Beyond Resistance (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

  “At least two weeks,” she replies with a shaky breath.

  She looks uncomfortable as the EMT lifts the bottom of her shirt enough to reveal a deep purple bruise on her side, my blood instantly boiling within my veins at the sight of it. “This is an older wound?” the EMT asks as another picture is taken. When Lily nods in reply, the EMT shares a glance with the officer.

  He lets the camera fall to hang around his neck and asks her carefully, “Were you assaulted in any other ways?”

  “We had sex,” she replies uneasily, “but it was technically consensual. I was too afraid of what he’d do if I didn’t give him what he wanted.”

  Lily glances at me, and in that one look I see all the pain she’s holding inside over this. She’s speaking the absolute truth to this officer, though he doesn’t have the context to realize exactly what she’s talking about. She wasn’t afraid of what Derek would do to her if she didn’t comply; she was afraid of what he’d do to me.

  “Mr. Martes,” the officer directly in front of me says for what may be the second or third time in the last ten seconds. “I need you to focus over here, please.”

  I reluctantly pull away from Lily’s gaze to address the man. “Sorry. I’m just worried about her.”

  “I understand,” he replies with hardly a hint of understanding in his voice, “but I need to finish getting your statement.”

  I nod and steal another glance at Lily. They’re inspecting her hands and scraping the contents under the tips of her fingernails into an evidence bag. By the reddened scratches I saw on Derek’s hands and arms, it looks like Lily might have got a good piece of him in her struggle to break free from his grasp.

  “How would you describe your relationship with Derek Hughes?”

  Even the mention of his name causes a torrent of anger to swirl within my chest. It takes everything I have within me not to show it to this officer. “I’ve only met him a couple times. Our encounters were short and mostly civil, but it was clear he was the jealous type. He didn’t like seeing me with Lily.”

  “How long were you and Lily together?”

  “Three months,” I reply. The best three months of my entire life.

  The officer scribbles notes on his notepad, not stopping as he continues his onslaught of questions. “When did you become aware that Lily and Derek were dating?”

  “Just today. I had no idea they were together until Lily told me what happened after I couldn’t resuscitate Derek.”

  “She didn’t tell you when you met her outside the tavern this afternoon?”

  I shake my head. “She didn’t tell me much of anything. She seemed worried and seemed like she had something to tell me, but she left before explaining any of it.”

  The officer continues writing as I take in the scene around me. The pool of red and handprints of blood on the floor are the only haunting reminders of what happened here since they removed Derek’s body from the house. It’s hard to remember the good times Lily and I shared in this place with those stains across the floor.

  My eyes are drawn to the living room as the EMT helps Lily to her feet and holds her hand as she walks unsteadily in my direction. Her eyes meet mine only briefly before she looks away, and it takes all the willpower I have not to spring out of this chair to comfort her.

  “Is she okay?” I ask the EMT as they approach, wishing Lily wasn’t on the other side of him so I could reach out and at least hold her hand.

  “She’ll be fine. We’re taking her to the hospital just as a precaution.”

  I’m torn between relief and panic. I don’t like the idea of being separated from Lily.

  As the EMT continues to walk Lily to the front door, I turn my attention back to the officer that I’ve completely ignored since the moment Lily stood up in the living room. “Can I go with her to the hospital?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he replies, and my heart sinks. “We need to bring you to the station for additional questioning.”

  This man is holding something back from me. I know he is. “Am I a suspect?” I ask out loud even though internally I fear that I already know the answer.

  “You’re a person of interest. Until we have all the facts and evidence sorted out, we need to keep you at the station.”

  I nod reluctantly, though I find myself more concerned about the idea of not being with Lily than the realization I’ll be spending more time in a police station.

  Glancing behind me out the front door, I watch as Lily is helped into the back of an ambulance. As they close its back doors and she disappears from my view, I pray it won’t be the last time I ever see her. Both our lives are completely up in the air right now, and when the dust settles after all this, I have no idea where we’ll both land.

  The officer closes up his notepad and stands up from the chair next to me. He motions his hand toward the front door. “If you’d come with me, I’ll take you to the station.”

  Without another word, I stand up and follow the officer out the front door toward the sea of flashing blue lights from the police cars lined up along Lily’s yard. What I find waiting for us outside is something I should have expected but wasn’t prepared for at all.

  There’s a television news crew just down the road from Lily’s driveway.

  I immediately turn my head away from them, adrenaline shooting through my entire body at the fear that they could have caught my face on camera. I can only imagine what they’re thinking as they watch the police officer open the back door of his cruiser to motion me inside.

  The moment he closes the door behind me, I lean forward against the steel mesh cage that separates the back seats from the front seats and hide the remaining exposed sides of my face with my hands. I don’t move or look up or do anything as the officer gets in the front of the car, turns on the engine, and backs out of the driveway to take me to the station.

  This trip in a police cruiser seems twice as long as the last one as my thoughts are consumed by Lily and how she’s feeling and what she’s going through right now. Even though I’ll be under even more scrutiny this time around, I’m not nearly as afraid to go to the police station now as I was after the bar fight simply because my worry for Lily overpowers my fear of being discovered. Lily is all that matters to me right now. She’s my other half, and I won’t lose her again.

  This will all work out, I keep telling myself. It has to.

  Being a person of interest at the police station is significantly better than being an arrestee. I’m kept in a small locked room with a two-way mirror, but I’m not handcuffed or locked down to the table. I’m given a glass of water, and after a few hours they even offer me a sandwich to eat.

  I don’t know what time it is, but it has to be getting late by the time a man I don’t recognize enters the room. He’s dressed in plain clothes–a polo shirt with tan slacks–but by the shiny badge on his belt, I know he’s a police officer of some sort.

  “I’m Detective Spaulding,” he says as he closes the door behind him and takes a seat across the table in front of me. I nod in response, not sure of the proper etiquette for a person of interest greeting a police detective.

  My thoughts immediately turn to Lily, though, and I abandon all concern about greetings and ask the question I’ve asked every single person who has stepped in this room since I was brought here hours ago. “How is Lily?”

  “She’s shaken up, but she’s fine. This was a traumatic experience for her on multiple levels.”

  I try not to let it show in my face, but I’m holding back the urge to burst into tears at hearing him say this. I’ve known from the moment I saw Lily’s whitened face when she opened the door that she’d never be the same after this, but until this moment, I’ve successfully suppressed the fear that my Lily may be gone forever. She’s been forced into a relationship she didn’t want for the last month. She’s given her body to a man solely in exchange for his silence about secrets that don’t even involve her. She killed a friend as an indirect result of protecting me a
nd my identity. How can she smile after this? How can she ever find happiness again?

  “She’s been released from the hospital,” the detective continues.

  My face lights up immediately. “When can I see her?”

  “Unfortunately we can’t let you see her. She’ll be staying in a hotel under police supervision. We need to keep her out of the spotlight until the investigation is complete.” At the confused look on my face, he goes on to elaborate. “The media is all over this story. It could go either way. If this truly was a case of self-defense, it’s a tragic event. If it was negligent homicide, that’s a whole different story.”

  “Negligent homicide?” The words creep out of my mouth like some strange foreign terms that should have no place in this conversation. “He was going to kill her. How could this possibly be seen as anything more than self-defense?”

  “This is part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Detective Spaulding replies with an uneasy sigh. “First off, let me say that you’ve been cleared of any involvement in Derek’s death. Lily’s prints on the blade handle and the physical evidence of her struggle against Derek confirm she’s the one who stabbed him.” He pauses and leans his arms forward on the table before looking me directly in the eyes. “There’s no doubt that Lily was assaulted tonight, but the placement of the blade in Derek’s chest and the timing surrounding his death call the theory of self-defense into question.”

  My entire body tenses as I run my hands through my hair in frustration. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Derek was dead for over ten minutes before you even got to the house,” he explains. “You made a valiant effort by performing CPR, but there’s nothing you could have done to save him. He was already gone.”

  He’s gone, Dante. Lily’s words reverberate in my mind. The entire time I was rushing to save Derek’s life, she didn’t try to help or call for an ambulance. I thought she was just in shock and making worst-case scenario assumptions when she told me he was dead, but she knew it to be the truth.

  Did she let him die?

  My eyes widen in horror. I can’t fathom Lily allowing someone to bleed out on her floor just to ensure that my secrets died with him. She’d never go to those lengths to keep me and my secrets safe.

  Would she?

  She must have told the police he died before I showed up at her front door. She wanted to ensure that all their attention would be on her and not on me. Regardless of her motivation for not immediately calling for help after she stabbed Derek, there’s one indisputable conclusion about what happened today.

  Lily was protecting me. Since the moment she broke up with me, that’s all she’s been doing, and I both love and hate her for it. She never should have gone through any of this. None of this ever should have happened.

  I’m tired of the people in my life suffering and making sacrifices for me.

  I remain speechless as the detective continues on completely unaware that what he’s said just completely turned my life upside down. “She may have been in shock at what happened and unable to form coherent enough thoughts to call the police, or she may have been a victim of abuse purposefully neglecting to make the call immediately after she stabbed him. We may never know the truth, but if the medical examiner determines that he could have been saved by her quick action in calling for help, charges will be filed.”

  My insides are churning. I feel like at any moment I might lose the contents of my stomach. It’s too much to take in at once, the thought of what Lily’s done and the lengths she was still willing to go to in order to protect me, the idea that her future is completely in jeopardy and there’s nothing I can do about it. I wish I could erase it all for her, even if that meant erasing the good times we shared together. If I’ve cost her the happiness and freedom she had before she met me, I won’t be able to live with myself.

  I’ve ruined her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admit out loud, my voice wavering.

  “I suggest you go home and rest,” the detective advises as he sits back in his chair. “You need to let the investigation play out, and Lily needs to recover.”

  Lily needs me, I think to myself, but I know with the police presence around her and the media desperate to get their hands on her story, there’s no way I could get within two feet of her without drawing attention from the exact people in this world I’ve been avoiding my entire life.

  I reluctantly nod and take a deep breath, willing myself to believe that there’s still a happy ending out there somewhere for me and Lily. In the meantime, I’ll just have to wait.

  29

  It’s quiet today, even for the forest. There’s no wind whisking by, no movement to the trees, no subtle hum of insects in the brush. If not for the sound of the rushing creek at the foot of the rock bench I’m sitting on, I’d wonder if Mother Nature pressed the pause button on all life in the woods this afternoon.

  The stillness is peaceful and the calm is relaxing, but there’s no denying something is missing from this place.

  Or rather, someone.

  I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Keeping my distance from Lily and the investigation has been challenging, but I know it’s my only option. There is no other way. Stepping back into that complicated situation that I was lucky to get out of would only make things worse. As painful as it is, I have to continue to wait it out.

  I could only pace the floors of my house and go on aimless drives in the car for so long. Every minute that passed only wound me up tighter, and I finally got a breaking point.

  And that was only the first day after Derek’s death.

  My parents encouraged me to take advantage of my favorite place in the woods to pass the time and find some peace while I wait to learn about Lily’s fate. I took them up on the offer, though admittedly I compromised with myself, trying to balance both keeping up on any news about Lily and working on my sanity out here in the woods.

  The ancient LCD TV is rarely on in our house, but I’ve had it tuned to the local news morning, noon, and night for the last three days. All they can talk about is Lily Alistair, but nothing they report gives me comfort. The entire state of Maine is eagerly awaiting the results of the investigation and whether charges will be filed, and until the reporters have definitive answers, all they can do is speculate. Was Lily the victim or the perpetrator? Had she been pushed to the brink of insanity by her abusive boyfriend when she failed to call for help or was it an elaborate plot to steal the job she’s always wanted from the man who got it first?

  I’m grateful we don’t have internet at our house or on our cell phones. Given what they’re talking about on the news, I can only imagine what social media has to say about all this.

  The speculation and lies floating around about Lily haven’t even been the worst part of the last three days. The lack of contact with her has been almost unbearable. I know I’ve already gone a month without seeing her or talking to her until just a few days ago when this all went down, but the pain I felt in those weeks apart is nothing compared to the difficulty of knowing Lily is out there struggling through this because of me and without me there to comfort her.

  The perfect silence of the forest is interrupted by the distant sound of branches cracking. It’s the telltale sign of a visitor approaching me, and though I’d usually be frustrated at having my solitude in this place interrupted by someone else, I could really use another human being to talk to at this moment.

  My eyes scan the area of the path ahead of me until I see my mom approaching. Her gaze meets mine, and she smiles a brilliant smile that for just a moment reminds me of Lily’s similar flashes of happiness that caught my eye from the first day I saw her.

  “I thought you could use some company today,” Mom says as she hesitates at the bottom of the rock.

  “You read my mind,” I reply with a small grin as I extend my hand to pull her up to sit with me. With a bit of effort, we manage to get her up onto the rock bench at my side. Being here with her
like this is strangely reminiscent of her impromptu interruption of my time alone here back in early spring just before I left for Arizona to pick up Cindy when she was released from prison. It’s incredible how much has changed since then.

  Mom puts her arm around my back and rubs my arm on the other side, remaining quiet for a moment before she finally says, “You’re holding it together really well.”

  I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me. “That’s funny considering I feel completely broken inside.”

  With a soft sigh, Mom leans her head against my shoulder and continues to comfort me with her touch. “You’ll get through this. You’re strong. You’re only twenty-two years old and look at all you’ve already been through. This is just another rock in your path, but you’ll get around it. Lily will, too.”

  “I wish I could do more for her,” I admit, my throat clenching painfully as I hold back the emotions that want to break free from my chest. “She went through so much for me, and I can’t do a damn thing to help her. I can’t even talk to her.” The first tears threaten to fall from my eyes, and I quickly wipe them away before they have a chance. “I can’t stand the thought that she did all this for me. All I do is cause the people in my life to suffer because of me. It’s not fair.”

  Mom reinforces her comforting grip around my back. “You can’t blame yourself. She made these decisions on her own. She wanted to protect you.” Mom pauses a moment, her palm finding the side of my face as she turns my gaze toward hers. “It means she loves you. The people in your life do what they can to help you because they love you.”

  I inhale a shaky breath and slowly release it, wishing I could expel the pain I feel inside as easily as the air that leaves my lungs.

  “Don’t give up hope,” Mom continues as her eyes begin to water. “This entire family is living proof that where there is hope, there is a way. Even when it’s all you have left, it can still be enough.” She pauses and looks away briefly as her own tears begin to fall. “I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I’ve been through enough to know that even through the darkest times, we can survive. Beautiful things can still happen.”