She owed him her life. Her confidence, her desire to be a good person. Everything. And she’d wanted to make it up to him somehow. To carry on the goodness he’d given her, while maybe giving a tiny life back to the world.
And now, sitting in her office all alone, George closed her eyes and said good-bye to the baby Tom Hadley would never have.
This is my life. With her next breath, the words echoed through her, full of an unexpected hope, and she let herself wonder, for the first time in forever, just what it would be like to live life for herself.
* * *
Clay was getting too old to sleep in the back of a truck. Not only that, but for the first time in weeks, the air felt cool, and he was freezing, pressed up against his new toolbox.
He shifted, with barely enough room to move, and hit something hard with his foot. The vodka bottle—empty, judging from the throbbing of his skull and the sound of hollow glass rolling before it thumped onto the ground behind the tailgate. After a good long, unhealthy cough, he sat up to spit over the side and felt the landscape in front of him like a physical blow.
Whoa.
Beautiful. Breathtaking. And so fucking real.
Rolling, lush green, tufted here and there with soft hills. The scattered buildings he assumed to be Blackwood, and if he looked to the right… There. Right there was her house with its bright-red roof. From here, he couldn’t tell that it needed repainting. It was a perfect, miniscule train set model.
His chest hurt, right where his heart was supposed to be, and he curved into himself, hating the emptiness inside. Hating the hurt and self-loathing.
For a minute or two, he pictured himself staying in Blackwood, coming back here after the trial.
Which was stupid, since there wasn’t anything for him to do in this lost corner of the world.
Fixing up George’s place, if she’d let him, was all well and good, but what would he possibly do after the work was done?
Nothing. Because his life was in Baltimore, where he had a job waiting for him and friends, like Tyler Olson. The thought of Tyler hurt a little bit too. Tyler and Jayda and their kids, inviting him out on their boat in the summers. He’d gone only that one time, despite their numerous invitations, because the close quarters and the family atmosphere had been overwhelming to a man who did best on his own.
He pictured George on the boat, her hair blowing into her face, the tips of her shoulders red from the sun. He pictured the way she smiled, full of humor, but just a little restrained. Then he imagined her secret laugh, the warm one he’d heard only once or twice. That made him feel special, he realized in that moment—how private she was, how she’d let him inside.
It’s time to go, he thought, looking out over this place he’d actually come to… What? To love? No. Absolutely no way.
And because it was time to go, he got down, picked up the empty vodka bottle, and chucked it into the back, then made his way around the truck, took a piss, and dragged himself into the cab.
His eyes caught on his rearview mirror. It took the breathtaking vista and transformed it into a diorama—a tiny, inconsequential window that was no more real than those scenes of cavemen in natural history exhibits.
He shut his eyes on the view, tightened them, straining to think through the throbbing pain in the back of his head, but nothing worked, nothing straightened out the pieces. Nothing made sense of the clusterfuck his life had turned him into.
* * *
Clay’s head was full as he finally descended the mountain. Weird stuff, like the silhouette of a vulture high in a dead tree, overlooking the hazy foothills beyond, or the dark eyes of the sheriff, taking stock and unexpectedly getting Clay. Other things, like the smell in the crook of George’s neck—a potent blend that hit him right in the gut every time. Her sweat after an evening in the garden. Way too complex to be distilled into a single scent. Overly complicated. Just like the woman herself.
She’d asked him to leave. She wanted to be alone.
And yet…he needed to stay, he realized with an uncharacteristic sense of certainty. Had to tell her the truth. About how he felt.
Tell her that maybe she was the kind of woman he could see himself with. That she was worth fighting for and that he’d fight, even if she wasn’t willing to. That she was the type of mother he could only dream of for his babies. Because—
Babies? Fucking babies? No. No babies. The last thing he wanted was to bring children into this unbelievably messed-up world. No, he’d always said he wasn’t fit to be a father, and obviously, she’d recognized that, so… So what? Was he going to leave her alone to deal with the fallout of what had been the best… No, the deepest sexua—
No more lies. She had been the most meaningful relationship of his life. Period. While it lasted, before she’d told him to go, what they’d had was the best thing he’d ever experienced. And, he decided, eyes lingering on the dark-purple mountain crests in the rearview mirror, nothing in his life, before or after, would ruin what they’d done together, what they’d had. Nothing.
You don’t get to decide, she’d said. And yet she was the one who’d kicked him to the curb last night. Well, that wasn’t any fucking fair, was it?
So maybe this time she needed to be told those words. Maybe George didn’t get to decide.
He’d go, and he’d tell her that.
And on that note, Clay headed to the hardware store and spent a small fortune on supplies for her house. A new henhouse, he decided. She wanted time to think? Fine. But no way in hell was he leaving her alone.
In fact, he pulled up in front of the clinic, parked, and got out, wanting the confrontation out of the way, needing to tell her how he felt, how this was more than just—
“Mr. Blane!”
Clay stopped.
“Mr. Blane, we need your help!” called a little voice from in front of the MMA school. He recognized one of the kids he’d taught that weekend.
“Don’t bother the man, Carter,” the mom said. “He’s obviously busy. Sorry to bug you, Mr. Blane—the kids are just a little worked up.”
“What’s up?” Clay asked.
“Camp’s canceled!” the kid yelled, looking like he was about to break down. Behind him, a bunch of children had gathered at the window of the MMA school, faces and hands smashed against the glass, staring at the scene.
“Yeah?” asked Clay, wary of whatever new mess he was getting into.
“Yeah. Sheriff Mullen ain’t gonna do it. One of his deputies broke his leg and he’s three guys short and now he can’t teach our classes. So we got no camp.”
“What was this, karate camp?”
“Yeah. Tae kwon do too. You know tae kwon do, right, Mr. Blane?”
“I…” Clay’s eyes trailed up over Carter’s head to where another dozen eyes tracked his every movement. “Sheriff in there?” he asked. The kid nodded, and Clay sighed before heading inside. “All right. Hang on.”
Inside, the gym was abuzz with young voices. “He in back?”
“Right here,” came Steve Mullen’s voice from the side of the room, where he stood amid a cluster of tired-looking parents.
They met in the middle of the room.
“You put him up to that?”
“Hmm?”
“Carter? You tell him to drag me in?”
“’Course not,” said Steve with a look that was probably supposed to be innocent but held sharp undertones of deviousness. “What, you offering up your services?”
“You seriously canceling camp?”
“Unless someone steps up and—”
On a long, hard sigh, Clay interrupted. “Just cut through the fu—” He stopped himself, glanced over his shoulder to catch the kids watching every move, and went on. “Cut the crap, Sheriff. What’s the plan? I mean, you got some kind of syllabus or something?”
“Could wo
rk on that. Been doing the camp for about twelve years now, so I don’t need one, but I could put one together for you.”
Running a hand through his hair, Clay ignored the imploring looks focused on his back and closed his eyes. Jesus, what the hell was he getting himself into?
“Starts now?”
“Yes indeed,” said the older man, the twinkle in his eyes no doubt visible from outer space.
“How’d you manage this and your job for twelve years?”
“Always found somebody willing to pick up the slack.”
“Some poor asshole like me, huh? Pay better be damn good,” he said before heading out to his truck for a change of clothes, to the cheers of a dozen rabid children.
* * *
After her last patient was gone, George let Cindy and Purnima go and had just closed up when the phone rang. She let it go to voice mail the first time but decided to answer when it started up again. As she waited, she thought she heard thunder rumbling outside. Every single patient had mentioned the weather today. The weatherman had apparently called for rain, and George could feel it in the way her body hummed with energy, despite the exhaustion.
“Clear Skin Blackwood,” she answered.
“Oh, good. I’m glad I caught you. This is Jessie. Listen. Something happened.”
George’s pulse spiked. “Okay.”
“My guy finally got back to me.”
“Your guy?”
“Remember, the call you wanted me to cancel? Too late.”
A lump formed in George’s throat, but she swallowed past it. “Go ahead.”
“My contact says that your guy is a wanted man.”
George shook her head, over and over and over, like a windup doll that couldn’t stop. “Not possible.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not… I can’t tell you why I know this, but he’s just not.”
“It was a weird call,” Jessie said. “He phoned a couple hours ago, but I had to rush to court and…he sounded wired.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked me where I was. Like, right then.” She shook her head. “And that’s a weird thing to do, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I…I had mentioned that a contact was asking about a Sultans tat, said it might have been spotted in the area, wanted to know what info he could give me about anyone with that kind of ink, and he freaked the hell out. I mean freaked, asking me all sorts of shit that I just couldn’t answer. He then…” Jessie swallowed, sounding flat-out worried. “He said he’d get someone to see me ASAP, and the problem, George, is that I’m not supposed to hide information about any cases. I mean, I work with the courts and the police and…it’s my job. I can’t just make up some probationer because they’ll want to interview him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. But wait, it gets worse. I’m driving home, and he just called me back and said they were following a lead. He mentioned tattoo removal and asked me about doctors in the area. He was aggressive in a way I didn’t like.”
“Oh God.”
“What’s going on, George? Is that man at your house right now?”
“No. No, he’s gone,” she said, hoping it was true.
“Look, I’m headed home, but I’m still an hour out. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone, okay?”
“Okay,” George said, glancing at the clinic door. “But, Jessie, I want you to know that the man I told you about, my patient? I trust him. I’d trust him with my life.”
“All right, well, I’d suggest you warn him. ’Cause I’ve got a feeling things are about to blow.”
Just as she hung up, the bell rang above the front door. George looked up, hoping, almost expecting it to be Clay, relieved that it might be.
The man who filled her waiting room gave her a disquieting sense of déjà vu. She stopped breathing.
His sleeveless leather vest, along with the tattoos covering both of his arms, told her he was probably a biker—but his expression, visible behind a layer of piercings so thick you could almost hear a metallic jingle, gave her the chills. This wasn’t Clay, or anyone even remotely like him. This man was a predator. The eyes, she thought. Where Clay’s were warm, this man’s gaze was dead. Calculating, but dead.
Clearing her throat, George stood up straight and asked, “Can I help you?”
The man’s eyes raked her body from head to toe and back. “Nope.”
“Well, we’re closing up for the night.” Her response came out on a shaky breath, sounding, to her ears, exactly like an excuse.
The man looked her over again. “You all get rid of tattoos in here, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You had a biker come in to see the doctor recently? Big guy like me? Only real ugly?” His smile was the creepiest thing she’d ever seen.
“I can’t discuss patients, sir,” she stammered. “The doctor wouldn’t like it.”
His eyes slid to meet hers, and his expression, if possible, hardened even further. “Yeah? You might want to reconsider.” He stood up taller, took up too much space in her tiny reception area.
“No. No, I have no patients that fit that description.”
After a breathless few seconds, the man grunted, slimed her with a narrow-eyed look, and turned to go. He pulled the door open so hard the bells came out angry rather than festive and then slammed it behind him.
George rushed to lock the door. The image of the back of that man’s jacket burned a hole in her mind—Sultans, it said, in its pretentious, curlicue writing, with an eagle, a triangle, arrows, and a river all topped by a laughing skull, the orbs of the eyes not half as empty as that man’s.
I have to warn Clay. Now. She raced for her cell phone, picked it up, and stared at it for a few, slow seconds. No number. They’d never exchanged them. When would they?
Desperate, she scrolled through her short list of numbers and saw none that made sense. She couldn’t call the cops—not unless her hand was forced—when Clay was doing so much to stay hidden. And rightly so, based on what Jessie had just told her.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She had to find him. Was he at her house? Or at the motel? Maybe he’d gone back there. Fast, fast, before they found him. Outside, she fumbled the clinic key in the lock, then took a quick look around and started toward her car. Halfway there, she saw Clay’s truck, half a block down—old and rusty and shining under the streetlights like a beacon of hope. She ran in that direction as fast as she could.
She barely noticed the thunder that rumbled overhead or the flashes of lightning over the mountains. It was the motorcycles—two of them—parked in the road that stopped her in her tracks and had her moving to dial 911 as fast as she could.
But it was already too late.
A thick pair of arms circled her from behind and shoved her hard against the metal of the truck, glasses spinning off into the darkening evening. No. Oh no, please no. The words stumbled through her mind, over and over and over again like a mantra of denial. Like, if she’d just think it hard enough, she could wish herself back to five minutes ago. Or one. Even one.
“What’s the big hurry, huh?”
How strange the things she noticed, the details her brain took in. The way this man’s hand hurt around her neck, the bite of his forearm on her chest. Body odor, stale and unhealthy, the gritty grind of dirt on the pavement under their feet.
But clearest of all was the strange, choked-off silence of not being able to breathe or talk or scream. This was true impotence. Not being able to do anything as the world around you fell apart.
She lost her keys and purse somewhere in the scuffle, and her phone was wrenched from her hand. After that, the man who held her—the one from her waiting room—handed her off to another man. She could do nothing but fight for breath while the first big man pick
ed up her purse and rifled through it for her wallet, letting it fall to the ground once he’d found what he was looking for.
“So, you’re the doctor.” He looked her over, then glanced back at her license. “Jason Lane,” he muttered to the other man. “Same street as the probation officer. Which one you think he’s stickin’ it to? Doesn’t matter. We’ll get ’em both. Leave your bike here and take her car.” He examined her keys and scanned the road. “There. Subaru. I’ll find her place on the GPS. You take her in that and follow me there.”
Like a useless sack of flour, she was shoved into the front seat of her car, a gun trained on her once she’d settled in. Halfway down Main Street, she made a bid for freedom. It was desperate and foolhardy, but you didn’t get second chances in moments like this, did you? If they took you, you were dead.
She tried to slow her breathing, made an effort to count to three, forcing the numbers out through the frantic beat of her heart.
One…two… On three, she pulled back her elbow and thrust it, as hard as she could, to connect with the man’s chin. Cursing, he swerved, almost—God, almost—losing control. But then he got it back, pulled over to the side, and lifted a hard hand to her throat, pressing until stars obliterated her vision, and she knew this was it.
“You think we need you to get to him? Try that again, and you’re dead, bitch.”
And, oh God, she believed it.
At her house, a couple of other men showed up, one peeling off to check Jessie’s house, and all George could do was hope she wasn’t there. The fourth man was different from the others. Rather than biker gear, he wore a shirt and slacks. He wouldn’t look her in the eye.
The big man—obviously the leader—opened her front door with her key. He laughed as the other one shoved her inside, and she fell painfully to her knees. They turned on lamps in every room.
“Not a single, fucking normal light in this place. Just lamps everywhere,” the man who held her complained.
“What, you don’t do cozy, Jam?” The big man turned and looked—hard—at George. “Doesn’t matter if you like it. ’Cause I got the feeling Agent Clayton Navarro likes it just fine. I’n’t that right, Doc?”
By Her Touch Page 29