by Vicki Hinze
So don’t tell him it was Karl, Julia. That’s what’s got you terrified. There’s no law that says you have to tell Seth who attacked you.
“I’m sorry,” Seth said. “I didn’t mean to push.”
“It’s okay. This just makes me . . . uncomfortable.” Another monumental understatement.
“I understand.”
He looked as if he really did. “Everything was fine until I stopped at a stop sign.” Memories flashed through her mind. Her chest went tight, and sharp pains streaked through her arm. She rubbed at it and shut out the images. One . . . breath at a time. One breath . . . at a time. One breath at a time.
“Julia?”
She darted her gaze to Seth. He stared at her arm.
She stopped rubbing it. “A man jerked me through the car window, Seth. He beat my head against the asphalt street. I kicked, begged, and pleaded with him to stop. I fought. God, how I fought. But I couldn’t stop him. I—I just couldn’t . . . stop him.”
She took a drink of water, pausing to collect herself, her hands shaking so hard she could barely hold on to the glass. “I woke up two days later in the hospital in Intensive Care. I’d had several surgeries. My arm, for one. When he pulled me through the window, he tore some tendons, did some muscle damage, and dislocated the joint at my shoulder. I have a pin in it now.” Images snapped in her mind. The hospital. Blinding pain so intense that drawing breath took a Herculean effort. And fear. Always fear. “They didn’t know at first whether or not I had suffered brain damage.”
Seth’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you saying you had amnesia?”
“No.” She looked over at him. “My brain swelled—trauma induced by my head impacting the street. They had to bore a hole in my skull to relieve pressure. When the swelling went down, I regained consciousness, and I knew who I was.” And she had remembered the attack in full detail. Only, to her, it was not something that had already taken place, it was happening then. “I spent months in the hospital, and several more months in physical therapy with my arm. It was a . . . grueling experience.”
“I’m sure it was.” His expression remained deliberately passive. “Are you all right now?”
“A few headaches and occasional muscle spasms. Otherwise, I’m fine.” An even more monumental understatement. One of gross proportions, but warranted. Seth looked so worried.
He scanned her face closely. “Were you attacked because of your work?”
“No.” No pity in his voice, only deep concern. She could live with concern. It felt good. But she couldn’t admit any more about the attack itself than she already had. The tension was building. She couldn’t survive another all-night vigil so close on the heels of the last one. “Detective LeBrec arrested the attacker. I had to hide until the trial.”
“Protective custody?”
“More or less.” She swallowed hard and focused on the placket of Seth’s white shirt. As much as she wanted to see what was in his eyes now, she couldn’t look. Couldn’t risk it. “The man was convicted and imprisoned. He got five years.”
“You almost died, didn’t you, Julia?”
She had nearly died three times. Once at the scene, twice in the hospital. Tears threatened. She sank her teeth into her lower lip to fight against them falling and humiliating her to the core. “I had to testify.”
“Did you know the man?”
She pretended not to hear Seth. “After he was convicted, I just wanted a fresh start. A clean slate where I could begin a new life. Someplace serene and quiet.”
“Someplace safe.”
“Yes.” She looked at the iron grate, the empty fireplace that had never felt heat or the weight of logs. It seemed as empty and wasted as she had felt during her recovery. “Detective LeBrec brought me an atlas. I dragged my finger over a map, and it landed on Grace.” She blinked hard and managed to lift her gaze to Seth’s chin. “It sounds ridiculous, but I needed something good to hold on to—”
“What better place to seek grace than Grace?” Seth dipped his chin to his chest. “I understand, Julia.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
He didn’t think her a fool. Or foolish. “I didn’t just leave your lab, Seth.” The tears again threatened, and she swallowed hard. “I left my life.”
“You had to start over someplace that wasn’t tainted.”
He did understand. Relief swam through her stomach, loosened the bands of fear cinching her chest. “Yes.” She met his gaze.
A furrow formed between his dark brows. “Where was Karl during all of this? Did you leave him, too?”
Julia looked away. She could lie to Seth about this but, damn it, she couldn’t look at him while she did it. “He was there.”
“During the beating?”
“Seth, you’re shouting.”
“I’m . . . sorry.” He lowered his voice. “I just find it difficult to believe a man would stand and watch a stranger pound the hell out of his wife without trying to stop him.”
“I was alone in the car.” Deceptive. Definitely left the wrong impression, but true. “The point is, my attacker developed a penchant for making threatening phone calls.”
“But he’s in prison.”
“That doesn’t stop him.”
“You mean they’re still going on?”
“Yes.”
“Have you reported them?”
“Every single call. At least five a week, including last night.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “He’s found me here.”
“Why don’t the authorities stop him? Have you gotten an unlisted number?”
“They’ve tried to stop him, and I’ve had fourteen unlisted numbers since I moved to Grace. That’s why I used your name for the cell phone. So he couldn’t find me. Only now he’s made that connection, too.” A fat tear rolled down her face.
“Oh, God, Julia.” Seth curled an arm around her shoulder, pulled her close. “I’m so sorry this happened, honey. I’m so sorry I made you live through it all again.”
“No pity. Please.” She went stiff as a board. “I can take anything from you but pity.”
“No pity,” Seth promised, his own eyes burning. A rage so deep he couldn’t pinpoint where it began or ended tore loose inside him. He fought it, focused on holding her, on the feel of her clutching his shirt at his chest, on her face buried in the curve of his neck, and her soft sobs. Yet through the haze of his outrage, resentment, and regret—so much regret and bitterness that this had happened to her—questions penetrated and persisted, running through his mind. She was married to a cop. Why the hell hadn’t he put an end to this attacker’s tormenting her? What kind of man tolerates his wife being stalked—from prison?
No kind. Unless he can’t object.
Maybe Karl had been working under deep cover in Destin. Maybe that’s why Julia hadn’t wanted to discuss why she had gone there. But even if that was so, Karl had no right to put her in that kind of jeopardy; he had every obligation to protect her from it.
Provided he could protect her from it. Maybe the attack had taken him by surprise. Conditions in those kinds of situations could sour in the blink of an eye.
Julia mumbled on, about the agony of healing, the painful therapy sessions that sounded a lot like torture sessions at the Special Forces survival training school, the isolation and fear she had felt about leaving the safety of the hospital and facing the muggers of the world alone. It was as if a spigot had opened full throttle inside her, and more and more anguish and fear and agony poured out. But never a word about Karl.
Nothing about Karl.
That wasn’t just odd, it was telling. And Seth didn’t give a tinker’s damn for what he was hearing. Maybe Karl hadn’t been under deep cover. Maybe he had hurt her.
Crazy thought, maybe. But maybe not. She wouldn’t be eager to admit her husband had attacked her or had caused her to be attacked. No more so than Seth would be eager to admit his father had been abusive. But this wasn’t the time to
ask her. Later would be soon enough. Now, Julia needed to vent. It was cathartic, and down deep he knew she never before had opened up to anyone about this. Not to Karl, not to anyone. And that too was telling. They were still connected.
Torn between feeling grateful and humble that their connection remained intact, and angry that she had faced this hell without his support, Seth held her close, rubbing little circles over her back, and let her purge uninterrupted.
They sat there; she softly sobbing, mumbling, and he holding her, listening, hurting with her, and trying to slot the puzzling pieces into their rightful places.
An hour passed, and then another. Her sobs softened to sniffles, and her mumbles turned to cohesive sentences. A few minutes more, and Seth could ask her . . .
A phone rang.
Seth ignored it, but the damn thing persisted, though it sounded muffled, and Julia stirred. “Let me get it,” he said.
“No, I’m fine now.” She pulled away, left the sofa sniffling, and retrieved her cell phone from her purse.
The woman was anything but fine. She shook like a limb being pelted in a hailstorm. But he understood the drill. Act normal, feel normal.
Maybe she would pull it off. Even with his training, Seth couldn’t. He wanted to beat the hell out of something. Her attacker, for starters. And her husband.
Julia spoke into the cell phone. “Hello.”
“Dr. Julia?”
“Jeff?” She swiped at her face, buried her upset. “Why are you whispering, honey?” Attentive and controlled, she frowned. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t want them to hear me.”
He sounded so scared. Julia shot Seth a worried look. “Who, honey?”
“Dad and the man. I don’t know his name.” Jeff’s voice dropped even lower. “He sounds mean.”
Panic twisted her stomach into knots. “What’s wrong, Jeff?”
“They’re talking about you. Saying bad stuff.”
A shiver crept up her spine. This had to be about the report she had filed. “What kind of bad stuff?”
“I—I think they’re going to hurt you.”
Julia swallowed hard. Karl.
No. No, Karl’s in jail. Behind bars. Locked up.
She was safe. “Did you hear the man’s name?”
“No.”
“Jeff?”
“Shh!”
She waited. Sweat moistened her temples, the vee in her bra between her breasts. What was going on at Camden’s?
A man’s voice crackled in the background. “Hey, your kid’s on the phone.”
“It didn’t ring.”
“He’s on the damn phone, man.”
Oh, God. Jeff had been caught.
“Give me that.” Scuffling noises, and then Camden yelled into the receiver. “Who is this?”
Julia should answer. But her instincts warned her against it. She hit the hook button, praying Jeff would call back and let her know everything was okay.
“You’re as pale as a ghost,” Seth said. “What’s wrong with Jeff?”
“He says he’s okay.”
“Then why the call?”
Julia clutched the phone until her knuckles went numb. “He was worried about me. There’s a man there with his dad, and Jeff thinks they’re going to hurt me.”
“Over the report?”
“I don’t know.” Julia fought panic at having yet another man in her life threatening her.
This one, an unknown.
Chapter Eight
Seth’s hunch nose-dived into a logical conclusion.
Whether Karl had attacked Julia, or she blamed him for the attack, something was seriously wrong in their marriage. Yet, regardless of what Seth had thought earlier, he couldn’t just ask her about it. He loved her. She was vulnerable. If he intruded, particularly on this, she would resent it. Maybe forever. There would come a time when she felt Seth had taken advantage of her.
By unspoken agreement, they always had respected each other’s privacy. He would have to wait until she brought it up. She had vented about the attack, and, sooner or later, she would vent about this, too. But the woman had been to hell and back; telling him had to be her choice. She needed to do things in her own way, in her own time. She needed to feel in control of herself and her life. Still, he could offer her an opportunity, let her know he was open to listening. That was about as far as he could take it without risking losing her.
He leaned back against the kitchen bar and opened the proverbial door, hoping she would walk through it. “Julia, why don’t you have Karl check out Camden?”
“I can’t.” Pacing the kitchen, Julia stiffened, but she kept her voice steady. “He thinks I’m paranoid.”
“You average five threatening calls a week from a bastard who nearly killed you, and he considers you paranoid?”
She shrugged.
A lie. But one she evidently needed. Now wasn’t the time. Her response got him to thinking, though. What logical reason could Karl have for considering her paranoid about an attacker’s threats? Maybe Karl had been under deep cover on a case and now it was closed, so he considered the threats empty.
Or, unlikely but possible, maybe Karl was the attacker and the idea of talking to him at all made Julia paranoid. Could be either way, or something else entirely.
“Julia?” Seth blocked her path, felt her rapid breaths on his face. “Do you believe Jeff?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him. “Yes, I do.”
“You don’t think this was just Camden talking with a lawyer, or complaining to a friend about the injustice of the system because he’s being questioned about Jeff’s abuse?”
“No.” She held Seth’s gaze. “Jeff isn’t an alarmist. He’s been through too much. He wouldn’t have called unless something they said made him think I was in real danger.”
Real danger. The words sounded hollow, empty, shallow. After her accounting of her attack and the subsequent three years of torment and threats of torture, how else could they sound? “Then I suggest you give his warning all due respect.”
She slumped back against the bar, clasped her hands to her head, and glared up at Seth, her agony in her eyes. “Just what do you suggest I do that I haven’t already done?”
Good question. Sound. Logical. Rational. Because he couldn’t answer it, it totally pissed him off. “Nothing.” Seth grabbed her phone from its mounting on the kitchen wall. “It’s my turn.”
He punched in a number from memory and then spoke into the phone. “Camden, this is Holt. Put Jeff on the line.”
Julia’s mouth dropped open. “What are you doing?”
Seth smoothed the back of his fingers over her soft cheek. “It’s okay,” he told her, forcing the grit out of his tone. “We’ve got an understanding.”
“Dr. Seth?” Jeff’s voice sounded tiny. Tiny and scared.
“Hey, buddy. How’s it going?”
“Okay.”
“Is your dad right there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All right. Just listen then.”
“Okay.”
“Dr. Julia told me about your dad and the mean man. Have either of them hurt you?”
“No.”
Relief poured through Seth. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Are you scared they might?”
“No.”
Okay. Okay, this he could handle. His training couldn’t do Jeff a damn bit of good with Seth nearly two hours away from the boy. “But you’re scared they’ll hurt Dr. Julia, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
Julia was where Seth could do her some good. Better and better. “Do you know who the mean man is?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Is he still there?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Can you tell me what he looked like?” Seth quickly added, “Just say yes or no.”
“No.”
Seth stared at a little bisque angel on the kitchen window’s sill. A little help here would be appreciated. “You didn’t see him?
” he asked Jeff.
“No.”
Following his instincts, Seth probed. “You just heard him, right?”
A very enthusiastic “Uh-huh.”
Obviously, the man had been shouting. “Did you hear his name?”
“No.”
Seth frowned. “Are you all right, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
He dropped his voice and turned toward the fridge so its whirring motor would muffle his words and Julia wouldn’t hear. She’d go postal. “No bruises?”
“No.”
Seth’s heart rate slowed down. “Okay, then. I’m going to stay here and take care of Dr. Julia tonight, so you don’t need to worry about her. But that means I can’t drive over to see you until tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” Relief flooded Jeff’s voice.
He wanted Seth watching over Julia. “Okay, buddy. Now don’t tell your dad I won’t be there. That’s important.”
“Okay.”
Seth knew the boy needed something, but he didn’t know enough about kids to know what would put him at ease. The little angel caught his gaze, and he remembered how as a kid he had hungered for an adult who seemed calm and in control. Unsure if that would work for Jeff, Seth gave it a shot. “I won’t let them hurt her.”
“Promise?” Jeff’s voice cracked.
“I promise, son.”
Jeff hung up the phone.
Thick-throated, so did Seth. He turned and nearly bumped into Julia.
She stood staring at him. “You drive over every day to check on Jeff?”
Oh, hell. Seth scratched at his nape. “Didn’t I mention that?”
“No, you didn’t mention that.”
“Well, yeah, I drive over or else call.” He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet, filled it with water at the sink.
“And Camden lets you see him? Talk to him? You have an understanding?”
“Yes.” Snagging a dishcloth, Seth swatted at a water spot on the tile counter.
