by Mandie Tepe
“No, Kelli . . . No! You did great! I’m so proud of you.” He tried to reassure her.
She choked out. “He found my phone . . . if I had hidden it better, I could’ve stayed to help Gracie . . .”
“No! This is better. It’s better that he let you go.” He helped her over to a chair and sat her down, kneeling beside her. He reached out to touch her face, but was afraid to. “Oh my, God . . . Kelli. Your face.”
Her eye had swollen completely shut and the whole left side of her face was swollen and bruised. The swelling was getting worse, causing the butterfly bandages on the cut at her temple to strain and threaten to come loose. The blood from that cut had dried in her hair. She had blood caked at the side of her mouth, her lip split open. Mathias walked up behind Sonny quietly and studied Kelli’s face. He wrapped his arms around his middle and bent over at the waist, sure he was going to be sick. He’d flashed back to Gracie’s face after Rob had put her in the hospital and rage filled him. Now he’d done it again. Hurt this sweet, quiet, shy girl whose only sin had been to befriend Gracie.
Savannah rushed over with a bag of ice wrapped in a bar towel and a glass of wine. Kelli stopped sobbing when she saw it and a tiny glint of amusement flashed from her right eye. “Wine?” she asked.
Savannah looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, sweetie.” She wrung her hands. “I don’t know what to do. When I have a really bad day, I want wine. ‘Course I never had a day this bad.”
“Thanks, Savannah, but I don’t think I could keep that down,” Kelli said.
Meg walked over. “How about some tea, then?”
“That sounds better, thanks.” Kelli tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace.
Savannah looked panicked. She whispered to Meg, “I don’t think I have any teabags.”
Jenna and Trish stood up. “We’ll find some. Don’t worry,” Trish said. They both headed for the door to look for a twenty-four hour grocery store that stocked herbal tea.
Kelli looked around the room and noticed that the entire SEAL team and their wives were there. Meg’s best friend, Tobi, was there too, along with all the other members of Sugar Creek. Here it was, almost two o’clock in the morning, and they had all gathered to support Sonny and Gracie. She’d always been impressed with this “SEAL family,” but this was impressive beyond anything she’d seen from them before.
Charley came over to fuss over her and berated her into holding the ice over her face. He waved Titus, the team’s medic, over to check her out too, but she brushed him aside, informing him she’d already seen the paramedics. She noticed he didn’t go far, though, hovering behind her and keeping a close eye on her—muttering something about traumatic brain injury manifesting into something called “talk and die” syndrome. She rolled her eyes—well, her eye.
She answered as many questions as she could, and the impatience came off the SEALs in waves. They were usually the ones who went in and solved these kinds of problems. They knew they’d have been in and out of there long before now. Granted, they didn’t have the same protocols law enforcement had to live by. But still . . . they were chomping at the bit to go in and do the job themselves. She noticed the team’s CO and his wife were present too. She knew he cared about his guys, but she wondered how much of his being there was to sit on them so they wouldn’t suit up and go over there to do something stupid.
After awhile the front door swung open and two figures rushed in. It was one of the bartenders and the cute blonde waitress—Stevie, Kelli thought they called her. The two of them rushed over to Sonny.
“We just talked to the police at their command center,” Stevie said. “About that guy. He’s been in here at Savannah’s—pretty regularly in the past couple of weeks.”
All eyes turned toward her. Sonny seemed stunned. “You’ve seen him in here?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know who he was, of course. I just thought he was some really creepy guy. He always had his cap pulled over his face and he kept to himself. But he kept watching everybody. In a weird and creepy way . . . and—“
“Wait a minute,” Sonny interrupted him. “What kind of ball cap?” He got a sinking feeling in his gut.
“It was a dark green cap . . . with some kind of letter on the front.” She looked over at the bartender.
“It was an Oakland A’s cap,” Jase said.
Sonny turned his attention to Jase. “You saw him too?”
“Yeah . . . he was here Saturday night and Stevie asked me to wait on him ‘cause he skeeved her out so bad.”
Sonny ran his hands through his hair and huffed out a sigh. “Saturday night. I think I saw him too. He wasn’t a foot away from Gracie and me at one point. Jeez,” he said in disgust. He looked over Mathias. “You know what this means? He’s been stalking her.”
Mathias’ cell phone rang. He studied the display and punched the connect button. “What the hell’s going on, Anderson?” he demanded. “That scumbag, Chilton is holding my sister at gunpoint when he should be rotting in prison!” He was screaming by the time he got to the end of that sentence, causing everyone in the room to flinch. He listened for a minute. “You’re telling me the parole board cut him loose and didn’t notify you? There’re laws, Anderson, and even if there weren’t, there’s human decency.” He listened awhile longer. “Fine. Let’s just trot on over to my sister’s place and apologize to her for the fact that some freakin’ paperwork got lost on somebody’s desk! I’m sure that will make her feel so much better.” He slammed his phone shut and growled.
He looked around and noticed he had everyone’s full attention. “The prosecutor from Gracie’s case.” He shook his head in disgust. “The damn parole board awarded him parole after serving a whopping twenty-eight months of a seven-year sentence. Because, you see, our Robbie was such a good boy and model prisoner, and he hadn’t yet gotten around to beating some other woman senseless before he beat Gracie half to death—which makes him a first time offender.” He looked regretfully at Kelli and shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Kelli, but it looks like he’s not a one-time offender now—at your expense.” He dropped into a chair. “Apparently the notification papers were buried under a mountain of paperwork on the wrong administrative assistant’s desk, or Anderson would have given us some warning. My God!” He chuckled humorlessly. “You’ll be glad to know that Chilton’s parole officer—who, apparently didn’t even know he’d gone missing—is on his way down even as we speak.”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Gracie watched as Rob became more and more unglued. He was rambling on and on about how they could get remarried as soon as possible, and move back to their happy little townhouse and pretend none of these unfortunate events had ever happened. She quickly realized that he wanted to talk at her more than talk with her.
She was learning a lot, though. And a lot of her suspicions were verified. He swore the affairs—plural—didn’t mean a thing. She’d suspected there had been more. He also kept going on and on about how he needed her. He never once apologized or offered her any reason that their reconciliation would benefit her in any way. She just stared at him and wondered why she never saw him for who he truly was. How could she have not seen through the mask in all of that time?
She was shocked that he knew so much about her life in San Diego. It was obvious he’d been stalking her for a few weeks. Her skin crawled at that realization. He’d even been in the same room with her during her birthday/engagement party.
The hours crawled by, and she quit even trying to talk him down. He wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. She realized that had probably always been true. Their relationship had always been about him, she thought with disgust.
The more disgusted she got, the more determined she was to get out of there alive and throw herself into loving Sonny with everything she had. In the first couple of hours, she started questioning her judgment again. But after awhile she came to understand it had nothing to do with her.
This was all Rob. He’d shown her what he wanted her to see for years. It was true she’d made it easy for him, but she refused to take the blame anymore. She should have been able to trust him. The fact that he’d killed that trust was on him.
Now God had sent her Sonny and she would do whatever it took to get out of there and back into his arms. She had no idea where he was right now, but she felt him right there with her. She knew he was doing what he could too.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
What Sonny was doing was praying. And trying to take care of Kelli for Gracie. Kelli was looking worse by the minute and Titus was in his ear, telling him they had to get her to the hospital for a CAT scan or something. Kelli had been there for Gracie, so all he could do was make sure Kelli was okay when Gracie was free.
He took the bull by the horns. “Charley, get over here.” Charley scurried over and they each took one of Kelli’s arms, lifting her from her chair. “You drive her to the hospital. We’ll tie ‘er up if we have to. Come on Kelli, honey. Don’t give Gracie a reason to be mad at me when she gets here. If we don’t take care of you, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Titus and his wife, Beth, hurried over. Titus said, “We’re coming too. Come on, Kelli. Let’s go.”
Kelli looked imploringly at Sonny. “Promise you’ll call if you get any news. Any news. Okay?”
“The very second we hear something, you will too. Okay?” He hugged her when her good eye started leaking again. “It’ll be okay, honey.”
Charley, Titus and Beth steered her toward the door. As they walked past Mathias he startled her by gently putting his arms around her too. “I’m so sorry, Kelli,” he choked out.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Now Gracie was getting impatient. Why couldn’t she come up with a plan? She had convinced Rob to let her make coffee. He was fading fast, so she didn’t have to work too hard to sell the idea. Of course, he didn’t have to know she was using decaffeinated coffee grounds. It was a miracle she even had them, but Kelli tried to stay caffeine-free past six o’clock in the evening, so Gracie had recently stocked it for her. God bless Kelli, she thought. She was coming to the rescue again.
She glanced around the kitchen, hoping to find some inspiration. She had cough syrup in the medicine chest in the bathroom, but he wouldn’t let her in there alone so she couldn’t get to it to smuggle it out. He’d be able to taste it if she spiked his coffee with it anyway. She noticed it was nearly five o’clock in the morning already. When she peeked out the window she saw that the sky was beginning to lighten. She didn’t have any idea if that was going to be good or bad for her situation.
She knew there were cops out there, but didn’t know exactly what they were doing. Every so often, they used their bullhorn to try to get Rob to answer her cell phone. That was the phone they were using to try to make contact. He refused to speak to them. He refused to even acknowledge them at all. He was still under the delusion that as soon as she agreed to reconcile with him, all she’d have to do was vouch for him and all of this would go away.
She considered playing along with him—planning their future together and giving him a false sense of comfort by pretending she wanted a new start with him too. But when she even considered it, her stomach clenched. She would have felt like she was being disloyal to Sonny—even if it was a lie. She’d have to come up with something else. She prayed that God would send her inspiration.
She looked around the kitchen again and saw that all of her knives were gone. She realized he’d been in her apartment long enough before she got home to hide them. She couldn’t figure out what else she had to use as a weapon—at least anything that would stand up to the power of a gun.
Rob startled her by walking up behind her. Gracie slammed the cabinet door shut, hoping he hadn’t seen the “decaffeinated” label on the coffee can. She willed the coffee to drip through the basket faster. She wondered if she could slam the full pot of hot coffee against his head before he could get a shot off.
Just then a movement through the side door window caught her eye. She fought against showing any reaction, but he must have seen something on her face, because his head swung around. He saw the SWAT officer the same second she did, and he raised the gun. In that split second she decided no one else was going to get hurt because of her and this insane man—Kelli was one too many.
She lunged for him, trying to push the gun away from the window. As she fell across him the gun went off. She jerked backwards into the wall and slid to the floor, her shoulder on fire. She stared down in disbelief. She couldn’t be shot. How did she get here? Her eyes traveled up until they landed on his stunned face. He’d gone white as a sheet, staring at the blood running from her shoulder and across her chest.
Her phone immediately started chiming, and a disembodied voice came screaming through the bullhorn, begging him to pick up the phone . . . to please let them know what was going on. Was everyone okay? Was someone shot? All Gracie could think was, duh . . . of course, someone was shot.
Rob’s knees gave out, and he dropped to the floor. Gracie backed as far from him as she could and looked into his eyes, which moved from her shoulder to her eyes. She was shocked to see his had changed. They looked like good old Rob’s eyes, as they filled with tears.
He watched her watch him and sobbed, “Gracie . . .”
“Rob?” she asked, praying this was the sane Rob.
“Oh, my God. Gracie.” He curled up and sobbed harder. The problem was he still had the gun in his hand.
Gracie grabbed the dishtowel hanging within arm’s reach from the refrigerator door handle and pressed it against her shoulder. She didn’t think it would do much good, because it was soaked through immediately. She crawled over to Rob.
“Rob . . . let’s go outside. I need some help here. I need a doctor.”
He looked up at her. “I never wanted to hurt you. Do you believe me, Gracie?”
She nodded. “I do, Rob. I believe you.”
He just stared at her and jumped when her phone started ringing again.
She said, “Can I answer it? Can I tell them we’re coming out?”
“You can go. I’m going to stay here.”
She really didn’t like the look in his eye. Or the way he was holding that gun. She could have killed him herself a little while ago, but now she didn’t want him to hurt himself. “No, Rob. I won’t go without you. And if we don’t go soon, I could bleed to death. I know you don’t want that.” She watched him as some kind of internal debate was going on in his head. “Come on, Rob. Please. I don’t think I can make it out there on my own. I need you to help me.”
She didn’t know why she used that argument, because he’d never been all that interested in doing things for her before. Oh, well . . . it was worth a shot. And apparently miracles still happened. Rob sat up and pulled the phone out of his pocket and answered it.
“Yes,” he said woodenly. “Yes . . . We’re coming out . . . Okay.” He handed the phone to Gracie.
“Hello,” she asked tentatively.
“Gracie?” a man’s voice answered. “Are you okay?”
“Um . . . I’m losing a lot of blood, but yes, I think I’m okay.”
“Alright, Gracie . . . do you think he’s serious about coming out peacefully?”
“Yes. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He wants me to get help.” She continued to watch Rob and his eyes had filled up again at her words.
The negotiator asked to speak to Rob again, and it was obvious they were giving him very specific instructions on how to surrender. After Rob hung up the phone, he looked into Gracie’s eyes for a long time.
“I’m sorry, Gracie.”
She didn’t respond—just watched him crawl to the side door, crack it open and slide the gun out. Then he opened the door wide and crawled out—down the two steps that she and Sonny liked to sit out on, sharing a beer. She didn’t see anything
more, just heard a lot of shouting as SWAT officers swarmed over him and took him into custody.
Several officers came through the door with weapons drawn, one stopping to take care of her as the others cleared the apartment. The rest was a blur as the EMTs came in to patch her up enough to get her loaded into the ambulance.
CHAPTER 20
Sonny was going crazy, and it took all of his teammates to keep him from storming out and over to Gracie’s apartment. The liaison officer who’d sat at Savannah’s with them all night had informed them that a shot or shots had been fired inside her apartment about twenty minutes before. She swore that if they couldn’t get a response in the next few minutes, SWAT would storm the place anyway.
Officer Greene’s phone rang again and Sonny crowded her, trying to hear what was being said. The guys pulled him a few feet back and held on to him. Held him up, really. Her conversation was blessedly short, and she disconnected.
She looked over at Sonny. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?” He asked, dreading the answer.
“She’s on her way to the hospital. He’s in custody.”
“The hospital? How bad is it?” He had to know what he was walking into.
“I don’t know, Sonny. She’s conscious. She’s talking and seems lucid. Let’s go. I’ll drive and use the siren.” Officer Greene started for the door.
Sonny grabbed Mathias and they ran out behind her, the others calling out that they’d meet them at the trauma center.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
This situation was almost more frustrating than waiting for the hostage situation to be resolved. All the nursing staff would tell them was that Gracie was there and that the doctors were with her.
Charley, who had joined them with Kelli after she had been released, was convinced they could figure out a way to get in. They were SEALs, after all. Their CO quickly talked him down and they were all just pacing grooves into the floor.
