by Freya Barker
"Mom! Joe's on the phone."
I shoot up straight in the bed. Must've finally fallen asleep after all. Still groggy, I grope around the nightstand for my phone but come up empty.
"MOM! Phone!"
Right. I left it on the kitchen counter on purpose when I went to bed. I pull on some yoga pants and pad into the living room, where Fox is making a sandwich in the kitchen, my phone on the counter.
"Please tell me you weren't hollering into the phone?"
He just shrugs. Great, Joe must be deaf by now. I pick it up and sink down on the couch.
"Are your ears ringing?"
The low chuckle on the line has an instant effect on my lower belly.
"I'll live."
"Good to know."
"Doc," his voice suddenly turns serious, "We received a report from one of your neighbors this morning."
I sit up straight, tension immediately clamping down on my body.
"Why? What's wrong?"
I notice Fox throwing me a concerned look and lightly shake my head, but it apparently, I’m not convincing enough to throw him off because he’s now glaring.
"They knew you were gone for a couple of days..."
"Yes. I told them we would be until next week."
"Right. So when they saw some debris on the back lawn and blinds hanging out from a broken window on the upstairs level, they called it in. I went and checked. Wanted to do that before calling you in, because I know you just got off shift. I checked to see if you were still at the hospital first. Honey, it looks like someone broke in and vandalized your house."
I'm already on my way to the bedroom to get dressed, the phone still plastered to my ear.
"I'm on my way."
"Actually, no. I'm on my way. I'm turning onto County Road G now and will be there shortly. I think it's better if Fox stays there though. Trust me on this." His voice sounds so solemn, it's making my chest compress with fear.
"I've called Caleb and he's heading to your place now to take him to the shooting range for a distraction. He'll love it."
"Okay."
I'm too stunned to object to the prospect of my son handling an actual gun. Something I'd be dead-set against under normal circumstances. God knows I fought against that stupid Xbox long enough before finally caving. But this wasn't the time. Plus I was fast becoming scared enough to think maybe having Fox able to handle a real gun was not such a bad idea after all.
"Babe?" Joe's voice breaks through my running thoughts.
"Yes?"
"I'm hanging up now. Be there soon. Go talk to Fox and prepare him?"
"Okay."
I pull on some jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt, not even checking to see if it's clean or dirty. Who the fuck cares? When I walk out of the bedroom, Fox is still in the kitchen looking at me.
"What happened?"
Trying to pull myself together, I plaster as neutral of an expression as possible on my face.
"Well, seems someone thought it was a good idea to make use of the fact that we’re not home and broke in. Joe doesn't know what exactly is missing if anything, so he's coming to pick me up to go check it out. But the best part is that Caleb’s apparently on his way here to pick you up. He's going to the shooting range to practice and thought you might like to go."
The play of emotions on his face is almost comical, changing from shock to anger to excitement and finally settling on suspicion.
"Why are you okay with that all of a sudden? What's going on? You hate guns, hate me around guns. You've told me often enough. You don't even like me playing 'Call of Duty.'"
Yup. My son is not stupid. That and sixteen-year-olds are not as easily distracted as three-year-olds are; not by a long shot.
"Look, I don't know exactly what's up with the house. Joe didn't say, so I'm going to check it out with him, but I think you heading out to the range with Caleb isn’t such a bad idea. You've been cooped up here long enough. You could do with some 'man-time' or whatever, and I really need to check this out without having you worry about me, or me worrying about you. Fair enough?"
After a long stare, he finally nods and then a slow smile spreads over his face. "You're gonna let me shoot a gun?"
I suppress a full-body shudder. "Just don't look so happy about it."
He fist pumps his good arm in the air. Still a kid after all.
"Holy shit, Joe."
He warned me the place had been ransacked, but I'm not quite prepared to see the utter destruction of all my belongings. Not to mention some substantial damage to the house itself. This goes light-years beyond vandalism. Whoever has done this has no interest in stealing any property; they were out for devastation. I'm sure once the shock wears off, that's exactly what I'll feel; total and utter devastation at the loss of my home, my things. Little fragments of recognition peek at me from the ruins of my living room. The torn corner of a picture of Fox riding his first bike, a shard from a replica of Ute pottery I bought at Mesa Verde years ago. I could go on, as I step around the broken bits and pieces of my trampled life around me.
"I know, honey. Try not to touch anything. Cortez PD lab guys have gone through briefly already, but we want to keep everything as is for now. Is there anything here that jumps out at you?"
"Just that this doesn't look like any ordinary burglary to me. Looks like a wrecking ball came through."
"Yeah. Looked that way to us too. Okay, let's head upstairs."
The landing is deceptively untouched and I'm thinking maybe they left the second floor untouched, until we step into my bedroom. This is obviously the window the neighbors saw broken out, since my blinds are bouncing in the wind, against the siding on the outside of the house. My beautiful rustic queen-sized canopy bed that I bought at an estate sale four years ago, has two of the four posts splintered and broken. The gauze canopy is shredded, my bedding ripped and tossed around the room and the nauseating smell of bleach alerts me to what I'm likely to find in my drawers and my closet. No piece of clothing seems to have gotten away unscathed. When I look into the bathroom, it's in no better state.
I'm numb and am barely registering what my eyes are seeing. Self-preservation, I'm sure. If I let the full impact of what happened here penetrate, I will lose it. I will. I will lose my ever-loving mind for good this time.
I turn to Joe. "What about Fox's room? His things?"
Joe winces. "This is where it gets weird," he says before he opens the door to Fox's bedroom.
I stand in the doorway, stunned. After everything I've seen in the past ten minutes, this one has me floored. Fox's room is completely untouched. Nothing. Wait... there's something written on the wall over his bed.
Feeling guilty? Good. Be glad your mother wasn't here.
"Holy shit..." is all I manage as cold child ripples down my spine.
"Yep... this is why I didn't think Fox coming here would be such a good idea," Joe mumbles behind me.
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Let's get out of here..." Joe urges my numb body down the stairs, out the door and into his truck.
I take a look back at the house that has been so welcoming to me for years, now suddenly a place I can’t imagine returning to. Not ever.
“Take me away from here, Joe”
I thought the almost cold detachment Naomi showed inside was worrisome, but the shaky little voice asking me to drive off really has me concerned. She's holding on by a mere thread. I had questioned whether bringing her here would be a good idea, but those were my feelings talking. I know it was necessary 'cause she is the only one able to know for sure if anything’s been taken. Besides, she has a right to know what is done to her home.
My mind is going a mile a minute, trying to flit through the possibilities of who is behind this. The intended message is clearly for Fox, there's no mistaking that, but the threat is against Naomi and it makes the blood run cold through my veins. My first thought had been the punks who were trying to build a drug network in our relatively quiet town and apparentl
y were not afraid to use deadly force to get their way, but it almost seemed too contrived for them. I would expect a more direct and physical approach. Then there was the Phoenix case. Still no word from Fox's father, but I've had a chance to go over the trial transcripts and Maxim Heffler, the guy he was defending, is a scary piece of work. Never had anything stick to him, but the list of suspected involvements is a myriad of major crimes; including kidnapping, rape and murder, were enough to make you shudder. This was the second time in the last ten years he was acquitted of murder charges. The first time, two material witnesses for the prosecution changed their testimony on the stand, throwing the prosecution's case completely off course, and this last time, the witness ended up dead. All testimonies leading up to this witness had been circumstantial and setting the stage for him to tie it all together, but without his testimony, the case fell apart like loose sand. Within days Maxim walked out of court; another acquittal to his name.
I have to get Fox to open up about Phoenix, because if this man, this Maxim Heffler, has anything to do with James' disappearance—has anything remotely to do with the reason Fox left Phoenix in a hurry—then Naomi and her son may well be in deep trouble. And what is giving me heartburn right now is that the kind of sick little mind game that was played in Naomi's house back there, is probably just the kind of thing a psychopath like Heffler would get off on. Fuck what a mess.
When I look over at Naomi, I notice that while she is staring unseeingly out the window, tremors are starting to go through her body. I put my hand on her leg yet she barely responds.
"Honey? Naomi, look at me."
When she finally lifts her eyes, they are dull. I pull the truck over to the side of the road, put it in park and turn to her, taking her face in my hands.
"Talk to me. You're worrying me."
She opens her mouth a few times to speak but can't seem to form words.
"That's it. I'm taking you to the hospital." I turn around, intending to turn the truck around to Cortez Memorial, when I feel her hand on my arm.
"No hospital... please." The plea in that little voice, so unlike the feisty Naomi I know, breaks my heart. The tears collecting in the big brown eyes she's turned to me don't make it any better.
"Dammit, honey." I press a quick kiss to her head and grab my radio off the dash.
"Dispatch. Carol?"
"Sheriff?"
"Yeah. I'll be home the rest of the day, in case of an emergency. If Dooley from the Cortez PD calls in, tell him to get me on my cell. Drew can contact me there too. He can run the patrols. Okay?"
"Ten-four, Sheriff."
I toss back the radio, unclip Naomi's seatbelt, reach over and slide her all the way next to me and clip her into the center belt. With my arm around her shivering body, I turn the truck toward my house.
CHAPTER NINE
"Where are we?" Naomi mumbles from my neck, where she hides her face the moment I lift her out of my truck.
"My place."
"Why?"
"Because you don't want to go the hospital, I can't have your boy see you like this and you are at the end of your tether. I'm drawing you a bath, feeding you something and then you're having a nap. In that order. Then maybe you’ll want to talk... or not. We'll play it by ear. Just let me take care of you for a bit. I have a feeling your load is getting a little heavy."
I manage to shift her weight to one arm so I can get the door open and slip us inside, closing up behind us. I walk straight through upstairs and into the bathroom, where I sit her on the counter; keeping hold of her with one hand while I turn on the taps and give the water a chance to warm up. Turning back to her, I see her eyes are clearer now, watching my every move.
"What?"
"I'm not used to this," she confesses.
"Used to what, honey?"
"Being taken care of. It feels... odd."
I chuckle. "I hear you. Feels odd to me too, wanting to take care of someone, but here we are. Lift up." I have the hem of her shirt almost across her waist when she lifts her arms obediently, seeming to not give much thought to what she's doing. Good thing too, because I'm doing enough thinking for the two of us. The sight of her creamy olive-tone skin makes me want to lick and taste her flavor, but my role here is to be her friend. If she got wind of where my thoughts were drifting, she'd rip a strip off me. I throw her shirt on the overflowing laundry basket in the corner and lift her up by the waist, putting her carefully on her feet.
"Hang on to the counter behind you."
One by one, I take off her sneakers, undo the buttons on her jeans and strip them down her legs, doing my best not to gawk at her. Giving myself a minute, I turn to the tub and put the plug in; the water now warm enough to draw her bath.
"Do you want bubbles or something? Don't know what I have but maybe my shower gel will work." I start rummaging through the bottles on the side of my tub.
"It's okay," her timid voice sounds behind me and I turn to face her.
Fuck, even in her plain white bra and panties, she's a compact wet dream. Round in all the right places and not a protruding bone in sight. Just lush creamy skin and white cotton. I close my eyes and swallow down the overwhelming urge to bury my face in her soft belly and breathe her in.
I have to get out of here before I manhandle her.
"Do you think you can manage from here, Doc?" I ask, lifting my eyes with determination to her face.
"I'll be alright. Thanks."
Still too compliant for her. Not natural and not to my liking.
"I'll be right downstairs, just checking in with Caleb and grabbing something to eat, okay? I'll leave the door on a crack, unless you want it closed all the way?"
"A crack is fine," she mumbles.
Yeah. Definitely not normal, I think as I slip backward out the door and leave it open a bit.
Downstairs, I quickly call Caleb and give him an update. He's still at the shooting range with Fox and says he'll take him to the diner to meet his brother Malachi and Katie there later. He even suggests taking Fox back to their place, saying Fox would get a kick out of Blue, their dog. I thank him before hanging up and checking my fridge for food. Thank God I have the makings for a sandwich and, if I'm not mistaken, I have some half-way decent canned soup I can warm up later too. For now, I just grab some crackers and cheese, plus a bottle of ginger ale. A quick look around my living room to see if it needs any straightening up, but other than some newspapers and a bit of dust, it's not so bad. I stop in my bedroom to change out of my uniform and am just about to pull on my sweats when I hear soft crying. Quickly tying the string at my waist, I slip into the bathroom and find Naomi sitting on one end of the tub, her knees pulled up all the way to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her face is pressed into her legs and I can see her back heaving as she pulls in big gulps of air.
I slide down on the floor beside the tub and stroke her back. Her skin wet and silky under my coarse fingers. Damn. She surprises me when she turns and throws her arms around my neck, offering me a glimpse of her full breasts and large dark nipples, before pressing herself against my chest, the hard side of the tub wedged between us.
Not the way I expect our first skin-to-skin experience to be, but damn if those perfect lush tits pressed against my chest aren't the best thing I've felt in a long fucking time. My cock is instantly hard enough to nail boards, but the now gut wrenching sobs pulled from her trembling body are enough to keep my baser urges at bay. This woman is coming apart at the seams and holding her is all I can do to keep her together.
"Let it go, honey. Let it all out. I've got you."
I'm mumbling nonsense in her hair, sitting in a cold wet puddle, which is getting bigger by the second. When her gasps seem to grow a bit more controlled, I tell her to sit tight for a second, while I get up and quickly grab a stack of towels, putting them on the counter. Reaching around Naomi, I pull the plug on the tepid water and help her up and out of the tub. She seems uncaring, almost unaware as she stands glorio
usly naked before me. I'm trying hard not to notice the heavy globes of her breasts, the slight swell of her stomach, the distinct flare of her hips and the dark patch of curls hiding things I shouldn't be craving right now. Right. Like that's possible. Without wasting too much time to think about what I'm doing, I quickly dry her off the best I can, while she appears to withdraw into herself again. Pulling my bathrobe from the back of the door, I wrap it around her, lift her up and carry her to my bed, where she curls into a ball the moment I remove my hands. Fuck.
"You gotta talk to me, honey. I'm worried about you and if you don't talk to me, I'm taking you to the ER, whether you like it or not," I warn her while I strip out of my now soaking wet sweats and pull on some dry boxers before turning back to the bed to find her looking at me.
"No hospital."
I'm scared. Scared of myself right now. Scared of this out of control feeling I’m having that the world is closing in on me. It's so familiar. I've been here before and I don't want to be here again. I don't want to deal. I want to disappear where nothing can touch me. This overwhelming panic paralyzes me. I haven't experienced anything close to it in many years. I just want to feel the safety of those arms again.
When Joe threatens to take me to the hospital, I have to speak up. I watch him as he takes off his wet pants and am apparently not too out of it to notice his fine ass. But his boxers are in place before he turns around when I speak and he walks over and crawls into bed beside me pulling me to his chest. A chest I felt earlier but didn't get to admire. Now I can and I can't help but trace my fingers through the soft light chest hair that covers a large tattoo that runs the width of his pectorals. I'm not about to lift my head and examine it closer, because the steady beat of his heart under my cheek is comforting as is the soothing hand he’s drawing through my hair. When he starts talking I can feel the deep rumble of his voice come from his chest.