Any Day Now--A Novel

by Robyn Carr

  “He left you in the garage?”

  She looked down at the table where they sat. “After he beat me and raped me,” she said quietly. She couldn’t look at her brother. She hated that she had shame when she hadn’t done anything wrong. “He left me there, walked out, closed the garage door and just walked away. I never saw him again. Well, I thought I saw him a number of times but I’m not sure if it’s a mirage made up of my fear or if he really found me.”

  “What did you do that night?”

  “Just what you’re not supposed to do—I showered. I tried to treat the cuts and bruises. But then I realized what he’d done and went to a clinic. They did a rape kit but I wouldn’t talk to the police. They took some pictures. I know I should have gone to the police but I was just too afraid. Of him. I’d been to the police before—they weren’t helpful. I’d asked them for a restraining order...”

  “They couldn’t give you a restraining order because he annoyed you or scared you—there had to be a crime or a threat, an obvious threat.”

  “The clinic said they’d be keeping that rape kit for a while, gave me the name of some counselors, a crisis center. They gave me some phone numbers, did some cultures and blood panel, wrote me a prescription for a morning after pill, which I wasn’t going to need—I was on birth control. But they said I could call in with my patient number and get the test results and, if needed, get treated for any sexually transmitted disease.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went home. I decided I had to get out of town. I was all done there. I thought at the very least he’d drug me, beat me and rape me again. I was afraid he’d kill me or something. And I was afraid he’d hit someone out on the road—my memory was spotty but I remember something happened and I don’t know where we were. Seems like we weren’t in the neighborhood. I don’t think we were on the highway. There was a dent and a really long scrape in the fender. I thought about checking with the police to find out if anything happened. Instead, I packed a duffel, drove to the airport, to long-term parking, and left the car. I took a bus to Iowa. I owed money on that car and I abandoned it. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone and I turned off the phone, afraid of who might call me.”

  “Did you tell anyone about Iowa? Does he know about our parents? And that they’re in Iowa?” Cal asked.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t talk about our parents. Not a lot to brag about there, huh? Once I told my roommate I wanted to go to California.” She smiled sheepishly. “I did want to. And here I am.”

  * * *

  Sierra called Sully to say she had stopped to see Cal, then stayed about an hour. She finished her story and her cola and left to see about her dog before it got much later. Sully was holding dinner to have with her. Letting her leave, letting her crutch her way out into the dusk was hard for Cal—she seemed so small, so alone. He held her for a long time before she pried herself away.

  He had asked her if the event of thinking she saw this dangerous man from her past made her want to drink and she had said, “Just the opposite. That was another life and I have no desire to go back. But I think I will go to a meeting tomorrow morning. It never hurts and it usually reaffirms everything I know to be real.”

  He was so proud of her. Scared for her.

  “But thinking I saw him made me realize, what if it was him? If not now, someday? I could disappear for real without anyone knowing the details. I had to tell you. I had to tell someone.”

  After she left he went for a beer for himself—boy, did he need it.

  Cal wasn’t sure if Sierra had ever paid any attention to it or not, but he had been one of the hottest criminal defense attorneys in Michigan. He was doing a little lawyering here in Colorado, but nothing too high profile. He was still licensed to practice in Michigan if it came to that, if she needed a defense. He wouldn’t defend her, of course. But he knew the best of the best and he could always sit second chair.

  Meanwhile, he could get information. Sierra wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but it probably wouldn’t hurt. Not only was his old detective available by phone, he was no slouch when it came to investigation. He could find out if there was an accident, any police investigation, if this Derek Cox had any kind of criminal record, if he was wanted for anything. He could find out if anyone was looking for him. Or for Sierra. He didn’t even have to ask her the make, model and license number of that Honda she’d abandoned—he could find it. If anything came up, if she needed him, he would be ready.

  And then there was the issue—if there had been a broken law, they would have to face it or worry about the consequences of obstruction.

  She told him that she got a job with the county sorting through refuse in the recycle plant in Iowa. She borrowed Mom’s truck to go to work and stopped for groceries or whatever they needed on the way home. After a couple of months, maybe three, she came home from work and her mother told her some man had come around asking about her, asking if she was there. Marissa, who had been dodging “official looking” people her entire life to keep her schizophrenic husband safe, had said, “She’s in Michigan, isn’t she? I don’t know when we last saw her.”

  “Good old Marissa,” Sierra had laughed when she told Cal. “Luckily my benefits with the county kicked in so I looked at rehab, found one facility in Des Moines that would take my insurance.”

  She didn’t go into rehab to get sober, she went to hide out. One thing she knew, having had so many friends pass that way, everyone made a list of who they’d be willing to talk to and no one else could get through. No information was given out about patients except to police officers with warrants. So, she’d talk to Marissa only, she said. And she’d ask if anyone had been looking for her. Then, when the heat was off, maybe she would go to California. The state, not the brother. Funny how things worked out. Cal wanted her and she thought she was as safe with him as anywhere.

  She’d been pretty sure she’d find out in rehab that she wasn’t a real alcoholic, but just an active young woman who liked to party. “Imagine my surprise,” she said to Cal, “when I found out I’m a drunk and the choices for me are booze or death. I didn’t even drink every day! I thought real alcoholics were much more ambitious.”

  “You must have done some heavy drinking,” he suggested.

  “Oh, there were times,” she said. “But guess what else I learned? From a woman in rehab who had been stalked. There might’ve been a device in my phone to track me. That might’ve been how Derek could always find me. I got rid of the old phone, so I’ll never be able to find out, but it would make sense. To this day I don’t know if he left me on the floor of my garage and walked away, done with me, or if he followed me to Iowa. Then to Colorado. Was that him who talked to Marissa? Or was that some law enforcement person because my car was in an accident?”

  “I’ll look into it,” Cal told her. “I’ll find out if there was an accident and I won’t have to mention your name to do it. But that might fall into the category of stuff you’d rather not know. It could be a very difficult situation.”

  “Cal, I’d feel terrible if something happened, but I didn’t do it. I know I didn’t do it. He reminded me the whole time he was assaulting me that there was no proof he’d even driven my car. I might’ve been drugged, but I heard that. It was his intention from the start, if anything happened, I would be the guilty one.”

  “You’re not afraid of jail?” he asked. “You didn’t hide out in rehab because you’re afraid of possible jail?”

  She looked at him, her eyes so large and liquid. “Wasn’t I clear? I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not afraid of going to jail. I’m afraid of him. There’s just one thing that haunts me. Why? Why would he do that?”

  As Cal remembered that, he took several swallows of his beer. But it didn’t help. He leaned his elbows on his knees, gripped the beer in two hands, looked at the floor and wept. His baby sister, his b
eautiful baby sister, tied with a belt, brutally raped and beaten.

  Terrified.

  “Talk about scared straight,” she had said.

  Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Chapter 9

  SIERRA ATTENDED A couple of meetings and they helped. She wasn’t sure exactly how, but she always came away with a feeling of peace and comfort as if her decision was reaffirmed. It hadn’t always been that way. In the early days she fought it hard, got all stirred up and anxious, but eventually she looked forward to a good meeting, knowing something would be said or done that would set her right.

  She stopped at the Leadville bookstore and bought a copy of Wuthering Heights, more determined than ever to have it now.

  One day she took Molly with her to a meeting, but she wiggled so much they had to leave. “You’ll never pass that one off as a service animal,” Moody said.

  “No kidding,” Sierra agreed.

  When Sierra and Molly were alone together, the dog was calm and quiet and so sweet. One thing that troubled Sierra was that there were times, though rare, when she lifted her hand to pet Molly and Molly flinched a little. Ducked. And Sierra was sure she knew what that meant.

  When it was Sierra, Sully and Beau around her, Molly was quiet and only a little playful, trying to nudge Beau into some frolicking or leaning up against Sully to beg a pet. Molly was a cuddle bug. She now had her own blanket that Sierra spread on the bed to keep all those golden hairs off the comforter and it became hers, so that wherever the blanket was spread, whether on the porch or the backseat of the pumpkin, Molly thought of it as her place.

  Of course Molly was young and still got in trouble. She got into Sully’s garden and ravaged some vegetables, digging up to her shoulders before Sully caught her. Luckily there weren’t many fatalities and she hadn’t gotten Sully’s prized tomatoes. She ate a few more socks, kept jumping in the lake and coming out all full of mud and weeds, and barked too much when she was left alone. “She has separation anxiety,” Sierra told Sully.

  Sierra and Molly took comfort in each other. They were both in need of a friend, a safe harbor, a confidante. Sometimes Sierra told Molly secrets and Molly listened attentively, showing Sierra those sad, deep eyes, indicating she understood and sympathized.

  Sierra and Molly were in the hammock together, Molly’s head in the crook of Sierra’s arm, gently swaying, when Connie snuck up on them.

  “Are you reading to that dog?” he asked.

  Sierra and Molly both jumped in surprise and Sierra closed her book while Molly started wiggling and struggling to get out of the hammock. But Connie just started petting her behind the ears and settled her.

  “She likes it when I read to her,” Sierra said.

  “Do you, Molly?” he asked the dog. But the traitor dog just leaned into Connie’s big, loving hands and moaned in ecstasy. “What are you reading to her?”

  “Wuthering Heights,” she said. “Bet you don’t even know what that is!”

  Connie sighed. “Okay, so it wasn’t my imagination—you’re cranky. You’ve been moody all week and I’m done having fun with this. Is something wrong? You have PMS or something? You mad at me?”

  “No,” she said, a little meekly. “No to all of that, but yes, I’ve been a little on the quiet side because I’ve been thinking. About you, as a matter of fact.”

  He grinned like he’d just won something. “Is that so? Can’t get me off your mind?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, making a face. “If you can be serious, I’ll confide in you. If you’re going to screw around, I have nothing more to say.”

  He walked around to the front of the hammock and squeezed onto it, pulling all sixty-five pounds of Molly onto his lap. He leaned back, settled in and said, “Stop being so bitchy, Sierra. I didn’t do anything wrong. And you know it.”

  She sighed. She knew it, he was right. She took a breath. “If we’re going to be friends, there are a couple of things you should know. For starters, I’m not like the other girls you’ve dated.”

  He shrugged. “We might put that in the plus column.”

  “The Jones kids have always known we were different. I was born in a bus, for God’s sake. Well, not officially—officially I was born in a clinic. Being the fourth child, I guess I was in a hurry and Marissa, my mother, hated to leave my father for even a little while—he could go off the deep end if she wasn’t around. So when she was about to drop me, she went into the free clinic and...well, I didn’t grow up the way most people do.”

  “I think none of us did,” he said.

  “And also...well, I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Oh?” he asked. “I’ve never even seen you drink.”

  “I’m recovering. Just recently made a year of sobriety. That’s it,” she said. “You should know that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a significant part of who I am.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “How’s that likely to affect our friendship?” And then he added in an undertone, “Such as it is.”

  “I go to AA meetings and I don’t drink alcohol. For a long time I didn’t even use mouthwash that had any alcohol content.”

  He sat forward in the hammock a little and Molly instantly put her head on his chest so he could pet her. “Hey, is that why you wouldn’t take the pain meds?”

  “That’s exactly why,” she said. “But it worked out that I was just fine with the anti-inflammatories and ice. But see—I’m not just your average girl. I had a complicated childhood and as it turns out, I have a complicated adulthood.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Is this worrying you?”

  “What?”

  “Telling me this stuff?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, think about it—we don’t have much in common.”

  He scratched Molly behind the ears, and she snuggled closer. Molly moaned almost seductively.

  “And if my dog likes you better than me, you are banned!”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at her. “Is this why you’ve been so cranky? Because you thought we should have this heart-to-heart?”

  “I thought you should know some of the more private and personal stuff about me before you get in too deep. And it’s just not easy to do, okay?”

  “So you were almost born in a bus, you don’t drink or take pain pills, you go to AA meetings and you’re very particular about who your dog loves best. Feel better now?” he asked.

  “Not very,” she said.

  “Are we going to get in too deep?” he asked hopefully.

  “You really don’t get it, do you? I’m not like you!”

  “Why would I want someone like me? Oh—hey—does it bother you if someone has a drink around you? Like should I be careful not to drink a beer because it might—you know—make you drool with longing or something?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It only bothers me to be around people who are getting toasted and obnoxious. Sully has his bedtime drink at night and I have tea and we’re very compatible. In fact, he’s the best friend I’ve had in a long while.”

  “You have good taste,” Connie said. “Sully is good people. So, now can we go on a date?”

  “What for?” she asked.

  “For something to do,” he said, turning Molly a bit so he could scratch her tummy.

  Sierra started to scratch her tummy, too, and Molly stretched her neck and back legs, offering more of herself to be massaged. “I feel like you’re not taking this seriously,” Sierra said. “I’m an alcoholic with a very untidy history who has had troubled relationships and you’re just a guy who wants a date with the wrong girl. Think. Use your head.”

  His hand stopped moving and she looked up. Those blue eyes were boring into her. “Thank you fo
r telling me. It’s brave of you to tell me personal and private things. But here’s what I’d like. I’d like to go do some fun stuff so we’re having a good time while we get to know each other better. I like what I know about you so far and you like what you know about me because you act like it and because it put you in a terrible mood worrying about telling me personal stuff. I figure that’s because it’s important to you that I like you. And I do, so let’s not worry about that anymore. And after we have some time together and you believe that I like you for yourself, your totally unlike-anybody-else self, who was almost born in a bus and can’t get near liquor, then maybe we’ll get closer and make out like teenagers. That would be good.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “Oh, that was smooth, Conrad.”

  “I guess I’m not like the other guys you know because I’m not real smooth with the girls,” he said.

  “Sully said you’ve always got a girl,” she informed him.

  “That’s not true at all. I mean, I go out with girls sometimes. Okay, I go out with girls a lot. But they’re not, you know, relationships.”

  “Do you have sex with them?”

  “I haven’t had sex in so long I forget which armpit it’s under.”

  She burst out laughing in spite of herself. “That could be your problem...”

  “I’d like to have it with you, though,” he said.

  She looked at him in wonder. “Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”

  “I told you. You should know that by now—I’m pretty much an open book. No good moves. But here’s what we have in common. We both had some bad experiences with the opposite sex, even though I don’t know what kind yours were. But you told me—you can’t pick ’em. Me either, apparently. I figure that’s a really good place to start.”