges of the building to ensure that I wasn’t crazy.
But then I heard the strange sound again and trudged down the steps without the flashlight.
Earlier, I was lying in my bed with my eyes open and staring at the ceiling when I heard it.
A moan, or a cry of some sort.
I let it happen four more times before I got up and started to put on my shoes.
The moment that I was halfway down, I turned to survey the apartment below me.
There were no drapes twitching, and luckily for her and for me, she wasn’t outside.
That didn’t mean, though, that it was a good thing.
Especially when I continued to hear the quiet whimpers, and the moaning/keening.
At first, I’d tried to ignore it. I’d done a damn fine job at ignoring the keening until I felt a shudder of worry slip through me.
What if it was Katy?
What if she was hurt, and something had happened? Would I be able to live with myself if she was hurt, and I’d heard her while she was still alive, yet hadn’t done a single thing to help
her?
That hurried me along even faster, and by the time I was directly below where my bedroom window was, but on the top floor, I heard the keening cries much more clearly.
And then I heard the thump, thump.
I was at the front door, about to kick the damn thing in, when it opened before I could.
And there Katy stood, dressed in a long, flowing white nightgown that did nothing to take away from her beautiful figure, and nothing else.
Lou, her pet asshole as she called him, was at her side, staring up at her with what I could only assume was doggy worry.
It was my first indication that something was wrong.
The second was the way she walked right out of the apartment, and would’ve moved straight into my chest had I not shifted and allowed her to move past me.
“Katy?”
She didn’t answer, instead continued to walk straight down the walkway and down into the parking lot.
I could hear the gravel scrape under her bare feet, and I immediately winced and followed after her.
“Katy, honey,” I called. “You’re going to cut your feet on the glass in the asphalt if you’re not careful.”
She kept walking, acting for all the world as if I hadn’t said a single thing.
A sinking feeling started to leech into my gut, and I looked down at her dog.
“You’re used to this?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, and it was a good thing he didn’t, because then I’d have been paying attention to him, and not the fact that his owner was now sprinting down the driveway, and down the steps that headed to the walking trail.
I stood there, like a dumbass, while Lou took off after her.
I looked up at where I’d left Sister on the top of the steps and whistled.
The moment she was at my side, I started to jog, too.
My jog turned into a run when I got to the trailhead and couldn’t find her in either direction.
The only thing that led me right was the sound of Lou’s claws clicking somewhere farther to the left than where I could see.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself, and headed that direction.
I didn’t have to run far before I came to a sudden halt.
If I hadn’t seen what I did with my own eyes, I would think that there was something seriously fucked up about this situation and turn around.
Hide Your Crazy Page 4
