Red Noon

by Capri Montgomery

  “Hell yeah,” Dick agreed with a solute of the beer can. “We need a signature to make them scared as night.”

  “Other than breaking bones with a world class lethal beat down?”

  “Yeah…something these media fools can run the ground with.”

  He saw the wheels turning in Ike’s head. When his lips tipped upward Dick knew the man had it.

  “We finish off the kill and leave a watch stopped on noon. Of course we have to make sure they don’t think it’s stopped at midnight, but we can work that out.”

  Dick chugged the rest of his beer, completely satisfied now that they had a plan. He was satisfied that they were going to remain a team and since they would be working together there wouldn’t be any sending him out of the country. That was good for him because he didn’t just want her; he wanted the SWAT team that had shot up his brother. He wanted to kill them all, but first things first—Ike’s little obsession had to go into the ground.

  Takahiro noticed the change in her breathing and he knew she was getting ready to come out of her disruptive sleep. Twice during the night she had nearly wailed from the nightmares she was having. A warm hand on her hand seemed to calm her back into some type of rest. He had taken a quick shower in the room they had moved them too and did the work he needed to via his laptop. He had even managed to get it submitted. So now he could put away the work and sleep, was what he had thought, but he hadn’t slept much. A few fifteen minute naps was all he could have. Between her restless sleep and his visions of her chained and beaten he just couldn’t close his eyes and get that image out of his head. If it bothered him that much just seeing it he knew her nights were going to be torment for a long time to come.

  “Hmmm, her voice sounded pained and scared. He put his hand back over hers.

  “It’s okay now,” he assured her as her eyes fluttered open and stark terror turned to a softer acknowledgement of safety. “’Morning,” he smiled at her but she was not yet able to return the smile. “Your bosses had you moved to a private room.” He left the lights as low as they were while she slept as to not cause discomfort on her eyes. “Peach walls,” he said. “Mahogany wood boarders, a soft king sized hospital bed with what looks like some expensive white cotton sheets and gorgeous peaceful blue comforter. Comfort is what your bosses wanted you to have so they demanded to have you moved.”

  Her eyes closed and then opened softly. Would she speak again to him or remain silent? “It has a shower so I’ll help you get over to it when you’re ready. The nurses gave you a sponge bath before putting you in this bed. I promise I tried not to look.” He cracked a smile trying to get one out of her too but she didn’t smile. Her eyes just seemed to peer at him. Never once did she look at her surroundings. She looked like a lost kid trying to make sense out of the world around her.

  “They even have a couch in here. Now this is more hotel to me than hospital—except for all this monitoring gizmo stuff,” he laughed again yet she didn’t. Her eyes did finally leave his face and look over in the direction he had pointed for the navy blue velvet tufted couch before looking back at him. Her eyes drifted down to the chair and then back up to his face.

  “You slept there,” she spoke softly but he knew it wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. You had a restless sleep.” The first time he laid down it was on the couch, but the near wailing sounds coming from her fitful sleep had awakened him and he had gone to her. After that he figured being closer to her could help him calm her faster.

  “Sorry,” she closed her eyes and turned her head away from him. “I thought I dreamed getting rescued and that I would wake up with him beating me again, but it wasn’t a dream. You’re really here. You should have been able to sleep in a bed, not a chair.”

  “It’s not a problem. I wanted to be here for you.” She didn’t look back at him. “But if you want me to go—” He was joking but the swiftness of her hand clutching his and her eyes darting open to his told him jokes weren’t going to fly right now. She nibbled on her bottom lip and shook her head.

  “Don’t go.” The softness of her voice, so innocent, so honest, broke his heart more. He wished his bullets had assaulted that demon. He wished he was the man to find the second guy. He wished he could resurrect the one and beat them both for days. And at the end of it all he wished he could burn them both into the grave.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he brushed his fingers through her hair. “The detectives will be here by eight to get a statement from you.”

  She shook her head no with tears in her eyes.

  “They need a statement.”

  She shook her head no again. “I can’t. Please don’t make me…I can’t.”

  While he hated to say it he had to. They needed the statement because it was necessary to close any file, but more importantly, they hadn’t got the other guy yet so this wasn’t over, not for her, and not for the detectives working the case. And if SWAT was needed, which he was sure it would be, his team might the team on call if it remained in their area. “We only got one of the guys.” He saw the way her face scrunched in fear and the tears that amplified with the knowledge of what that meant.

  “I can’t. I can’t.” She cried.

  “You have to. We have to take down the other guy.”

  She sniffled. “I can’t close my eyes without seeing what he did to me. I can’t breathe without smelling the rancidness of his breath in my face. I hurt. My body feels like the skin is raw and it hurts to be here. It hurts to breathe.”

  He understood the words in that last sentence. “It hurts to breath,” was almost like saying it hurts to still be alive with the memories. The hell he would walk away letting her wish she were dead.

  “My men and I came in hard to get you out of that hell, Miss Brackett; don’t you dare give up on us now.” The harshness of his voice was commanding, but far softer than he gave to his guys. She bit her bottom lip, tears still in her eyes she conceded to his request with a nod of her head.

  “I would like to get dressed first if I can. I don’t think a shower would be good. My skin feels so raw it really hurts.”

  “I’ll get a nurse to see if they can give you another sponge bath.”

  “Could you do it for me? It sounds crazy, but I feel safe with you here.”

  “Um…uh…” he felt the words leave his mind. Sponge bath to a woman he found attractive before he saw her beat up and found even more attractive after he rescued her was a bad idea. He had to remain a little distant on some levels because she was coming out of hell and he couldn’t be the man she latched on to for light.

  “That’s okay. I probably won’t be able to stand to look at me either. I’ll do it myself if you help me get the water set up in the sink in there.” She pointed to the bathroom.

  It wasn’t that at all. He couldn’t let her think she was heinous or anything like that. “How about if I do it but I keep, what Kelly calls, your girly bits covered.”

  “Is Kelly your wife?”

  “I’m not married, dating, engaged or any of that. I’m single,” he said as if he was just answering her question when in reality he was doing more than that. All he had to do was say no yet he told her of his complete freedom which was a mistake because now she knew there was no reason on the books that she couldn’t latch on to him.

  Takahiro went and put warm water in a bowl and brought it, the towels and the softer lemon verbena oatmeal soap bar back with him. He watched her turn over onto her stomach with a significant amount of pain in her eyes and tears that sprung out one drop at a time.

  “I’ll be gentle,” he said as he pulled the sheet down to her tailbone. His jaw clinched tight as he looked at the swollen redness of some of the belt marks. Some of them were trying to go down, but she was lit up like a forest fire of red. Each bruise spoke of the torment she had sustained. This wasn’t just one beating. This was multiple attacks. A man the size of the guy they took down had enough power in one strike to cause pain but to keep hitting the sa
me marks over and over again was a kind of torture he hadn’t seen before—and he had seen a lot of evil doing this job.

  He softly bathed her, making sure each touch was soft as not to hurt her too much. Even though he tried to be gentle he could still here her whimpers so he knew even gentle was hurting her which told him lying in bed was hurting her more than she led him to believe. He would have to see what the doctor could do about that. Maybe she could sit more or something.

  He was contemplating getting her a chair brought in that would allow her to put her feet up if she needed to without putting too much pressure on her back until he eased the sheets up from the bottom to her behind and saw her legs.

  “God I’m so sorry,” he felt the anger striking him like a bolt of lightning. “I’m so sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.”

  She started to cry as her hands fisted the pillows.

  “I’m so sorry.” And on those words he felt a tear escape his own eyes. This woman had been nearly mutilated with that belt. What kind of sadistic bastard could do something like this to anybody, let alone a woman. God did he wish he had managed to get a moment alone with the guy before the squad pulled the trigger on him because he would have loved to beat him into oblivion. He wasn’t some martial arts expert, but he knew how to fight. He knew how to defend himself, and he knew how to take down the enemy with lethal force—by hand or otherwise.

  He put the soft lotion the nurses left the previous night on the skin he had washed except the backs of her arms. He could do her arms later. The lotion smelled much like the soap. They had said the natural essential oils would help take care of fading the bruises while giving her a stroke of comfort to her olfactory system.

  He covered her when he was done putting the lotion on her. She turned, painfully so, and looked at him before pulling one of the smaller towels from the pile and taking it under the covers. She maneuvered around a bit before pulling the sheet back some.

  “Girly bits covered,” she said so innocently he thought he might just break and shatter this time. Instead he put the same care into the front of her as he had the back. But God if he didn’t get angrier seeing the same welted marks running from stomach to breastbone. It wasn’t tears coming to his eyes now. Right now it was rage coming to his heart and coursing through his body like a train speeding brakeless downhill.

  “I still don’t know your name, but it’s not your fault. You got to me as soon as you could. If it weren’t you and your team I know he would have killed me. The only thing that stopped him was that his boss wanted something else out of me.”

  “Something else?” Was this something more than two men just grabbing a woman and taking her hostage? Did she have something of theirs?

  “He wanted my body I think. The guy who beat me told me he was told not to mess up my face because boss man wouldn’t want to have to look at it while he…you know.”

  Oh hell his mind had gone out in left field and he had been wrong. But he still had to ask. “Did you know them?”

  “No. Never seen them before. I didn’t even see the other guy—the skinny one. He didn’t come down while I was awake. But the bigger guy I’ve never seen anywhere. I don’t know why they did this to me,” she started to tear up again. “I don’t know why.”

  “Sometimes you can’t know the why of evil, Shelia. Sometimes you’ll never know, and you’ll just have to realize that some evil can’t be fixed while it’s breathing.”

  Her eyes told him she knew what he meant. Some evils had to be eradicated the lethal way. While he wasn’t a trigger happy cop this incident was making him think of how great it would be if they could put more of these dogs to sleep and protect the citizens from them as much as possible.

  “So the other guy, you never heard his voice either?”

  “No. I don’t think so. When I was fighting them, before they took me, I don’t think he spoke at all. And then he hit me from behind.” Her palm went towards her head but her fingers didn’t touch it at all before returning to her side. “It hurt.”

  “He hit you with his gun to knock you out.”

  “I wish he had just killed me instead. Death would have been welcomed to what the other guy did to me.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t think like that. Every day above ground is a good day.” He put the lotions on her softly trying to sooth her and keep her calm; maybe he was trying to help keep himself calm too.

  “Yesterday wasn’t a good day.”

  “We found you yesterday so that was a good thing.”

  She inhaled softly and exhaled just the same.

  “My name is Takahiro, by the way. Takahiro Nakamura.”

  “Takahiro,” her lips almost curved upward but didn’t quite make it. “I like that.” She nodded slowly before her somber look took completely over her face and eyes.

  “He hit me a lot. He left to take the garbage out. He left for breakfast but every time that door opened and I heard the thud of his shoes against the stairs I knew it was going to start again. He mostly hit me with the belt. But sometimes he got close to me and he would breathe in my face and his breath was so rancid. God it was rotten and it made me sick, but he never let me turn away from him. He punched me in the stomach a couple times. I um…they wouldn’t untie me and I urinated on myself.” Her lips quivered and he could see the embarrassment in her eyes.

  “It happens. It could happen to anybody under those circumstances.”

  She nodded before swiping a tear away from her cheek. “Then I broke. I broke and I begged him to stop hitting me. He laughed at me and he hit me harder. And when I threw up his face was there and it got on him,” her voice shook as she spoke softly. “He got so angry that he punched me and then he went back to beating me, but harder than he already was. I thought my skin was going to burn off my back. It felt like I was on fire,” she cried. “It felt like I was on fire.”

  He couldn’t resist placing a kiss on her forehead and leaving his forehead pressed against hers afterward. She was so fragile it was killing him. There was nothing he could do to take this away from her. There was nothing he could do to make the pain go away.

  She placed her palm over her mouth and he lifted his head enough to look in her eyes. “I won’t do to you what he did to me. I haven’t brushed my teeth since I left my house.”

  He winked. “No worries. I have a toothbrush and paste for you in the bathroom.”

  She nodded. “I should put on some clothes.”

  “Yeah,” he walked over to the bag they had dropped off last night and pulled a few things out. The dress seemed the safest because the fabric felt soft to him so maybe it would feel okay against her body. He didn’t go for a pair of the pants because he thought that much fabric on the damage to her body that he had just seen might hurt her more. He got a pair of panties for her and then pulled out a bra and held it up to see if she wanted that one.

  She shook her head no. “A bra would hurt too much right now. Good thing I’m only an A-cup. I don’t think anybody will really notice if I don’t have on one.”

  He put the black lace bra back and handed her the panties he had picked out—something soft in fabric that he hoped wouldn’t hurt her too much. “Need help?”

  “I think I can get it.” She took the panties from him and maneuvered under the covers again. He heard the strained sounds of her anguish as she pulled the panties up. She was completely naked under those covers because the nurses had wanted to let the injury have a breather from as much fabric as they could.

  She took the dress from him next. She sat up and made sure her back was to him before removing the sheets. The damage was still glaring at him like a wolf daring him to attack. Find the bastard and kill him is what he heard, but the saner side of his mind told him to follow the law. That was his job, was it not? Protect, serve, obey the laws not break them.

  Sheila was doing okay but she had difficulty with the dress so he helped get it over her head and arms. There was no way he couldn’t get a look at those “gi
rly parts” while doing it but fortunately he was a man who could think with the northern head and not let the southern one take over. She didn’t need a lover. She needed a protector. He helped her stand and watched her go to the bathroom where she closed the door but not before asking him not to leave her alone. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up to the ceiling. “Mission accepted,” he said to God. “I am not going to let the bastard get to her again. I hope you won’t hold it against me if I break some laws in the process.” He would be her protector by whatever means necessary.

  Chapter Five

  Shelia sat on the bed with her legs cushioned on top of pillows. She made sure the black and gold dress they had brought from her home was still covering at least some of the bruises but she couldn’t cover all of them. The just below knee length flaring skirt and the scoop neck top of the bodice to the dress showed off some of the wounds.

  Both detectives were from the Scottsdale location so she now knew the extent of how many cities were cooperating with each other on this case. She had to say that was pretty amazing seeing as though she hadn’t thought anybody was coming for her at all. She was thankful for all their hard work. She still didn’t know how they found her. She and Takahiro hadn’t really talked about all that because she was still coming down from a rush of fear while trying to deal with all of the physical and mental tormenting that had been done to her.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as one of the detectives sat at the chair beside her bed while the other stood next to him. That was Takahiro’s chair and since one of them took it she knew he wouldn’t be beside her. No, he sat too far away on the couch across the room. It wasn’t miles away, but it felt like it.

  “Can you tell us why you were parked in the driveway?”

  “When I got home my garage door remote wouldn’t work. Since the door doesn’t have a handle to lift from the outside I went into the house. I planned to go back out and run to the store. I changed my mind and planned to just go move the car inside. I didn’t want to leave it out with the local problems with nighttime car vandalism.” She nodded. She saw the look on Takahiro’s face and she couldn’t miss that knowing message, like it was adding up to him now.