Returning Injury
Page 16
Rebecca had already been living in her own prison because of what Roy had done to her and the possibility of him stalking her again. But if she told Jack about being afraid of Roy, she feared he would also put her in a prison of wanting to protect her. Her home would become a prison and a bodyguard would feel like a prison guard.
Rebecca tried to move her right arm slightly to see how much pain it would cause. Miraculously, she was able to move her arm. Okay, she thought, this is good. She’d lie there a little longer.
She was afraid to talk, afraid to cry, and especially afraid to protect herself or fight for herself. She thought about the first time he attacked her. The only reason she got through it was because he made a mistake, he turned his back on her so she could run out of the apartment. It was really nothing that she did; he made the mistake. And maybe he’d make another mistake.
She couldn’t talk her way out of it, she couldn’t overpower him, especially in her condition, and she couldn’t run to a neighbor’s. Her best strategy was to wait.
Rebecca thought about every woman in her situation. The one thing that they all had in common was that the perpetrators where doing these things behind closed doors, never in public. These guys were all the same; they were all weak and cowardly.
Rebecca could feel Roy staring at her. She tried to stay as still as she could. His concern made her sick. She was surprised he didn’t try to rape her again. She knew she was alive and that was all that mattered to her. Rebecca had no plans of moving until she had to.
4:08 AM
Lily started barking as if somebody had pulled up onto the driveway. Then her cell phone started ringing upstairs. Roy panicked.
Rebecca opened her eyes and saw Roy jump up to peek through the closed blinds at the wall of windows. Rebecca jumped to her feet, grabbed the glass sculpture from the bookcase by the stairs and ran as fast as she could toward Roy. He turned toward her just as she slammed the glass wolf into his head with both arms. She caught him at the side of his head, not the back of his head where she had planned, but it seemed to be enough.
It happened so fast. The chunk of glass did not break, but as it fell to the floor blood splattered onto the beige carpet. She looked at Roy who was looking back at her, stunned. Only a small amount of blood trickled from the gash on his head. Then his eyes rolled back, and he fell to the floor stiff as a board onto his stomach. Once he hit the floor, blood gushed out of his cut, and he started bleeding profusely.
Rebecca’s adrenaline kicked in. Holding her arm as if it were in a sling, she ran toward the front door, opened the closet and grabbed Lily’s leash and a twenty-five foot leash that Jack had used to help train Lily.
She rushed back to Roy and started to tie him up using her knee, her mouth and her good arm, trying not to use her bad arm. She didn’t want to take any chances of him waking up before the police came. She started with his hands behind his back. She wrapped the leash around his hands, then in between and back around him. She went around his waist, figure-eighting the leash. When she felt his hands were secure, she took the remainder of the leash and started tying his feet together at the ankle. She looped the end of Lily’s lead through the handle of the shorter leash securely attaching the two together. She continued tying his feet.
When she was finished, she went to the kitchen and got a knife. She went back to Roy and stood over him. She didn’t know if he was alive. She saw no movement, not even him breathing. She started to cry. She sat down on the floor holding the knife, rocking forward and back. She cried because she was afraid. She cried because she felt that maybe she had won the battle. She cried because she had to go through this in the first place, twice.
Who does she blame, Roy or the state or herself? The state didn’t counsel him, the state let him out when they knew he was making threats to kill her. Nobody called her to warn her that he was missing, no longer checking in with his parole officer. Jack wouldn’t have left town or he would have gotten her a bodyguard. Nobody contacted her or seemed to care about her, her life or her safety.
Roy came so close to raping her. Even though he didn’t stick his dick in her, she still felt something deep inside that hurt badly because of what had happened. Maybe just knowing how easy it would have been for him to rape her, Rebecca became enraged.
She stood up and kicked him lifting her toes to use the ball of her foot into his side. She heard him make a slight grunt. That scared her. She double checked the security of the leashes and went upstairs to her cell phone. She sat in the closet and dialed Jack’s phone.
Rebecca couldn’t hold her cell phone up with her right arm. She couldn’t hold the phone to the left side of her face.
“Hi, honey. I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said in his cheery voice. “I know it’s early, but I couldn’t sleep. I had strange feelings; I wanted to check on you.”
Rebecca listened to him talk, but she didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Reb, I tried the home phone, but it just kept ringing. That’s why I called your cell. Are you at home? … Are you okay?”
“Jack?”
“Yes, it’s Jack.”
Rebecca started to cry.
“Rebecca!”
“Roy is here… I hit him and I think he’s going to die.”
“Roy who… Oh, my God! Reb, are you okay? Oh, my God! I’ll call the police!”
“No don’t! I don’t… I don’t want anybody here right now!”
She heard Jack crying.
“I think I’m going to kill him or wait for him to die before I call the police.”
“Reb, what happened? What did he do to you!”
Jack’s high pitched cry made Rebecca cry harder.
“Reb!” he sobbed… “What did he do to you? … What did he do to you?”
Rebecca just kept crying into the phone. She said nothing.
Jack kept crying. “Oh, God, Rebecca. I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry… I’ll be right there. I’ll get a plane… I’ll be right there.” He hung up.
She knew he would call the police.
She kept crying into the phone even though Jack was no longer there. She wanted Roy to die. She didn’t want to go through this a third time. She could go and kill him right now before the police came.
She knew that once the police were there, they would start doing CPR on Roy. They would do whatever they could to try to save his life. She knew that he would look like the victim. She figured that the male police officers would be taken aback. They wouldn’t want to see a man as a victim; they would expect to see the woman as the victim.
Rebecca went back downstairs and into her office to check on Lily; she was fine. Rebecca left Lily locked in the room. She sat on the floor looking at Roy. Blood was everywhere. She knew she couldn’t kill him, but she prayed that he would die.
After a few minutes, she heard the sirens. She walked over and unlocked and opened the front door. The alarm didn’t go off. She waited outside as police and ambulance medics filled the house.
Rebecca sat alone on the front step. She didn’t want to watch the EMTs save Roy’s life, so she watched the sheriffs talk and compare notes. She looked out to the hillside and wondered if the coyotes were watching. She shivered in the cool night, waiting for somebody to talk to her.
After a female officer showed up, two other deputies joined her in questioning Rebecca. She answered their questions and watched the commotion inside the house.
The medics covered Roy with a sheet. It was over. Roy was dead.
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears, and she couldn’t hide her smile.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Sunday
4:50 PM
6:20 PM
7:50 PM
9:28 PM
11:20 PM
Monday
3:15 AM
7:00 AM
2:00 PM
4:05 PM
4:35 PM
Tue
sday
6:05 AM
11:10 AM
5:05 PM
Wednesday
12:50 PM
Thursday
4:08 AM