Hidden Depth (Lockhart Brothers Book 4)

by Brenda Rothert

  “Dad!” Tears of relief well in my eyes.

  “Everything is okay, Ellie. I’m right here.”

  “Don’t leave me alone,” I say.

  “We won’t,” my mom says from behind Dad. She comes to my other side, her curly hair a wild mess.

  “Is it nighttime?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Mom says.

  A memory comes barreling into my mind with the force of a freight train. “Did he rape me? Oh God, did he?”

  “No.” She chokes the answer out. “He didn’t rape you.”

  “But he was . . .” I shake my head, the memory of him pulling my pants down so vivid I can almost feel it. “Mom, if he did, tell me. I want to know.”

  “He didn’t,” my dad says. “The doctors checked, and he didn’t.”

  I nod, but my sense of relief is short-lived.

  “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?”

  “I need to turn on the lights,” an unfamiliar voice says.

  Danielle, the nurse from earlier, is back in the room, giving me a warm smile as the room is flooded with light. I squint as my eyes adjust.

  The room seems to fill, two doctors and another nurse joining Danielle and my parents. The doctors poke and prod at me a little bit before everyone stands back. I sense they’re about to tell me what’s going on. It’s about freaking time.

  “If you feel like you can’t move, it’s probably because of the medications you’re on,” a male doctor with a silver beard says. “Do you feel groggy, like your limbs are just too heavy to move?”

  “Yes.”

  He nods. “It’ll pass as we lower your dosages.”

  “What’s on my face?”

  “Bandages.”

  My heart flutters in my chest as I remember. “He cut me.”

  I look from face to face, seeing somber acknowledgment on each one. My parents are both on the verge of tears.

  “Just tell me,” I say. “Tell me what’s wrong with me. I want to know.”

  The silver-bearded doctor pulls up a chair and sits down next to my bed. “You were lucky to survive. There was extensive bleeding. The paramedics almost lost you on the way to the hospital. Once you got here, we had to give you a blood transfusion and put you in a medically induced coma to give the brain swelling time to heal.”

  “Brain swelling? I have head injuries?”

  “You did. But I expect you to make a full recovery from that.”

  I furrow my brow. “What else?”

  He gestures to the cast on my left leg. “A broken leg. A dislocated shoulder. Several broken ribs. Some internal bleeding. And you have lacerations on your face and abdomen.”

  “Lacerations? Where he cut me?”

  The doctor nods. “You’ll heal from these injuries. We’re going to keep you here for a while, though.”

  My throat is tight with emotion, but I force myself to say, “I’ll have scars, won’t I? On my face.”

  He presses his lips together in a thin line before answering. “We’re going to do everything we can for you. There are treatments to help minimize scarring.”

  I look up at the ceiling, unable to fight off the tears. “Just answer me. I’ll have scars, won’t I?”

  After a beat of silence, he says, “Yes. We can’t undo all of the damage, I’m afraid.”

  His answer crushes me. I still feel like I’m underwater, unclear on many things, but I know for sure that I’ll be hard-pressed to model, perform concerts, or act with a scarred face.

  When I can finally take a breath again, I ask, “What happened to that crazed fan who did this to me?”

  The doctor looks to my father, who answers. “The police want to interview you about him. They only have the description of him from the man who saved you and some surveillance footage from the hotel, but his face isn’t in it.”

  “Great,” I say bitterly. “He got away.”

  “With the news coverage this is getting, I think the chances of finding him are good,” the doctor says.

  “Oh, shit.” I let my head fall back against the pillow on my bed. “How many reporters and photographers are swarming this place to get a look at me?”

  “That won’t happen on my watch, I promise you,” the doctor says. “We have you segregated in a private wing of the hospital. Only staff and approved visitors may enter this wing, and every staff member who treats you is required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Your manager insisted on it.”

  I sigh, relieved, but then glance over at the window. “They can shoot photos from a helicopter. It’s happened to me before.”

  “That window overlooks a courtyard, and we’re keeping the blinds drawn.” The doctor stands up. “There’s a team of doctors and nurses here to take care of you, and your manager has hired private security to work with the hospital to ensure you have complete privacy while you recover. All you need to focus on is getting better.”

  The doctors and nurses leave my room, but my parents stay. I can’t talk to them, though. What little energy I had is drained away now. I only feel a slight trickle of anger, really. Mostly, I’m still too stunned to even wrap my mind around everything. It feels like I needed to pee one second, and the next, I woke up in a hospital, scarred for life.

  And the man who put me here is still out there somewhere. The trickle of anger is drowned by a rush of paralyzing fear.

  Justin

  I CLOSE OUT ALL the windows on my laptop and shut it harder than necessary. Every time I check news sites for updates about Elle, I end up pissed off.

  Fucking photos of the bathroom from after the attack? That’s a new low. I can’t believe any news organization, legit or not, would pay for and publish photos of a bloody crime scene. A woman nearly died. I don’t give a shit how famous she is, the world does not need to see her blood on a bathroom floor.

  I’m just getting a small taste of what it must be like for her. Bystanders who thought they were just taking photos of a random man holding a random dying woman outside the Marquis that day ended up cashing in when news hit that it was Elle Tyler. It didn’t take long for reporters to identify me, and then the phone calls, emails, Facebook messages, and even in-person stalking began.

  I could have smashed the camera of the asshole shooting photos of me on my morning run today. I’m no one. Just a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Why doesn’t the media focus on finding the bastard who attacked Elle instead?

  My temp secretary opens my office door and pokes her head inside. “Mr. Lockhart?”

  “Hmm?”

  “There’s a call for you on line two. Also calls for you on lines seven, twelve, fourteen and nineteen.” She looks up from the note she was reading from, apparently pleased with herself.

  “Yeah, those calls are all a no, Sherry.”

  She furrows her brow with confusion. “Really?”

  “They’re all reporters.”

  “The one on seven is looking for an attorney. He said he’s heard great things about you.”

  I glare at her. “No, he’s not. I’ve never represented a single client. I graduated from law school, passed the bar, and now I’m interning here doing research for a big case. That caller is a reporter just trying to get me on the line. They’ll say anything.”

  “Oh.” She scratches her head and looks at me. “So what should I tell them?”

  “What I told you to tell them this morning. That I moved to Iceland.”

  She laughs nervously. “I’m not good at lying.”

  “I’m not taking any of the calls,” I say in a terse tone. “Get rid of them however you want, but do not give out any information about me. Not my cell phone number, not my middle name, not what color tie I’m wearing today—nothing.”

  “I don’t know your cell phone number.”

  “All the better.”

  She gives me a sheepish look. “Yes, Mr. Lockhart.”

  As soon as she closes my office door, I fire off another text to Kyle. I’ve been hounding him to fi
nd out how Elle is doing since I was run out of the hospital after the ambulance got her there nearly a week ago. All I can find out from the news is that she’s still hospitalized.

  Kyle writes back immediately for once.

  Kyle: I’ve got nothing, man. I’ve asked a few friends who work there, and they don’t know. The staff treating her had to sign NDAs.

  I scowl at the screen of my phone and don’t respond. I know nondisclosure agreements make sense, because Elle is one of the most famous people in the world and magazines would pay for any morsel of information about her attack and recovery, but it’s still frustrating as hell.

  Her injuries were so severe that I didn’t even recognize her as I held her limp body that day. Not that it would have changed much. Had I known, though, I wouldn’t have let myself be photographed holding her as I waited for the ambulance.

  Every time I see a photo of her battered body in my arms, I cringe. It’s my fault the whole world got to see her like that. Just like it’s my fault that asshole got away. It eats at me, keeping me up at night. I was just a few feet away from him. I could have grabbed him and made him check the bathroom with me.

  If only I would have. I replay those moments in my head over and over.

  Opening my laptop screen again, I decide to bury myself in research. I’ve never had such a hard time focusing on work before. When I’m not dodging reporters or photographers after a story about Elle, I’m thinking about how she’s doing.

  I’ve never been so consumed by thoughts of a woman before. And ironically, it’s a woman I’ve never even spoken to.

  AFTER A LONG DAY spent alone in my office, I pick up dinner from a pub near my apartment and go home to spend my evening alone, too. Even my coworkers and friends are on my nerves right now, asking for details about Elle’s condition that day and whether I know how she is now.

  Concern, I understand. But I have no patience for morbid curiosity. And as much as I hate to think it, if I shared the details of that awful day with one of my acquaintances here, they could turn around and sell that story to a tabloid.

  The shepherd’s pie from the pub is just okay, but I’m so hungry I don’t really notice. It’s almost eight p.m. already. The life of a bachelor research attorney is heavily weighted toward work. I imagine it’ll still be that way in Lovely, when I’m taking clients. But those cases should be more interesting than the history of the combustion engine, which is what I’m researching now.

  My brother Reed is an attorney in Lovely, and he recently represented a local farmer who was charged with letting his livestock run at large. I gave him shit at the time for representing runaway cows, but in truth, I’ll be glad to take cases like that.

  I pick up the remote to my TV and consider turning it on to see if there’s news about Elle. But if there is, it’ll probably just be more bullshit invasion of privacy stuff that pisses me off. I set the remote down and go into my bedroom to change clothes.

  As soon as I finish putting on shorts and a T-shirt, my phone dings with the boxing start bell that means a text from my brother Mason. I pick up my phone and read the waiting message.

  Mason: You see the news?

  Me: No, what?

  Mason: Turn it on. It’s about the guy who attacked Elle.

  I feel a surge of hope as I go back to the remote and turn to a news station. The coverage shows surveillance footage from a gas station in Nebraska. The image is grainy, but it’s him. He’s wearing a red baseball hat and it looks like he shaved his head, but I know it’s him from the slump of his shoulders and the way he looks from side to side.

  The story continues, and I find out the police are putting his identity out there for the first time with the footage. His name’s Gary Beasley, and he’s a thirty-nine-year-old pharmacist.

  I close my eyes, feeling a slight sense of relief. They haven’t caught him, but they’re on his trail. At least they know who they’re after. Hopefully, it’s only a matter of time.

  A $50,000 reward for a tip that leads to his arrest is announced at the end of the story. Why someone would cash in on such a thing is beyond me, but if that’s what it takes to bring this guy in, so be it.

  The news station moves on to another story, and I switch to another channel to see if there’s anything else about Elle.

  I find a station with a guy in a suit being interviewed about her. He’s a doctor, and he’s speculating about what her injuries might be based on the photos from the bathroom.

  “There was substantial blood loss,” he says, “so I imagine she needed a blood transfusion.”

  The woman interviewing him gasps and asks him to elaborate on what a blood transfusion involves.

  I roll my eyes at the screen and click the remote to turn it off. Fucking vultures.

  Gary Beasley is on borrowed time. And I’m betting there are at least a few Elle Tyler fans in prison who will fuck him up properly. Now I just need to know how Elle is doing.

  Even a week after the attack, I still think about her day and night. I know her life will never be the same, but hopefully she can recover from her injuries and find peace. If I know she can do that, maybe I’ll be able to move on myself.

  Elle

  I’M SLOWLY AND ANNOYINGLY drawn from sleep by the sound of my mom’s voice. She seems to be arguing with someone.

  “The rest of the tour is canceled,” she says. “We aren’t even rescheduling it. But do you know what it would cost to break that record contract?”

  “Ma’am, that’s not my concern,” an unfamiliar female voice says. “You asked me how long she would be here, and I’m just telling you, it’s going to be a while.”

  My mom scoffs. “We can hire doctors and nurses to take care of her. She doesn’t have to stay in St. Louis. We live in LA.”

  “You’ll have to talk to the doctor about that, ma’am.”

  I open my eyes and see that it’s morning. And immediately, I cringe, because everything hurts.

  The woman my mom was talking to is a nurse, and she walks over to me.

  “Morning, Elle,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

  “I hurt.”

  “I’ll get you something for that.”

  “Can I sit up?”

  She nods. “Of course. Need some help?”

  I end up clutching her and groaning all the way into a sitting position. My stomach burns, and my broken leg aches terribly. It’s unsettling, being immobile and in pain like this. I’m normally not around my parents a whole lot anymore, but the vulnerability of this position has made me want them close. I need people I trust completely.

  Finally, I get a really good look at the room I’m in. The walls are white with a few watercolor paintings. There’s a shelf lined with vases of bright flowers across from my bed. My dad is sitting in a recliner reading a newspaper. And in a chair next to my bed is Chloe.

  “Hey, boss,” she says.

  I actually smile. I haven’t felt like doing that yet, but the sight of my closest friend makes me happy. Her blond hair is back in a ponytail, and she’s makeup-free, looking more tired than usual.

  “Hey, you. How long have I been in here?”

  “A little over a week.”

  “Wow.” I shake my head. “Time flies when you’re in a medically induced coma.”

  “Ba-ha-ha.” She rolls her eyes. “It doesn’t fly when you’re waiting for someone you love to come out of one, I’ll tell you that much.” She looks away, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “Elle, honey,” my mom says, approaching the other side of my bed, “Anthony wants to know if we can set up a conference call to discuss things.”

  “What things?” Chloe blurts.

  “We’re going to have to move some things around now.” My mom speaks slowly, as if the answer was obvious.

  Ugh. She’s in momager mode. My mom was my manager when I was a kid, and even though I credit her for helping get me where I am, it started to hurt our personal relationship. One of the hardest things I’ve ever don
e was firing her as my manager when I was nineteen. That’s when I hired Anthony, who has been my manager since.

  “Just cancel everything,” I say to Chloe. “Then we won’t need a conference call.”

  My mom balks. “What? You can’t cancel everything. You have that ad campaign for the cosmetics company and that movie role in a few months. The tour, I understand, but—”

  “I can’t think about any of that right now.”

  “We can delay things, move stuff around. Give you some room to recover.”

  I sigh heavily. “I just don’t know. I think . . . I think we should cancel everything.”

  “We can’t just—”

  “It’s not we, Mom. It’s Chloe, my assistant.”

  She sits down on the edge of my bed, and the slight movement makes my leg hurt so much I have to hold my breath to keep from crying out.

  “Listen, honey,” she says in a placating tone, “I know you’re overwhelmed right now—”

  “Overwhelmed?” I glare at her, incredulous. “Look at me, Mom. Under these bandages, my face is a mess. I’m going to be scarred. You think a cosmetics company wants me to model for them now?”

  The corners of her lips tip up in a slight smile. “Well, with makeup—”

  This time, it’s Chloe letting out an exasperated sigh.

  “I’m just saying . . .” My mom’s tone is defensive now. “We can open these contracts back up, let them know what her injuries are and how long the recovery will—”

  “No.” Chloe’s response is uncharacteristically firm. Usually, she doesn’t say anything when my mom is involved. “No information about her condition is getting released. Not to anyone. She doesn’t want it.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Chloe, you don’t know how contracts work. These companies have big investments in Elle, and they wouldn’t share information about her condition.”

  “Absolutely not happening,” I say. “Chloe is right—no one gets anything.”

  Mom throws up her hands. “What are we supposed to do about the pending contracts?”

  “Chloe will work with Anthony to cancel them.”

  Mom’s heavy sigh is loaded with judgment.