Four

by Jane Blythe

  He ignored her. Nothing was going to soothe his guilt at the moment. “This matches what was done to Jessica Elgar,” he noted. “The cigarette burns, the strangulation, the broken finger and the cutting of a word into the skin. Laura is this guy’s target. He’s angry that she was rescued before he was finished with her.”

  Rose nodded slowly, considering this. “I’ll give you that she seemed nervous and jumpy. She’s scared. And the fact that she uses an alias does make it look like she’s hiding from someone. But, Jack, the men who hurt her were caught—they’re in prison—they can't be doing this.”

  Jack knew in his bones that Laura was at the center of this. “What Laura went through is being recreated in these crimes. He’s working backward. Audrey was abducted just like Laura was. Jessica and Judith were tortured and raped just like Laura was, and I'm going to guess a knife to the heart was how he intended to kill Laura once he finished playing with her. There could have been a third man involved. One who was never caught. You can't deny the similarities, Rose. And she lives in one of the J apartments. It’s her.”

  The thought that someone, especially someone who had already done such heinous things to Laura, was after her was chilling. Jack could barely think straight. The only thing he knew was that this man was not getting his hands on Laura ever again.

  “We need to put cops on her door,” he told Rose, already reaching for his phone to call Belinda and have her set it up. “I don’t want her alone and unprotected. If I thought she’d let us in the door, we’d go straight back over there, but she’s not going to talk to us again today. We’ll let her cool down a little and go see her again in the morning.”

  He was going to find the man who wanted Laura dead, and then he was going to somehow convince her that he was sorry and get her to forgive him so that he could get her back. He still loved Laura, and he had a feeling, that despite her anger, deep down, she still loved him, too.

  JULY 24th

  8:11 A.M.

  “You know,” Laura stated as soon as she opened her front door and saw Jack and his partner standing there. She could always tell when someone found out about her abduction. It changed the way they looked at her. Invariably, once someone knew what she’d been through, when they looked at her they saw a poor helpless victim. Their gazes were always full of pity. Laura had resented that at first. But now, she acknowledged that if the roles were reversed, she would look at someone who had been through what she had with pity, too. How could you not feel sorry for someone who had been repeatedly raped and tortured?

  “Can we come in?” Jack asked her gently. Apparently, they had decided to treat her with kid gloves.

  “I guess.” She stepped back to allow them entrance, and Jack relocked the deadbolts for her.

  “You look cold; go sit down and I’ll make you a hot drink,” Jack ordered.

  Against her better judgment, Laura complied. She wasn't feeling so good this morning. Too many nights without sleep was catching up with her and leaving her feeling anxious and weak. Seeing Jack again after all these years had just added to the too full basket of stress she had already been carrying.

  “I like cocoa,” she informed him as she curled herself up into a ball in the corner of the couch.

  “I know,” Jack replied mildly, bustling about her kitchen as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

  “Jack, make her something to eat, too,” Rose told him as she plonked herself down on the couch beside Laura.

  Laura rolled her eyes. “You're as bossy as he is,” she commented, closing her eyes and resting her head back against the pillows. She probably should eat something. She was feeling a little light-headed.

  “Yep,” Rose agreed cheerfully. “Keep your eyes closed and rest for a moment. Did you sleep last night?”

  “No.” Laura stifled a yawn.

  Rose clucked like an anxious mother hen, even though she couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than Laura herself. “You’re shaking,” Rose declared. “Where do you keep spare blankets?”

  “Her bed has a built-in drawer underneath it; they're in there,” Jack answered before she could.

  “Jack,” Laura opened her eyes to frown at him, “stop acting like you know everything about me.”

  “I do,” Jack shot back unperturbed.

  “No, you don’t,” Laura grumbled sullenly.

  “Was I wrong?” Jack challenged.

  “No.” She didn’t want to give Jack any more encouragement to get too comfortable around her. He was looking like he wanted to start things up with her again and she was not interested in that at all.

  “Here you go, cocoa and toast with peanut butter, I know it’s your favorite breakfast.” Jack grinned goadingly as he stood before her.

  Laura was too tired to bicker, so she simply accepted the breakfast and ate as much of it as she could manage. Jack and Rose let her be while she ate, speaking to each other in hushed voices Laura didn’t even bother trying to decipher.

  Jack frowned slightly when she set the plate down with three quarters of the piece of toast still remaining, but chose not to comment. Instead, he shot her a reproachful glance. “Laura, why did I never know about your attack?”

  Taking the blanket Rose had retrieved from her bedroom, Laura wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, then clutched the mug of hot cocoa in her freezing hands. “Because I'm a rape victim, and the police don’t release the names of victims of sexual assault. I would have thought you knew that,” she replied.

  “You know I didn’t mean professionally,” Jack admonished. “I meant, why didn’t I know about your attack personally? Our families were close. Even after we split up, our parents continued to hang out.”

  “I told my parents not to tell anyone about what happened. Especially you,” she added.

  He looked offended. “Why especially me? We’ve been best friends most of our lives. I would have been there for you. Why wouldn’t you want me to know?”

  “Because I knew you would blame yourself and come running straight to my side. In fact, I bet when you found out about my assault, the first thing you did was blame yourself. If only you hadn’t cheated on me with Melissa, then we would have still been together. And if we’d still been together, then I wouldn’t have been abducted and none of it would have ever happened. Am I right?”

  A glance at his partner’s face confirmed that she was.

  “I played the ‘what if’ game at first, too—almost drove myself crazy doing it. It didn’t help any. What happened happened, and I can't change it and neither can you. But there was no way I was going to break up your family by having you leave them to come and look after me.” Laura had wanted to call Jack in those first months. She had still been in love with him, and even though he’d hurt her, she still wished they could work it out. But there was no way she would have ruined that child’s family. It was bad enough her own life had been ruined, but she wasn't going to spread her misery around.

  “There was no baby, Laura,” he reminded her.

  “Well, I didn’t know that then,” she snapped.

  “But you know it now,” Jack noted meaningfully.

  He wanted that to change things, it was clear; only for her, it didn’t change a thing.

  When she didn’t respond, Jack sighed. “Laura, we have to ask you some questions about what happened to you. Do you want to call your mom or dad or sister to come over?”

  Her heart clenched both at the mention of her family and at the prospect of the questions they were going to be asking her. “No.”

  He was puzzled for a moment, then comprehension dawned. “Are you hiding from your family? Do they not know where you are? Is that why you weren’t renting this place under your real name?”

  She nodded a yes to all of those.

  “Why did you push them away? Laura, they would have done anything for you.” Jack looked confused.

  “I needed space,” she explained. “They wanted me to go back to the way I was before, only I c
ouldn’t.” Laura was dangerously close to tears. “I'm not the same person I was before. I can't even go outside, Jack. I'm agoraphobic now. I haven’t been outside my apartment since I moved in here ten years ago.”

  “Oh, honey, I'm sorry.” His eyes were pained, and his voice was hoarse with concern for her.

  The desire to throw herself into Jack’s arms and sob hysterically was almost overwhelming. As she looked at him through her watery eyes, she realized with a start that she wasn't angry with him anymore. She was still hurt, but her anger had gone. Jack was so strong and so confident and he always knew what to do. Jack would take care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself right now.

  “Honey, let me look at your hand. I'm a little worried about it; you don’t seem to be able to use it properly. What did you do to it?” he asked, reaching for the injured hand.

  His bossy tone snapped her back to reality. She couldn’t go to Jack for comfort. She didn’t trust him anymore. “I burned it,” she replied, moving her hand away before Jack could grasp it.

  This earned her another frown. “How did you burn it?”

  “I was heating milk to make cocoa the other night and I had a flashback and got distracted and spilled the boiling milk on it,” she answered.

  He winced. “Ouch. Well, if you won't let me check it out, will you let Rose look at it?”

  “No, I don’t need either of you to look at it, I can take care of myself,” she informed them.

  He raised a skeptical brow at that. “The flashbacks, do you have them regularly?”

  “I used to, after it first happened, now I just get them when something reminds me of it,” Laura explained.

  “Like what’s been happening here?” Jack asked.

  Laura just nodded.

  “You said you hadn’t been following too closely what has been going on here, what do you know?” Jack leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

  “Someone was murdered and someone was raped.” She couldn’t help the shiver that wracked through her.

  “There was also a woman who was tortured and another woman who was abducted,” Jack informed her gently. “We think that the man who’s done all of this is really after you.”

  “Me?” she echoed, completely confused.

  “The man has been attacking the people in the building because he wants to scare you. He’s recreating what you went through. You're the one he really wants, Laura.” Jack was looking at her anxiously.

  “This can't have anything to do with me,” Laura protested. “They caught the men who hurt me. They were two brothers. They’re in prison now. And I know they weren’t falsely convicted because I saw them. They never bothered to hide their identities from me.”

  “Laura,” Rose began. “He’s recreating your attack. The abduction, the rape, with one of his victims he strangled her, burned her with cigarettes, broke her finger, used a knife to cut a word into her skin.”

  Her gaze strayed to her body, where her many scars were hidden under the sweatshirt and sweatpants she always wore. Laura couldn’t stand looking at her body. She showered with her eyes closed and she always wore clothes that completely covered her.

  “I'm so sorry, honey, but he wants you. He wants you to suffer, he wants you to figure this out and know he’s coming for you.” Jack reached out a hand to take hers, then seemed to remember her bad reaction from when he touched her yesterday and stopped midway toward her.

  “No.” She shook her head adamantly. “You're wrong.”

  “We don’t think we are,” Jack said apologetically. “We think there was another person involved in your abduction who was never caught.”

  “No. No,” she said again, as though saying it could make it true. She would quite simply not allow herself to believe that her ordeal wasn't over and finished with.

  “Can we show you a sketch of the man we’re looking for? One of his victims got enough of a look at her attacker to give us a vague description. The picture isn’t great, but it’s all we have. Can you have a look at it for us? Tell us if you know this man?”

  “No,” Laura said resolutely. There was no need to look at a picture because there was no other person involved in her attack.

  “Laura?”

  She turned dazed eyes to Rose; she couldn’t seem to summon a word.

  “The killer left stars on the ceiling of one of his victim’s home. Does that mean anything to you?”

  When she had been out in the woods, she would lie there while they were assaulting her and stare up at the sky, hating it. Hating the wide blue, powerful expanse. Hating the inky blackness with its millions of shimmering diamonds. But most of all, hating herself for letting those men hurt her over and over again.

  “Laura,” Jack said sharply, “put your head down. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  Instead of complying with what was probably a wise command, she bounced up to her feet. “You need to leave now.” She caught the hysteria in her voice but was powerless to eradicate it.

  Jack had stood with her, ready to catch her if her knees should give out she supposed. “Laura, you need to sit down,” he told her.

  “No. You need to go. Now. You need to go.” She needed to be alone.

  Apparently, deciding complying was going to upset her less than staying and arguing with her, Jack and Rose walked toward her front door. “Laura, I have cops posted at your door. Okay? No one is going to get to you. And you have my number. Call me if you need anything at all. I mean it, Laura. If you get scared, or you don’t want to be alone, or you need to talk, all you have to do is call, and I’ll be right here.”

  Once she was alone, she took a step toward the bedroom. Only her legs wouldn’t hold her up for another second. She collapsed. Lying sprawled on the carpet. Panting as she struggled for breath and the world went spinning mercilessly around her.

  It’s over, she assured herself.

  They were wrong.

  There was no third guy.

  What had happened to her was in the past.

  It was over. It was over. It was over.

  * * * * *

  9:42 A.M.

  “So, you think you’ve finally found the woman our killer is really after?” Belinda directed the question to him and Rose.

  “Yes,” Jack replied. “Her name is Laura Opal, she lives in apartment 9J.”

  “I understand you know her.” Belinda was studying him carefully, seemingly trying to ascertain whether this was going to be a problem.

  “We grew up together,” Jack acknowledged. “We dated for a while until I cheated and we broke up.”

  Although, if Jack had his way, they would soon be back together. Being in the same room with her felt so right. Even after so many years apart, they still knew each other so well. They belonged together. They both knew it, even if Laura would deny it right now. She was warming up to him, though. Today she hadn’t been angry with him, she hadn’t been thrilled to see him either, but at least her anger seemed to have faded.

  “Run down for me why you think Laura is the target,” Belinda requested.

  Jack opened his mouth to describe the similarities between Laura’s abduction and assault eleven years ago and what was happening now, but found that he couldn’t speak. When he thought of what Laura had suffered, it felt like his heart was breaking into a million pieces. She had been so young, so scared and alone. Was still alone now. His heart broke all over again as he thought of how she had cut herself off from everyone who loved her.

  She needed someone.

  Badly.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave her this morning. It had been clear to both him and Rose that Laura wasn't coping very well. From the moment she had opened the door, she’d been shaky and weak looking; three times he’d been afraid she was about to faint. Her eyes had held a glassy, faraway look in them, like she was disconnecting herself from reality. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d broken down the second the door closed behind them.

  Jack was
now more desperate than ever to find this man before he got to Laura. She had been through enough—more than enough—more than any person should ever have to go through, and he wouldn’t let this man hurt her again.

  And yet, he still couldn’t bring himself to put into words what Laura had suffered.

  Rose came to his rescue. “Eleven years ago,” his partner began, “Laura was grabbed as she was about to enter the house she and some friends were renting. Whoever got her must have been lying in wait for her because they killed one of her roommates and then got Laura just as she was opening her front door. She was reported missing promptly, when another roommate came home to find twenty-year-old Matilda Warren dead and Laura’s bag on the floor by the door, signs of a struggle, including some blood and hair, which turned out to be from Laura, and no signs of Laura anywhere.”

  “Were there any leads or suspects at the time?” Belinda interrupted to ask.

  “No. None. No one knew who had taken Laura. She was found four days later by chance by some hikers in the woods about three hours from where she lived. The three hikers who stumbled upon her said she was in pretty bad shape. Her body was covered in bruises from being repeatedly kicked, there were burns everywhere, she’d had three fingers broken and two fingernails ripped out. She had head injuries, her back was covered in blood from the cuts, she was having difficulties breathing, and she was badly dehydrated. She was dressed only in her underwear, she didn’t have on any shoes and her feet were badly cut and bruised from running through the woods. The hikers said when they found her she was unconscious but she woke up and freaked out when they started administering first aid.”

  Which was no wonder, given the trauma she had just endured. Jack realized he had been clutching his hands into fists so tightly that his nails, short though they were, had begun to cut into his palms. Deliberately, he opened his hands and rested them on the table.

  “Hikers called for help, Laura was rushed to the hospital, where she was treated for dehydration, exhaustion, shock, broken bones, a bruised larynx, pulmonary edema, and infections that had developed in several of her wounds.”