by Harlow Stone
“Not going to tell you how to live your life, not that you’d listen anyway. But something doesn’t sit right with me when it comes to him. I know as far as Denny is concerned, he assumed Ryder was still here with you. The only reason he knows that is because he’s tight with the tech guy on their crew whose job it was to track you down.
“I’m all for a man tracking down the woman he loves, but babe, something is not right there. Not sure what, but do me a favor and keep your eyes wide open.”
His speech makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I know this feeling, it’s like the calm before the storm. Soon enough, the proverbial shit will hit the fan. Not often is my gut feeling wrong, I knew something was up with Ryder this morning.
Not wanting to deal with this any longer, with Brock no less, I change the subject.
“I need to get back to packing Brock. But I promise you, I’ll keep in touch and keep my eyes open.”
My answer seems to placate him enough that he reaches out and pulls me in for a hug.
“You do that babe. Then you put Denny’s number into your phone and call the rental office for Vinny.”
I give him a quick squeeze back before letting go.
“I will. And thanks.”
“No need to thank me. Safe travels babe.”
He puts his fist out for a bump, which I reciprocate, before he leaves.
I watch the man who’s taught me more than I will ever be able to thank him for walk down my driveway. I’m left hoping to hell that moving back to North Carolina doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
* * *
“Come on Norm!”
I holler from where I’m standing near the truck. We pulled off the highway in West Virginia so I could stretch my legs and Norma could get some exercise. I wandered around for what must be half an hour by now, watching her sniff around the trees and drink from a small pond near the rest station.
There are a few other families milling about. I’m thankful this rest stop includes a canteen, so I grabbed Norm and I each a burger when we got here.
Double patties for my healthy girl, single on mine.
I’ve wandered aimlessly just watching my dog and thinking about Ryder’s trip to Chicago. I texted him when we left this morning, but I’m not sure if he got it because he never responded. I understand he said he would be busy with work, but I can’t help but wonder why he’s off working with some mayor when the rest of his guys are supposedly boozing it up in Jacksonville.
He has no reason to lie to me, or at least I don’t think he does. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is off. I’m not often wrong when it comes to my gut feeling either. Something’s not right, and it hasn’t been since he woke up yesterday morning. I think about the effort he put into searching for me when I first left, and it calms me a little. That is until I think about how he hasn’t contacted me since he left, especially after he made such a big deal of finding me in the first place.
I’ve never been one to worry or over-analyze anything, but this new life of mine causes me to do both of those things. I can’t stop now because it’s what’s kept me alive this long.
After my thirty or so minutes of wandering around, I come to the conclusion the only way I am going to get answers is if I ask him. Knowing that’s not something I want to do over the phone, I get Norm in the truck and continue my trek toward the cottage. It’ll be late when we get home, even though we got on the road after dawn. I’m emotionally and physically exhausted. I know it’ll be straight to bed for me when I get there. Hopefully tomorrow my head will be clearer.
Chapter Five
“Jayne, it’s me, Mrs. Anderson.”
At least she knocked this time before she came in. Yesterday when I woke up in this lumpy hospital bed the snooty bitch was perched on the chair beside me, hoping for a chat. Having never met the woman in my life, it would be a huge understatement to say that I was pissed to wake up finding a stranger not only staring at me, but touching my arm.
After the hell I’ve been through this past week, you’d think that a psychiatrist of all people would understand my need for privacy. You would also think she understands the concept of space, meaning I don’t enjoy strangers being within touching distance, and I don’t appreciate being stared at.
I told her all this, along with a few carefully added curses which ended up being something like “don’t look at me, don’t sit near me, and definitely do not fucking touch me.”
Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts from yesterday’s encounter.
“Jayne, how are you feeling today?”
She doesn’t wait for me to ask her if she’d like to join me, but wisely she sits near the wall opposite my bed a good ten feet from me, not that I want her in the room at all. I also don’t want to speak with her, so I keep my eyes trained on the window overlooking the parking lot. Not that I can see it, being that the bed is down flat, but it’s the same thing I’ve been staring at for two days. Why change now?
“Jayne, other than your outburst with me yesterday, your doctors and the nurses mentioned that you haven’t spoken since you were brought here. We know that although there’s swelling in your neck and around your vocal cords, they are still functional. I’d like for you to use them today Jayne. The police will be here again soon, and it’s my job to make sure you’re in the right frame of mind to speak with them.”
I remain silent.
What is there to say? I don’t want to talk about what happened to me, I don’t want to talk about the weather and I have absolutely no desire to get to know this cold woman in a business suit in front of me.
She told me yesterday on her rant after I told her to get out, that she’s been the psychiatrist on call for this hospital for years, and basically that she needs to find out whether I’m in my right mind, or if I need to be sent to the ward on the third floor.
At this point I don’t care where I am, or what I’m doing. I just want silence. Peace and fucking quiet. Mrs. Anderson gets up out of her chair. Her dark hair is graying. Too much Botox leaves only her eyes and mouth to judge her mood by. Her grey suit is crisply pressed, more like something a lawyer would wear.
The sour expression on her face tells me she hates her job but likes the paycheck. This is most likely why she’s the on call psychiatrist for the hospital. Not one person in their right mind would pay this woman to pick at their brain. She’s a bitch, I could tell from the moment I woke up yesterday.
She doesn’t have a high ranking practice of her own somewhere. She’s paid by the province to be on call for fucked up people such as myself that end up in the hospital for medical reasons and who end up needing their heads checked before they can be sent home.
I’m no doctor, but I think it’s fair to say that someone in my position is allowed all the fucking crazy they want after being held in a basement by a psychopath.
“Alright look Jayne, if you let me do my job you can get out of here quicker. Your doctors informed me that you’ll be held for at least ten more days. Thereafter you’ll get a home nurse to change your sutures. However, that cannot happen until you speak with me. We need to verify where you’re at mentally so that the police can determine what happened at the residence of the home you were kept in.”
In my opinion, Andrew’s shrine of me speaks for itself—pictures of me at lunch with friends, at home raking the yard and at the park with my beautiful little girl. The blood, the knife, and the frayed rope left hanging from the beam tell the rest of the story. Self-explanatory really, aside from the two dead male bodies on the floor.
Only one deserved it.
“Jayne, I know what you’ve been through-”
I cut the cold bitch off, I’ve had enough. I’m not certifiably insane, I’m fucking miserable. There’s a big difference! Why the hell would I want to talk about it? And who in their right mind would want to hear about it?
“You know?”I ask in my low raspy voice, slightly shaking my head. I can’t fully move anything because my body
hurts too badly. “No, Anderson, you don’t know. And until you do, until you’ve hung in a basement for three fucking days, don’t you dare try to tell me ‘you know’. I’ll speak with the police, I will not speak with you. Now get the fuck out of my room.”
Apparently my outburst hasn’t shocked her, because the bitch presses on.
“Jayne, if I believe you’re mentally unstable or mentally traumatized, I will invoke my right to keep you here under observation. The police have questions regarding the deaths that took place where you were held, and I need to determine if you’re mentally stable to answer those questions.”
“I’m breathing, I’m alive and I can see daylight. That’s as stable as you’re going to get right now, Anderson.”
She huffs out a long breath and begins flipping through some papers in her binder.
“Very well, Ms. O’Connor.”
She jots down some notes on a piece of paper before tucking the binder under her arm and looking at me. If her job was to truly assess me, if she was really concerned about my well-being, she wouldn’t give in so easy. This woman is like a pill dispenser. A doctor who would rather prescribe you a medication than diagnose what the true problem is.
She signed off on my paperwork, therefore she’ll get her paycheck to fund the next round of Botox injections and her weekly dry cleaning bill.
“I’m finished here unless the detectives need to speak with me. I’ll send them in on my way out.”
I don’t respond, and I don’t watch her leave. I lie here and stare out the window, appreciating the silence, although it’s short lived.
“Ms. O’Connor, we’d like to ask you a few questions regarding the incident that took place in Bakersville two days ago.”
If I never heard his voice again, it would be too soon.
Detective Braumer.
The last time I heard it was after my mother, father and little girl were taken from me. I now know that Andrew, my attacker, and the man who kept me captive was responsible for their deaths. If one good thing can come of speaking to the detectives, sharing this information might be it.
“Andrew was responsible for the death of my family.”
I finally turn my head to gauge the reaction of Detective Braumer, as well as his kind partner Detective Miller, who jumps in to ask questions.
“Did Mr. Roberts say that Ms. O’Connor?”
Braumer cuts him off.
“We’re not here regarding the death of your family Ms. O’Connor, we’re here because there are two dead men in a basement, and one alive and breathing woman lying in a hospital bed. We need answers and an explanation of what happened two days ago.”
This sack of shit excuse for a detective has no empathy at all. Not that I expected it, but I at least would like him to acknowledge what I just said.
“My memory is fuzzy, the doctor said this is to be expected.”
I’m lying, but I’m also exhausted. My speech is slower, most likely from the automatic morphine drip connected to my arm. My surgeon told me that I have one hundred and sixty two stitches in my back, three broken ribs, a fractured jaw and cheekbone, a broken wrist, dislocated shoulder and a fractured collar bone. Four units of blood were administered on arrival and I’ve slept for thirty-eight hours of the past forty-eight that I’ve been here.
“Ms. O’Connor, a forensic team has been through the basement, and we’re looking for answers to put this case to rest. We need to talk about your purpose in that basement, as well as how Andrew Roberts ended up in the morgue.”
I’m not coherent enough to come up with a proper story that I can remember, not that I care much about my fate at this moment so long as I can see daylight. I discreetly press the nurse call button on my bed and answer Detective Braumer.
“I told you it’s a little blurry after I lost half my body weight in blood. I also just told you he admitted to killing my family. How about you look into that while I rest. Then, we’ll talk more when my memory comes back.”
Miller speaks up, he has a lot more compassion for people, and it’s not just the good cop-bad cop routine.
“Get some rest Ms. O’Connor, we’ll come back later.”
Braumer apparently doesn’t like being told what to do, and he tells him so.
“I’m not finished yet Miller! We need answers, and I’m here to get them.”
My kind old nurse with perfect timing comes bustling into the room.
“Alright, everyone get out. I need to change Ms. O’Connor’s sutures, and then she needs more rest. She’s not going to get it with you pickin’ at her. Now go.”
Miller gives me a kind nod, while Braumer eyeballs me. If looks could kill, I’d be a dead woman. This man still hates me, and if I cared what people thought about me I’d look into it to figure out why. However, since I still give no fucks about that, I eyeball the miserable fuck right back before thanking my nurse.
“Thank you, Reta.”
She lifts the paper cup of water to my mouth, giving me a sip before tucking me in much like a grandmother would. She’s a bigger woman in her late sixties I’d guess, and clearly takes no shit from people.
I respect her immensely.
Reta folds the blankets gently around my body as I lie on my side. It’s too painful to lay on my back. She adjusts something on my IV machine before leaning down close, for some reason it doesn’t bother me for her to be near. Perhaps it’s the age, or the eyes.
Maybe both.
She stares at me kindly for a moment, not at all making me cringe. Her worn old eyes study me closely before she speaks.
“I don’t know what happened exactly dear, but I can take a good guess after seeing you, and the man who took you. I was in the operating room when they brought you in, never seen anything like it in my forty years as a nurse. After we fixed you up, I went down to the morgue. I had to see him for myself.”
Kind Reta puts her hand on mine and gives it a gentle squeeze before she continues in a determined way only a woman of her age could get away with at such a time.
“You fought well, dear. That’s why you’re up here, and he’s down there. Don’t ever think it should’ve been different, and don’t you dare ever feel bad about that.”
She gives me a firm nod before patting my hand and leaving the room.
She didn’t change my sutures—it wasn’t time to.
* * *
I take a deep breath before I open my eyes.
Water.
That’s what I smell, along with the sand and the few evergreen trees outside my window. It’s crisp and clean, and exactly what I missed while I was in Indy. I lie here staring at the ceiling, listening to the birds, absorbing it all.
A calm settles over me, much like when I’m in the bath. I feared coming back would revive memories of my last time here with Ryder when he saw my scars for the first time. To my surprise, I felt nothing but the calm. The kind that relaxes your muscles and eases the tension in your neck.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand and see it’s eight in the morning. We got in just before ten last night and I went straight to bed. Despite the dream about my time in the hospital, I feel quite rested.
I throw off the covers and stretch out my body that’s a little stiff from the long drive yesterday. I take in the gold walls I painted myself, and my black furniture that definitely needs dusting before I make my way to the bathroom to start my morning routine.
Coffee on my back porch. That’s all I want right now.
* * *
The weather is beautiful. The sun is shining and Norma hasn’t left the water since we came outside this morning.
It’s the little things in life, and this is one of them. I’m on coffee number three and haven’t had the urge to do anything other than sit here. I’m thankful I packed up most of the contents of my fridge before leaving Indy. Therefore I don’t need to leave the house today for things like milk or coffee. I can just sit and enjoy the view from my lounge. Breathing in the fresh air, exhaling th
e anxiety.
My phone ringing from the kitchen forces me to remove my ass from the lounge and head inside. Only two people have my number, Ryder and Brock. I look at the call display to see it’s Ryder calling. In too good of a mood to be a bitch, I answer with a mild smile on my face.
“Morning, handsome.”
“Morning, beautiful. I’ll take a guess you’re still drinking coffee and haven’t left the porch yet.”
Apparently my routine is predictable.
“Your guess would be correct.”
His whiskey chuckle rumbles through the line.
