by Linda Wisdom
Both men stared at Lauren, who was curled up in a chair. Her arms were wrapped around her body, although the room was overly warm, with all the extra body heat coming from the lab technicians walking in and out as they searched for nonexistent evidence in the bedroom and bathroom.
“She was also obviously the one who turned off the coffee maker and dumped the pot. Yet she didn’t bother cleaning the kitchen like she did the bathroom. Maybe she wanted Lauren to stay relaxed until she went further into the house. Some of the men are canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone noticed a strange car parked near the house. Considering what she’s pulled in the past, it’s a pretty slim chance, since no one’s seen anything before. What happened to the nosy neighbors who practically memorize license plate numbers if a car looks out of place?”
“They’re out working to afford the house payments.” Josh’s face was lined with the frustration that grew more each time. “Did anyone drive by my place and check it out?”
Kevin nodded. “And went in. There’s nothing out of order over there. Your wardrobe’s still in one piece and a faint layer of dust is on the furniture. Probably because she spent so much time here. Fingerprint dust is a bitch to clean. It also might mean she doesn’t know you spent the night at the hospital. We should try to keep that as quiet as possible.”
“That’s not going to be all that easy if she works at the courthouse. There’s no such thing as a private life around there.”
“Maybe not, but we don’t have to let all the details out.” Kevin inclined his head in the direction of the bedroom. “The report I’m filing is calling this a simple B & E, and we’re assuming the perp was probably scared off by a neighbor’s dog or something before anything was taken. Hopefully, no one will check the report too closely and learn the houses are too far away for a dog to be bothered by more than a low-flying plane.”
Josh lowered his voice. “I heard from Stephanie. She’s not too happy with being investigated.”
Kevin grinned. “Considering she’s been in this vicinity around the times of the breakins, I don’t blame her. She could take one of the top slots as main suspect if we don’t come up with anything to counter it.”
“Good, maybe I wouldn’t have to pay her alimony then.”
“Hey, Detective.” One of the patrolmen stood in the doorway.
Kevin went outside with the officer. Josh moved back to Lauren and hunkered down on his heels next to her chair.
“You doing okay?” He touched her hand with his fingertips, surprised to find it ice cold to the touch. He picked it up, rubbing the skin gently to restore the circulation.
“I know that once I’m over the shock I will be very angry about all of this,” she spoke slowly and distinctly, turning her head. Shock had left shadows under her eyes and etched faint lines around her mouth. “It’s bad enough she came in here with the intent to hurt me. But to come back and deliberately clean up the disaster she caused is more than any sane person should bear. How could she be so blatant?”
He kept rubbing her hand until it felt warmer, then took hold of her other one to do the same. “She wants to keep you unnerved.”
“Then she should be very proud of herself, because I don’t think it will take much more to start me screaming. Look at this.” She held out her free hand. “It wobbles so much, you’d think I was having the caffeine shakes.” She took several deep breaths that shuddered throughout her body. “I’d kill for a cigarette right about now.”
Josh stood up. “You have any brandy in the house?”
“In the cabinet over the refrigerator, but I’d rather have Irish Cream. Brandy gives me a headache, and I think I’ve had enough headaches to last me for a very long time.”
Josh nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Lauren closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chair. She found the faint sounds of his moving around the kitchen punctuated by faint curses as glasses clinked together.
“I couldn’t find the glasses you probably use for this, so hope you don’t mind this.”
She opened her eyes to find a juice glass in front of her. She smiled faintly as she accepted the glass. “It tastes the same no matter what it’s in.” She started to sip the rich liquor, then changed her mind and downed it the way she would have drunk whiskey. “It’s almost as good as a cigarette.”
“Don’t you think it might be a good idea to have something to eat now?”
“Not at all.” She handed him the empty glass. “More, please, and would you fill it a bit higher next time? Say, to the brim. After all, I’m not driving anywhere, so it isn’t going to matter how much I have.”
“Lauren, I don’t think—”
“I don’t care what you think, Josh. This woman has invaded my home more than once. She’s gone through my clothing, my makeup, everything a woman considers private. She’s as good as raped me.” She pushed the glass at him again. “I haven’t taken any pain pills because I don’t need them. All I’m suffering is mild discomfort, which aspirin will more than take care of. So, please fill the glass up. In fact, just get a taller glass, because I fully intend to get bombed tonight.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky and it won’t take much to put you out.” Josh returned to the kitchen. Before he refilled her drink, he checked the refrigerator, only to discover Lauren’s idea of cooking was far more involved than his own. He settled for slicing cheese and finding crackers.
“I thought you might like something with your drink.” He set the plate on her lap. “You didn’t get any lunch.” He glanced at his watch.
Another part of reality hit her. She grabbed his wrist and turned it so she could read the time. “Oh, Josh, your office! You’ve spent the day with me when you should have been at the office.”
“I called Ginnie before we left the hospital. If anything major comes up, she’ll call me.” He topped a cracker with a slice of cheese and handed it to her. “Here, I slaved over a hot churn to make this for you.”
“Churns make butter, not cheese.”
“Whatever. But it made you smile, didn’t it?”
Lauren placed her palm against his cheek. “We’re a pretty sorry pair, aren’t we? You have a woman who wants you so badly she’ll hurt anyone who gets in her way. And when I moved out here, the last thing I wanted was to get involved with a man.”
“I thought we couldn’t get involved.”
“Gossip already has us lumped together.” She held a cheese-topped cracker to his mouth, smiling slightly when he bit down. Smiling even more when he polished off the cracker with a second bite. She sipped her drink. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Counselor, but I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“Good, because I’d already planned to stay.”
“You think she’s going to try again, now that she probably knows her surprise didn’t work as well as she’d hoped, don’t you?” she asked softly.
He knew better than to try to lay a story on her. “Dana figures she’s going to lie low for a while and savor her success. Since she knows more about this subject than I do, I’m sure she’s right, but there’s always a first time when an expert is wrong.” He looked around the room. “The couch looks pretty comfortable, and even better than that, it’s long enough.”
“I have a guest room where you should be more than comfortable.” She stood up, forcing him to step back. “I’m going to change. Why don’t you call and have a pizza delivered. I keep flyers in the drawer by the phone. I like anything but anchovies or olives.”
“Mushroom, extra cheese?”
“Even better.”
Josh waited, watching Lauren walk slowly down the hall. She hesitated for a moment before stepping into her room. He could understand her reluctance to enter it, after what had happened. He moved to the kitchen, found one that looked promising, and called the order in.
“They said it would be about a half hour,” he called out.
“Fine, then I think I’ll take a shower, too. There’s nothing worse
than a hospital smell.”
Josh settled back in the living room to watch television. When Lauren’s cell phone rang, he stared at caller ID, unsure whether to answer, then picked up the phone.
“Dr. Hunter’s phone,” he spoke crisply.
“Josh? It’s Gail. I just heard what happened to Lauren. Is she all right? But then, how can she be, if she goes home to find another nasty surprise? Why is all of this happening to her? She’s new in town. She couldn’t have had time to tick anyone off.”
He breathed a silent sigh of relief. For a second he’d feared it was the woman calling to check on Lauren. He wouldn’t put it past her fiendish sense of humor. “She’s fine, except for feeling a little hassled from all that’s happened. Kevin Peterson and I drove her home and she’s in the shower right now. Do you want me to give her a message?”
“No, I’ll call her tomorrow, when she might feel more like herself. Just please tell her I called—and if she starts feeling spooked and wants company tonight, to feel free to give me a call.”
Josh opened his mouth to tell her she wouldn’t need to worry about Lauren tonight, but something held him back. He silently called himself a classic paranoid and merely said, “I’ll let her know, Gail. Thanks for calling.”
Lauren came out dressed in a robe, her wet hair slicked back from her face. The redness from the powder reaction had faded to a dark pink, and the many cuts across the skin didn’t look so obvious now. She dropped into the chair she’d been sitting in before and began towel-drying her hair.
“I thought women didn’t like to be seen without makeup.” Josh lowered the sound on the television.
“After everything else that’s happened, I doubt the real me could scare you away.”
“Gail called to see how you were doing. She said she’d call you tomorrow.”
Satisfied her hair was dry enough, Lauren set the towel to one side. She rested her arms on her knees as she leaned slightly forward, watching Josh carefully. “What else did she say?”
Josh wondered if she was starting to have the same suspicions he was. “Just that.”
“But something about her call left you feeling a little uneasy, didn’t it? She said something you didn’t like.”
He gave her his best prosecutor’s stare, which usually had people cowering. “Don’t push it, Lauren.” The staring contest lasted longer than it ever had for him. He had to give her points on that score. “Fine, if you have to know, she also offered to come over and spend the night, if you wanted company. She said to go ahead and call her. I told her I’d tell you.”
“Amazing how quickly you forgot to pass that part of the message on. Didn’t you let her know I already had a sleepover guest?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think it was any of her business.”
“Are you sure it was that, or don’t you trust her?”
Josh leaned forward and picked up the odd-shaped glass dish on the coffee table, examining it from every angle. “Fancy ashtray?”
“The day I quit smoking, I threw out all my ashtrays. I don’t keep any reminders around the house. I want you to answer my question, Josh. What about Gail suddenly bothers you?”
“She bothers me the same way every woman I know and/or have worked with now bothers me. I can’t help wondering if she’s the one and what will happen next.” He set the dish back down. “Kevin sent a couple of men over to my place to check it out and it seems all right. In fact, after we eat, I should take a run over there before it gets dark and pick up a change of clothing.”
Faint lines of distress appeared across her forehead for a second before suddenly disappearing. “Fine. I’ll give Dana a call. That way I won’t have to wait for her call.” She froze for a moment when the doorbell rang.
Josh jumped up and headed for the door. He took a quick peek through the peephole before opening it. He paid the delivery boy and carried the flat pizza box into the kitchen. Cabinet doors rattled as he searched for plates and glasses.
“You want some Coke with yours?”
“I guess so, since Irish Cream doesn’t go with Italian food.” Lauren sat on the floor by the coffee table, which she’d cleared off. “There’s some placemats in the drawer by the silverware drawer that I use out here,” she told him, when he’d brought in their drinks.
When she took her first bite, she savored the tangy flavors. “You know, for some reason, I always considered pizza comfort food. Right after my divorce, anytime I felt depressed, I ordered a large pizza. What I couldn’t finish that night I’d have for breakfast the next morning. I was convinced that pizza and chocolate kept me sane during that period.” She wound a string of cheese around her finger and stuck it in her mouth.
Josh wasn’t sure whether it was safe to speak, since anytime he’d brought up her divorce before, she’d backed off. He waited and hoped she’d continue talking.
Lauren looked off in the distance, as if something important was written on the walls. “Ron is one of the top detectives in the city. He can look at a crime scene and get a feel for what happened in such a way that it’s no surprise he has a high arrest rate. He never took his work home and he never brooded on a case that baffled him. In fact, the challenging ones always seemed to act as a tranquilizer. He merely assumed the answer would occur to him one day. He could handle anything that came his way. The fact that he needed other women was just an extension of his true self and he saw no harm in it.” She idly picked a mushroom off her slice of pizza and popped it in her mouth. “He was your cold, analytical cop until the night I was attacked, about two years ago.” She looked up to gauge his response.
“Robbed, beaten, what? The whole mugging routine?” He was afraid to voice the question that haunted him.
She shook her head. “Oh, I was beaten and robbed, but I was also raped. The man was one of Ron’s arrests that walked on a technicality. One of the first times he’d screwed up. It also didn’t help that the man had spent three days in the hospital because of injuries. Ron’s story was that he went after him with a pipe, so Ron had to defend himself. I guess since he knew he would lose if he went back up against Ron, he chose me instead. He caught me in the parking lot when I was leaving the morgue late one night.” She touched her nose. “My nose was broken, so was one cheekbone, the usual cuts and bruises.”
Josh hissed several curses. “Did Ron catch up with him again?”
“They told him he wouldn’t be working the case. I was unconscious when I was taken to the emergency room and had no idea what happened for a good twenty-four hours,” she said, speaking in a far-off voice. “But I heard how Ron went absolutely crazy when he got the news and screamed he’d kill the bastard. Someone had gotten a good look, so it wasn’t long before he was picked up. They brought mug shots into the hospital and I picked him out with no trouble. Charges were filed, the case went to court, and he went to jail. End of story.” She held her hands out, palms up.
“No, it’s not. It might be the end of the story for a rapist, but it doesn’t end there for the rape victim. Did you get counseling?”
Anger flared flames in her eyes. “I’m a doctor, Josh. I knew exactly what to do. Yes, I got counseling. Dana found someone for me. She said she couldn’t treat me, since we’re friends and she didn’t feel she had the experience to give me the right kind of help. I joined a support group, listened to more horror stories than I could count, and began the climb back up to normality.”
Josh was certain he could see it coming. “But Ron couldn’t handle it, could he?”
She took a deep breath. She continued picking mushroom pieces off the pizza surface and popping them in her mouth. “His idea of handling it was to ignore the fact that I’d been raped. You see, if I wasn’t raped, then he hadn’t screwed up the arrest, which made it all one tidy little circle.” She tore tiny pieces off her slice and chewed them. “Then he decided it must have been my fault. That I was wearing something too sexy, or I said something provocative to the man. Luckily, I was self-confident e
nough to realize what he believed was ridiculous, or I probably would have turned into a frightened little mouse. Instead, I heard how my work clothing was too sexy. That I shouldn’t work all those crazy hours because they would attract the nuts. He called the coroner’s office at odd hours to make sure I was there because he decided I was having an affair.”
“He found that easier to handle than the truth,” Josh said softly.
Lauren nodded. “Much easier. I first tried ignoring him, figuring he’d eventually realize how wrong he was. Instead, he filed for divorce. Word got around it was because I’d turned into a nymphomaniac after the rape and he couldn’t handle it.” She uttered a short laugh. “My work clothing, sexy? You’ve seen me in my surgical scrubs. Would you honestly call them sexy?”
He didn’t hesitate in his answer. “To be honest, yes, I call those baggy blues sexy, but that’s because I find you sexy and whatever you wear looks sexy on you. If you’re asking me if I think you deliberately wear provocative clothing to entice men, no. Did you ever stop to think Ron might not have been able to handle the rape because he was powerless to stop your being hurt? That if he hadn’t screwed up the arrest, it wouldn’t have happened? He didn’t want to consider what happened to you was because of him.”
She shrugged. “I think if it hadn’t been that, Ron would have found another reason. He wanted to divorce me before I got fed up and threw him out. We both knew it was coming. He just acted on it first.”
“Except he left you during your time of need. He wasn’t there during your recovery, so he was labeled the bastard anyway,” he guessed.
“Ron learned that the hard way. I finished up a research project and put out the word I was looking for another position. When I heard about this one, I knew it was what I needed and grabbed it.” Without being aware of what she was doing, she raised her robe’s zipper until the high collar curled down over her throat. “Ron was free to screw every woman he came in contact with, which I’m sure he has. And now I can finally sleep without the nightmares. I can walk across a parking lot at night without having a panic attack, and I can deal with live men in close quarters. I never had any problem if they were dead.” She began working on her second slice of pizza. Josh figured it was easier than having to look at him and see his reaction to her story.