by Jaime Maddox
“Hmm. So what don’t you like? The dress, or the marriage, or the money?”
“All of the above.”
He would have liked to give her a little lecture about how overrated money was until you didn’t have enough to eat, but he refrained. He wasn’t that kid anymore. He controlled his own destiny, he worked hard, and he would never be hungry again. “So why do it?”
Again, the shrug, followed by moments of silence punctuated only by the sounds of passing cars and their footsteps on the pavement. “It’s just easier. If I go along with them, maybe they’ll leave me alone.”
“Okay,” he said, as if he understood. He didn’t. His concept of parents and family was worlds away from hers. He’d known that the moment he saw the parents, and their car, as they escorted her into Dr. Ball’s office for that first visit.
They’d reached the restaurant, and they sat beneath the awning and looked at each other for a moment. “Your turn,” she said as the waitress placed two tall, icy glasses of water before them.
“Hmm?”
“What’s your alibi for last night?”
He smiled, and it felt wonderful. It wasn’t forced, or rehearsed, like it usually was. It just happened. He answered as truthfully as he could. “At fifteen hundred hours, I finished work. For the next hour, I washed and buffed my car. After that, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up burgers, which I then grilled to perfection and devoured. I washed one load of laundry and ironed clothes while I watched television.”
She looked as if she wanted to ask a million questions as she studied him from behind the protection of her sunglasses. In the end, she asked only one. “What did you watch on TV?”
His lips pursed as they fought a smile, he answered. “Game shows.”
Chapter Thirteen
Self-Defense
Mac eagerly scanned the lot of the Safe House in downtown Scranton, hoping to see Jess’s car. The community center had been built in a vacant church and had ample space and a huge parking lot, and it was entirely possible Mac had missed Jess’s Jeep. She wished she could be sure Jess was coming—waiting to see her each week was a sort of torture. It had seemed to take all of Jess’s energy to bring herself to the first few classes, and Mac was never sure at the end of the night whether she’d return. Sure, she thanked Mac and said she enjoyed herself, but Mac knew it was an effort for Jess to attend. That was precisely why she encouraged her to come back—she was suffering. She needed to be with people, to gain strength, to laugh a little and find a sense of community.
That must be it, she thought. I’m just concerned about her. I need her to recover emotionally so she can testify at Hawk’s trial. Jess’s testimony was the key to the kidnapping charges, the central piece of evidence that tied everything else together. With her on the stand, a conviction was almost guaranteed, and Mac could imagine Hawk going to jail for a long time. And that was great news, because the experts reviewing the suspicious deaths linked to Hawk were having a difficult time finding anything in the medical records that would convince a judge to issue an indictment. In addition to the hospitals where he’d worked in the past twenty years, they’d searched his apartment, his car, the house where he’d lived in Garden, even his parents’ home in Florida. They’d found no evidence that said a mad serial killer had been there. Nothing bizarre, no trophies from victims, not a single indicator that Hawk was anything other than what he claimed to be—a hardworking big-city doctor caught up in small-town drama.
Hawk had already spoken with numerous psychiatrists, and rumor was his attorneys were going to claim he’d suffered some sort of psychotic break when he’d kidnapped the people in Garden. His lawyers planned to say he’d caved under pressure when Jess confronted him and accused him of murder, then count on his pristine record to get him a slap on the wrist for the kidnappings.
That was why Jess had to testify. Only she could confirm the kidnapping was premeditated, that Hawk had attacked her with that syringe before they even spoke a word about the murder accusations. Without Jess, Hawk’s attorneys would spin it to make her look like the bad guy.
The case against Hawk wasn’t the only reason she found herself loitering in the parking lot instead of going inside to her class. She really wanted to see Jess. She liked her. Perhaps a part of it had to do with the jobs they did, the burden they shared in dealing with life and death. There was more, though. Even though Jess was troubled, Mac saw a spark there, a flash of the fiery personality that matched her flaming hair. Jess said what she felt and made no apologies, and Mac found that refreshing. All too often women caved to her dominant personality, and it left her feeling drained. It was difficult for her to back down, to give over control, yet it tired her to play that role all day at work and then afterward, too. In her brief encounters with Jess, they’d shared more give-and-take than she had with some people she’d known her entire life.
It had been so long since Mac had been attracted to a woman she almost didn’t recognize it for what it was. Attraction. It was totally unethical but there anyway. She truly liked Jess. If they weren’t involved in this case, and Jess was emotionally stronger, Mac might have asked her out. No, she definitely would have. Any woman who could make her think about something other than work, or golf, had to be special.
That was why she was scanning the parking lot for Jess’s Jeep. It was why the first glimpse of long red hair caused Mac’s breath to catch in her throat. It was why the innocent, instructive touches of self-defense class caused Mac to stiffen like a rookie at her first inspection.
Thankfully, the class lasted only eight weeks. Mac ran the class four times a year, with a month off between sessions to recover and prevent burnout. In four weeks, she wouldn’t have to see Jess again. Then she could whip her mind into shape and train it to think of other things. Perhaps she’d date someone. Sex with someone else might chase thoughts of Jess from her mind.
Yes, that’s what she’d do. She’d start dating. And in four weeks, Jess would be out of her life. Until the trial anyway.
Resolved to forget about Jess, Mac began walking toward the former church’s back entrance. She’d gone only halfway when Jess’s car pulled into the lot. It was a Jeep Wrangler, designed for off-road use, and Mac had difficulty reconciling the proper physician whose every hair was in place with the woman who’d drive that car off-road through mud. Just the thought of it made her smile, though, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d paused long enough to allow Jess to hop out of the Jeep.
“What’s that smile about?” Jess asked.
“Your vehicle. It seems sort of…wild for you.”
“Hey, I’m offended. I’ve been known to be wild. Once.”
They both laughed, and after a moment Jess filled in the blanks. “It’s great for cruising around town. And for fishing. I can drive it down close to the streams or throw my kayak in the backseat.”
“You shoot, you fish, you kayak. You really are a local, huh?”
“I wasn’t for a while, but it feels good to be back. It’s home. How about you? Local?
“Oh, yeah. I grew up at the campground.”
Jess nodded. “Yes, you did tell me that.”
Mac was a little bit offended that Jess had forgotten that piece of her personal history, but she tried to brush it off. Jess had more important things to think about. And who cared, anyway? Even if she was attracted to her, Jess was just a witness she was trying to help, nothing more. It didn’t matter if she remembered Mac’s name, let alone trivia about her childhood.
“I’m enjoying the class, Mac. I’m happy you suggested it.”
Mac turned to her, relieved. She’d hoped Jess liked it. It seemed she did. And normally it wouldn’t matter if a student liked it or not. Typically she had a half dozen students in the class, and she couldn’t please them all. The self-defense suited some, but not others. Mac couldn’t take it personally. Yet with Jess, it was very personal. “Really?”
Jess had to admit the self-defense class w
as the best thing she’d done in her month since leaving the Hartley Clinic. Getting back into the routine of work had been easy—but of course, work was always easy for her. Patients were just puzzles, some more complicated than others, but they all came with clues—signs, symptoms, lab and X-ray findings. The process of putting it all together was actually therapeutic for her, and she could totally lose herself and her own troubles as she focused on her patients. A few times a day when she wasn’t at work, she’d been stressed enough to use Xanax, but she’d never caved in. She didn’t have any actual physical need for narcotics—the buprenorphine was taking care of that, sitting tightly in the opioid receptors in her brain, preventing any cravings from sneaking through the cracks. The psychological need was there, though—and that’s where the self-defense had come in.
Each week, she’d forced herself to get up and dress, to make the drive to Scranton to the Safe House, and to walk through the door and interact with the other human beings who saw fit to attend Mac’s class. Afterward, she’d enjoyed socializing with the other students. Actually enjoyed it. For the first time since she could remember, she took an interest in others for no reason other than pure, simple pleasure. Between classes, she practiced her moves. Mac had taught her and the other students the most important principle of self-defense was avoiding dangerous situations. Jess didn’t intend to argue with that fact, but she was happy to know the nose-breaking palm strike Mac had taught her.
Her knees still buckled when she thought of Hawk, but she focused on the present. This was what the psychiatrists had told her and her counselor had repeated in therapy, and she got it. She really did. She couldn’t go back and change the past. When she had an opportunity, she wasn’t going to forgive him, as her therapist had suggested. She planned to tell him to go fuck himself and inform him she had a syringe of succinylcholine waiting for him if he was ever released. And she intended to be smart and avoid danger, and fight to the death if she was ever in a situation where she couldn’t, because she was never going to let anything like Hawk happen to her again.
She shook off the thought and returned to the present. Mac was silent beside her, and Jess felt amazingly comfortable with her. Mac’s strength was not only calming, but it was also fortifying. Jess had to admit she enjoyed seeing Mac as much as she enjoyed the class. That fact was as strange as her newfound joy in engaging with people. She had to go back years to remember the last time she’d felt like this—happy, looking forward to the future, looking forward to seeing a woman. Even if Mac was taboo, Jess was happy for the feelings she elicited. It was a sign that she was alive, and healing.
“Yeah. It’s fun. And it’s making me feel better to know I might be able to defend myself if need be.”
“That’s great,” Mac said as she held the door for Jess. “You seem like you’re doing well.”
“I am,” she said, and as their eyes met, a current of electricity shot through her. Mac swallowed. Could she have felt it, too?
“Are you ready to take me on at Ping-Pong?” Mac asked, and her quick rejoinder told Jess she’d imagined Mac’s reaction. Just as well. This could go nowhere.
Ping-Pong was another story, though. Jess had reached expert status at Hartley. With no television and contraband Internet, it was really the only entertainment. Group therapy didn’t count. She looked at Mac and shook her head. “I don’t want to make you look bad. All of these people admire you.”
Mac nodded. “I see. How can I ever hold another self-defense class if I can’t handle a paddle?”
“Precisely.”
Mac squinted, and her eyes bore into Jess. “I’ll take my chances with my reputation. You. Me. Afterward.”
Jess met Mac’s eyes and held them, and she couldn’t control her smirk. “Game on.”
They walked into the large community room and were greeted with a chorus of welcomes. One smile after another lit up the faces of the participants in the class. This wasn’t therapy, and they were in no way obligated to share their stories, but it wasn’t frowned upon, either. Over the course of the weeks, they’d all opened up about what had brought them to the Safe House. There were battered spouses, frightened teens, victims like her. They’d all shared, except her. Everyone there knew her story. Thanks to television news coverage, everyone in America knew her story. Instead of her classmates staring, though, or treating her any differently than they treated each other, they paid her no special attention. They laughed at her when she did something silly and laughed with her, too. They encouraged her, as she encouraged them.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Mac said after everyone said their hellos.
Mac taught a blended class, with a little bit of yoga, because it helped strengthen the mind, and that was a huge part of being safe. They learned physical moves for defense, which helped bolster self-confidence. Not that Mac ever wanted any of them to defend themselves. She was much more interested in her students escaping to safety than staying to fight. Finally, she taught them the psychology of both victims and perpetrators of violence.
“What’s Mac’s first rule of self-defense?” she asked the group as they stretched their leg muscles.
“Avoid danger,” they said in unison.
Jess thought about this principle as she had a hundred times since Mac had first said it weeks earlier. At first she’d thought the advice was useless—she was still stuck in her victim’s mentality. How could she have avoided Hawk? He’d targeted her, and she never saw the attack coming. But as hours melted into days, she realized how avoidable her situation really had been.
First, she’d denied the danger of Hawk. Her pride and mixed feelings about Ward had caused her to be defensive, and instead of listening to Ward’s concerns, she’d been critical. Not only had that response allowed Hawk to get close to her, but it had also alienated Ward. If Ward hadn’t been so persistently stubborn in looking for her, Jess would probably be dead.
After she realized the merit of Ward’s accusations, Jess had put herself directly in danger by going to the hospital to investigate Hawk. What harm would there have been in presenting her concerns to the hospital authorities the next day? Absolutely none. She’d chosen to behave foolishly, though, and as a result, she gave Hawk the opportunity he needed to kill her.
Thinking about Hawk, Jess felt her stress level rising, and as she’d been doing lately, she closed her eyes and took some deep breaths to break up the tension. Eyes shut, she envisioned the smooth surface of the lake at the hunting club, added the heat of the sun on her face, and then imagined herself hearing the call of a bird swooping down close to her kayak. After a half dozen breaths, she rejoined the group. When she opened her eyes, she saw a concerned stare from Mac. A wink sent Mac’s gaze scurrying to her other students and also filled Jess with a strange sense of excitement.
“Okay, everyone pick a partner,” Mac said after they completed their stretching routine. “We’re going to work on some punching and kicking. When do you want to punch and kick?” she asked no one in particular.
“When you can’t run,” they all answered.
The questions were always the same, but Jess found it was much like studying for boards. You read the same question over and over again until the answer became reflexive, until the patterns made sense. You get a flat tire on the highway. What do you do? Pull over, lock your doors, and call for help. Your car breaks down on the side of the highway. What do you do? Pull over, lock your doors, and call for help. You’re in a fender-bender on a deserted road. What do you do? Pull over, lock your doors, call for help. What’s the dosage of epinephrine for anaphylaxis due to a bee sting? What’s the dosage of epinephrine for anaphylaxis due to a food allergy? What’s the dosage of epinephrine for anaphylaxis due to anything? It was all the same. Different, but the same.
Jess looked around and realized she had no partner. There had been an even number of students the week before, but this week it appeared someone hadn’t showed up. It left an imbalance in the teamwork, where one student practi
ced throwing punches and kicks and the other served as a target. The target also worked on defending themselves from attack.
“You can work with me,” Mac said as people began appropriating padding from a cabinet. The helmets went unused in this class, but most of them chose large foam shields, arm and leg pads, or protective eyewear.
Mac donned her gear. “Let’s work on nose strikes,” she said, and Jess grinned. She loved this move, practiced shoving the heel of her hand into her assailant’s nose again and again before the mirror in her bedroom. Each time, the blood poured from Hawk’s nose, much as it had when her father had finally taken him down. This time she would hit him, though. She’d fight until death, just as Mac had taught her.
“Nice,” Mac said as she ducked away from Jess’s blow.
“I’m getting good at this,” Jess said in chopped breaths, winded from turning her body and jabbing her arm forward as Mac had shown her.
“Jess is getting good at this,” Mac repeated for the crowd, and they all cheered. “And that’s the point. You want to practice a few basic moves until they’re second nature. Until you’re good enough at them that they can get you out of trouble, so you can—”
“Run away!” They all cheered.
“What if I want to learn more?” Jess asked, meeting Mac’s eyes. Jess understood the principles of Mac’s blended teaching style. Jess would never learn more than a few basic moves, but she would get good at them, and they’d keep her out of trouble. She liked the workout, though: throwing punches and kicks, stretching. “What is this you’re teaching us? Karate? Kung-fu? Are you the Kung-fu cop?”
Mac laughed so hard she nearly missed blocking a punch Jess had thrown. “Yep, that’s what they call me around the station.”
“Seriously? What if I want to do more of this?”
Mac sensed Jess’s intensity lessen, felt her ease off, and she dropped her guard. Jess’s eyes held her though, and she was drawn into the deep-blue pools. They seemed the same color as the Caribbean, not just any spot, but a reef she’d snorkeled near Montego Bay. She’d been in college then, her first time in the turquoise waters of that part of the world, and she’d fallen in love with that shade. Her own eyes weren’t much different, and she constantly bought shirts that matched, not just because she looked really good in them, but because she felt really good in them, too. Just seeing that color transported her a thousand miles in her mind, to a kind and gentle place where people fished to eat and braided hair in little huts by the side of the road.