by Jane Blythe
As he stepped them out of her apartment, Laura whimpered.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “It’s done, we’re out. You're out of your apartment.”
Now that that first awful step was out of the way, and Laura hadn’t burst into flames, Jack’s confidence grew, and with long strides, he headed for the stairs. It seemed like the smart idea to keep her moving. If they stopped and waited for the lift, it would give Laura time to dwell. Taking the eight flights of stairs two at a time, they soon emerged into the lobby.
“Laura?” Connor Newman, one of the doormen, came rushing over. “Is she okay?” Concern was written all over the man’s face.
“She’s okay,” Jack replied for Laura. “We’re just trying something.”
“She’s agoraphobic, she can't be outside,” Connor admonished.
“So far, she’s made it from her apartment all the way down here,” Jack informed him somewhat distractedly. His attention was focused on Laura. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes were clenched shut, and she was worryingly pale. Still, they’d come this far, so Jack wanted to follow through.
“We’re going to go outside now.” Jack spoke softly in Laura’s ear.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Connor protested. “Look at her, she doesn’t want to, take her back to her apartment.”
Ignoring him, Jack walked the remaining short distance to the glass doors and then out into the night. A warm, gentle breeze wafted over them. The summer sky was clear and dark, dotted with thousands of merrily twinkling stars. The moon shone brightly, adding its own light to the glowing streetlights and car lights.
However, Laura didn’t appear to be enjoying the beautiful night.
In his arms, she was gasping for breath now. He could feel her heart beating wildly against his chest; her forehead was pressed against the side of his face and he could feel it beaded with sweat.
She was in full panic mode.
Cursing his own selfish desires to be Laura’s knight in shining armor and force her to do something she clearly wasn't ready for and in which he clearly held no expertise, Jack whisked her back indoors.
“It’s okay,” he crooned in her ear. “We’re back inside. I’ll have you in your apartment in no time, just try to hold on.”
“I told you that wasn't a good idea,” Connor yelled after them as Jack darted for the stairs.
Once again, he paid no heed to the doorman as he rushed Laura back up the stairs and into her apartment. Balancing Laura, he managed to lock the deadbolts behind them, then stood for a moment, giving his own pounding heart and ragged breath time to calm.
Well, that was a disaster. He was an idiot for attempting that on his own. Laura quite clearly needed professional help. What had he been thinking?
Right, that once again, it was all about him. It was that thinking that had led to him hurting Laura in the first place.
Not sure she would want to still be in his arms, Jack set her gently down on the sofa and sat beside her. Laura immediately crawled back into his lap, pressing her trembling body against him, and clinging to him like he was the only thing in the world that could help her right now.
Slowly, the tension inside him ebbed. He’d been selfish and stupid, but Laura hadn’t pushed him away.
“Shh, angel,” he murmured as he began to stroke her hair, enjoying the way the silky strands of Laura’s gorgeous hair slid between his fingers. “Try to relax. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for making you do that, you're not ready, I shouldn’t have forced you.”
Jack wanted to promise that he wouldn’t do that again, but he remembered his boss’ warning that if it came down to it, that Belinda would have her forcibly removed from her apartment and put in a safehouse.
“There you go, good girl.” Laura was beginning to calm, her breath still hitched but it was returning to normal. Picking up her wrist, Jack checked her pulse, it was still too fast but had slowed substantially.
“When I was out there,” Laura began in a ragged whisper, “when they were raping me and hurting me, I could feel the leaves and the grass beneath me, the fresh air, the wind, the sun, the clear blue sky, the stars at night, the birds, the streams; I hated it all.”
Jack rubbed her back. “I'm sorry, angel,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say.
“Francis,” she continued, “he enjoyed every horrible thing he did to me. His eyes …” She shuddered and he tightened his grip. “They were so evil. His face would light up with excitement. I’d try not to scream, because he liked it when I did, but sometimes the pain was so bad that I couldn’t help it.”
Jack was fighting to keep his cool. Laura didn’t need his anger right now; she needed his support. She needed him to just be here and listen and offer whatever small comforts he could.
“And Frank, he was almost worse. Sometimes when he raped me, it was so rough it would leave me bleeding, but sometimes he was gentle, like we were lovers instead of me being their prisoner. I hated that the most.” Tears were streaming down her face, which she had buried against his chest. “I fought them at first, as hard as I could, but, Jack,” she lifted her tear-stained face and looked at him with such earnest self-recrimination that his heart clenched, “I gave up. I just laid there and let them do all those horrible things to me. I let it happen. I let them rape me and torture me. I was weak and pathetic. I should have fought them every time. I shouldn’t have stopped. What was wrong with me?” She sobbed helplessly.
“Oh, angel.” He brushed at her wet cheeks with his thumb, knowing exactly how she had felt. “Baby, that’s not true,” he rebuked firmly. “You were not weak and pathetic, and you did not let those men do anything to you. You did what you could but they were bigger and stronger than you, and you were badly injured; there was no way you could have done anything to get away from them.”
Laura just sank back down against him, tucked her face into his shoulder and sobbed her poor little heart out. Jack let her cry, let her get it out, and just held her. Whispering pointless consolations in her hair and rubbing her back and just holding her so that she would know she wasn't alone anymore.
When at last she fell silent, Jack gathered her up, and as she immediately curled closer, he carried her into the bedroom. Pulling the covers back, he laid her down and then tucked her in.
“Jack, no,” she gave her head a tired shake.
He stroked her hair away from her still damp cheeks. “Yes,” he contradicted. “You're exhausted, you need to rest.”
“I’ll have nightmares,” Laura whimpered.
“I'm going to stay. I’ll sleep in the chair.” He pointed to a comfortable looking armchair in the corner. “So, if you wake up from a nightmare, I’ll be right here, okay?” Jack didn’t want to overstep his bounds, but he wasn't comfortable leaving Laura alone in her present state.
“Okay,” she agreed, her eyelids fluttering closed as though she didn’t have enough strength left to keep them open. “Jack?”
“Yeah, angel?”
“Thank you.”
As she drifted off to sleep, Jack pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, then dragged the armchair closer to the bed and settled in to it. The night hadn’t been a total disaster. Taking Laura outside had been a mistake, but it did seem to have brought them closer together.
Content, Jack closed his eyes and fell asleep.
* * * * *
9:07 A.M.
“Jack, is she okay?” Rose all but rushed her partner when he walked into the conference room.
“Relax, Rose.” Jack wore both a large smile and the same clothes he had been wearing yesterday. “Laura’s not upset with you.”
“Did you spend the night?” she asked, totally shocked. Laura hadn’t seemed angry with Jack anymore, but neither did she seem ready to jump into bed with him.
“In a chair beside her bed.” Jack laughed at the look on her face. Her partner was certainly chipper this morning, but despite his evident good mood, concern still lurked in his blue eyes.
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“You didn’t say that she’s doing okay,” she pointed out. “How is she?”
“Not all that great,” Jack admitted. “She blames herself for being hurt so badly because she thinks she didn’t fight back enough and just gave up.”
“Which is as ridiculous as you blaming yourself for her attack, and I hope you told her so,” Rose declared. What was it with victims blaming themselves? Paige and Sofia did it, too.
“I may have pushed her a little too far,” Jack confessed.
“How?”
“I took her outside.” Jack looked sheepish.
“What on earth possessed you to do that?” Rose demanded, perplexed.
“I don’t know. I thought it might snap her out of that depression she was sinking into, and I thought if I could help her overcome that, then …”
“Then it would help you get closer to her,” Rose finished for him. “Jack, that was pretty stupid,” she reprimanded. “Isn’t she dealing with enough right now?”
“I know, I know. At least one good thing came out of it.”
She arched a brow.
“I stressed her out enough that she was exhausted enough to actually sleep.”
She chortled. “I don’t recommend trying that again next time you want her to sleep.” Then she grew serious. Laura was at least physically safe for the moment, but she wasn't going to remain that way if they didn’t find this guy. He’d struck again. “Jack, I have bad news.”
His face fell. “What?”
“A couple in the building across the street from Laura’s were attacked,” she explained.
Puzzled, he asked, “What does that have to do with our case?”
“The apartment that he went for is on the ninth floor, you can see directly into Laura’s from the windows,” she told him.
“So he could watch her.” Jack’s face grew dark. “It was getting too dangerous to be in her building, so he had to change tactics to keep an eye on her. You said a couple was attacked—what did he do to them?”
“Thankfully not too much. The couple was Derek and Liza Triton, both in their early eighties. He broke in shortly after he put that letter under Laura’s door. The Tritons were in bed, they heard someone breaking in, but he was quick, knocked them both out and then tied them up before they could do anything. They came to in the closet. Tried to get free but couldn’t. Said they could hear him, though, ranting about people interfering in his business, and how no one was going to save Laura this time.”
“So, it’s definitely him, then.” Jack looked dejected, like there still might have been some hope that it was purely a coincidence.
“Yep, and fingerprints confirm it,” she added. “Stephanie went straight there as soon as the report came in.”
“How’d the couple get out of the closet?”
“When the man left, they just started banging on the wall,” Rose replied. “Eventually, one of the neighbors came, broke the door down and found them.”
“The couple have anything else to add?”
“Just that the man was angry that he still didn’t have Laura, and that since what he’d done so far hadn’t gotten her out of the apartment, he was going to have to go with something bigger.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
Rose didn’t, either. Something bigger was no doubt going to lead to more casualties. “Why now?” Rose wondered. “Why come for her now? I mean, he obviously wants her dead, so why wait nearly eleven years? You think he’s waiting for an anniversary?”
“No, I think he just couldn’t get to her before now,” Jack replied.
“Still, you'd think he could have gotten to her early on. I mean, no one was looking for a third man, they thought it was over, they thought they had the men who hurt her.”
“Yeah, but getting to her would have been too hard,” Jack explained. “I don’t think she would have gone anywhere alone those first few months. And then, she just disappeared. I think it took him all this time to find her. And now that he has, he doesn’t want her getting away again. He won't give up until he kills her.”
Jack’s theory made sense. And she agreed that killing Laura was this guy’s top priority.
“I think we should look into Kirby Tam’s past, see if it matches up with Laura’s while she was in college,” Jack announced.
“I thought forensics discounted Kirby, plus he was in custody when Audrey Nichols was abducted. And he hasn’t gotten bail yet, so he’s still with us, which means he couldn’t have put the letter under Laura’s door or broken into the Tritons’ apartment,” Rose reminded her partner.
“I know all of that, I just don’t think we should discount Kirby just yet. We know that whoever this third man is that he’s worked with others in the past. He brought the Garretts in to do most of his dirty work. Perhaps he’s doing the same thing this time. Kirby could be working with someone again. He could have been watching during Jessica Elgar’s assault and she just never realized he was there. He could have been watching during all the attacks, including Laura’s. Just because she never saw anyone in the woods doesn’t mean he wasn't there.”
Doubtful, Rose didn’t think that Kirby was their guy, but she knew that Jack was desperate to find any direction to pursue. “I guess it can't hurt to look into it.”
“Other than that, we’re just going to have to go through Laura’s life with a fine-tooth comb. Everyone she knew in college, every professor, everyone she worked with, all her friends, boyfriends of her friends. Every single person.”
* * * * *
1:02 P.M.
“Knock, knock.”
Laura knew it was Jack at her door even before she heard his voice.
“I brought lunch,” he called when she didn’t immediately let him in.
With a weary sigh, she unlocked the deadbolts. Laura wasn't in the mood to let Jack in, but she knew he wasn't going to go until he saw her, so she may as well get it over with.
“Hey,” he beamed at her as soon as the door opened.
“Hey, Jack,” she returned listlessly. Leaving him to lock back up, she dragged herself to the couch and collapsed onto it.
“You doing okay?” Jack was standing in front of her, peering down at her anxiously.
“Not really,” she admitted. For some reason, she kept giving Jack truthful answers when what she wanted to do was tell him she was fine and to leave her alone.
He knelt so they were eye to eye. “Angel, what am I going to do with you?” His voice was full of tender affection. “I bet you haven’t eaten today or taken anything for your hand. Sit tight and I’ll go get some water and painkillers.”
She caught his hand as he stood. “No, just stay here with me, please.” She tugged and he complied, sitting down beside her.
Laura was so conflicted when it came to Jack. Part of her wanted to throw him out of her home and her life and never forgive him for hurting her all those years ago. And the other part of her wanted to admit that she had already forgiven him and beg him to stay with her and never leave her side.
“Here, you need to eat something.”
Jack passed her a sandwich, which looked about as appealing as a pile of mud. Shaking her head, Laura moved closer to Jack and rested her head on his shoulder. She wanted to crawl into his lap like she had last night.
Ordinarily, she would have refused to have any part of Jack’s plan to take her outdoors. It was ludicrous. She couldn’t leave her apartment. But she was in such a fog that for some reason, she had allowed him to do it. As she had predicted, it had been a bad idea. When the fresh air had hit her, it was like it had ripped the breath from her lungs. Flashbacks had assaulted her, throwing her back in time to the woods.
Only this time, the flashbacks had been different.
Well, not the flashbacks, but her reaction to them.
She hadn’t been alone.
Jack’s strong arms had been around her, holding her against his hard chest as he’d whispered soothing reassurances in her ear. S
he’d been too shaken, too busy focusing on attempting to breathe, to make out the words, but just the sound of his voice had been enough to help calm her. When he’d set her down, her battered mind had wanted nothing more than to seek solace from the one person that made her feel safe, and so she had climbed into Jack’s lap, resting against him, soaking up his strength.
From the safety of Jack’s arms, she had admitted to him things about her attack she had never confessed to anyone else. Not to the police, not to her parents, not to her doctors, not to the psychiatrist her parents sent her to.
What was it about Jack that was different?
What was it about him that had her allowing him to touch her, to hold her, that had her crying all over him? After that first time she’d woken up in the hospital and thrown herself into her mother’s arms, not a single person who wasn't a doctor or nurse administering medical care, had laid a hand on her. And yet several times now, she had sought comfort in Jack’s arms.
She hadn’t even offered a word of dissent when he had proclaimed that he was spending the night.
“I never stopped loving you, Laura.” Jack was stroking her hair, letting it slide through his fingertips.
“What we had was never real,” she contradicted. “If you had really loved me, then you could never have cheated on me.”
“You know that’s not true,” he gently reprimanded. “Sometimes we hurt the people we love.”
“Maybe we didn’t know what love was. Maybe we were simply young and naïve to think that what we had could last forever,” she mused. Back then, Laura had had her whole life planned, down to the very smallest detail. But that had all changed the day Jack had come to her and told her that he had cheated on her and the girl was now pregnant with his child. He had been so adamant that that didn’t mean they had to break up. That he wanted to raise his child with her. That they could still have everything they’d ever dreamed.
But of course, they couldn’t.
He had broken her heart and her trust, and she didn’t know how to put them back together where Jack was concerned.