The Marine Next Door

by Julie Miller

  She would figure out what had gone wrong with the elevator. She would find out how Danny had gotten that note to her. She would make it clear that he could never be a part of her life, or their son’s, ever again. It was what a strong woman would do, what a well-trained KCPD detective would do. This morning she needed to set aside her fascination with John Murdock, and her fears about her ex, to become that detective she wanted to be.

  Still, “Sarge, um, Maggie…are you okay?”

  When was the last time a grown man who wasn’t an E.R. doctor or a fellow cop asked her that question?

  She knew better than to make anything out of his concern. Heck, they’d barely spoken two words since that night. But it was nice to be asked. Nice that someone was polite enough to notice her distress. Nice to know that wigging out on a man didn’t automatically mean he couldn’t care. In a neighborly, we-just-survived-a-small-crisis-together kind of caring, of course.

  Tamping down the smile that softened her lips, Maggie waited for the other task force members to exit the elevator and get a few steps ahead of her before falling into step behind them.

  Bailey Austin’s hospital room was easy to spot. It was the one with the John Murdock-sized SWAT cop pacing back and forth in front of the door. She recognized Trip Jones as a coworker who checked in at her desk every morning before the precinct’s daily roll-call meeting. His wife was Charlotte Mayweather-Jones, stepsister to the rape victim they’d come to interview. Normally Trip greeted Maggie with a friendly smile.

  But there were no smiles for any of them as they approached. “Detective Montgomery. Nick. Dr. Kilpatrick. Sarge.” Trip shook hands with each of them. “So this is the new task force?”

  “Officer Jones,” Spencer acknowledged for all of them. He pulled back the front of his suit jacket to splay his hands at his waist. “How is she?”

  Trip shook his head and shrugged. “It’s not good. I’m afraid to go in there. I could tell I made her nervous.”

  “Did she say you remind her of her attacker?” Spencer asked.

  “She didn’t say anything to me. I guess I can be kind of scary when I’m in the mood to wrap my hands around the neck of the bastard who did this.”

  Dr. Kilpatrick squeezed his arm in reassurance. “That’s an understandable reaction, on both your parts. I’m sure that somewhere inside she appreciates you being here for her.”

  “Maybe. This family has been through enough with Charlotte’s kidnapping, the murder of that worthless stepbrother of hers, and now this. I don’t know how much more she can handle.”

  The blonde psychologist reached for the door handle. “We’ll be gentle with her, I promise.”

  Spencer Montgomery caught the door and followed her in, with his partner right behind them. But when Maggie reached the open door, she stopped. “Wait a minute. We’re all going in there?”

  “We need to question the victim while the incident is still fresh in her mind.” Detective Montgomery looked faintly annoyed at having to stop and explain his actions when he faced her.

  Maggie shivered with the memory of when she’d been the woman lying in that hospital bed. “Her mind’s probably still in shock right now. And to see a crowd of armed police officers storm into her room—”

  “We’re hardly storming,” Spencer argued in a hushed tone.

  “We’re not the bad guys here,” Nick Fensom echoed.

  Maggie looked over her shoulder to share a rueful glance that included Trip, as well. “Right now, in her mind, pretty much everybody’s a bad guy.”

  A tremulous voice from the other side of the privacy curtain silenced the standoff. “Don’t touch me.”

  Maggie had never met Kansas City socialite Bailey Austin, but she recognized the tenor of a woman fighting to hold on to normalcy and civility, and failing miserably.

  A man’s voice shushed her. “Sweetie, I’m just so worried—”

  “I know.”

  “This doesn’t change how much I love you, how much I want to still marry you. Tell me what you need.” Frustration colored his voice. “Anything.”

  “Bailey, dear, Harper loves you.”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t… I don’t want to talk about the wedding right now, okay?”

  “Loretta, dear.” That was an older gentleman’s voice. Probably Bailey’s stepfather.

  “No.” Loretta Austin-Mayweather’s shrill voice took care of any need to be secretive about KCPD’s arrival. “I’m going to make everything okay for my daughter. She’s going to get married. She’s going to have her happily ever after.”

  “Dear—”

  “I just want everything to be the way it was before this happened.”

  “They’re ganging up on her.” Maggie whispered the thought out loud.

  Nick Fensom’s blue eyes narrowed at the observation. “They’re family.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re not listening to what she needs right now.”

  Spencer was shaking his head as the conversation on the other side of the curtain escalated toward an argument. “We need to talk to her alone if we can. I don’t want anybody else’s well-intentioned comfort or defense of her to shut her down and keep her from talking, or taint whatever details she can recall.”

  Nick nodded his agreement. “She may not feel comfortable sharing some of the grittier details in front of her family, anyway.”

  “Divide and conquer, then.” Kate Kilpatrick adjusted her fingers around the strap of her bag and headed for the curtain. She pulled the curtain aside to announce their presence and reveal a tableau of startled friends and family gathered around the bed. “Mrs. Mayweather?” Kate extended her hand to the beautiful blonde woman with the red-rimmed eyes. “I’m Dr. Kilpatrick from KCPD. I’m so sorry this happened to Bailey. As a mother I understand the grief and rage and helplessness you feel at seeing your child harmed.” Dr. Kilpatrick had children? She’d never mentioned them. Maggie had never even seen a picture of any family in the psychologist’s office. But the moment of surprise passed as the psychologist smoothly manipulated the startled family members. “I have some experience counseling the families of victims. Why don’t you and I go out to the lobby and talk for a bit.”

  Loretta Austin-Mayweather latched on to the sleeve of her husband’s suit coat. “I want to be with my baby.”

  Jackson Mayweather turned his shrewd eyes to Dr. Kilpatrick. “You can calm her down?” The police psychologist nodded, then he patted his wife’s hand. “Loretta, I promise we won’t go that far. But I think we should talk to the doctor.”

  Wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulders, the Mayweather patriarch guided her out the door behind the psychologist.

  Maggie stepped aside, marveling at the smooth teamwork of the task force members. Nick Fensom said something to Trip’s wife, Charlotte, about the red jacket of the certified therapy dog sitting at her feet, and soon the detective was escorting them out the door to join Trip.

  But a tall, golden-haired man in a suit maintained his position at Bailey Austin’s side. Her fiancé, Harper Pierce, according to an article she’d read in the Kansas City society pages, glared at Detective Montgomery. “You again? Didn’t you torment this family enough when you kept harassing us with questions about the Rich Girl Killer?”

  “I got the job done, didn’t I? We got our man.” Spencer’s gaze settled for a moment on the bruised face of the young woman in the bed. “We’ll get this guy, too.”

  The one blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut blinked open to meet the detective’s curiously blank expression. But just as quickly, Bailey closed her eye and turned onto her side, hiding her face toward the blinds at the window.

  “You see?” Harper Pierce taunted. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  With his focus squarely back on the hostile fiancé, Detective Montgomery pulled back the front of his jacket, subtly displaying his badge, his gun and his authority to the other man. “You’re with me, Pierce. If you truly want to help Miss Austin, that is. Bec
ause you were one of the last people to see her that night, I’d like to ask you some questions about the time and events leading up to your fiancée’s abduction.”

  “Bailey needs me here.”

  “Go.” Snatching her shoulder away from Harper’s outstretched fingers, Bailey curled into a ball, making it clear that his touch might be the last thing she needed right now. “Please, Harper.”

  Several moments of silence passed before it fully registered that Maggie was alone in the room with the victim. She shifted on her feet in the shadows beside the door, wondering if she should excuse herself to go observe the interviews or just slip quietly out of the room.

  But Bailey Austin’s soft voice called to her before Maggie could decide. “You can sit if you want.”

  Maggie glanced back at the door, then over to the chair and rolling stool beside Bailey’s bed. Maybe the young woman was one of those high-society trophy wives-to-be who’d been raised to have impeccable manners—under any circumstance.

  But no woman in Bailey Austin’s condition needed to be worrying about Maggie Wheeler’s feelings right now.

  “You need your rest.” Maggie thanked her and backed toward the door.

  “You don’t have to go.”

  The other woman’s voice sounded small, almost devoid of inflection, stopping Maggie’s retreat.

  She recognized the bleak sound of isolation, the belief that no one could ever truly understand what she’d been through. Maggie’s eyes burned with tears of empathy. But she blinked them away, refusing to let another victim feel the utter loneliness and drifting sense of loss she’d endured. Opening up her well-guarded heart, Maggie crossed the room and took a seat on the creaking vinyl stool.

  “Your family will be back soon. Or, if you don’t want them here, I’m sure your brother-in-law Trip could make that happen.” She talked to the gap in the gown between Bailey’s shoulder blades. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re probably not ready to hear this right now, but I can recommend a victims’ group and a therapist who specializes in counseling sexual assault victims.”

  The younger woman rolled onto her back, turning her puffy face to Maggie. “Were you attacked, too?”

  Maggie nodded, going to that matter-of-fact place in her head where she could discuss such things. “January sixteenth—ten years ago.”

  “I guess it’s a date you never forget.”

  “Haven’t yet.”

  Bailey’s bruised blue eye sharpened its focus. “Trip said more detectives who were experts in this kind of crime would be in to question me today. Is that who you guys are?”

  Maggie spoke in gentle tones but didn’t sugarcoat the truth. “KCPD believes the man who attacked you has raped several women. He disappeared off the radar for a few years, but it seems he’s back in Kansas City.”

  “What he did to me, he did to other women?”

  “The M.O.’s match. So our chief has put together a task force.” She nodded toward the door. “Detective Montgomery, he’s the task force leader. He’ll want to ask you some questions when he’s done talking to your fiancé.”

  “I know Spencer.” Bailey hugged the blanket covering her up to her chest. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  She was on a first-name basis with the task force leader? Detective Montgomery had never mentioned a personal connection with the victim. But then, she’d yet to see the man reveal much of anything he didn’t want to. “He’s one of the best investigators we have.”

  “I know he is. He helped capture the Rich Girl Killer.” But Bailey was sinking beneath the covers, pulling up the blanket like a sheet of armor.

  “If there’s some kind of problem between you, his partner, Nick Fensom—”

  “No.”

  Maggie released a silent breath and tried again. “Maybe you’d feel more comfortable talking to a woman. Dr. Kilpatrick is a police psychologist, more of an adviser than a cop. She doesn’t even carry a gun.”

  “Why don’t you ask me the questions?” Oh, no. Was she serious?

  “I’m just support staff. I’m not trained yet—”

  “Is it crazy to just want to be left alone?” Bailey’s gaze drifted off to a distant corner of the room. “Yet I’m so afraid of being alone now.”

  “Whatever you’re feeling right now is normal.” Maggie spoke from practical experience and the stories she’d heard in her support group. “Strangers may make you uncomfortable. For some rape victims, any man can make them nervous. For others, just leaving a familiar place can trigger a panic attack.”

  Bailey’s gaze came back to her. “My sister—well, Charlotte’s my stepsister—she was like that. She was kidnapped when she was in high school. For as long as I knew her, she would never leave the house. Until Trip came along. She still doesn’t like crowds. And she has a therapy dog to help with the panic attacks.” She shifted in the bed to face Maggie. “It took her years to be able to function normally. Is that what I have to look forward to?”

  “Surviving a sexual assault is a lot like coping with the death of a loved one. It can affect each victim differently. The length of time it takes to learn how to cope and then move on with your life, and how you get to that point, is different with each person. There’s no right or wrong way to recover. And you can’t compare your path to anyone else’s.”

  There was a long pause as Bailey processed the answer. Then she surprised Maggie by reaching for her hand. “I never even saw him coming. I was so mad at Harper and my mom, so overwhelmed by all the wedding plans, that I didn’t even realize the screeching of brakes I heard in the street was for me.”

  All of a sudden, Bailey started talking about the attack. Maggie glanced toward the door for help, almost calling out for one of the experts to come back in. But the young woman’s grip convulsed around hers with every memory she described. Tears glistened on her bruised cheek and Maggie didn’t have the heart to leave her alone or risk her shutting down again.

  Maggie thought of her classes, and formulated questions she should ask. But Bailey kept talking. Her eyes were closed, as if replaying events in her mind. “When I woke up, I was in this empty building. On the floor. I mean, on a mattress that was directly on the floor. It was covered in plastic. Everything was.”

  With one last glance at the door, Maggie gave up on willing reinforcements to arrive. Do it. She adjusted her position on the stool, clutched Bailey’s hand a little more tightly. If she wanted to be a detective, she might as well start acting like one. “Do you remember anything else about the building? Were you in a small room? A large one?”

  “It was sterile.”

  “You mean it was clean?” The report had mentioned odors she remembered. “Like the hospital?”

  Bailey shook her head. “It smelled awful. There was no furniture except for the mattress. No decorations. There were partial walls—framing where walls and windows should go—like a big office or apartment building under construction. Or one being gutted and torn apart, I don’t know. Mostly I saw the floor.”

  “What was the awful smell, do you know?”

  “Pickles.”

  “Pickles?”

  “I don’t know. I was in and out of consciousness. And he swore he’d cut me or hit me again or put the hood back on me if I so much as spoke.” She inhaled a deep breath. “But yeah, now that you say that, it was clean—what I could see before he blindfolded me and took me back to that intersection near Fairy Tale Bridal. The plastic underneath me was crystal clear. I remember looking through it and studying the design on the mattress, counting the stitches while he…” Bailey pulled her hand away and rolled onto her opposite side, curling into a ball.

  Maggie knew the interview was done and didn’t try to push her. “Thank you for talking to me, Miss Austin. I know it’s not easy, but knowledge gives us power against this guy. It’s the only weapon we have right now to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Thank you for your courage in talking to me.”

  Curling her fingers into her pa
lm, Maggie fought off the urge to reach out and offer some kind of comfort. But sharing her compassion wasn’t why Maggie was here. She’d come to St. Luke’s to do her job—or rather, to learn more about how to do her job. Knowing she needed to report this new information about the assault to Detective Montgomery and the others, she adjusted the holster on her belt and stood.

  Her fingers were on the door handle when Bailey’s soft voice reached her. “Does it get better? Will I ever not hurt? Will I ever feel safe? Will I ever be able to trust again?”

  Maggie knew honesty was the only way to answer. “The pain will fade over time.” As for the rest? “Like I said, every survivor’s path to healing is different. It’ll be tough, but try to remember the important thing, Miss Austin—we survived.”

  Chapter Four

  Just another day at the office, John tried to tell himself as he pulled his pickup into the parking lot next to KCFD Station 23. Although he’d just spent most of his shift down at headquarters, sitting through orientation meetings and filling out paperwork, he knew it wasn’t true. The last of his training at HQ was done.

  Today was his D-day.

  Storm the beach head of normalcy and find a way to fit back in to his old life again.

  He breathed in deeply through his nose and let the doubt creep out between his lips.

  Fire Station 23 had been his destination every workday for almost a decade, before he’d had enough of the wanting and not having—before not even having the right to think about Meghan Taylor had dulled his senses so much that he’d been close to becoming a hazard to himself and his team.

  And he’d loved being a firefighter. At six-five and a good 250 pounds, he’d always been a physical being. He’d played sports in school, had relished the discipline of the ROTC program that had paid for his degree at KU. He’d opted to join the Corps after graduation, had served in both infantry and artillery support units. When his stint was up and he’d transferred to the Reserves, firefighting had offered the perfect schedule to give him the time off he needed to attend weekend trainings and summer deployments. His engineering degree had taught him how buildings were put together, and how fire and heat, chemicals and explosions could bring them down.