“He planned to rape my wife,” Paul hissed. “On her wedding night.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing, but as the law, I have to say things like that.” Ortiz grinned. “I’m sorry to have to break the bad news, but by the time my officers got to the bus to retrieve your things, the bus had been looted. The people of this country are very poor. A tourist bus, sitting unattended on the side of the road, is something they just can’t pass up. Your luggage, and the seat with your hidden money—they stripped everything. I’m afraid desperate people are very thorough.”
Paul sighed. “Our phones are toast, and we never did find the bag the hijackers put all the loot in. The guy who drove off in the jeep before the others marched us into the jungle must have taken it with him. Without that cash I stuffed in the seat, the next few days will be a little problematic until I can replace what was in my wallet. I wonder if the looters will ever get around to stripping the upholstery. They’ll think they’ve won the lottery,” Paul said and then paused. “The ring?”
“There’s nothing left of the bus except a shell. Even the septic tank is missing.”
The wheels in Paul’s head started spinning. He needed to replace passports, credit cards, get cash, again. He’d be able to get at least one of his credit card companies to send a courier with replacements and a thousand dollars cash, ASAP. The hefty annual fee, for once, seemed worth it.
He and Rhees would need new clothes, luggage. He’d have to postpone their flight, their hotel room in Australia, the dive shop with whom they’d planned to dive the Great Barrier Reef. A pain in the neck but he’d manage with, hopefully, only a short delay. In fact, it didn’t sound so bad after all. Spending an extra day or two in bed with Rhees would give him a chance to make a real dent in the list of the things he’d wanted to do to her for so long, things he’d only dreamed about. He couldn’t control his dreams, right?
At least he’d already paid for the honeymoon suite and the hotel had his credit card number on file. He’d have to tell them to charge another night or two. It wouldn’t be so bad, just different than they’d planned.
A knock sounded at the door and a woman walked into the interrogation room without waiting for Ortiz to invite her in.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant Ortiz. It’s Mrs. Weaver. I’m afraid there’s a situation. The paramedics are on their way.”
Paul jumped to his feet before she’d finished speaking. “What’s wrong? Where is she?” He pushed past her, stopping in the hall when Rhees’ high-pitched scream gave him chills. He ran toward the sound and burst into the interrogation room where Rhees had been interviewed. He flushed completely pale when he caught his first glimpse of her.
Rhees had backed herself into the corner of the room, frantically holding a chair up the way a lion tamer would to keep the lions at bay. She continued to shriek and rant hysterically.
“Stay away from me.” She lurched at him with the chair to warn him off. “Don’t touch me!”
“Rhees?” Paul called to her over her screams. She looked at him, but her wild eyes didn’t soften at all. “Hey, Baby,” he cooed. “Did someone touch you? It’s okay. I’m here now.”
He moved toward her, but the panic in her eyes intensified at his approach and she jerked the chair his direction again to keep him away. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed again.
He stopped mid-step, stunned. She didn’t seem to recognize him. “Dani Girl, it’s me.”
She finally met his eyes and he held his hands out for her to see. He watched her chest heaving in short staccato breaths and thought he’d made a connection so he took another step.
“That’s right. It’s just me, Baby. It’s going to be all right.”
“Don’t touch me,” she whimpered, the terror still on her face.
“No one will touch you but me. You let me touch you.”
She seemed to take a second to think about it as recognition began to register in her eyes. She still held the chair as a shield but she’d relaxed her grip for a second. Her head started shaking back and forth and he could tell her anxiety was on the rise again. He ran his hand around the back of his neck, trying to think, but before he came up with anything, the door burst open with a crash and people started pouring into the room.
More police officers, paramedics, and to Paul, it seemed, the whole world, burst into the room, blowing any hope he had of bringing her back. Her eyes grew even wider and she snarled and gnashed wildly as the policemen and the paramedics assessed the situation and moved in on her. They barked strategy to each other as they tightened their circle, boxing her into the corner.
“You take that side. Hold her down and I’ll give her the sedative.”
“Stop! Just stop. I can handle this,” Paul pleaded but no one listened. “Please, let me handle this.”
The biggest man moved toward her, but she jerked the chair again, violently. The distraction gave the other men the opening they needed. One man jumped toward her, making her turn her head, while the big man pushed the chair out of the way and tackled her to the ground. Another man jumped to help hold her down while the man with the syringe grabbed her arm and tried to administer the sedative.
Paul went mad at seeing them manhandle her that way. He jumped the big man holding Rhees down and hit him, knocking him away. Rhees rolled and kicked the other man, scampering into the other corner of the room, still screaming incoherently about being touched. More policemen gathered at the door to see what the commotion was all about.
It took a small army but they finally overpowered Paul, tackling him to the ground before they slapped cuffs on him, letting a few more fists fly against his ribs to vent their relief at subduing him, at last.
“Leave her alone!” Paul yelled, helplessly. “Just leave her alone.”
One of the policemen punched Paul in the jaw, knocking his head onto the hard floor, leaving him dazed. The next few seconds seemed like a slow-motion replay of a televised football game. Two men held him down while three men wrestled Rhees to the floor again and administered the drug. It took effect almost immediately and she drooped, still conscious, but no longer able to fight.
Paul watched powerlessly as they strapped Rhees onto a stretcher and took her away. He barely heard the voice speaking to him.
“They’re taking her to the hospital. If you behave yourself, you might be able to join her there when we’re finished with you.” It was Cardona, the female officer who’d come to get Ortiz.
They’d left him bound to a hard chair longer than necessary, but an hour and a half later, the policemen decided Paul had calmed enough to take his cuffs off. “What did you do to her?” he begged, rubbing his swollen wrists.
“Has your wife been known to have psychotic episodes?”
“No.” He paused. “I wouldn’t really call it psychological episodes, but she had a few panic attacks after she was almost raped.
The other men in the room looked at each other. “She’s had panic attacks since last night?”
Paul tilted his head to the side, realizing just now how the night before, their wedding night, had been the second time someone had tried to rape her. It made his stomach churn. He sat forward and put his head in his hands. “Several months ago, a guy almost raped her.”
“Did it involve a bathtub?”
Paul lifted his gaze. His mind only grew foggier. “No. Some creepazoi . . . creep. A man slipped her Rohypnol. He tried to get her out of the bar when I happened along. It upset her pretty bad, for weeks . . . but she’s fine now.”
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Weaver has been taken to the hospital. They’re going to do a psychological evaluation.”
“I need to be there. I need to go, now!”
They glanced at each other again. Sergeant Ortiz nodded to one of the men who set a recording device on the table. �
��I think you need to listen to something, first.”
Ortiz nodded again and the other man pushed a button. Paul listened to the police interview his bride.
“Mrs. Weaver, will you tell us what happened after the hijackers ordered everyone to sleep?”
“Creepy—the big man, picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.” Rhees sounded shaken but no worse than would be expected. “It took me a second, but I knew what was going to happen. Paul, my husband, he knew too—I lifted my head to see him, worried about what Paul would do. I knew—I’ve always known. He would never sit back and let that man do that to me. He’d kill to protect me. He’s like that—safe. He’d stop at nothing to keep me safe.
“But for once . . . I didn’t care about me—about that. I didn’t want Paul to get hurt. It was all a bad dream . . .” Something about her tone changed. She continued her account, but in a child-like voice.
“He carried me into his house, into the bathroom. He closed the door and turned on the bathtub. He put me down and told me I was a very dirty girl and said to take my clothes off so he could give me a bath. I said I didn’t want to and he got mad at me. He pulled my shirt off and pushed my pants down. He stared at my panties.
“He picked me up and hugged me—he put his tongue in my mouth. I started to throw up, but no throw up came out. He took his tongue out and sat down on the toilet and put me over his legs and pulled my panties off. My hands touched the toilet and the floor. I could see all the old yellow pee. I didn’t want to touch it, but he rubbed my bum and I didn’t know where else to put my hands.” She sniffed. “He said I was a dirty girl and he spanked me, really hard.
“He told me to stop crying or he would spank me again. He picked me up and said that dirty girls need a bath—the bathtub was all black and ugly and I didn’t want to take a bath in there. He threw me in. I hit my elbow on the tub and it hurt, but I didn’t cry because I didn’t want him to spank me again. The bathtub was so ugly. He took off his clothes and got in the tub with me. He stared at me again and told me to lick his private part.”
Paul closed his eyes when he heard Rhees whimper on the recording. She grew more and more distressed as she recounted what obviously had been a traumatic part of her past.
“I didn’t want to. He got mad again and pushed my head down in the water and put it in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I tried not to cry, but I couldn’t breathe. He pulled me on his lap and put his tongue in my mouth again. I tried not to throw up. I wanted to cry but I didn’t want him to hear, so I was crying, inside.
“I said I wanted to go home, but he said I couldn’t go home because I was a dirty girl and my family didn’t want me anymore. It was because I disobeyed my mommy. I was supposed to take a nap, but I snuck outside to play. He pushed me on my back and got on top of me but my head was under the water and I couldn’t breathe again. I got water in my nose and I choked.
“He lifted me out of the bathtub and threw me on the floor. It was hard and cold . . . and dirty. He got on top of me again and he was pushing his private part on my private part . . . it hurt. I didn’t want to cry because I didn’t want him to spank me again, but I wanted him to stop hurting me. He kept pushing, and yelling at me to let him in. I didn’t know how. He stopped moving and laid on me—he was smashing me on the floor. I couldn’t breathe. There was white stuff on my tummy, coming out of his private part when he got off of me. He hit me, over and over, and yelled at me, and told me I did it wrong. He said I did it wrong because I was stupid.
“I wanted to go home, I shouldn’t have disobeyed. My mom told me to take a nap, but I wanted to play on the monkey bars—” Rhees’ sobs broke Paul’s heart, hearing it, finally knowing—he regretted ever wanting to know.
“He made me put my clothes back on and took me in the kitchen. It was stinky in there and there were lots of dishes, garbage everywhere, and the walls had food all over them. He got a sucker out of the cupboard. He opened it and put it in his mouth and then gave it to me. I didn’t want it but he yelled at me to taste it. He said I was a stupid, dirty girl, and it was all my fault, and if I told anybody about making the white stuff come out of him, I would get in a lot of trouble, because it’s wrong to make white stuff come out of him—but I did. Only dirty girls do that—I was a dirty girl. I said I would never tell anybody. I promised. I never want anyone to know what a bad girl I am.”
“That’s when things got crazy,” the other officer said as he turned the machine off. “Mrs. Weaver started screaming something about how she shouldn’t have said anything. She begged me to promise not to tell anyone, and then I think—I think that’s when it hit her she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She flew into a hysterical fit, yelling at me to get away from her. I was across the table from her. I don’t know why she thought I was trying to touch her. I called to Cardona for help. You pretty much know the rest.”
Paul couldn’t open his eyes. He trembled, his mouth twitched as he struggled to hold back the emotion. It took him a minute, but he finally choked out, “When can I see her?”
oOo
The hospital held Rhees for observation. The first day, Paul had attacked an intern who tried to keep him from pushing his way into Rhees’ room. Security escorted him out of the hospital and told him he wouldn’t be allowed back until Sergeant Ortiz assured them he could behave himself. Ortiz threatened to arrest him, but Paul didn’t want to wind up in jail and chance not being free when Rhees needed him. He promised Ortiz he’d stay at the hotel, under a self-imposed house arrest and Ortiz accepted the offer.
Seventy-two hours later, the doctor finally gave Paul permission to see her, and he’d raced to the hospital. Doctor Quiñones confessed they normally allowed family visits after only twenty-four hours, but because of Paul’s volatile state, he’d extended the waiting time for her sake, but mostly for the sake of his staff.
Paul walked slowly, nervously, into Rhees’ room, not knowing what to expect. She lay so still on the hospital bed, her back turned to him and she made no effort to acknowledge his presence.
“Is she asleep?” he asked the doctor.
“No. She hasn’t slept much since she’s been here. I’ll leave you two alone . . . but I’m going to tell the nurse to keep an eye on you.”
Paul came close to launching a verbal assault on the doctor, but he caught himself. He didn’t want to be banned from her again. “What do you think I’m going to do to her?”
Quiñones shrugged and walked out of the room.
“Hey.” Paul inched his way to the side of her bed. He reached to put his hand on her, to caress her arm, but decided against it, remembering how she’d screamed to not be touched. “I’ve missed you, Dani Girl.”
She didn’t respond.
“I would have come sooner, but they have this stupid policy against worried husbands . . . you know me. I’m sorry, Baby. I handled that poorly.” He pulled a chair to the side of her bed and sat down.
He wasn’t about to leave her side again. The last three days, being kept away from her, had been hell. He’d hardly eaten, he hadn’t slept. A couple of hours went by and still he watched her, wishing she’d acknowledge him, wishing she’d just move. Still afraid to touch her, he reached out and ran his fingers along the edge of her blanket, the only thing he could think of, looking for a way to connect. Eventually he fell asleep in the chair.
oOo
“Señor Weaver?” The nurse didn’t speak English and spoke to him in her own tongue. “Visiting hours are over. You must leave.”
He woke from an uncomfortable position and a bad dream.
“I’m not leaving,” he responded back in Spanish. “I’m not bothering anyone. I won’t hurt anyone, just let me stay. If you try to make me leave, all hell is going to break loose.” He glared at the short, older woman. She walked out, deciding she wouldn’t test him.
The next mornin
g, Doctor Quiñones came into the room. Surprised to see Paul there, asleep in the chair again, he shook his head but didn’t say anything as he examined Rhees’ chart.
“Mrs. Weaver? Do you know where you are?” the doctor asked, waking Paul.
She nodded, a good sign, the first time she’d responded since Paul showed up.
“Do you know where you are, Mrs. Weaver?”
“Rhees, her name is Rhees,” Paul said. Quiñones scowled at Paul.
“Rhees? Can you tell me where you are?”
“I’m right here,” she answered feebly.
Paul exhaled his relief. He hadn’t heard her voice since she’d screamed at him to leave her alone. Thank you, God. Thank you.
“Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard that.” Quiñones chuckled at her response. “Rhees, I’m sending you home today—”
“You’re sending her home because of me.” Paul shot to his feet in a panic, interrupting him. “Look at her! There is no way she’s ready to go home.”
The doctor took a step back and put his hands up. Paul realized he looked threatening again and took a breath before trying on a softer, apologetic demeanor. He was torn. Getting her out of that hospital had been a great concern, but the thought of them turning their back on her because of him.
“I promise. I won’t be any more trouble. Please, just give her the help she needs.”
“Mr. Weaver!” Quiñones boomed when he recovered, giving Paul a stern look. Paul locked eyes on him, matching his expression, until the doctor finally gave up and turned his attention back to Rhees. “Rhees, there’s nothing more we can do for you here. This is going to take time—you’re going to need time. I’m sending you home, but first I need to ask you some questions, all right?”
Paul barely perceived her nod.
“Does your husband hit you?”
“Aw, Jesus.” Paul cried out, agitated again, he cussed, “What kind of fu—question is—”
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