by Tami Hoag
“Was it?”
“Yes, but there was more to it than that,” I admitted. “Growing up, I watched my father bend lady justice like a Gumby doll and sell her to the highest bidder. I thought someone needed to tip the other side of the scale, make an effort to even things out.”
“So why not become a prosecutor?”
“Too much structure. Too much politicking. You might not have guessed this, but diplomacy and ass-kissing are not on my list of talents. Besides, prosecutors don’t get to do neat things like get shot at and beat up.”
He didn’t laugh. He watched me in that way he had that made me feel naked.
“You’re something, Estes,” he murmured.
“Yeah, I’m something.”
I didn’t mean it the way he did. In the span of a week I had lost hold on just what I was. I felt like some creature emerging from a cocoon, not quite knowing what the metamorphosis had changed me into.
Landry touched my face, the left side—where feeling was more a vague memory than it was real. That seemed fitting somehow, that he couldn’t really touch me, that I couldn’t allow myself to feel it in the acute, nerve-shattering way I might have once. It had been so long since I had let anyone touch me, I don’t know that I could have taken it any other way.
I lifted my chin and looked in his eyes, wondering what he could see in mine. That I felt vulnerable and didn’t like it? That I felt anticipation and it unnerved me? That I didn’t quite trust him, but felt the pull of attraction just the same?
Landry leaned closer and settled his mouth on mine. I allowed the kiss, participated, though with a timidity that may have seemed out of character. But the truth of it was that the Elena standing there at that moment in time had never been kissed. The experiences of the pre-exile me were so distant as to seem like something I’d once read in a book.
He tasted like coffee and a hint of smoke. His mouth was warm and firm. Purposeful, I thought. Nice. Exciting.
I wondered what he felt, if he thought me unresponsive, if he wondered at the way my mouth worked—or didn’t work. I felt self-conscious.
The flat of my hand rested on his chest. I could feel his heart beating and wondered if he could feel mine racing.
He raised his head and looked at me. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting . . .
I didn’t fill the silence with an invitation, though a part of me certainly wanted to. For once, I thought before acting. I thought I might live to regret it, but while I was bold enough to toy with a murderer and defy the authority of the FBI, I wasn’t brave enough for this.
The corners of Landry’s mouth turned upward as he seemed to read all of these things I couldn’t sort out in my own mind. “I’m going to follow you home,” he said. “Make sure Van Zandt isn’t waiting for you.”
I glanced away and nodded. “Thanks.”
I was afraid to look at him, afraid I would open my mouth and ask him to spend the night.
I turned away from him and got in my car, feeling more scared now than I had that morning when I had thought I might have to stab a man to save my own life.
The drive to Sean’s farm was uneventful. The main house was dark. A single light burned in the window of Irina’s apartment above the barn. Van Zandt was not there lying in wait for me.
Landry came into the house and looked around. Then he went to the door like a gentleman and waited again for me to say something.
I fidgeted, chewed my thumbnail, crossed my arms. “I’d—ah—I’d ask you to stay, but I’m kind of in the middle of this kidnapping thing . . .”
“I understand,” he said, watching me, his gaze very dark and intense. “Some other time.”
If I had an answer for that, it stuck in my throat. And then he was gone.
I locked the door and turned out the lights, went into the bedroom and undressed. I took a shower, washing the scent of cigarette smoke out of my hair. After I’d toweled off, I stood for a long time in front of the mirror, looking at my body, looking at my face; trying to decide who I was seeing, who I had become.
For the first time in two years, I felt aware of myself as a woman. I looked at myself and saw a woman, instead of an apparition, instead of a mask, instead of the shell of my self-loathing.
I looked at the scars on my body where asphalt had stripped away skin and new skin had filled the gaps. I wondered what Landry’s reaction would be if I were to allow him to see the full extent of the damage up close in good light. I disliked feeling vulnerable with him. I wanted to believe that he would look at my body and not be shocked, not say a word.
The fact that I was even contemplating these thoughts was amazing to me. Refreshing. Encouraging. Hopeful.
Hope. The thing I hadn’t wanted. But I needed it. I needed it for Erin, for Molly . . . for me.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe I had been punished enough, that perhaps to drag it on any further failed to serve a purpose and became simple self-destructive self-indulgence. I hadn’t done everything right in this case, but I had tried my best for Erin Seabright, and I had to let that count for something.
I went into the bedroom, opened the drawer in the nightstand, and took out the bottle of painkillers. With a strange mix of giddiness and fear, I took the pills into the bathroom and spilled them out on the counter. I counted them one by one, as I had nearly every night for two years. And one by one, I dropped them into the toilet and flushed them all away.
ACT THREE
SCENE ONE
FADE IN:
EXTERIOR: LATE NIGHT
EDGE OF SHOPPING CENTER PARKING LOT
The parking lot is mostly empty. A few cars in the rows near the supermarket, which is open twenty-four hours. The rest of the businesses are dark.
The girl runs toward the store. Her legs are weak and tired. She’s crying. Her hair is a tangled mess. Her face is bruised. Her arms are striped with red welts.
She spots a pair of Palm Beach County cruisers parked together and veers toward them. She tries to cry out for help, but her throat is dry and parched, and hardly any sound comes out.
A few feet from the car, she stumbles and falls on her hands and knees.
GIRL
Help. Help me. Please.
She knows the deputy can’t hear her whispered pleas. She is only a few yards from the car, but she doesn’t have the strength to get up. She lies sobbing on the concrete. The deputy spots her and gets out of his car.
DEPUTY
Miss? Miss? Are you all right?
The girl looks up at him, sobbing in relief.
The deputy kneels down beside her. He calls to the other deputy.
DEPUTY
Reeger! Call for an ambulance! (Then, to the girl) Miss? Can you talk to me? Can you tell me your name?
GIRL
Erin. Erin Seabright.
FADE OUT
Chapter 40
What kind of shape is she in?” Landry asked as he walked into the Palms West Hospital ER. The deputy who had brought Erin Seabright in hustled alongside him.
“Someone beat the hell out of her, but she’s conscious and talking.”
“Sexual assault?”
“The doc’s doing the rape kit now.”
“And where did you find her?”
“Me and Reeger were in the Publix lot down the street. She came running out of nowhere.” He motioned Landry toward an exam room.
“Did she say how she got there?”
“No. She was pretty hysterical, crying and all.”
“Did you see anyone in the vicinity? Any vehicles?”
“No. We’ve got a couple of cars cruising the area now, looking for anything unusual.”
Landry rapped on the door and showed his badge to the nurse who stuck her head out.
“We’re almost done,” she said.
“How’s it look? Anything?”
“Inconclusive, I’d say.”
He nodded and stepped away from the room, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Dugan himself had gone to notify t
he Seabrights. Weiss had yet to show up.
He punched Elena’s number into the phone and listened to it ring on the other end. He tried not to picture her in bed. The taste of her mouth still lingered in his memory.
“Hello?” She sounded more wary than weary.
“Estes? Landry. Are you awake?”
“Yes.” Still wary.
“Erin Seabright is in the Palms West ER. The kidnappers let her go or she escaped. I don’t know which yet.”
“Oh, my God. Have you seen her? Have you spoken with her?”
“No. They’re doing the rape kit now.”
“Thank God she’s alive. Has the family been notified?”
“Lieutenant Dugan is with them. I expect they’ll be here soon. Look,” he said as he spotted Weiss looking lost at the reception desk. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Okay. Landry?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Yeah, well, it was your case first,” he said. He ended the call and clipped the phone on his belt, his eyes on Weiss.
“Was that Dugan?” Weiss asked.
“He’s with the family.”
“You talk to the girl yet?”
Before Landry could answer, the doctor came out of the exam room, looking. Landry showed her his badge.
“Detectives Landry and Weiss,” he said. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s quite shaken, as you might imagine,” she said. She was a small Pakistani woman with glasses that magnified her eyes about three times. “She has a great many minor cuts, abrasions, and contusions, though no evidence of broken bones. It looks to me as if she has been struck with something like a wire or a whip of some kind.”
“Signs of rape?”
“Some vaginal bruising. Marks on her thighs. No semen.”
Like Jill Morone, Landry thought. They would have to hope for some other source of DNA from the attacker, maybe a pubic hair.
“Has she said anything?”
“That she was beaten. That she was frightened. She keeps saying she can’t believe he could do such a thing.”
“Did she give a name?” Weiss asked.
The doctor shook her head.
“Can we talk to her?”
“She is mildly sedated, but she should be able to answer your questions.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Erin Seabright looked like an escapee from the set of a horror movie. Her hair was a tangled blond mass around her head. Her face was bruised, her lip split. She looked at them with wide, haunted eyes as Landry and Weiss entered the room.
Landry recognized the expression. He’d done a couple of years working Sex Crimes. He had discovered quickly he didn’t have the temperament for it. He couldn’t keep a lid on his anger dealing with suspects.
“Erin? I’m Detective Landry. This is Detective Weiss,” Landry said quietly, pulling up a stool beside the bed. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. A lot of people have been working hard to find you.”
“Why didn’t he just pay them?” she asked, bewildered. She held a plastic bottle of water in her hands, and kept turning it around and around, trying to find some comfort in the repetitive motion. “That was all he had to do. They kept calling and calling him, and they sent him those tapes. Why couldn’t he just do what they said?”
“Your stepdad?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “He hates me so much!”
“Erin? We need to ask you some questions about what happened to you,” Landry said. “Do you think you can do that now? We want to be able to get the people who did this to you. The sooner you tell us about it, the sooner we can do that. Do you understand?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t make eye contact. That wasn’t unusual. Landry knew she didn’t want to be a victim. She didn’t want any of this to be real. She didn’t want to have to answer questions that would require her to relive what had happened. She felt angry and embarrassed and ashamed. And it was Landry’s job to drag it all out of her anyway.
“Can you tell us who did this to you, Erin?” he asked.
She stared straight ahead, her lip quivering. The door to the examination room opened and she started to cry harder.
“He did,” she said, glaring at Bruce Seabright. “You did this to me! You son of a bitch!”
She sat up in the bed and flung the bottle at him, water spraying everywhere as Bruce Seabright brought his arms up to deflect the object from his head.
Krystal screamed and rushed toward the bed. “Erin! Oh, God! Baby!”
Landry stood up as the woman tried to fling herself on the bed. Erin pulled herself into a ball at the head of the bed, cringing away from her mother, looking at her with hurt and anger and something like disgust.
“Get away from me!” she shouted. “All you’ve ever done is side with him. You never cared about me!”
“Baby, that’s not true!” Krystal cried.
“It is true! Why didn’t you make him help me? Did you even do anything?”
Krystal was sobbing, reaching out to her daughter, but not touching her, as if one or both of them were contained inside a force field. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Get out!” Erin screamed. “Get out of here! Both of you!”
A hospital security guard came in from the hall. Landry took hold of Krystal by the arms and moved her toward the door.
Weiss rolled his eyes and muttered, “Nothing like a family reunion.”
Chapter 41
Molly’s call came on the heels of Landry’s. I was already pulling on clothes. I told her I would go to the hospital, though I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere near Erin’s room. If Bruce Seabright caught sight of me, I would end up being escorted from the building. If he had the right kind of pull with the right people, and had gotten a restraining order from a judge on a Sunday night, I could end up taking a ride to the county accommodations. I had been warned, after all.
All that said, I didn’t think twice about going.
When I walked into the waiting room, Molly came running to me. She was pale with fear, eyes bright with excitement. The contradiction was the difference between relief that her sister was safe and apprehension about what might have happened to her that she had to be in a hospital.
“I can’t believe Bruce let you come along,” I said.
“He didn’t. I rode with Mom. They’re having a fight.”
“Good for Mom,” I muttered, steering her to the couches in the waiting area. “What are they fighting about?”
“Mom blames Bruce for Erin being hurt. Bruce keeps saying he did what he thought was best.”
Best for Bruce, I thought.
“Will you get to talk to her?” Molly asked.
“Not anytime soon.”
“Will I get to?”
Poor kid. She looked so hopeful, yet so afraid of disappointment. She didn’t have anyone in this mess but me. In her mind, the big sister she loved so much was her only real family. And who knew what resemblance there would be in Erin now compared to the Erin whom Molly had idolized just a week ago. Knowing what I had learned about Erin over the last few days, I had to think Molly’s perception had been a dream even before Erin had been taken.
I remembered thinking, the day Molly had first come to me, that Molly Seabright was going to learn that life is full of disappointments. I remembered thinking she would have to learn that lesson the way everyone did: by being let down by someone she loved and trusted.
I wished I could have had the power to shield her from that. The only thing I could do was not be another someone who let her down. She had come to me when no one should have, and bet on that dark horse I had tried to lecture Landry about.
“I don’t know, Molly,” I said, touching her head. “You probably won’t get to see her tonight. It might be a day or so.”
“Do you think she’s been raped?” she asked.
“It’s a possibility. The doctor will have examined her and taken certain kinds of sample
s—”
“A rape kit,” she said. “I know what it is. I watch New Detectives. If she was raped, they’ll have DNA samples to match to a suspect. Unless he was particularly meticulous and used a condom, and made her take a shower afterward. Then they won’t have anything.”
