Or could she have been wrong about that, shocked and injured as she appeared to be?
“Stay here and see to her,” Wallace told Beau, his drawn gun slanted downward and his breathing heavy. Other footsteps preceded the arrival of a younger man with buzzed blond hair, whom Beau recognized as an off-duty deputy who sometimes assisted Reverend Turner at the church.
Pointing at him, the sheriff ordered, “With me. We need to run down the man who did this. He armed?” he asked Emma.
Still trembling, she shook her head as her remaining sandal dropped to the ground. “I don’t—I didn’t see. It was all too fast. I—I don’t even know who—”
But Wallace and his deputy were already running, the younger man quickly outpacing his superior after bending forward to pull a backup weapon from an ankle holster. Beau wanted to go after them, to make damned sure that whoever had hurt Emma was apprehended—but not before sustaining some injuries of his own. Instead, he turned his attention to the woman in his arms.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he told her, carrying her away from the weed-choked pasture and across the parking lot toward his pickup.
More people were emerging from the service now, and an exclamation of alarm rose as several caught sight of Emma in his arms. She turned her face against his shoulder, her body shrinking against him as a handful of individuals ran toward them, peppering them with questions.
“Gracious me! What happened?”
“Should I get an ambulance?”
“Have you called 911 yet? Never mind. I’ve got ’em on the line!”
Emma’s words rose from the level of his chest. “Please get me out of here. Right now. I don’t want my students—anybody—seeing me like this.”
Her halting words brought back what she’d told him earlier about having to divorce her jealous husband for everybody’s safety. This, he thought, was a woman who had hid her battered face before. A woman abused by the same man she had so stubbornly insisted had killed her graduate assistant.
Had the spineless SOB tracked her here, stalking and attacking her this afternoon? Could she be right, too, to think her student had been murdered?
Before he could process the question—or wonder if Emma had been truthful when she’d claimed she hadn’t seen the man who’d hurt her—Beau spotted his aunt and the boys. “Can you take them over to the Crazy Cow?” he called to Aunt Alicia. “I’m running Dr. Copley to the ER to get her checked out. I’ll see you all back home.”
His aunt nodded before turning away Cort and Leland, who were straining to get an eyeful and trying to shoehorn in their own questions about what happened to the pretty lady among the clamor, and hurrying them toward her car.
Moments later, Beau placed Emma in his truck’s passenger seat and buckled her in after asking her students to give her some air.
“I need you two to let the sheriff know we’ll be at the ER,” he told the student with the ripped jeans and his friend with the rainbow hair before turning his attention to Emma.
“Here you go,” he said in the same tone he’d use to calm one of his sons after a nightmare as he handed Emma a clean towel he’d found in the rear seat.
“Press this against your forehead as tight as you can stand it to slow down the bleeding. Then we’ll get you out of here and away from all these people.”
The pain in her eyes eased, replaced by a look of gratitude. Wadding up one end of the towel, she did as he’d suggested and allowed the rest of the material to drape down to hide her face. Was she hiding the shame of a once-loving relationship that had spiraled out of her control, or was he misreading this? Was there something else she was concealing?
Waving off further questions, he climbed behind the wheel. As they sped away, Beau glanced at her, noticing her bruised legs and recalling the way her shirt was torn open.
“You weren’t—? He didn’t—” Beau stopped himself abruptly, unable to choke out any reference to sexual assault. Though he’d dealt with a number of such incidents during his military career, the idea of such a thing happening here in Pinto Creek, to her, in the few minutes after she had left the community center, had his stomach flipping.
“No, thank God,” she said, apparently following his train of thought. “He didn’t have the chance to... I don’t even know what he wanted. I only know he g-grabbed my neck, and then I broke away, fell forward. He tried to get hold of me again, but I—I screamed and kicked, and then I guess he heard you coming. All I know is he was gone, and there w-was all this blood.”
As he slowed for an intersection, he caught her full-body shudder out of the corner of his eye.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” he tried to reassure her. “Facial cuts can bleed a lot, but a stitch or two, and you’ll be—”
Bending forward, she was sick, and his foot mashed down on the accelerator harder.
* * *
“You’re still here?” Emma said as Beau peeked his head around the curtained-off emergency department exam area hours later. “I told you when they brought me back, you didn’t need to wait around. I’m fine, or I will be.”
It was only partially a lie. Following an exam, a CT scan and four sutures just below her hairline, the doctor had confirmed that she would soon recover. But Emma couldn’t stop shaking every time her brain replayed the sound of her attacker’s fast-approaching footsteps, or the feeling of his iron grip on her throat. Whoever had attacked her had surely meant to leave her as dead as Russell. She could not imagine that the two acts weren’t related.
Her pulse fluttered, and her stomach tightened. What if he came after her again?
“You’re sure you’re all right? You look a little queasy.” Beau shifted his suit jacket, which he’d removed, to drape it casually over one well-muscled forearm, bared now since he’d rolled his sleeves up.
“The doctor says there’s nothing serious.”
“So, no concussion?” he asked. “I was worried, with the vomiting.”
She winced. “Sorry about your truck.”
He shook his head and raised a hand. “Already taken care of, so please don’t worry about it. My main concern is how you’re doing.”
“It was just like you said before,” she told him, remembering his assurances on the way over, “a few stitches, a bit of a headache, and there’s bound to be some bruising.”
“You do look better since they got you cleaned up,” he said, nodding toward her freshly washed face and the hospital gown that a nurse had assisted her getting into.
“That helped a lot,” she said, feeling less like a horror movie extra with most of the blood cleaned off and her wound covered with a neat white bandage.
The tension written in his face eased, and she could see he really had been worried for her. “Your students will be so relieved,” he said. “They got your earlier message that you’d be okay, but those two have been driving the staff crazy trying to get someone to let them back here to check on you in person.”
“So how did you?” she asked before his fleeting half smile raised her suspicions. “Wait a minute. Let me guess. This is another of those special Kingston privileges, right?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” he told her, though his offhand shrug spoke volumes. “But I’ve always figured it’s better to seek forgiveness than prior approval—especially when everyone’s momentarily distracted by some drunk guy yelling at the triage desk.”
A laugh slipped out before the wrongness of it in these circumstances hit her. Blinking tears away, she said, “It’s not funny. None of this is.”
His eyes went somber. “I know, Emma. But sometimes you have to smile, or even laugh out loud, to get through the rough stuff.”
A shadow darkened his expression, reminding her that he knew of what he spoke. Or at least that’s what she’d overheard yesterday when she’d stopped to pick up a to-go breakfast from the café. Thoug
h the bells on the door had jingled with her entry, the two waitresses, a curvy little brunette with exaggerated cat’s-eye makeup and a willowy redhead with the legs of a Las Vegas showgirl, were too engrossed in their gossip to notice. So Emma had waited at the counter while they’d idly wiped condiment containers on the tables and chatted about how Beau Kingston had been mourning the wife lost in a car crash back on a snowy Colorado mountainside for almost three whole years already—and how one of them had better do something about it before some damned gold digger beats us to the mother lode.
The poor man. “Thanks,” she managed, noticing that he looked a bit rumpled this evening, with his thick black hair slightly ruffled and a hint of stubble darkening his cheeks. His collar unbuttoned; he’d taken off his tie, too, and she saw that his blue dress shirt was smeared with red streaks near the collar. Her blood, she realized, imagining she must have gotten it all over him when he’d picked her up.
“I—I hope your suit’s not ruined.” She thought of how freshly combed and handsome he’d looked sitting with his family earlier during Russell’s service. “I can pay for cleaning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beau said in a voice that brooked no argument. What she’d imagined as fatigue fell away, replaced by an intensity that took her breath away. “If anyone pays, it’s going to be your ex.”
“My...what?” She shook her head, pain blossoming anew. “Why would you say that? I never said that Jeremy was the one who—who hurt me.”
She’d been so intent on the evidence she’d brought to show the sheriff, she hadn’t once thought of her ex-husband.
“You’re sure about that?” Beau asked. “Because after the way you were acting and what you said before about your divorce—”
He must have noticed the way she was looking at him because he explained, “I served a couple of tours with the marine corps MPs right out of high school. Military police. Sometimes, during our, um, domestic investigations, the women didn’t want to speak up.”
She looked up sharply. “I don’t know who it was. One moment, I was back there, waiting near the rear of the building to try to catch the sheriff when he came out, and the next second I heard footsteps before someone grabbed me.”
“A man?” he asked. “It was definitely a man who jumped you?”
An impression of power and speed convinced her. “I’m pretty sure of that much, but as for everything else... And anyway, why are you asking me these questions? Shouldn’t the sheriff or someone be here by now? Someone from the department?”
“I’m guessing they’re still tied up looking for that suspect. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt to gather some facts for him while they’re still fresh on your mind.” Beau might be a rancher and no longer an MP, but the cop behind his gaze loomed large.
She shrugged. “I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt, if I knew anything to tell you.”
“Was he tall or short? Young, old? Did you maybe notice skin tone, hair, eye color?”
“I—I couldn’t say.” She shook her throbbing head. “It happened so fast.”
“Did he say anything?”
She tried to think back, her heart accelerating and her stomach knotting with the memory. “No words I could make out. But I don’t really think—it just didn’t feel like my ex-husband.” Fragments spun through her mind, impossible to nail down.
“Any idea of what he was wearing? What about tattoos? Scars?”
Frustration mounting, she lashed out. “If I could tell you for certain who had done this, don’t you think I would? Especially if it was my ex, of all people?”
Beau blew out a sigh. “I don’t know you well enough to say for sure what you’d do. But I do know that for some victims of abuse, feelings can get in the way.”
Bristling, she sat upright on the emergency department bed. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Kingston. I appreciate your help. I do, but whatever’s happened to me, I’m nobody’s victim. I’m a fighter, so don’t stand there looking down at me like I’m some pitiful broken thing it’s your job to protect.”
He raised his palms. “I stand corrected, Dr. Copley. I didn’t mean to push it. Or to offend you, either.”
She blew out a breath, forcing herself not to take her roiling emotions out on the near stranger who had helped her. The man she’d thanked by making a mess of both his suit and his truck.
“You should call me Emma,” she said by way of apology for the anger she still heard crackling in her voice. “I owe you at least that much for bailing me out again and hanging around here all evening. It must be ten o’clock by now, at least.” With the emergency department crowded, she’d ended up waiting around for what seemed like an eternity while a number of food poisoning cases from a family barbecue gone wrong were treated.
“You don’t owe me anything. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and I did what anyone would. It’s only common decency.”
“I’m not sure decency’s quite as common as you think,” she said, “but thank you. And thanks, too, for—for getting me out of there so quickly. My students, though. Maybe we should bring them in here.”
“I sent them on a mission, partly to keep them busy for a little while. The young man’s driving the girl with all the colors in her hair—I think her name is Lacey?”
“Lucie,” Emma corrected, her heart aching to imagine what both her students must be thinking, with their professor attacked so closely on the heels of their friend’s death.
“I called the motel manager—Nadine’s an old friend—to ask her to let the girl into your room to take care of your dog and pick up a change of clothing for you,” Beau said. “I’m afraid the sheriff’s office is going to need to collect what you had on tonight.”
“For evidence, I’m told.” A shudder started deep inside Emma before rippling across the surface of her flesh. It wasn’t as if she wanted any of the torn and bloodstained garments back again. It was the thought of what had happened to them—and the purse she’d been carrying when she’d left the community center earlier.
Her pulse fluttered in her throat. “What about my handbag? Did you happen to see it? I must’ve dropped it somewhere when I was—”
He frowned and shook his head. “I remember spotting your other sandal, but I don’t recall any kind of bag.”
“A small shoulder bag. It can’t be gone. It can’t be.”
“Maybe someone found it. One of the deputies or—”
She hugged herself. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t.” His gaze locked onto hers. “Why would you have been waiting behind the building for the sheriff anyway? And what was in that purse?”
She hesitated, weighing how far she should trust him. But what difference did it make at this point if he knew? “Fleming’s been avoiding me for days, ducking my visits, ignoring my messages. Only this time, I had proof. Proof of why someone might have wanted Russell silenced.”
With a swish of the curtain, the sheriff crowded into the space beside Beau and frowned down at Emma. His face gleamed with perspiration, and his uniform shirt, smudged with grime, had come untucked on one side. Removing his hat, he raked his fingers through dark blond hair several shades less gray than his drooping mustache. “What’s this nonsense about me ducking you? It’s been a busy week, that’s all. Tonight, for example, we ran halfway across town on foot before a lady pointed out where she’d heard her neighbor’s door slam just a minute or two prior.”
He puffed his chest out, thrusting his jaw forward. “That’s when we nabbed our man sneakin’ out the back way, scratches all down his face.”
“I don’t remember scratching him.” Confusion swirled through Emma’s mind as she tried to make the pieces fit. “He grabbed me from behind. I never got the chance to—”
“Registered sex offender, this fella. Thought ol’ Jorge might actually keep his nose clean and his fly
zipped this time, but he’s known to collect empties outta trash bins to recycle, and I guess the sight of a pair of pretty legs in a short skirt was too much for him, and he decided today was the day to graduate from flashing. If we can’t get a confession outta him, maybe we’ll get lucky on some of the blood found on your clothing or underneath your nails.”
So that was why the older nurse assigned to her had clipped Emma’s nails and taken scrapings from underneath them. Just in case you caught him without realizing it in the struggle, the woman had said, patting Emma’s arm gently before and after the procedure and the exam that followed.
Emma asked the sheriff, “Did you find my purse back there? I’m sure I had it with me by the dumpster.”
“Can’t say that I did,” the sheriff said, “but it might just turn up yet.”
Desperation clawing at her, she described it for him. “Small, black nylon, with three silver zippers across the front.”
“We’ll find it if he’s got it,” Wallace told her, “unless he ditched it somewhere on his way back to that old house he lives in and someone grabbed it. Soon as you can, though, you’d best put a call in to your bank and any card providers, just in case some associate of his is off and runnin’ with your credit cards.”
“I don’t care about the cards,” she cried. “Or my cell phone or my Jeep keys, either. Those can be replaced, but not—There were papers in there. Handwritten notes I found when I packed up Russell’s clothing to clear out his motel room.”
The sheriff shook his head. “A deputy and I thoroughly searched and cleared that room the day after Mr. Jorgenson’s death. Didn’t see anything but his clothes and shoes left, and a few personal whatnots. No kind of papers I remember.”
“I didn’t find them at first, either,” she said, “not until I heard this crinkling sound when I was packing up his duffel. It led me to a false bottom and a little packet of pages hidden underneath it.”
“And you were alone at the time?” he asked.
Deadly Texas Summer Page 5