Rafe stole a glance at Ana’s father, who looked both torn and agitated standing in the corner. He was as wet as Rafe, having dashed out in the rain when Rafe had brought Ana home. But he didn’t seem to notice, while Rafe felt like he’d peed himself.
“I was home when I heard the screaming,” he began, retelling them what he’d told them only moments ago. “I ran out and saw some guy trying to push Ana into his car. She was resisting, but she was … loopy, like she’d been drugged. She kept mumbling about making the tapping stop. The guy claimed he found her that way and I couldn’t find any injuries, but I didn’t stay to check. I brought her straight home.”
Mrs. French sucked in a shaky breath and straightened. She turned her head to peer at her husband, silently asking him something that had him growling at the back of his throat and turning his head away.
Ignoring him, she focused on Rafe once more. “You did a great thing for her … for us today, Raphael. Who knows what could have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
Rafe looked down at the hands he’d wrapped around the mug. He didn’t say it but he almost wasn’t. He’d been in the middle of a death match on the Xbox. It had been pure curiosity that had him poking his head out the window. He’d nearly broken his controller as he pitched it aside and tore out of the house. But that was nothing compared to the blazing rage that had ripped through him when he saw the guy forcing Ana into the car. He had almost torn the guy’s head off. He wanted to. Then he’d seen Ana, slumped over, face a frightening shade of gray. She was shivering violently, barely conscious. However, her parents didn’t need to know that, or that the guy smelled of mothballs and stale beer.
“I’m glad I was there,” he murmured, fingers tightening around the ceramic mug.
A slim, white hand rested on his wrist. It squeezed before moving away. Mrs. French rose to her feet, but didn’t move away. She stood watching him, a question in her eyes he didn’t know how to answer.
“Raphael?” She moved the stool to stand at the counter. Her knuckles popped as she wrung them anxiously at her midsection. “You and Ana are friends, right?”
Rafe thought of his run-ins with Ana, thought of their conversations and almost grimaced.
“Not really. I mean…” He almost kicked himself at the discouraged look on her face. “We haven’t really talked much.”
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze.
“Why?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I just assumed because she’s talked about you in the past and…”
He felt about as surprised as Mr. French looked by the confession. Ana talked about him? To her parents? Why would she do that? More importantly, what did she tell them?
“She did? Why?” Mr. French demanded, the disgust in his tone almost amusing. “When?”
Mrs. French shot him a dry glower. “She talked to me, in private.”
Mr. French looked like he didn’t understand what that meant. “But she tells me everything.”
“Some things,” Mrs. French said curtly, “a girl just wants to talk about with her mother. God, Richard, now is not the time for this.” She turned back to Rafe. “I was just wondering if she ever talked to you about what was bothering her.”
Rafe frowned. “Is something bothering her?”
Mrs. French pressed a hand to her brow, using the tips of her fingers to rub the skin. “I don’t know. I don’t want to burden you or embarrass her, but she’s been very upset since we moved here. She doesn’t eat, or sleep and when she does, she winds up all over the house lost and confused. She’s become withdrawn and unhappy.” She broke off with a frustrated growl. She gouged her fists into her eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this.”
Rafe didn’t know what to say. True he’d felt an inexplicable pull towards Ana since the first time they met, but he had no idea what to do with girls with issues. That was so out of his league. He wasn’t the guy people went to with their problems. Heaven knew he had enough of his own.
“Maybe she’s homesick,” he said lamely.
Mrs. French shook her head slowly. “Maybe.”
“Why don’t I walk you to the door, Raphael.” Mr. French pushed away from the counter he’d been holding up and started for the doorway without waiting for Rafe to say anything more.
Rafe, knowing a dismissal when he heard one, thanked Mrs. French for the tea he didn’t drink and got to his feet. He followed the other man to the front door.
On the porch, they stood just looking at each other, neither wanting to be the one to blink first.
“Ana’s a good kid,” Mr. French said.
Rafe nodded. “Yes, sir. She is.”
“I worked very hard to make sure she stayed that way.”
Again, he just nodded, not sure what else to say.
“I’m not going to tell Ana to stay away from you because I raised my daughter to make her own choices. But you, you’re going to do the decent thing and remember my daughter isn’t like the girls you’re probably used to. She isn’t here to be your plaything. I take my job as a father very seriously, so seriously in fact that I would not lose sleep if the person who hurt my daughter wound up missing and never recovered. Do you get what I’m putting out?”
Yeah, Rafe thought. He got it. Ana French was hot in a way that made a guy hungry to taste, but he knew better than to mess around with a girl whose father wasn’t shy about threatening him with death. It just wasn’t worth the hassle no matter how delicious the girl was.
“I understand,” he murmured.
Mr. French straightened, satisfaction brightening his face. “I knew we’d understand each other. Thank you again for what you did today.”
Rafe nodded once before pivoting on his heels and bounding off the porch into the rain.
Chapter Seven
Ana
“Ana?” Someone was calling her.
She opened her eyes to find herself in bed with sharp slivers of light spiking across the ceiling. She was dry and tucked into the cool folds of her sheets. Had it been a dream? The rain. The voices. It all felt like a foggy blur of a fever induced unreality. “Ana?”
Ana jumped at the soothing voice, at the comforting hand that landed on her shoulder. She shot upright, eyes franticly searching.
The hand jerked away.
“Ana!” The voice became firm.
Ana blinked, shook her head and turned to find the voice that had kept her from getting lost in the darkness.
Her mother sat in a seat beside the bed, hair a knotted mess around her tired face. There were dark circles under her gray eyes and lines around her mouth. She wore stained sweats and a t-shirt that must have been her father’s because it said, Real Men Fish. Ana stared, not recognizing the woman watching her as if she were made of glass.
“Mom?”
A sad, teary smile curled her mother’s lips. “Hey, welcome back.”
Ana shook her head, too afraid to blink in case it all went away. “What happened? Where am I?”
The smile vanished, concern darkened her eyes. “You don’t remember?”
She pressed her fingertips into her temples and rubbed. “I … I remember…” What? Everything was such a mess, like someone had taken her memories and tossed them into a blender.
“Hey.” Mom touched her arm lightly. “Don’t force it. Just relax. Do you want some water? Are you hungry?”
Ana ran a dry tongue over dry, cracked lips. “Water, please?”
Her mom rose out of the chair and hurried to the door without ever taking her eyes off Ana. She tilted her body so she was half in and half out of the room. “Richard! She’s awake! Bring up some water.”
No sooner had her mother returned to her seat than her father barged into the room, sloshing water everywhere. Most of the glass was empty by the time it reached Ana. She took a long, greedy gulp. Someone’s hands were there to take the glass from her when she finished. The bed dipped and her father was there, framing her face and peering intensely into her eyes
.
He looked as tired and worn out as her mother, with a week old beard and a haggard expression. She had never seen either of her parents look so … at a loss for control.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she whispered honestly.
A look of panic and worry passed between her parents.
“You’ve been sleeping for almost a week,” her mother said quietly.
Ana shook her head slowly. “I feel like I haven’t slept at all.”
More concerned exchanges.
“What happened, Ana?” her father demanded, hands falling away from her face to grip her shoulders.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should take her to see someone,” her mom murmured, already on her feet, hands wringing in front of her.
“No!” Ana protested. “No doctors. Please! I hate hospitals.”
Her father’s big, comforting hands stroked her hair, her face, arms, petting her like she was a scared and injured animal. “It’s all right. No hospitals, okay? Just … we’ll figure this out. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”
“What happened?” she asked again, darting glances between her parents.
“We should tell her,” Dad said, turning to her mother.
Her mother shook her head, looking anxious. “It might not be safe. What if it … triggers something?”
“Tell me what?” Ana demanded.
“It might help us figure out what happened!” her father argued, ignoring her question.
“What if it makes things worse?”
“How much worse could it get?” he barked, keeping his voice low as if trying to prevent Ana from overhearing.
Mom fidgeted. Every bone in her body was restless, in motion like she just couldn’t find a comfortable position. “I don’t know, Richard…”
“Please someone tell me something!” Ana cried, grabbing her father’s forearm.
With a last look to his wife, her father turned to Ana, face grave. “The doctor we brought in said you’d had a psychotic break. He thinks it may have to do with the move and all the changes … stress.”
“Did … do you feel stressed?” her mother asked cautiously, fiddling with the silver chain around her neck.
“No,” she answered after a quick run through of her emotions. She was scared, tired, confused, annoyed, but not stressed, not really.
“I told you that guy was an idiot,” her father muttered. “Three hundred dollars a checkup … he was a crook.”
Ana waited for her mother to argue, but she only stood there, staring back at her with tears in her eyes.
“I’m okay,” Ana assured her.
But her mother’s face crumpled and she hurried from the room.
Ana turned to her father, tone urgent. “I am. I promise!”
His hands were back, brushing back hairs from her face. “I know. We were just really scared. We didn’t know what was going on.”
“I’m sorry—”
He shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Now you go ahead and rest. We’ll be right here when you wake up.”
She lay down, not so much because she wanted to sleep, but because he seemed so desperate that she do it. She curled onto her side and he drew the covers up around her shoulders, tucking them in the way he used to when she was little.
Then she was asleep.
“It’s the first day of school, I have to go!” Ana exclaimed, ignoring her mother’s hovering presence in the doorway of her bedroom as she threw clothes out of her closet.
“I’m just saying you can wait another week, or two,” her mom said, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “Just until you feel better.”
Clutching a red dress to her chest, Ana turned, desperation oozing off her in waves. “I feel fine!” she cried as she had been for a solid week. “Please don’t make me stay in that bed any longer. I swear I’ll go mental!”
Her mom rolled her eyes at the dramatic exclamation. “We’re only trying to make sure you’re okay.”
“I. Am. Fine!” she stressed, punching each word out through her gritted teeth. “I just want to forget the fact that I spent the last bit of my summer vacation strapped to a bed, okay? I want to go to school, pretend like I fit in and hopefully make a friend, or two.”
Mom sighed, pushing away from the frame. She started to turn away, paused and glanced back, eyes narrowed. “The blue dress brings out your eyes.” Then she walked out.
Ana exchanged the red dress for the blue one and studied it. Cute, simple, modest with a hint of sexy, yeah, that would do just nicely. It was short and the exact blue of a peacock feather with straps over the shoulders and a square neckline. The bodice stretched across her chest before flaring down her hips to her thighs. Cute. She topped it off with several silver bracelets and flat, matching shoes. Considering herself as presentable as she was ever going to get, Ana snatched up her book bag, swung it on, gave herself one final glance in the mirror and walked out.
The hall seemed unfamiliar as she descended the stairs. She had been cooped up in her bedroom for so long that it was like walking into a stranger’s house. At the bottom, she dumped her bag next to the door and hurried into the kitchen for a quick breakfast.
“Morning!” her dad greeted over the rim of his coffee mug. “Now go change.”
Ana stopped short in the doorway. “What?”
He set his coffee down and surveyed her. “You’re not wearing that out of this house.”
“Wha…?”
“Oh stop it, Richard!” Her mom walked past Ana into the kitchen and went to the coffee machine. “She looks lovely.”
“She’s there to learn, not to look lovely,” her father muttered, but not nearly as forcefully. When Mom gave him a dry frown, he rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. But at least put something on over it … and under.”
“Richard…”
He threw his hands up. “I’m just saying! It’s what all the kids are doing now, isn’t it? Packing on the layers? I hear it’s all the rage in Paris.” He took another sip of coffee, set it down. “Oh, you know what’s really a bit hit? Parkas. Big Eskimo parkas with fur hoodies.”
Her mother sighed, rolling her eyes. “Don’t listen to him. If it were up to your father, you’d be in a plastic bubble, wrapped in bubble wrap.”
Her father perked. “Is that still an option?”
On her way to the island, coffee in hand, her mother smacked him on the shoulder.
Relieved she wasn’t being forced to change, Ana hurried to the fridge and rummaged around for a carton of orange juice and an apple. She brought both to the island and set them down.
“No breakfast?” her father asked, eyeing her collection as she went to grab a glass from the cupboard.
“I have an apple,” she said, pointing. “Besides, I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You should at least have some cereal,” he replied, starting to get to his feet as if to get it himself.
“I’m fine!” she insisted before he could. “Serious. If I get hungry, I can grab something from the cafeteria.”
“Do you have enough money on you?” He was reaching for his back pocket even as he spoke.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He fidgeted, folding his arms on the table and leaning forward. “Maybe one of us should give you a ride—”
“Oh for God’s sake, Richard, will you leave her alone?” her mother exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “She’s going to school, not a yearlong stay in Tibet. Let the girl breathe. She’s fine. She’s done this before.”
Although she shot her mother a grateful smile, she turned to her father. “It’s okay. I feel fine. I haven’t had one of my … episodes in like weeks. If I start to feel funny, I’ll call.”
Her father frowned. “Do you have your cell phone?”
Ana nodded, jerking a head towards the door. “It’s in my backpack.”
“You should keep it on you, which is another good reason
to change clothes. Something with pockets, like pants that don’t show off so much…” He motioned up and down her. “Leg.”
She rolled her eyes, expelling a sigh. “I’m fine, Dad!”
He put his palms up. “Okay, okay! Just trying to help.”
Laughing, Ana poured herself half a glass of OJ and threw it back in three greedy gulps. She snatched up her apple, pressed kisses to both of her parents’ cheeks and hurried to the door. But she only got as far as the basement when the floor vanished from beneath her. For a heart stopping second, she was floating, hovering only feet above the ground before gravity snatched at her and she was plummeting. The hardwood greeted every one of her bones with a brutal shot of agony that tore a cry from her lips. Her teeth clacked together. Blood filled her mouth even as she struggled to breathe through the sharp talons scoring up her entire right side. For several long seconds, she just lay there, absorbing the shock while staring at the ceiling above. Beneath her, something bit through fabric, flesh and bone, straight into her marrow, stiffening her already throbbing joints. With more effort than it should have taken, she rolled off her back, pushing up onto her side gingerly. Behind her, feet thundered as her parents rushed towards her.
“Oh my God, Ana!”
Large hands gently lifted her to her feet, unaware of her injuries until she cried out. Nimbly, she was swept up, lifted into her father’s arms.
“Careful!” Her mother grabbed his arm with one hand, while pointing down at something on the ground with the other.
“What the hell?”
Ana turned her head to follow the path of her mother’s finger, and what she saw made no sense. The floor was shiny like it had just recently been waxed. But it was in the shape of a spill like water had seeped out from beneath the basement door and then hardened into… what?
“Is that … ice?” her father said carefully.
“I’m okay,” Ana said, patting his shoulder for him to put her down.
“You sure?”
At her nod, he set her down gingerly, away from the miniature ice rink glistening in the middle of their hallway.
Betraying Innocence Page 7