by Eve Gaddy
“I’m fine.” His arm came around her, pulled her tight against him. “Are you hurt? Tell me, baby.” He crooned soothing words in her ear as he held her. Comforting her, protecting her. She turned her face into his shoulder and wept.
“ARE YOU HURT? Answer me, Lana. Are you hurt?” Gabe would have given anything to be able to beat Winters to a pulp, but Lana needed him. He’d had to repeat her name five times before she’d finally answered. She’d thought he was hurt, when she was the one— Oh, God, what had it done to her to have this happen in a parking lot? When she could barely stand being in one as it was.
“I’m…okay,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “He…he didn’t hurt me.”
A couple had just come out of the restaurant and hurried toward them. “Oh, good Lord. What happened here?” the woman asked as they reached them. She crouched beside them, her face concerned. “Did that man over there try to mug you?”
“Me? That’s a joke. That bitch tried to kill me,” Winters said, holding his hand to his bloody nose. He was sitting up now, instead of lying on the ground. “She assaulted me. Call the cops.”
“Yeah, do that,” Gabe said. “You’re scum, Winters. I always knew it, I just didn’t realize you were a total bottom feeder.”
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” the woman said, rising and pulling her cell phone out of her purse. “Jim, you help these people up while I call. Then I’m going back inside the restaurant and get some help so that other one doesn’t escape before the police get here.”
“Escape? What the hell is this? I think she broke my nose, for no goddamn reason,” Winters protested.
“Tell that to the cops,” the woman’s husband said, taking in the scene. “He’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” he told his wife. “Looks like the lady took care of that, dear. You go on and bring some help back.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes and glared at Winters, who looked as though he’d gone three rounds with Evander Holyfield. Gabe had watched in shock, and not a little awe, as Lana went after the son of a bitch. He’d never seen anything like it, and he’d seen a lot of fights, broken them up, too.
“He had a knife,” Lana said. “We need to look for the knife. It’s evidence.”
Gabe stared at her. Winters hadn’t had a knife. Why did she think he’d had a knife unless… Oh, God, no. The bastard who raped her must have used a knife.
“It’s all right, Lana. We’ll take care of it.” He pulled her back into his arms and prayed the police would get here soon.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GABE HEARD the sirens. “The cops are here,” he said to Lana. She didn’t answer.A few moments later Maggie Barnes got out of her cruiser and strode up to them. “We got a report of a mugging.What happened here?”
Everyone, including the Good Samaritan couple, tried to tell her at once. Everyone except Lana, who was still huddled in his embrace, not saying a word.
“That bitch broke my nose and maybe my arm, too,” Winters said loudly, adding a string of curses. “I want her charged with assault!”
Maggie jerked her head at the other officer who’d just arrived. “Why don’t you take his statement? I’ll talk to Gabe and Lana.”
Of course the sound of sirens had brought people out of the restaurant and there was now a sizable crowd milling around. “You all go back inside,” Maggie said, raising her voice. “This is police business and we don’t need a lot of onlookers.”
“I’m not leaving,” Cam said. “Delilah, can you handle the restaurant? Gabe’s hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.” But Lana…He didn’t think she was physically injured, but what was going on in her head? She looked as though she was in shock.
A short time later Delilah had herded everyone back inside, leaving the two officers, Cam, Gabe, Lana and Winters in the parking lot.
Winters was still cursing and complaining. Maggie walked over to him and spoke to him for a little while, then Gabe heard her say something about public drunkenness. The second officer helped Winters to his feet and took him to the police car. They drove off and Maggie came back and squatted beside Gabe and Lana.
Lana was calm. Unnaturally calm. She’d drawn away from him and was staring straight ahead. At what, Gabe didn’t know. But her eyes looked empty. Broken.
“What happened here?” Maggie asked again. “Winters says Lana attacked him without provocation.”
“Bullshit. He’s a liar. There was plenty of provocation. Winters was drunk,” Gabe said. “He met Lana earlier and hassled her and we both told him to get lost. We thought he had, but when we walked through the parking lot, he was waiting for us. He came up to us, punched me and then went after Lana. She didn’t do anything but defend herself.”
“He hit you? Are you saying he assaulted you?”
Gabe shrugged. “He hit me, yeah. That’s not important. It’s what he did to Lana that’s important.”
“Lana, is this true?” Maggie looked at Lana. “Did Winters verbally or physically threaten you? Or Gabe?”
“I—yes, he did.” Her calm was starting to unravel. She looked shaken. “He—I thought he’d killed Gabe. Or hurt him badly. He was going to—I saw it. He…he had a knife.” Her eyes went to Gabe, beseeching. “Didn’t he?”
Gabe felt sick. Had she had a flashback? Is that what the whole thing with the knife was about? Had she just relived the previous attack? He took her hand, held it. “I don’t think so, honey,” he said gently.
“I thought—but I saw it,” she insisted. “He stabbed you. He cut me. Here.” She touched her hand to her neck. “He said he’d carve—” She broke off as she pulled her hand away and stared at it. “The blood,” she whispered. “There’s no…blood.” She looked at Gabe then, her expression increasingly bewildered as she realized Gabe didn’t have a mark on him.
To Maggie he said, “What the hell difference does it make? She thought he was armed, you heard her say it. The bastard attacked her and she fought back. I heard you tell that cop to book him on public drunkenness. You ought to be charging him with assault. Why are you hassling us?”
Maggie rose. “Lana, I’d like you to come down to the station and let me interview you. There’s obviously more to the story than we can get in to here.”
“Come down to the station? Are you crazy? She’s going home. She’s had enough without adding a visit to the police station.”
“Gabe.” Cam put his hand on his arm. “Come on, I’ll take you down there so you can be with her.”
“No. Absolutely not. The only place Lana’s going is home to bed.”
Maggie ignored him. “Lana, if you don’t come voluntarily, I’ll be forced to take you into custody. I don’t want to do that. I really don’t, but I’ll have no choice.”
“You’re charging Lana?” Gabe asked incredulously. “For defending herself from a drunk who assaulted her?”
“The fact is, Lana assaulted Winters. His nose might be broken. Or his arm. I don’t know whether it was self-defense or what exactly happened at this point. I don’t want to charge her with anything,” Maggie added. “That’s why I need to interview her. To get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ll come to the station,” Lana said before Gabe could answer. “Just…let me go, Gabe. Maggie’s right. We can’t talk here.”
“If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“I have to. You heard Maggie.”
He turned to Maggie and said quietly, “If you charge her with anything I’ll charge you with police brutality and anything else I can think of.”
Anger flared in Maggie’s eyes. “Don’t start with me, Gabe. You seem to forget, Lana’s my friend, too. I’m going to do the best I can for her.” She took Lana’s arm and helped her up. “Cam, why don’t you bring both of them down to the station? Lana will do better with you and Gabe than in the cruiser.”
Gabe didn’t speak. He was too damn angry to say anything.
MAGGIE TOOK THEM to an interview room at the station. Before doing some preliminary pa
perwork, she’d found an ice pack and some over-the-counter pain reliever for Gabe. He had his leg propped up on a chair with the pack on his knee. It throbbed like a bitch and he tried to ignore the pain, but he wasn’t having much success. He wondered how much harm the fall had done.
His leg wasn’t the only thing hurting. He’d never in his life felt so helpless and useless than he had tonight. It wasn’t an experience he was anxious to repeat. But if it had been bad for him, what had it done to Lana?
He looked at her and frowned. From her demeanor, he couldn’t tell that anything unusual had happened. She was calm again. Collected. Almost too much so. She sipped the coffee Maggie had brought them. Only the fact that her hand shook as she set the mug down, indicated she was still reacting to the attack. But her eyes had lost that empty, bewildered expression she’d worn when she’d talked to Maggie in the parking lot.
“You really shouldn’t be here, Gabe,” Maggie said. “But since Lana asked for you to stay, I’m going to allow it. I have to ask you to be quiet while I interview her, though, unless I direct a question to you specifically. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I get it. Keep my mouth shut unless spoken to. Does she need a lawyer?”
“Not at this point, no. Not until and unless she’s actually charged with a crime.” She opened her notebook and took out a pen. “All right, Lana, why don’t you tell me what happened tonight?”
Gabe took her hand and squeezed it, offering wordless support.
“He stopped by our table in the restaurant,” Lana said slowly, speaking for the first time since they’d come into the station. “Gabe didn’t introduce us, but he introduced himself.” She looked at Gabe, then back at Maggie. “He tried to pick me up when I was coming out of the rest room. I said no. I…thought that was the end of it.”
“Then what happened?” Maggie prompted.
“When we went to the parking lot, he was…waiting for us.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“I—” Lana hesitated, shook her head. “He said something, something rude to Gabe. Then he tried to get me to go with him again. Gabe told him to leave. That’s when he hit Gabe. He—I thought he had a knife. Gabe went down and I thought he—I thought the man stabbed Gabe. And then he…he came at me.”
“He denies attacking you, says he was just talking to you when you suddenly attacked him. Without provocation. Do you deny attacking him?”
“No. I thought he had a knife,” Lana said again, pulling her hand from Gabe’s and folding her hands together on the table in front of her. Carefully, as if the action would help her somehow. “Like…like before.” She was looking down at her hands, not at either of them. Her voice was low, shaky.
“He attacked you before the incident tonight?” Maggie asked.
“Not…him.”
“Goddammit, Maggie, Lana shouldn’t have to go through this. Can’t you see what it’s doing to her?” The words exploded out of him, regardless of his promise to keep quiet.
Maggie shot him a warning glance, then turned back to Lana. “What happened before?”
She looked at Gabe for a long moment. “Tell her,” he said hoarsely. “You have to tell her, Lana.”
Her voice low and toneless, her face expressionless, her eyes locked on his, she spoke haltingly. “I was raped at knife point. Two years ago, in L.A. In…in the doctors’ parking lot at the hospital.”
“I’m sorry, Lana. So sorry.” Maggie reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Did you report it?”
She nodded, looking at Maggie now. “Yes. I couldn’t describe him very well. He…wore a mask. A ski mask. They didn’t find him that night, but they picked him up later.” She swallowed visibly. “The case went to trial but he got off on a technicality.”
“Damn. I’m sorry, Lana,” Maggie said again.
She nodded. “I—I have a hard time in parking lots. I took self-defense classes after I was raped. They teach you to…act first.”
Maggie didn’t speak but she nodded and Lana went on.
“So when I felt threatened, I—” She spread her hands, helplessly. “I just reacted. I thought he was going to—hurt me, like he’d hurt Gabe. I thought he had a knife.”
“Because Winters, that sorry son of a bitch, brought it all back to Lana tonight,” Gabe said. “You’re not charging her with anything. I want him put in jail. If you won’t charge him with assaulting Lana, then do it because he attacked me.”
“What exactly did he do to you, Gabe? You said he hit you. Was there more to it?”
“He slugged me and pushed me down. Then he went after Lana because he knew damn well I couldn’t get up to help her. You don’t have any way of knowing that he wasn’t intent on harming her. If she hadn’t taken care of him herself, there’s no telling what he’d have done.”
“I’m not sure I can charge him with assaulting either of you. He hit you, Gabe, but it wasn’t really assault. And as far as I can tell, he never touched Lana before she went after him.”
“So you can’t do a thing to him, but you’re charging Lana with assault. That is the most screwed-up thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I didn’t say that. Let me finish the interview and I’ll tell you what is going to happen.”
Gabe bit his lip while she took Lana through the rest of the questioning. Sometime later Maggie finished and stacked her papers together before standing. “Now I have to take this information to the D.A., and he decides whether to charge Lana or not.”
“When will you know?” Lana asked.
“A couple of days at most. I can’t say for sure what he’ll do, but I can tell you if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t prosecute this case. Given your history and the fact that you believed your assailant was armed, I doubt he’ll think it’s worth his time to go to court. And even if he did, the judge could still throw it out.”
“You’re not…you’re not putting me in jail?”
“No. I don’t have to charge you if I interview you. The whole thing is now up to the D.A.” She hesitated a moment. “Try not to worry. I know the D.A. and I seriously doubt he’ll take this to court. But it wouldn’t hurt to talk to your lawyer and tell him or her what happened.”
“I don’t have a lawyer here.”
“I have the name of a good one in Corpus. I’ll get you her card.” She passed by Gabe on the way out, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Take care of that leg, Gabe. You should see your doctor.”
“I’m fine.” He wasn’t, but his leg was the least of his worries. He looked at Lana, who was sitting quietly, once again with a bewildered expression on her face. It hurt him to look at her, hurt him to think about what had happened.
Maggie looked at Lana. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call? A therapist, your counselor, someone like that?”
Lana shook her head. “No. No one.”
“I’ll be back in a minute with that information.” After a worried glance at Lana, she went out.
“You need to go home. Let Cam take us home.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have chosen this way. But now…”
“You don’t have to talk about it, Lana. I know what happened. You don’t have to go into detail.”
“You’re wrong. I need to tell you about it. I should have told you before. But I just…couldn’t.”
“Lana—”
“Please, Gabe. I need to talk. But first, you’re going to the hospital to have your leg looked at.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NO ARGUMENT could change Lana’s mind about going to the hospital. Her mouth was firm as she pulled out her cell phone and punched in some numbers.
“Hi, Bill. It’s Lana McCoy,” she said, and gave Gabe’s doctor a brief description of the accident. A few minutes later she hung up as Cam came into the room. “Dr. Black agrees you need an MRI and he wants to see you. He’ll meet us at the hospital.”
“I’ll take you,” Cam said. “Do you want me to take you home first, La
na?”
“Yeah, and you can leave me there, too,” Gabe put in.
Both of them ignored him. “Thanks, but I’d rather go with him.”
“I’m just glad you got him to agree to let you call his doctor,” Cam said.
“He didn’t,” Lana returned with the ghost of a smile. “I called Dr. Black over his protests.”
“Whatever works,” his brother said, and put out a hand to help Gabe up.
It was obvious Lana would get no rest until he’d seen the doctor, so he gave in. Even though the last thing he wanted was to find out he’d screwed up his leg again. And he especially didn’t want Lana having to take care of him. Not tonight, after what she’d been through. But with his brother and Lana ganging up on him, he didn’t have much choice.
Besides, anything—even the hospital—was better than seeing that broken expression on her face. If worrying about his problems helped her forget hers, then that was okay with him.
They stopped at his house first to pick up his crutches. “Do you have any pain pills left?” Lana asked as Cam got out of the truck.
“No. I threw them out.”
“We’ll get some at the hospital, then.”
“I don’t need any damn drugs,” Gabe said irritably. “I’m fine.”
“Stop being so stubborn,” Lana said as Cam went inside. “I know you’re hurting.”
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Lana, I told you, I don’t want to get dependent on the drugs. I can make do with aspirin.”
She put her hand on his good leg. “One night won’t make you dependent. Please, Gabe, let them give you something, just in case you really need it.”
“Whatever,” he said, abandoning the argument. He’d let the doctor prescribe them. Didn’t mean he had to take them. No, he’d have to be hurting a lot more than he was now.
TWO HOURS LATER they were finally at Lana’s house. Thankfully they’d managed to avoid seeing Winters, who had been taken to the same hospital. Neither he nor Lana needed to see the bastard again.
