Amelia started to cry and Theo rubbed her back. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, silent tears coursing down his face.
‘Mr. Storm?’ The surgeon who stood in front of them had kind eyes but all Theo could see was regret in them. His heart clenched tightly in his chest. Theo introduced him to Amelia.
‘Mr. Storm, Jessica is stable but still critical. She lost a lot of blood, as I’m sure you realize and we had to repair her liver and remove her spleen. Her abdominal injuries are ,’ the doctor seemed to struggle, ‘…well, they’re amongst the worst I’ve seen in my thirty-year career. The worst. The stabbing was brutal, merciless . Her assailant aimed to end her life in the most painful, savage way possible, of that I have no doubt. He or she used something other than a knife so the wounds were jagged, hard to repair cleanly, she will have scarring. We’ll know more in the next few hours.’
Theo thought about the lethal shards of glass that had been scattered around her body. Jules had used one of them to stab her, he was sure. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him, and, the strain etched on his face, he cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice cracked. ‘Doc?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Yes, she was raped.’ Theo slumped. ‘I’m so sorry. We’ve sealed the evidence and sent it to the county.’
‘Can we see her?’
The doctor hesitated. ‘I think it’s okay if you sit with her. She’ll need friendly faces when she wakes up.’ He studied Theo’s desolate face. ‘She will wake up, don’t worry, but her recovery will take some considerable time. Now, I must go give my statement to the police, please excuse me.’
He smiled at them both and moved away. Theo stood to go into Jess’s room when he saw Max approaching them. Max’s face was drawn, angry, but he bent to kiss Amelia’s cheek before rubbing his face.
‘Max?’ Theo’s voice was heavy with grief.
‘We arrested Gachet. He’s denying everything, of course. And Theo, considering what you told me happened, there’s not a mark on him. No scratches, no bruises. Nothing. He let us do a strip search, take swabs. Willingly gave up his DNA.’
Theo shook his head. ‘No, he did this, I know he did this. Does he have an alibi?’
‘Says he was asleep at home. Yes, no-one can back that up but we can’t prove otherwise. How’s Jess?’
‘Still unconscious.’ Amelia said, strain evident in her voice. ‘Doctor says she’s stable but still critical. We just have to wait.’
‘When she wakes up, she’ll be able to tell us more. I don’t know when she’s come back from surgery but the doc’s just been here.’ Theo sat and made a growling noise. ‘Dammit, I know Gachet did this.’
Mike gave them a sympathetic smile. ‘Unless Jess formally identifies him as her attacker…’
‘Her rapist. Her almost-murderer.’ Theo spat. ‘He wanted to murder her and nearly succeeded.’ The weight of what he had said sank in. ‘Oh Jesus.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Mike put his hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘I hope she can identify him. Any physical evidence?
‘They’re sending it to the police.’
‘They’re at the house too, they told me. But, Theo, until they’ve got something concrete –‘
‘They had to let him go.’ Resigned.
Max looked at Theo and his mom, his face a mask of determination. ‘We’ll make this right, I swear to god, we will.’
***
She opened her eyes and stared at the blank ceiling tiles above her. Everything in her body screamed with pain but fresh air, precious, fresh air filled her lungs. She was alive. Jess drew in a few grateful breaths, taking in the medicinal scent of a hospital, hearing the beeps of machinery. She could feel heavy bandaging on her abdomen, the sting of the central line needle in her arm, the blood pressure monitor on her finger. Her body ached, but she managed to move her stiff neck, turning her head and saw him.
Theodore Storm. My love. He was asleep, his head resting on the bed next to her hand. He looked older, tired, shattered but to her, he was the most beautiful sight in the world. She gingerly reached out to stroke his dark hair, feel his skin. He woke, startled by her touch and she smiled down at him. His eyes widened when he saw her awake. He stood, leaned over to her, took her face in his hands, as if not believing she was alive. His green eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh god, Jessie, thank you, thank you for staying with me…’ His tears fell onto her cheeks and he kissed her gently as if he couldn’t believe she was still alive.
‘Theo…’ Her voice was soft, gruff but she kissed him back as hard as she could. ‘I love you so much…’
‘I love you, God, I love you…my Jessie…’ Theo stroked her face, wiping away the tears with his thumbs. ‘Jessie….I’m sorry he did this to you. I’ll never leave you alone again.’
Jess frowned, her head fuzzy. ‘Theo…I can’t…I can’t remember it. I don’t what happened to me….Theo…why can’t I remember?’
Theo stared at her in horror.
‘So this really happens, not just in the movies?’ Theo squeeze Jess’s hand as the neurosurgeon shone a light into her eyes. She winced at the brightness.
Dr. Napier smiled. ‘You’ve had a serious head injury and suffered a severe concussion, on top of your other injuries. Plus, and this isn’t unusual, you’ve gone through just about the worst trauma a person can. Sometimes the brain just shuts out what it can’t cope with.’
Jess nodded. ‘Okay.’ She looked over at Theo, perched on the side of her bed. He smiled and squeezed her hand. Jess tried to smile. ‘When can I go home, doctor?’
‘Jessica – can I call you Jess? – Jess, you’re all hopped up on morphine at the moment so I doubt you can feel the extent of your injuries.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and patted her hand. ‘It’s going to take a while. At the moment, your belly is still in trauma from the stabbing, from the surgery we had to perform. Your liver needs to heal itself, your body needs to adjust to your new reality. If all goes well, you might be able to go home in a month or so. On the understanding that you give yourself time to recover.’ He added with a meaningful look at Theo.
Theo nodded and she knew she’d be under house arrest when she got home. A month. God. She looked up at the doctor.
‘Thank you, really, for everything.’ The doctor smiled at her and Theo.
‘My pleasure. Call me if you need anything.’
Alone, Theo sat on the edge of the bed, his arms around his love. She leaned against him and they sat in silence for a few minutes.
He tightened his grip on her and buried his face in her hair. ‘Jess?’
‘Yes?’
He thought for a moment then moved so he could see her face. ‘I want to ask you a question and it’s going to be rough but I have to. You can just nod or shake your head and when it’s over, I’m gonna hold you and never let you go.’ He smiled, a crooked, worried expression.
Jess took a deep breath and nodded. He took her hands.
‘Jess…we don’t ever have to go back to that place, you know, I can sell…’
‘No,’ she interrupted, ‘no. That’s our home, that’s the place where we’ll make our family. I know it in my bones.’
Theo was tense. ‘I thought after…you nearly died there. You were nearly murdered there.’
Jess pulled his lips to hers then smiled up at him, her eyes soft. ‘It’s also the place where I survived. Where you saved me. He doesn’t get to take our home away from us.’
Theo kissed her then was silent for a long time. She could feel the question hovering in the air.
‘Jess, it was Jules, wasn’t it?’
She stared at him for a long moment, tears filling her eyes. Then, slowly, she nodded.
‘I want to tell the police I’m positive, Theo, I do but I can’t remember anything.’ Her face crumpled and Theo kept his promise and held her while she sobbed.
The hospital was quiet, much later, the middle of the night when Jess woke. She saw Theo had gone down to get coffee, was re
lieved he was taking a break. The dark circles etched under his eyes, the pain in his eyes…it scared her.
A headache screeched around her skull, and she tried to sleep but the pain in her head was too much. She turned in the bed and gasped. Jules, silent, watchful, sat forward from the shadows. He smiled.
‘How are you feeling, Jessica?’ His voice was a caress.
‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice cracked and he smiled.
He raised his hands, shrugging. ‘Well, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, Jessica. Nowhere.’ Again that tone, intimate, tender. It scared her. She turned away, pretending to reach for the cup of water on her nightstand, wanting to grab the call button. She winced as the sudden movement jerked on the I.V. in her hand. Jules stood.
‘Allow me.’
He leaned across her and she caught his scent. As she breathed it in, a jolt, a rush of nausea, of terror. She gasped, a torrent of memories crashing back. Jules’s head snapped around and their eyes locked. In that moment, he realized she knew.
‘Oh, Jessica, this would have been much easier if you’d just died when you were supposed to. Because now you’ve made it so much harder for everyone.’
He stroked her face but she jerked away from his touch, ready to scream for help. He clamped his hand over her mouth.
‘Don’t scream. You know why you’ve made it harder? Because it won’t be just you I kill now, Jessica. I’ll kill everyone you care about… Then I’ll make Theo watch when I carve you up.’
Every cell in her body willed her to scream, scream for help, for Theo now, right now. But she believed Jules in that moment. In her eyes, in her broken, beaten mind, he had grown into a mythical creature, a daemon, an unstoppable force.
Come back, Theo, please, I need you.
Jules leaned in and kissed her gently on the mouth. She tried to pull away and his face grew hard, his smile cold, his eyes dead.
‘And then I’ll kill him.’
And he smiled. He picked up the call button, he pressed it and placed it back on her nightstand.
‘There now.’ Without warning, he clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed down hard on her belly. The pain was searing and she moaned in agony.
Jules smiled, released her, leaned in and kissed her gently on the mouth. She tried to pull away and his face grew hard, his smile cold, his eyes dead.
‘Get some sleep. I’ll come and see you again. I’ll always come to see you, Jess. I will finish what I started.’
The nurse came in. ‘Do you want a sedative, honey?’
Jules smiled at her. ‘I think she does. She was just saying she couldn’t sleep.’
Jess couldn’t speak. The nurse slipped a needle into her I.V. and she felt herself going under. Jules stroked her hair.
‘Sleep now, sweetheart, I’ll be here when you wake.’
As she closed her eyes, a tear dropped down her face.
When they told him at reception that Jess ’s brother was in the hospital and asking where she was, his heart had stopped. He knew, he knew that it was Jules who was responsible for raping and stabbing her. Who else could it be? And now he was in the hospital
Jess. Oh God, Jess .
When he got to her room, he sighed in relief. She was alone. Asleep, she looked as young as when he’d first met her but the cuts, the bruises made his stomach twist with pain. He bent down and kissed her cheek.
Not wanting to disturb her, he went back to the corridor and sat down. Leaning his head against the wall, he closed his eyes and sighed.
‘She seems fine.’
Theo opened his eyes and turned towards the voice. His voice. The bastard who stabbed her. Theo was off his chair, launching himself into Gachet.
‘Motherfucker!’
Jules fought back but was no match for the bigger man’s strength and skill. Theo twisted the man’s arm behind his back and got him on the floor, kicking out the back of his knee. Jules’s face banged against the hard floor and Theo was gratified to see blood, but then security got hold of him, ramming him against a wall.
‘Okay, okay.’ He yelled. They let him go. Jules was still on the floor, his nose pouring with blood.
‘Get up.’ Theo waved the security off. ‘I’m cool, I’m cool.’
Jules got to his feet. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ He brushed himself down, wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve. A sly grin belied his apparent outrage. Theo shook his head, anger radiating from him.
‘I know you’re responsible for this, Gachet. I know.’
Jules smirked. ‘Responsible for what, Mr. Storm? I was at home alone when Jess had her unfortunate accident.’
‘It wasn’t an accident. You know damn well it wasn’t.’ Theo glanced around, checking they were alone. ‘You raped her and then you knifed her. You tried to murder her.’
Jules raised his eyebrows. ‘Murder? That’s a horrific accusation. And where’s your proof?’
‘Interesting you don’t deny it.’
‘Your proof, Storm?’
Theo paused and Jules leaped on his hesitation.
‘I thought not. Careful, Storm, I think that counts as slander. Now, I would like to wait and see my sister, if that’s all right with you.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Theo stepped in front of Jess’s door. ‘You’re not going anywhere near her, not ever again.’
Jules smirked. ‘I think you’ll find, that as her only family, I count as next of kin. You can’t stop me.’
It was Theo’s turn to smile then. ‘Oh but you see, as of earlier this evening, I am legally her next of kin. As her future husband, Jess wanted to give me power of attorney while she’s in here. She had a lawyer come in to see her.’
Jules was silent for a long moment. ‘Please tell Jess I hope she recovers soon. I look forward to...concluding our business.’ He grinned at Theo’s anger, turned and strode down the corridor.
‘Motherfucker.’ Theo repeated to himself. He turned and went back into her room. She stirred as he bent down to kiss her and whispered his name, smiling even in her sleep.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, his eyes searching her face, drinking in every feature, her soft skin, her beautiful mouth. He leaned his forehead against hers. ‘God, Jessie, I promise you, if it is the last thing I do, I will make this fucker suffer for what he’s done to you. I promise. I promise.’
It had been the longest ten weeks of Jess’s life but now, as Theo flew them back to the house on Whidbey, she felt a tense band tighten across her chest. She had insisted they do this, that they forge ahead with the life they had planned. Fuck Jules had become her mantra. But now, the panic was starting to build. What if she couldn’t cope? What if she freaked out? Theo wouldn’t need much persuasion to burn the house down if it scared her but she was desperate not to be run out of another home by Jules. He couldn’t win this.
Theo reached over and took her hand. ‘Okay, my love?’ The soft, tender timbre of his voice was like opium flooding through her veins, soothing, loving and she grinned suddenly, and told him that.
Theo laughed and she realized how long it had been since she heard the sound. ‘Opium, huh?’
‘You have the ‘voice crack’,’ she nodded, continuing the joke. Theo chuckled again.
‘That makes no sense but thanks anyway. If you like, I give you some serious dirty talk with my ‘crack’ voice…’
He waggled his eyebrows suggestively but she knew he wasn’t serious. She sighed. The lack of sex over the past couple of months was beginning to get to her but the doctor had told her – after repeated badgering – to take things easy.
And the last thing she wanted to with Theo was to ‘take it easy’. She wanted him to fuck her senseless, to suck his cock, bite down on his nipples…she shook herself. You are a nympho, Wood. But she knew Theo was feeling it too. She caught him looking at her last night, his eyes raking over her body as they shared a bath. The red raw scars on her belly were a stark reminder of why they couldn’t rush th
e sex thing and he’d traced them gently with his finger.
‘Does it still hurt?’
She shook her head. It wasn’t a complete lie – it was just sometimes when she’d move awkwardly, the healing muscles inside her would screech and she’d curse softly. But, god, she wanted him so badly. She had felt, all this time in hospital, that she had become this sexless thing, someone who smelled of antiseptic and medication, someone as alluring as a bedpan. She’d told Theo that one night when she’d gotten upset, overtired and in pain. He had held her all too gently and told her she was the most beautiful thing in the world.
If only she could believe him. She looked over at him, saw the stress etched on his gorgeous face even when he was smiling, the smile never quite reached his eyes.
‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, obviously sensed her scrutiny.
The tension in chest became almost crushing but she kept it inside as Theo expertly landed the helicopter and helped her out of the cabin.
Theo took her hand and they walked slowly towards the house. His mother had been here, after the crime scene investigators and had cleaned up the blood. Jess’s blood. Amelia hadn’t said much to him but Seb, his usual exuberance missing, had told him that she’d gone home and immediately taken a long bath. The twins had heard her heart-broken, stricken sobbing through the silent house. His mother, Seb, and Tom had been frequent visitors to Jess’s bedside when she was in hospital, and even his sister, Milly, had flown into meet her. Jess was their family now. It had helped him immeasurably.
Now, he unlocked the door and turned to Jess. He could feel her trembling and took her into his arms. ‘Jessie…’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, looking up into his eyes, ‘I’m ready.’
She was okay right up until she saw the blood on the floor. Her hand flexed, tightened in Theo’s. As she took in the place where she nearly died – no, she thought, was almost murdered - she drew in a shaky breath and closed her eyes.
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