On her wrists, the marks crisscrossed each other, the skin healing raggedly, fusing together awkwardly as it had healed only enough to be torn apart once again by her continued fruitless struggles.
Not for the first time in twelve years, she questioned herself again. Why had she struggled so? Almost anyone else would have realized it had been a losing battle and given up.
But not her.
Why not her?
Why had she lived?
Drawing in a shuddering breath, she berated herself for dwelling on the past. “You can’t change it, but God can use it. Let him.”
Just saying the words out loud brought her a measure of peace she’d never been able to explain. So she didn’t try to analyze it, she just accepted it for the gift that it was.
Her Savior. Her Lord. Her strength.
She reached for the Bible she kept on her nightstand. Stacking the pillows behind her, she leaned back, opened her Bible …
… and screamed.
5
In the back of her subconscious mind, Jamie registered Samantha bursting through her bedroom door, but she couldn’t pull her eyes from the picture.
“What is it? Jamie! Why did you scream?”
As though in slow motion, Jamie lifted her gaze to lock onto Samantha’s frantic eyes. Her sister had her gun in her right hand as she scanned the room for the cause of Jamie’s panicked cry.
Seeing nothing, she lowered the weapon and approached the bed where Jamie still sat, seemingly frozen to the spot.
With shaking fingers, Jamie reached for the picture, then stopped. Doing her best to control her voice, she said, “Get me a plastic bag from the kitchen and a pair of tweezers, will you?”
Questions hovered on Sam’s lips, but Jamie stared at her until her sister whirled and left the room. Jamie snapped her eyes back to the picture.
How?
When?
But most importantly – who?
Samantha reentered the room with the requested materials and a demand. “What is it?”
Jamie took the tweezers from her sister and very carefully caught the picture between the ends. She held it up and slipped it into the plastic baggie. Handing it to Samantha, she said, “He put this in my Bible.”
“Who? What?” She took the item, looked at it, and gasped. “That’s the picture from the mantel.”
“Yes, it is.” An unnatural calm settled on her shoulders as she leaned back and hugged her arms around her midsection. Shivers danced along her nerve endings and nausea churned in the pit of her stomach.
Samantha looked up. “And you didn’t put it there?”
Jamie just stared at her.
Her sister started to pace. “I … I mean, you could have decided to use it as a bookmark, right? And then just forgot about it. Or … or …”
“I didn’t put it there, Samantha.” Jamie barely recognized her own voice. It sounded flat, devoid of life.
Sam stopped pacing and turned to look at Jamie. “But how? Who?”
“Him.”
“But it can’t be,” came a whispered horrified protest.
“It is. It has to be.”
Wednesday
After a restless night even with Samantha sleeping in the bed next to her, resurrecting an old habit Samantha had formed the day Jamie came home from the hospital, Jamie rose and automatically went through her morning routine.
Samantha. What was she going to do about the woman? Her presence beside her last night provoked old memories. Torments, nightmares. Sam had spent every night at her bedside in the hospital as she waited for Jamie to wake up from the drug-induced coma the doctors had put her in while her body healed. Then after she’d been released from the hospital to her parents’ care, Samantha had stayed by her side, sleeping next to her in the large queen bed. Only Samantha hadn’t gotten much sleep for months. Not with Jamie jerking awake screaming every few hours.
Jamie looked at the scars on her wrists. Deep grooves where the cuffs had cut almost to the bone in some places and healed over with puckered white skin. A vivid, daily reminder of her failure, her weakness. Her inability to escape with one attempt after another until it was almost too late.
With a finger, she traced the area on her left wrist and thought about her past, her tormentor. Her “hero.” As those last words filtered through her mind, disgust curdled.
She’d once thought of him that way. After all, he’d made the pain go away. Briefly. Even though he’d been the one to cause it.
And she’d been so grateful. She’d come to look forward to the small things he did to make her more comfortable, was thankful for the food and water he allowed her to have.
He’d bandaged her wrists when he’d realized the extent of her injuries. Given her pain medication.
Taken care of her.
And even while she’d been relieved at the reprieves, with every fiber of her being she’d hated him. And herself. She couldn’t understand what she was feeling, why she looked forward to his presence and despised it at the same time.
Stockholm syndrome. Where the victim becomes dependent upon the attacker even to the point of defending him or her.
Jamie hadn’t quite gotten to that point, but when Maya explained it to her, she’d been overwhelmed to realize she wasn’t crazy, that there was nothing wrong with her.
Then another emotion had forced its way to the surface.
Pure rage.
And it felt good, just like it had yesterday.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she set the comb down and made a promise to herself.
If it was him, if he was the one doing this, if he’d targeted her once again …
She swallowed down the nausea.
He. Would. Not. Win.
Not this time.
Shuddering, she brushed her teeth and heard Sam stirring. She finished getting ready for work and walked into the kitchen to grab a bagel she wasn’t hungry for. Knowing she needed to eat to keep her strength up, she forced it down.
“Sam,” she hollered. “I’m leaving.”
“Hey, I’ll take you.”
“I’ve walked before, I can walk now.”
Incredulous eyes stared back at her. “Are you crazy?”
“No. Determined. This guy is not going to ruin my life again … if it’s even him.”
“That’s fine. I understand that, but you still have to take precautions.”
Just the thought of walking out of her front door made her want to hurl. And that made the rage rise once again. She would not give up the progress she’d made, would not succumb to the fear again. Would it be caving to accept the help Samantha so willingly offered?
Everything within her wanted to stomp defiantly out the door. Instead, reason overruled her momentary desire for a temper tantrum. If he was the one doing this to her, she certainly didn’t want to fall back into his sadistic hands.
“All right,” she said. “For now.”
Relief at Jamie’s easy capitulation flashed over Sam’s features, and Jamie felt a twinge of guilt at her own stubbornness. But stubborn could be a good thing.
It was one reason she was still alive.
Fifteen minutes later, she walked into the lab. Her home away from home. Samantha had dropped her at the door, then drove on to the high school to meet Jenna. While school was finished for the year and Jenna had graduated, Sam had volunteered to go with the group of seniors to the lake for the day.
Desperate to put last night out of her head, Jamie pulled at the shirtsleeves that came nearly mid-palm, then went straight to the bones she’d started working with the day before.
Then thought about the two old files on her desk. She really needed to look over them. A glance back at the bones she needed to sort through. They were clean and ready for placement on the large metal table.
Yesterday, she hadn’t been able to tell much from the bones themselves due to the dirt and other debris still attached to them. Chemicals had remedied that problem. Now, she
could begin the road to giving this person a name. The files could wait. Once she had her report on these two sets of bones, she could compare them to the other ones that had been found in the same area.
Ignoring her craving for a cup of coffee, she pulled the femur from the box. Placing it on the slab, she went for the next bone, then the next. Finally, she had the skeleton laid out, each piece placed precisely so. Taking the digital camera from the cabinet above the sink, she took picture after picture of the bones.
And something caught her eye.
Setting the camera aside, she leaned in and took the arm bone, the radius, in hand. Turning it from side to side, she saw that it had been broken once upon a time. It had healed nicely. Replacing it, she moved to the other arm. The left radius had also been broken. And healed well.
Her stomach flipped as she slowly lowered the bone back into place. She picked up the ulna, turned it. And paused. An epiphyseal line almost fused to the growth cap. The femur told the same story. As a teen aged, the epiphyseal line changed, fused and became an epiphyseal plate. The line indicated this person had never had the chance to advance in age past the late teen years.
She moved to the clavicle, almost afraid to look.
“Hey, Jamie, what’s up?”
She jumped and nearly dropped the bone. “Honestly, Dakota, could you whistle or something to let me know you’re coming?”
A sheepish smile crossed his face as he shoved the Stetson to the back of his head. “Sorry.”
Her heart stuttered for a moment as she stared at him and the feeling confused her. Why was she so attracted to him? She didn’t like men – in general – and certainly didn’t want to feel anything remotely like attraction for one of them. Not even one she considered a friend.
The knock on the door brought her attention around.
A young man in his late thirties stepped inside. Jamie offered him a short smile. “Hi, George.”
“Hi, Jamie. What are you working on?”
“Some bones that were dug up yesterday.” She turned to Dakota. “This is George Horton, the department profiler. He joined the team a little after I accepted the job here. So far he’s been a great asset from what I hear.”
George grinned, flashing a one-sided dimple and white teeth. “Thanks for the praise, Jamie. Dakota and I’ve met a couple of times.”
Dakota nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you again.”
“So, did you need something?” Jamie asked him.
“Naw, I was just passing by and thought I’d pop in to say hello. Maybe we can do lunch one day.”
With a vague smile, Jamie offered, “Maybe.”
Not likely, she thought. As nice as George seemed to be …
He left and Dakota looked at her. She tried to sidestep his stare but finally asked, “What?”
“You know what,” he teased with a tight smile. “He likes you.”
She grimaced and kept her tone neutral. “I like him too. He’s a nice guy.”
“So are you going to have lunch with him?”
Just the thought made her shudder. “No.” She tried to cover her initial distaste at the thought of anything even resembling a date. “He’s one of those.”
“Those?” Confusion chased the bemusement from his face.
“Yes, a psychiatrist, a profiler of all things. You can’t trust them. They’re way too thoughtful and analyze everything you say. It would be like having lunch with a mind reader or something.” She was teasing yet serious about not being interested in George. “No thanks.”
Something resembling relief flickered briefly across Dakota’s eyes but was gone so fast she wondered if she imagined it.
Then he grinned. “Then will you have lunch with me?”
She smiled back. “No.” At his crestfallen expression and wounded stare, she laughed and said, “I don’t eat lunch at nine-thirty in the morning. Ask me again in a couple of hours.”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “You got me.”
Her heart did that crazy beat-skipping thing again and she turned back to the comfort of her bones. “Yeah.”
“So, what have you got on the bones?”
“Female and young.”
“How old was she?”
“I’m not sure. Late teens, probably. Eighteen, nineteen. There’s only a few teeth so I don’t think our odontologist is going to be able to help us out.” She sighed. “Give me a little longer and I might be able to tell you more at lunch.”
He nodded. “All right, I’m going to go catch up with George, the mind reader. I have a couple of questions for him anyway. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Absorbed in her work, she didn’t even turn as he left.
An hour later, she stretched out the kinks in her back and decided she needed something to drink. Walking into the small office attached to the side of the lab, she went straight to the small college dorm refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.
Taking a sip, she let her eyes roam over the familiar space.
And prickles raised the hair on the back of her neck.
Something was off.
Slowly, she took inventory of the area. Everything seemed to be in place, but …
What was different?
Her desk. The plant sat where it always did. But it was turned. She kept the words on the pot facing her. “I can do all things through Christ.” Maybe one of the cleaning crew had moved it. Reaching out, she straightened it.
Then stopped. A coldness seeped into her.
The red pen she kept at the top of her desk calendar now lay to the right side.
And the point of the pen stuck out, ready to be used.
She always closed it.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to rationalize it. Okay, so someone had been in her office – and rearranged things a bit. That didn’t mean anything.
Did it?
Of course not, she tried to reassure herself. The cleaning crew had just … bumped her desk, moved things around a bit.
Only the cleaning crew had never done such a thing before.
A knowing feeling coursed through her and she was certain whoever had been in her office was the same person who’d been in her house.
Him.
Against her will, tremors pushed their way to the surface and she felt that sick, nauseating feeling return. Her right hand slipped under the collar of her shirt and moved to her left shoulder. Tracing the rough edges of the scar that was a permanent reminder of a time she desperately wished she could erase from her memory, she stepped closer to her desk.
Her eyes fell to the calendar and she gasped, her fingers falling from the scar on her shoulder to reach around and grasp her elbow. Her left hand came up to cup her right elbow and she bent double, hugging herself, trying to keep control of the scream bubbling up from within.
“Hey, Jamie …”
The scream released and she whirled, one hand flying up to cover her mouth to keep another scream from escaping.
“Jamie! What’s wrong?” Crossing to her side, he reached out to grab her and she flinched, backing away from him. He dropped his hands and soothed his voice, controlling the desire to smash the person who’d done this to her. “Come on, Jamie, talk to me. You’re safe. You’re fine. What’s wrong?”
He kept up the chatter, not even sure what he was saying after a few minutes, but whatever it was, it seemed to be working, pulling her from her frozen state of terror.
Her right hand cupped her left shoulder, gripped it so hard, her knuckles turned white. Finally the shaking eased, her hand dropped and she looked him in the eye.
The torment in her beautiful gaze nearly brought him to his knees.
He held out a hand and whispered, “Jamie …”
She hesitated, then took it. Slowly, ever so slowly, Dakota pulled her to him and held her in a loose embrace. Tight enough to offer comfort, loose enough that she could slip out of it if she desired to do so.
She said something and
he missed it.
“What?” He leaned in closer to listen. Her two words chilled him to the depths of his soul.
“He’s back.”
6
Jamie pulled away from the comfort of Dakota’s arms, almost more shocked by the fact that she let him hold her than the fact that she thought her tormentor had returned.
“I … I have to go.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Home. I want to go home.” But her safe haven had been breached.
“Let me call someone. Samantha.”
“No,” the word shot out of her mouth. “No, I don’t want to bother her. She’s at the lake with Jenna.”
“Then – ”
“Hey, is everything all right in here? We thought we heard a scream.”
They turned at the voice in the doorway, and Jamie flushed, knowing she must look like a scattered mess.
George and morgue security officer Stephanie Hilton looked on with concern. The woman stood with her hand on her gun. George looked like he wished he had one.
“Sorry, George, Stephanie, I just …” She hauled in a deep breath, trying to think of what to say when Dakota jumped in.
“She’s fine. I just need to learn to whistle when I come up behind her.”
Jamie forced a smile and busied herself with the papers on her desk, hoping George and Stephanie would take the hint and leave.
“Gotcha. Well,” an uncertain expression crossed George’s handsome features, “I’m just down the hall if you need anything.” “Thank you, George.” She appreciated his kindness but wanted him gone. Now.
They left and she wilted against her desk.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
She froze. “Why?”
“You said, ‘He’s back.’”
Jamie swallowed hard. “I did?”
“Yeah. Who is he? And why is he after you?”
She ignored his question and said the only thing that she could focus on. “He circled the three.” The words felt like they came from someone else, but she couldn’t peel her eyes from the desk calendar.
Don't Look Back Page 4
