Cole: A Romantic Thriller Novel (For The Love Of A Good Woman Book 2)

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  The thought of staying was appealing. This bed was so comfortable and honestly, I didn’t know when I would be up for making a long journey. He sounded like he really wanted to help, so I reluctantly gave in to his request.

  “If I talk to him, will you stay with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you won’t let him file a report or talk to any other officers?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. You can call him.”

  I had only eaten a small amount, but my tummy was full and I was falling into a food coma. I yawned and leaned back against the headboard, my eyes drifting closed.

  “My mom is coming over this morning. How about you take a little nap and then she can help you take a bath when she gets here. I think a hot soak will help your sore muscles.”

  “That sounds good.”

  I slid down into the bed and snuggled in the warmth. It was so nice to feel safe and I knew it may not last long, but for now, it was a comforting thought.

  I woke a few hours later feeling rested and relaxed. I laid there for a while just thinking about what I would do if I had to run. I needed a plan in case his friend wasn’t able to help. I hadn’t been to the west coast and I’d always wanted to see Washington. Maybe Cole would help me get out there and start over. I didn’t have any money, though and it seemed wrong to ask Cole after all he had done for me.

  A knock at the door drew me out of my thoughts. Kate opened the door and walked in with Cole.

  “Hi, Alex. How are you feeling today?”

  “Much better. I think this tube is ready to come out.”

  Kate smiled and set her bag on the ground.

  “Well, that’s good to hear. How about we check you over first and then we’ll check your ketones and see how dehydrated you are. Sound good?”

  Kate checked me over and was pleased with the progress I’d made. My ketone test came back much better, so Kate decided I could get rid of the IV.

  “Now, you’re going to have to drink plenty of fluids, otherwise you’re going to get dehydrated and end up with a bag attached to you again. Keep up with small meals and don’t eat anything too heavy at first. Allow your body to adjust to what you’re taking in. Here’s my card. Please call me if you need anything. I would also suggest you talk to someone about what you went through.” She handed over her card and then turned to Cole. “Perhaps you can recommend someone to her?”

  Cole nodded and then Kate gathered her things and left the room. His mom entered a few minutes later with a bag in hand and a smile on her face.

  “Good morning, dear. You look much better this morning. Would you like to take a bath? Cole says you’re sore and a good soak might help.”

  I nodded and started towards the bathroom, while Patricia chatted behind me.

  “I’ve brought over some epsom salts for you, but maybe we’ll wait on those until your wounds have healed. I also brought some razors, shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. I know Cole has stuff, but I thought you might like something a little more feminine. I also did a little shopping and got you some new clothes to wear. I’ll just leave this on the bed and you can go through it when you’re done in here. Now, would you like me to help you into the bath?”

  I looked at the claw foot tub and wondered if I would have the strength to lift myself into it. I was already feeling a little weak from the walk in here.

  “I think I’m going to need your help. I can get undressed, but I’m not sure I can lift myself in there.”

  I undressed as Patricia filled the tub with warm water. Then, she took hold of my arms and helped me over the side of the tub and eased me down into the water. The water was the perfect temperature and I could feel my sore muscles loosening. I leaned back and closed my eyes, drifting in and out of sleep.

  I had been running for a few hours, trying to escape the evil man that had tortured me for months. I was tired and hungry from running through the forest. I needed to stop and rest, but fear kept pushing me on. My heart pounded as I struggled through the low hanging branches and the underbrush. I could hear him behind me getting closer and closer, but every time I looked back, he wasn’t there. I might be imagining it, but I didn’t dare stop to see.

  I was running too fast and didn’t see the ravine ahead of me. My arms flew out to brace for impact, but they never met the ground. The trees swirled around me as I flew through the air and began tumbling down the steep slope. I laid there for a minute assessing the damage. I was pretty sure that I’d broken something. Looking around, I saw that the slope was so steep that I would have no hope of climbing out injured. I was going to die here and the birds would come to eat my remains. What a sad thought.

  The ravine was filled with water and there wasn’t anyplace closer that was dry. I shivered as the cold set into my bones. I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard it. At first it was the snap of a twig, then the leaves rustled. The footsteps were getting closer. Did I call out for help and take the chance that it was him? I saw a hooded figure appear at the top of the ravine. He was looking down at the ground and I couldn’t see his face. Then his head turned and his eyes found me. Those evil eyes bored into my skin and I felt all his hate directed at me. There was no escaping, even though I tried to shuffle backwards to get away. I searched the ground for something to fight back with, but there were no rocks that were big enough to do damage. He slid down the embankment and sauntered over to where I lay helplessly. He stood with his legs on either side of my body and knelt down until he was inches from my face.

  “Hello, little Lexi. Time to finish our game.” He smiled an evil smile and I screamed as loud as I could.

  The cold was seeping into my bones and I screamed in fear. The water splashed around me and I reached for something to grab onto so I wouldn’t go underwater. Heart pounding, I looked around and saw that I was in the bathroom, but there was no one here. It had been a dream. I was safe at Cole’s house. I repeated this a few times until my heart believed it. I must have fallen asleep in the bathtub because the water was cold and I was shaking violently.

  Cole and Patricia burst into the bathroom. I was suddenly aware of my nudity, but there was nothing to cover myself with. Patricia grabbed a big bath towel and hurried over to me.

  “I’m so sorry, dear. I should have come to check on you a while ago. You must be freezing. Did you fall asleep in here?”

  My teeth felt like those chattering teeth that shake around until they fall off the table, only it was going to be my mouth they fell out of. I couldn’t speak around the rattling, so I nodded my head. I tried to stand, but my muscles were locked tight and I couldn’t grip the edge of the tub. Cole came over and drained the bathwater, pulled me from the tub, and wrapped the towel around me. He carried me into the bedroom and set me down on the bed, rubbing my arms to get the warmth into me.

  He pulled out the bag of clothes his mom brought and he searched through it for something warm. He pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt and brought them over to me, then gave a weird look and went back to the bag and pulled out a bra and underwear. I looked over at him, wondering what he was going to do. His mom was standing in the room with us and she was looking at him with amusement in her eyes. He glanced up and saw both of us staring at him and flushed, stumbling over his words.

  “Umm.. Here, Mom. Maybe you can help her with her…” he shook his finger at the garments on the bed, “underthings…panties and bra and…” he cleared his throat and turned for the door. “I’ll be in the living room. Shout if you need me.”

  When he left, I looked at Patricia and we both burst out laughing. It was the first time I had laughed in months. That thought saddened me, but I tried not to let it show.

  “Well, let’s get you dressed. You must be freezing.”

  Patricia helped me dress, but I was still freezing. I climbed back under the covers, my body racked with chills, and waited for the warmth to seep back in. Patricia had gone to get me something to eat a
nd returned shortly with a tray of food that smelled wonderful.

  “It’s just the broth from homemade chicken noodle soup and some homemade bread. The doctor said to keep it light at first, but you tell me if you want something more.” She set the tray on my lap and I took a small taste of the soup. The flavors burst open on my tongue and I moaned in delight.

  “This is the best soup I’ve ever had. Thank you so much for making it.”

  “Well, I don’t get to cook for many people, so I spoil Cole whenever I get the chance. Now I can spoil you too.”

  I smiled lovingly at her. It had been so long since anyone had thought to take care of me. After Mom and Daddy died, I didn’t have any family left and I ended up in foster care. There were a few nice families, but most of them just wanted the money and left me hungry. A lot of the families saw me as damaged and didn’t want me in their homes to be a bad influence on their own children.

  What I had gone through wasn’t something I could just get over. I had violent nightmares where I would wake up screaming and swinging at anyone that came near me. Eventually, every family gave me back to the system. I ended up on my own taking care of myself with no one to care what happened to me. Patricia didn’t treat me as damaged, though I was quite a bit more so than when I was a kid. She was kind to me and seemed to know what to say and do to help me feel comfortable. I was thinking about how nice it would be to have her as a mother figure when Cole walked back in the room.

  “My friend, Sean, is on his way over to talk to you. He should be here in ten minutes.” And just like that, my good mood vanished.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cole

  I could see that she really didn’t want to talk to Sean. She’d been quiet since she came yesterday, but now she wouldn’t even look at me. I walked over to her and sat down beside her on the bed.

  “I won’t leave you, okay? If you feel uncomfortable, just say so and he can go, but I really hope you tell him what happened. He will do everything in his power to help. Sean’s sister went through the same thing and they never caught the guy.” Her head jerked up at hearing that and I could see the questions in her eyes. “I promise you that he will try to make this as easy on you as possible.”

  She nodded and took my arm. We walked down the hall together and I settled her on the couch and went to make her some tea. She was still a little cold from her bath, so after her tea was ready, I covered her with a blanket. I watched her for a minute and for the first time took in her features. She was average height for a woman and had long, brown hair and delicate facial features. I could imagine that at one time, her body had all the perfect curves that drove a man wild. Her eyes were a vibrant blue that helped to brighten her pale face. She wasn’t much to look at right now, but I could see the beauty hidden under her gaunt frame.

  “Did your mom go home?”

  “Yeah. She put a salad and some chicken in the fridge for tonight. She said that we would starve if she left it up to me.”

  I started to laugh and then rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. Great. Remind her that she had been starving. I shook my head and cursed myself for being an idiot.

  “It’s okay, Cole. It was a joke.”

  A knock sounded at the door and I glanced over at her.

  “Are you ready?”

  Obviously, she would never be ready. That was a stupid thing to ask her, but I needed to know that she could do this before I let Sean in to ask her all kinds of questions.

  “Yes. Let’s get this over with.”

  I studied her eyes for a minute and then got up and let Sean in. I hadn’t told Sean exactly what was going on. Actually, I hadn’t told him anything. I had said that I needed his help with a situation and to come over in the afternoon.

  “Hey, so what is it that you need help with?” Sean was walking towards the living room when he stopped, staring at Alex.

  “This is Alex. She’s the reason I called you over. She needs to tell you about a crime, but not have you report it. This has to stay between us for now, okay?” Sean gave me a look that said he was a dipshit for asking.

  “Okay.” He walked over to the armchair next to the couch and sat down. “What kind of crime do you need to tell me about?”

  I grabbed the notebook and pen that I had laid on the end table and brought it over to him.

  “One of those, huh? Okay, let’s get started. Why don’t you just start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

  Alex started to shake a little, so I sat down next to her and grabbed the mug from her so it didn’t spill everywhere. I held her hand so that she would know I was here for her. It must have helped because she sat up straight and cleared her throat.

  “Um, I was driving home from visiting my parents-“

  “When was this?” Sensing the harshness of his tone, Sean modified his question. “Sorry, it’s best if you give as much detail as possible. It’ll be easier for you than telling the same story multiple times. Why don’t you start over.”

  “About five or six months ago, I was driving home from visiting my parents in North Carolina. I was tired and I needed to pull over, so I stopped at a rest stop, but as soon as I stepped out, I felt eyes on me. I ran inside to use the restroom, but it was too late. I knew that someone was following me. I tried to get back to my car, but he attacked me in the entryway.”

  Her voice started to shake as she recalled the details and I had to make a fist to keep myself in control. This was going to be rough.

  “I tried to get away from him, but he was too strong. He injected me with something and that was the last thing I remember.”

  “Do you know where this rest stop was?”

  “Could you bring up a map on your phone, Cole?”

  I pulled up the maps and we waited as she scrolled through the maps looking for her location.

  “It had to be this one. My car was a 2006 gold Corolla. I assume it was left behind, but I don’t know that for sure.”

  “Did he have anyone with him?”

  “Not that I saw. It was deserted there. I didn’t see any cars in the parking lot.”

  “Okay. What happened next?” Sean was writing very detailed notes and I was extremely happy that Sean was my friend. He was a good cop and would do a thorough investigation.

  “I woke in a cellar. I think it was the same day. I was tied with a rope to a metal ring in the wall.” She seemed to be floating away into a memory so I squeezed her hand and it seemed to bring her back to the present. “There was a door to the cellar, but it was always locked. He came down soon after I woke up and told me it was time to get started. Then he asked me if I remembered him.”

  “Sorry, he what?” Sean leaned forward as if he had heard her wrong and was looking for clarification.

  “He called me little Lexi. That’s when I knew it was him. His voice and face were different, but his eyes were the same. That’s how I could tell.”

  She looked down and I saw a few tears fall down her cheeks.

  “I don’t understand, Alex. Who was this guy?” Sean asked.

  “He was the man who murdered my parents in front of me when I was eight.”

  The room went silent. She stared at her fingers as she played with the blanket. I was dumbfounded and angry all at the same time. This had happened before to her? I looked at Sean in disbelief and then put my arm around Alex’s shoulder and pulled her close. After a minute, Sean cleared his throat. He passed his pen and paper over to Alex.

  “How about you write down your parent’s names and address. I can look up their information and find out the details of the case. That way you don’t have to tell me about that right now.”

  She did as he asked and they moved on with the questioning. She told Sean about the various forms of torture that she had endured and the starvation. She told him how her captor viewed it as a game, to see how long she could hold out under torture. He wanted to see how long she could survive. Sean looked at me and I knew we were thinking the same thing. This case sou
nded just like the cases Sean had asked him to look over. I could see the excitement in Sean’s eyes, not at what had happened to Alex, but the possibility of a lead and catching this sicko.

  When she started to describe the conditions that she had to live in and how she was digging her way to freedom, I had to get away from her. Violent thoughts rose in my mind of what I’d like to do to this son of a bitch. I was afraid I was going to explode and I couldn’t stay next to her. She’d dealt with enough violence. I paced the living room as she started to describe how she had been digging her way out of the cellar and finally, her escape. I could picture her running through the woods, scared out of her mind, looking for some sort of rescue. I had known that she was escaping something, but hearing the whole story really did a number on me.

  I started to have flashbacks from my time in the war and the conditions that people lived in, people that had been murdered, and the starving people that had come to us for help. A dead woman with her child was lying in the road because she refused to help the insurgents. Images of burning villages flashed through my mind with the townspeople fleeing to avoid burning to death. The worst images though, were the people I could see, lying dead, through the scope of my rifle.

  I stumbled to the backdoor to get away from Sean and Alex. Sean already knew about all this shit, but Alex didn’t need to see it. She had enough to deal with. My hands gripped the railing as I fought the images and tried to relieve the building tension. Trying to get in control, I took deep gulps of air and tried to think of anything other than war and Alex’s kidnapping. Slowly, I felt myself gaining control of my emotions. Something landed on my shoulder and I flinched. The flashbacks were still too fresh.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just give me a minute.”

  Sean had witnessed more of my flashbacks than anyone, so he knew what to expect. Sean just stood there with me for about fifteen minutes as I calmed myself and got back to a mindset where I could go back inside and sit with Alex.