by Natalie Ann
“Does it matter? Once is enough, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. Which begs the question why she stayed.”
“Sean, I don’t know, I really don’t. And no, it wasn’t all the time. Not even once a month. A handful of times a year really. But like I said, once was enough. He was always belittling her, knocking her down emotionally. I have no clue when he started to get physically violent with her. We’ve never talked about it, but it was like a game—beat her down worse than the last time, give her more time to heal, and more time to play with her mind that it wasn’t going to happen again, that he was sorry. And when she least expected, then he’d strike again.”
Sean had so many things he wanted to ask and just didn’t know if he should, or even if he could get the words past his lips. Before he could speak, she just started to talk some more and he was going to let her. “My mother used to be more like me, you know. She was happy, but shy, always helping others, always making things and wanting to make our house pretty. Crafty, I guess you could say. I remember those things as a child. It’s surprising to me that I have those fond memories, that they weren’t all clouded with fear from the other times.”
He was surprised too but kept those words to himself. Instead he asked, “What changed with her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen it enough in the shelters. The women get beaten down enough, so much so they think they deserve it. I think she was afraid to leave him. I remember him threatening to find her and kill her. It’s sad, but I remember those words so vividly.”
“Which is why you reacted the way you did just now and why you’re fearful for your mother. But it’s been what, over twenty years? You haven’t had any contact with him at all in that time?”
“No, I haven’t, and neither has my mother that I know of. I really believe my grandmother would shoot him if he stepped foot near her. My mom was beaten down so much, physically and mentally, but she finally had enough and we left in the middle of the night, in the worst snowstorm I can remember. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as I remember, but as a kid, I just feared we weren’t going to make it by car.”
“She left in a snowstorm?” He couldn’t imagine what would finally possess Trisha to leave at that point in time, under those conditions. “Why not during the day when he was at work?”
“My father worked for the city we lived in, for the Department of Transportation. He was always driving around town in the vehicles, spying on her, I’m sure. I remember bits and pieces of conversations and my mother asking him how he knew she was at the store on her lunch hour and such. She probably felt she had no way to run without him knowing. But he got called in in the middle of the night to clear the roads, and I’m sure she saw her chance.”
He was holding her hand now, running his fingers over her knuckles, over the ring he gave her—his heart. “What happened that night?” He just felt something had to trigger it.
“It was bad. My father had started to hit me months prior, but he never left marks, or marks that my mother could see. He’d pull my hair, slap my face. I guess you could say little things compared to what she went through. But one day he got careless and threw me against the wall. I don’t even remember why, but he left some bruises on my back and my mother noticed. She confronted him, and things escalated. Which is why I never told her what he was doing. He said if I did, he’d make her pay.”
Carly was crying now, and he couldn’t do anything other than hold her while she did, let her talk only if she wanted to. “I was ten, Sean, and I remember that night, even though I’ve tried so hard to forget. I was in my room and I’d locked the door from the inside. I heard her screaming at him. She’d never yelled before; she always tried to calmly talk to him, and sometimes it worked. Maybe that’s why she stayed, I have no idea, but it was bad that night, louder than before, tons of things broken, my mother crying and yelling out in pain. I was hiding in the closet and still heard it all. More than I wanted.”
Sean felt sick. This beautiful little girl hiding in her closet, listening to her father beat her mother. There were just no words.
“Things got silent; maybe I fell asleep. It wasn’t the first time my mother used the key to open my door and found me sleeping in the closet in the morning. But I heard the phone ringing. That’s what woke me up. No one called our house and I feared it was the police, or a neighbor.”
Taking a deep breath, she explained, “We’d been evicted before over the noise and damage. Police had been called in, social services, you name it, it all happened, yet nothing ever happened either. The system is pretty broken at times. Anyway, the next thing I know, my mother is in my room throwing a few clothes in a bag and telling me to hurry and grab whatever I could hold and move.”
She paused and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’d never seen her like that. There was dried blood all over her face, one eye was swollen shut, cigarette burns on her, and she was limping, but she was determined. I could see it even then, so I did what she said. Then she bundled me up in my jacket over my pajamas and we raced out of the house and left. We never looked back. We drove to my grandmother’s about an hour away, and my grandmother threw what she could in her car, then followed us as we drove all night and into the day. It took twice as long as it should have, but we finally reached Saratoga.”
“Why here? Why didn’t she go to the police?”
“He worked for the city we’d lived in, like I said. They knew him; they turned a blind eye. Why did we come here? Because my grandmother said that they’d passed through Saratoga once on their way to the Adirondacks when my mother was a child. They’d stopped for lunch and gas and she remembered thinking what a great city it was, the quaint downtown, the homey feel of it all. That night, she said her car just seemed to take her here, and my mother followed.”
“For months, maybe years we looked over our shoulder, but he never made an attempt to come after her. That first year here we noticed the change in my mother, the depression setting in. I heard her talking to my grandmother one night, saying she blamed herself for staying as long as she did. She really believed he’d follow her and kill her; that’s why she never left before. But he didn’t and she felt she subjected herself and me to it for longer than she should have.”
He didn’t want to hear anymore. He could imagine—no he couldn’t and didn’t want to, but if she wanted to talk he would let her. “What do you need right now?”
“I just want to feel safe.”
“You are safe,” he told her desperately. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know you will. I believe you, I really do. But if he is still here, that fear is too.”
“Why don’t you go take a bath? Unless you still want to talk.” He needed a breather. He needed to process all this because right now he wanted to rush out the door and look for Joe and beat him to death. Even that wouldn’t be satisfying enough.
“No, I’m done talking. I’ve said more than I ever thought I’d say. And, Sean, I would have told you eventually, probably not as much as I did tonight, but I wasn’t going to keep it from you.”
He believed her. He was positive it wasn’t a subject that could just come up out of the blue, especially since she fought so hard to put it behind her.
He pulled her up and hugged her tight, then led her up the stairs and into the bathroom. Turning the tub on, he poured bubbles in and helped undress her and stayed there until she was in the water relaxing. “I won’t go far. I’ll just be downstairs, I promise.”
“Watch the clock. If my grandmother doesn’t call, please call her.”
“I will. I’ll take care of it.” And you.
He shut the door and didn’t get one step before he heard the sobs coming from inside. He was torn between rushing back in and giving her space. He knew she’d appreciate the space right now.
Walking downstairs, he pulled out his phone, flipped through his contacts and placed a call he never thought he’d make in a million years.
Always Deserved
<
br /> Carly laid her head on her knees again, curled in a little ball in the tub, bubbles and the scent of lavender floating around her. What should have been relaxing her was making her tense. Nothing was going to relax her right now, maybe never again.
Unable to control her emotions, the sobs just flowed out, tears mixing in with the water, popping the bubbles as they fell.
Why wouldn’t it end? Why couldn’t she just live a normal life? A life she was trying so hard to live, to push all those evil memories, feelings and demons away. The one problem was they would never go away, not if her father was still looking for her.
And now he found her. She thought she was covering her tracks, changing her email every time he contacted her in the last few years.
Actually, as far as she knew, it was only twice he tried. The third time she changed her email, she blocked his. Who knew if he was trying to reach her still? She didn’t care. She’d wanted nothing to do with him. Ever again. That fourth change was just a precaution.
She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to hear his name and didn’t want to speak his name. Changing her name to Callahan couldn’t come fast enough for her—wiping out the last remaining piece tying her to her past with him.
Knowing she should call and talk to her mother didn’t make her get out of the tub. She was too weak still. She knew Sean would do as he promised—he’d watch out for her, and he’d keep track that her grandmother called. Until then, she closed her eyes and willed herself to block out the night, to block out the past completely. If only it were that easy.
***
“So did you find anything out?” Alec asked his brother Ben the next morning in the conference room. Alec, Ben, Phil and Sean were meeting with the door shut.
Sean had hated making the call to Ben last night, but it was all he could think to do. He knew Ben had contacts deep in law enforcement from his years as a Commander in the Elite Navy SEALs. He’d been hoping they’d come in handy.
Ben snorted and eyed his older brother. “Really? I thought the oldest was supposed to be the smartest.”
“It’s not the time,” Phil jumped in, normally the peaceful one of the boys. Turning to Sean, he asked first, “How’s Carly doing?”
“She’s as good as could be expected. I drove her to the school, walked her in and straight to the security office like you said, Ben. I gave a description to the officer so there is no chance Joe will be getting into the school, not without being buzzed in through the doors, then searched. I told her to stay put until I picked her up.”
“That’s good,” Ben said. “Here’s what I found out. Twenty years ago there weren’t the paper trails there are now, but there was enough for me to pick up things and put them together. Joe was looking for Trisha and Carly. I found a private investigator that Joe had hired back then and I managed to talk to him last night. He’d actually kept all his paper records from back then, but said that he didn’t even need to look into them. He remembered the case well.”
“Why’s that?” Sean asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“The PI was young, just starting out and took whatever clients he could. He remembered Joe coming in acting all big and tough, trying to be intimidating. Scott, the PI, said Joe was a real dick, but he was a client so he did what was asked. At the time though, there was little to lead Scott to Trisha and Carly. It’d been almost a week before Joe went to him, and by then there was no sign of the girls anywhere. Scott had gone to Theresa’s house and asked the neighbors, then had the landlord let him into her apartment after it was reported her car had been gone for days. There was evidence she picked up and took off in a hurry. Scott couldn’t even track their cars; they both sold them fast, so there was no record of what they were using as transportation.”
“Sounds like Carly comes from some pretty tough stock,” Alec said. “Brynn filled me in on a few things last night, but I doubt she knows everything.”
“I don’t think anyone knows everything,” Sean said. “She told me some things last night, things I wish I never heard and will never get the images out of my head. I’m still ill over it.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him, trust me,” Ben said. “So after a few months and no signs of them, and nothing to report back to Joe, Scott stopped looking. He confided in me that he actually remembered hoping he didn’t find them because he would have felt honor bound to notify Joe, even though he secretly prayed the three were long gone.”
“I still can’t believe they were able to hide that well,” Phil said, shaking his head.
“Back then it was easier,” Ben interrupted. “Credit cards weren’t used as much. They were using cash for everything, it seems. There were no employment records for those years either. I did some research on Trisha and Theresa myself. Up until about ten years ago it was like they were ghosts. Whatever jobs they had, they were being paid cash for them. No public help, nothing.”
“Carly told me last night that her mother and grandmother cleaned houses. They also did a lot of arts and crafts fairs, so it seems to fit they supported themselves with cash only.”
“Someone was thinking ahead, it seems,” Phil said.
“Anyway, Joe lost interest in them at the time. Then once a year he’d go back to Scott and ask him to look again, and of course there was nothing. Multiple years went by and I saw some charges were brought up on abuse and assault against him, but they were dropped.”
“If they were dropped, how did you get them?” Alec asked.
“Do you really want to know?” Ben returned with his eyebrows raised.
“Probably not,” Alec said. “Go on, what else?”
Ben turned back to Sean. “Anyway, the first thing I did was search his tax returns and saw that Joe was still at his same job, then suddenly nothing, no tax return one year. Another search found he was in jail for assault and battery, with multiple charges, and he served five years, then five years’ probation.”
“He finally got his due, then,” Phil said.
“Hardly,” Sean said. Five years—that was nothing to the twenty-plus years Carly and her mother had lived with.
“Sean’s right,” Ben said. “Those five years on probation, he moved around within his boundaries holding down some part-time jobs, nothing major. And it seems he stayed out of trouble, until recently.”
“What happened?” Sean didn’t want to know, but he needed to right now. They needed to know everything before they could decide on their next step.
“He obviously never learned from his mistakes or stopped beating on women. His latest is in a coma on life support. As of last night, the State Police in Pennsylvania informed me the family is taking her off. There’s a warrant out for Joe’s arrest, and he’ll be charged with murder once she passes.
Sean put his head down on the table. “I’m going to throw up.” He took a few deep breaths, lifted his head and looked around at the Harper brothers, their faces filled with sympathy and determination. “I brought him here. I put our engagement in the paper. She didn’t know about it. She was upset when I said I did it, but I didn’t think anything of it. I was just so excited about it and figured she would be too.”
“You couldn’t have known, Sean,” Alec said, reaching over and laying his hand on Sean’s back. “None of us knew. How could we? Even Brynn didn’t know the extent of what we’re finding out.”
“What do we do now?” Phil asked.
Ben looked at Sean. “You still have his cell number, right?”
“Yeah, I do. Why the hell would he give it to me if he was running from the law?” It made no sense.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to use it, and we’re going to call him. The local State Police will be here at ten to set everything up. By the end of the day, Carly and Trisha should be free to live their lives.”
***
Sean walked to the front door of the school, stated his name and was buzzed in. Classes had been dismissed over an hour ago, and there were only a few cars left in
the parking lot.
He hadn’t felt this free in longer than he could remember, and he couldn’t wait to go see Carly and tell her.
Walking down the hall to her room, he looked around at the pictures hanging that the students had drawn, all their projects and all the handwritten notes. Someday he’d walk these very halls and look at the work his own kids did.
Turning the corner into her room, he looked at her. Carly’s head was down as she wrote something on the paper in front of her, concentrating hard, he could see.
She lifted her head quickly and jumped, still skittish, but she’d said she wanted to go to school today to keep her mind off of everything, and honestly he knew it was the safest place for her to be. The school in their area had a high level of security. No one could get in without being screened first. Ben even told him after the fact that he’d called in a favor and the local police had stayed around the school all day.
“I lost track of the time,” she said.
He walked over and sat on the corner of her desk and held out his hand. “You’re free now.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, her eyes darting around, wariness front and center.
“It’s over. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“You mean that? How? What happened? It’s only been eight hours since you dropped me off.”
“Friends in good places,” he told her, grinning. He wanted to see her smile, and she did manage to crack the barest of grin. “I’m serious. Your father is in jail right now. He’ll be going away for a long time. You will know exactly where he is, and know what is going to happen to him. If he ever gets out, you’ll know and we’ll prepare. It’s behind you, Carly.”
“Jail?” she asked, wide-eyed. “What happened? Are you hurt?” She was scanning his body, looking for any signs of injury, but there were none.
“No. Nothing happened like that.” He told her about his meeting in the morning with Ben, Alec and Phil and what had been discovered. “When the State Police arrived they had me call your father.”