Because of a Girl

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Meg heard herself say, “It took him a while to admit to himself that he was able and willing to kill another human being. He was a sociopath but didn’t know it.”

  “But why would he want to be a teacher?” Emily burst out.

  “The same reason pedophiles coach youth sports team,” Jack said grimly. “Because he would have access to his chosen prey.”

  The words cast a pall. Nobody said anything for a long time.

  “What will happen to him?” Sabra whispered at last.

  “He’ll be convicted of first-degree kidnapping and attempted murder.” Jack sounded hard, unforgiving. “Two counts. One of trying to kill a minor, one a law enforcement officer. He won’t be getting out of prison for a long time, if ever.”

  “Oh.”

  Meg tried to see Sabra in the rearview mirror. A girl that age might easily still have mixed feelings for the monster she’d once believed she loved, but if so, she didn’t say anything.

  Even with windows closed, they smelled the smoke long before they reached the burned cabin.

  * * *

  DESPITE THE DARK, Jack, Meg and Asher walked the short distance to where the soggy, charred remains of the cabin still steamed. A firefighter who remained told them they’d brought in a pumper tanker to blast the fire with water.

  “The vines could have caught,” he said, nodding to the fields beyond, eerily visible in moonlight. “Big loss.”

  Jack nodded. As the firefighter turned away, Jack kept an eye on his companions, both staring at what had been Sabra’s prison. Meg’s expression was stricken.

  This seemed like the place to say what he needed to.

  “Asher, I don’t think I could have gotten Sabra out in time today without you. You showed guts and strength.”

  The boy squared his shoulders. “She was a friend,” he said simply, gaining Jack’s respect.

  He looked at Meg. “You were right not to go when I told you to. All of you were right. I needed you.” I still need you.

  “I didn’t do much,” she demurred. “As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered whether I chased after him or not. All I had to do was call nine-one-one.”

  “You had no way of knowing he didn’t have Sabra.”

  She pursed her lips. “Well...”

  Jack bent forward and kissed her cheek. “Don’t argue.”

  He thought she was blushing, but couldn’t be sure. They retraced their steps to the two vehicles. Emily and Sabra had stayed huddled together in the backseat of Asher’s car.

  “I’ll see you all back in Frenchman Lake,” he started to say, when Meg blocked him.

  “Not a chance.” She poked his chest, albeit gently. “You are not driving.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Aside from cracked ribs and cracked sternum, you mean? Let me think. Narcotic pain reliever, anyone? Did you listen to the nurse?”

  Actually...no. He’d tuned her out.

  Meg held out her hand. “Keys.”

  Neither girl argued about transferring to the Camry. That way Asher could go straight home, where his parents were waiting. Sabra gave him a quick hug, as did Emily.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, Meg did the same. “You’ve been amazing today. I’m so glad you were with us.”

  Jack would bet Asher’s face was flaming red when he opened his car door.

  * * *

  ONCE IN FRENCHMAN LAKE, Asher flashed his lights at them before turning off toward his own home.

  When her house came in sight, Meg almost moaned in relief...until she saw the car sitting in the driveway. Beside her, Jack bit back a curse. A dramatic, tearful reunion was the last thing any of them needed, but she should have realized there was no way Andrea would forgo it. They were lucky she hadn’t called the local TV station and had cameras waiting to film the reunion.

  Sobbing, Andrea raced to Sabra the second she got out of the car. “Oh, baby! I’ve been so scared!”

  Sobbing in counterpoint, Sabra clung to her mom. Emily hung back looking uncertain.

  Jack climbed out stiffly and circled to the driver’s seat. “I can make it a short distance,” he said in a low voice. “The pain meds are wearing off.”

  Completely ignoring the noisy scene behind her, Meg shook her head. “You shouldn’t be alone.” And she didn’t want to let him go anywhere. She had this need to have everyone she loved safe and together. Of course, she couldn’t say anything like that. Jack might not be thinking long term. No matter how he felt about her, the idea of taking on a rebellious teenage stepdaughter had to give him pause.

  But his mouth curled into a smile. “You going to let me sleep in your bed?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. And I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  “To quote you—not a chance.” He snatched the keys from her.

  She slid around him and pressed her back against the driver’s side door.

  Behind them, Andrea exclaimed tearfully, “Of course you’re coming home where you belong! It broke my heart when you left to stay here.” The sneer in the final word had Meg glowering past Jack.

  He muttered, “Broke her heart when she kicked her kid out, did it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Will you stay put while I deal with this?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  Calming everyone down took a few minutes. Sabra was swaying on her feet by the time her mother grudgingly agreed to let her stay overnight, since all her stuff was here. She would return in the morning to talk to her daughter.

  They hugged, cried some more, and Andrea finally departed. Meg suspected she wasn’t the only one who was ready to crumple in relief. Sabra leaning on Emily, the two girls took Meg’s house key and went inside. Meg stepped into Jack’s embrace. “I’m so tired.”

  “I know.” He stroked her back, soothing and kneading. “We saved a life today. That’s hard work.”

  “Two lives,” she whispered, and he had to nod.

  “Yeah. Two.”

  A sigh. “I hope she agrees to give the baby up for adoption.”

  “You and me both.” He hesitated. “What do you think about her going home?”

  That’s when she surprised herself. “I think she should. As soon as we get in the house, I’m calling Kathryn Berry. If Sabra and Andrea agree to counseling and at least consider the adoption alternative, I think they’ll be okay.”

  Jack smiled. “Thanks to your big heart, I think you’re right.”

  Neither of them moved, even though Meg, at least, was cold, standing out there in front of the house.

  “Do you really want to go home?” she asked, feeling timid.

  He cupped her cheek. “No. You know I don’t, Meg. I’m ready to move in with you. It’s too soon, but, damn, I wish it wasn’t.”

  Tears stung her eyes again. “I wish you could, too, but I need to set a better example for Emily than that.”

  “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I know. But I figure, if she can have a boyfriend, so can you.”

  Warmth spread through Meg’s bloodstream. Suddenly, she wasn’t the tiniest bit cold. “I’d like that.”

  “Good.” He bent his head and kissed her lightly, a promise instead of a demand. “And I’ll even sleep on your couch if that’s what it takes to stay tonight.”

  She laughed, slid her arm around his waist and said, “Once you take another pill, you won’t care where you’re sleeping.”

  “It’s just too bad it won’t be next to you.”

  “Soon.” Despite every ache and pain, she suddenly felt light, all the doubt she’d held tight inside herself gone. If ever a man had proven himself, it was Jack Moore.

  She steered him toward the porch steps, very aware he was trusting her to bear some of his weight.

  EPI
LOGUE

  JACK DID HIS damndest not to betray the strain that felt like a slingshot pulled taut. As much as he wanted to pace, he lounged in the easy chair in Meg’s living room, Asher and Emily keeping him company. She was telling them all about rehearsals for the spring high school musical, Fiddler on the Roof. Asher listened quietly, probably having heard it all before. Hoping he was nodding in the right places, Jack tensed every time a car passed on the street out front.

  Good smells floated from the kitchen. At his request, Meg had made that Cabbage Patch soup he had loved the first time he’d eaten there. After the biscuits went in the oven, she’d waved Emily out of the kitchen.

  He wanted to take cover in the kitchen with her.

  Almost a month had passed since the day he’d pulled Sabra out of the burning cabin. Since then, he’d taken Meg out for meals and movies—and they had already made a date for opening night of Fiddler on the Roof. Half the time, Emily came with them. He ate dinner most nights at Meg’s place. Days off, he’d taken to working on the old house, starting with repairing and refinishing the staircase and balusters. His second job had been installing an automatic garage-door opener. Next up was stripping the fireplace mantel. Nobody could accuse him of being subtle about his intentions.

  All he’d been doing was biding his time until he thought Meg was ready to say yes to his proposal.

  Soon, he thought now.

  But first, he had to get through this initial meeting with his mother.

  He’d needed to work his way up to it. They had been talking on the phone a couple of times a week. He now knew she’d remarried ten years ago. Her husband, who sounded like a nice guy, owned a tack shop and managed the rodeo grounds in their rural, northern California town. His mother performed regularly at a local tavern.

  Just last week, Jack had offered to fly down for a visit. His mother suggested she come to him instead. She wanted to see where he lived and meet Meg.

  And, damn, knowing he’d be seeing her any minute had him suffering flashbacks. A car approached, hesitated and turned into the driveway beside his SUV. Emily kept chattering as his throat seized.

  But, suddenly, Meg was there. Her fingers tangled with his as they went together to let his mother in. He couldn’t let go, even as he reached for the doorknob with his free hand.

  Before he turned it, though, he looked at the woman beside him and said the words for the first time.

  “I love you.”

  Her smile lit her face to beauty, choking him. “You know I love you.”

  “Yeah. I guess I do.” He swallowed, brushed a kiss over her lips and opened the door.

  “Mom.”

  * * * * *

  Read on for an extract from THE PROMISE HE MADE HER by Tara Taylor Quinn.

  CHAPTER ONE

  PHYSICAL BRUISES HEAL. It’s the mental ones that can kill you. Bloom shook her head and hit the delete key. Looked for a more genteel way to get her point across. She didn’t want to lose her audience during the first minute of the two-hour-long psychology symposium. They’d given her a room with seating for three hundred, which could feel cavernous if she failed to entertain.

  Back in her old life, her teaching life, she’d have filled the screen with visual aids, provided a handout—and probably pens, too. She’d have sent around a bowl filled with individually wrapped peppermints. All actions designed to increase memory retention in lecture situations, and she’d have been content to get 5 percent retention after seven days.

  But those were the old days. Her associate college professor days. Funny how so much could change in just three years.

  Physical bruises heal. It’s the mental ones that can kill you. Her second try ended up exactly the same as the first.

  And if she started her keynote address at the psychiatric conference that way, people might not physically exit in droves, but she might lose her credibility.

  One in four of the audience members—the current statistic for the number of the victims of domestic violence in the United States—might even take offense. Get angry.

  How could she belittle the bruises that took so many lives? How could she say that “bruises heal,” dismissing the fact that intimate partners lifted fists to those who loved them?

  She had two hours to impress upon her peers the very real disease that ate away at more of the population than any other disease. Domestic violence.

  Medical personnel had been made more aware of intimate partner violence in recent years. After all, some professional sports leagues had been forced to shine light on the problem as a way of warding off the negative press that resulted from some of their stars being abusers.

  But the fact that every minute twenty-four people were victims of intimate partner abuse in the United States was not just a problem for police and hospitals, doctors and nurses. Her profession—psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors—needed to step up to the plate.

  Because bruises, broken bones, even cracked skulls healed over time. But without awareness, without help, without a “movement” to tend to the mental bruises left by domestic violence, not enough of the victims of that violence were going to heal...

  The soapbox is not going to work with these people.

  Bloom’s self-talk was trying to help. She knew that.

  But...unhealed mental wounds often drove victims to the other side—they became abusers.

  Preaching, teaching, prophesying or statisticizing wasn’t going to reach her peers.

  She deleted again.

  Sitting behind her mahogany desk, Bloom looked over the top of her laptop screen to survey her office, as though the words she needed were there. The couch and two recliners that faced each other with her favorite old claw-footed chair—an inheritance from the maternal grandmother she’d adored—offered...nothing. There was the coffee table with a floral tissue box holder in the middle of it. Wall hangings, all carefully chosen, in shades of muted reds, oranges, yellows, a splash of purple. Some hearts quilted together. Some quotations in the midst of abstract art.

  Clearly a woman’s office. She made no apology for that. She was a woman.

  Her patients were predominantly women.

  A lot of whom were living healthy, productive lives.

  But there were so many more out there. And she was booked to the hilt. Beyond the hilt, really, not that she minded the evening hours she put in three nights a week in addition to fully booked days.

  Dr. Bloom Freelander, Psy.D, had a thriving private practice.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  She couldn’t even come close to serving the needs of all of those calling her office for help.

  Nine o’clock on a Wednesday night. Her last patient had been gone almost an hour. Susan, her receptionist, soon after that. She had a 7:00 in the morning—Latoya Markham, who had to be at work by 8:00 a.m. And here she sat, needing to write the speech that she’d be giving at the University of California in just two days.

  Physical bruises heal. It’s the mental ones that can kill you.

  No!

  The truth was...true. Physical bruises did heal. In some fashion. They’d fade and disappear. Broken bones reset. Some attacks resulted in death, too. It was the most unfortunate fact of all. One that she was trying desperately to avoid as often as humanly possible. The way to prevent domestic violence deaths was to heal the person. As well as the bruises.

  She typed.

  The way to prevent domestic violence deaths is to heal the person. Not just the bruises.

  She read what she’d typed. Nodded. Yes. There.

  She still had two hours left to fill.

  She read her words again. One sentence. Her fingers lifted to the keys. Began to move. And Bloom quit fighting them.

  * * *

  WTF.

  Detective
Samuel Larson, thirty-seven-year-old semistar of the Santa Raquel Police Department, leaned back in the old squeaky desk chair he’d inherited, along with the scarred desk, when he’d been awarded his detective’s shield.

  He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the desk. Never had. He stared at the emailed report he’d just opened.

  Two years? The asshole was out in two years?

  How was he going to... “Damn.”

  “Something wrong?” Brand-new detective Chantel Harris, who’d recently transferred from a beat cop to internet crime investigation, happened to be walking by Sam’s desk as that last expletive slipped out.

  Sam knew Chantel. Not from any work they’d done together on the job, but because they were both members of the Santa Raquel High Risk Team—an organization of professionals in all fields who came into contact with victims of domestic violence. From nurses to school counselors, cops, doctors, lawyers, the team had formed an intricate communication system geared solely to prevent domestic violence deaths.

  “Yeah, something’s wrong,” he said, running a hand through blond hair that was too long by department standards. No one seemed to care. Least of all him. “One of our High Risk cases just threw up on us.”

  In silk pants and a jacket that looked like it had cost a year of his car payments, the no-nonsense, no makeup, blond-hair-tied-back cop sat down hard in the varnishless wooden chair beside his desk.

  “Which one?” Her lips were white with tension.

  “This one was before your time,” he quickly assured her.

  “But not before yours.”

  “Right.” He looked at his screen again, seething angry energy. Rocking back and forth in the swivel chair that had seen better days, leaning on one elbow as he chewed the side of his finger.

  Chantel glanced at the screen. “Arrested three years ago, sentenced to life in prison a year later and now released on a technicality,” she read the portion he’d scrolled to.

  “The lawyer who prosecuted him was Trevor Banyon.” He chewed harder.

  Chantel’s drawn out curse was only slightly less harsh than his mental one. “How many are they up to now? Twenty-four? I can’t believe that many cases have been overturned. A top prosecutor with an illegal gun trade on the side.” She shook her head. “The guy should be shot.”