Tranquility (Turbulence Series Part Two), page 2
Regret.
Funny word. He didn’t think about it the same way others did. He was supposed to say he regretted his actions. What his solicitor expected; what the world wanted to hear.
He didn’t.
None of it.
He regretted dallying. Having his bleedin’ willy out when the Gardaí stormed through the door. Out, unsatisfied, instead of inside her. Now, likely to never know what she felt like, back to imagining that for the rest of his days. That was regret, what he’d miss out on.
No talk of murder charges, so he didn’t kill her. That was a regret, sure. Not out of vengeance, but sadness. They didn’t understand; it was a mercy, ending her suffering. Playing with her had been for him. It’d also been to help her realize that this life wasn’t meant for her, to help her embrace her destiny; her death.
She’d been playing with it anyway, so close; death had breathed in her face, but she hadn't been able to take it in. She’d needed his help, like always, to slip into the rabbit hole with her and usher her across.
But that cunt Sean had infected her brain more than he’d anticipated. Her good angel, on her shoulder, refusing to let her succumb to the dark. Wanker.
Regret? Having the visions of their threesome fade permanently from his mind, knowing the fantasy would not become a reality because Brit hadn’t chosen more wisely. Because that path would have ensured the balance they’d all been missing, even Sean. Not that he deserved it, but Jasper was a better person than Sean; he could have sacrificed for the greater good, sharing her. For them.
Regret, because now he’d have some time to ponder how he should’ve planned better.
Regret? Not destroying Sean when he’d had the chance.
Regret? Ever loving her.
Chapter three
SEAN
Her boots. It had been her boots.
He’d stormed into the room the moment he saw those boots on the table. But before he could act, his colleagues had intervened, preventing him from helping her when she needed him the most.
The nausea, the noise in his usually clear head, the feeling of helplessness when she was in there and he was out here. There was no feeling more devastating than being a doctor who couldn’t help the one person he cared about most. He felt stripped. Stripped of his title, education, and power; no longer a doctor.
But it was “protocol.”
They’d had to forcibly remove him to the waiting room. He was alone in the small room, ripping his hair out, nothing but a private citizen.
He’d had to give them her name; she’d arrived with no identification. Was she mugged? Had she taken a horse from the property and fallen? His mind whirled, playing her injuries over in his head… that is, the injuries he’d managed to glimpse before his colleagues had subtly moved to block her from view even as they’d furiously worked to save her life.
He’d seen her pale and bruised face, her bloodless lips that stood out in contrast to the actual blood on her cheeks and neck. Her neck was bruised. Her torso was bare and covered in blood, bloody gauze, and bloody handprints from the attendants on her abdomen. Blood was her decoration. Her pants were being cut away when he was pulled outside.
Her physical trauma, that they didn’t know anything about her… how had that happened?
He saw the wisdom of being removed from her care, he did, but all he wanted to do was hold her, have her eyes open so he could see those green orbs look back at him.
He couldn’t say he welcomed the distraction of Detective Brady, because the only visitor he was interested in was the nurse coordinator with updates on Brit, but it was still a distraction. He knew the detective because the man worked the recent Cork rape cases.
The older gentleman walked into the room and helped himself to a cup of tea. “So, you know this one.”
Sean paused in his pacing and gave a brief nod. “I know her.”
“I’m sorry for that, then. But at least we got him.”
The words didn’t register immediately, his attention on the woman out of his reach. But at the detective’s stare and silence, Sean frowned, trying to process what he had heard. “Got him?” Then he lifted his head. “Got him? This was the…?”
The detective nodded. “The rapist, it was.” He moved around the room. “How do you know the young woman in the other room?”
Sean’s gaze went to the door; his mind went beyond. “I’ve known her since we were children; she grew up with me, with us; my family. We’re together now.” He amended, “We’re recently together.”
“By together, you mean…?” the detective asked leadingly.
“In a relationship.” In the back of his mind, he imagined Brit raising an eyebrow and gathering her thoughts to launch an argument against his claim.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“This morning, before I left for hospital.” In his bed, writhing blissfully beneath his touch. He closed his eyes against the memory, regretting not staying with her and finishing what he had started.
“Last you’d heard from her?”
He took out his mobile. “Half noon.” Looking up, he asked, “Where was she? Where’d he attack her? Was she at Lis Manor?”
“She was at his residence in Tivoli.”
Sean startled. “Tivoli? His residence in Tivoli? My cousin lives in Tivoli.”
Detective Brady paused for a moment. There was a buzzing in Sean’s ears. The detective didn’t look surprised by this information. He should be surprised. Why wasn’t he surprised?
Then Brady asked gently, “Your cousin being Jasper Dunne?”
“He is, so,” Sean answered breathlessly. Had she gone looking for Jasper and ended up at the wrong flat? How coincidental was it that Jasper and the rapist he wrote about would be living in the same neighborhood?
The buzzing in his Sean’s ears grew louder. No coincidence was that great. He started shaking his head against the truth he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“I’m sorry to be telling you, but he’s our man,” the detective informed him.
Sean recognized his own response the way a doctor would: cold sweat and nausea wrapped around the sensation of feeling faint. He was experiencing a drop in blood pressure. He cloaked himself in the clinical to power through the emotional shred. “It isn’t so,” he said. His voice sounded stronger than he felt. Brady’s expression didn’t change. He just waited.
Sean recalled what he had seen of Brit in the trauma room. Had Jasper done that to her? Jasper had done that to her. She had gone to his flat, and he had… stabbed her? Raped her? Sean shook his head; this didn’t make sense. “The rapist wasn’t after stabbing anyone.”
Detective Brady pressed, “You said you grew up together. He knew her, then?”
“He did. He’d never hurt her.” Would he? Didn’t Jasper love her? It didn’t make sense. “Where is he?”
“In custody.” The detective cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to be giving you news like this on top of your woman being in the state she is, but… it’s him. Gardaí walked in on it.”
Sean stared at him, still feeling as though he was having an out-of-body experience. Did they walk in on Jasper raping Brit? “Can you tell me?”
“A bit. They received a call from your cousin’s neighbor. She’d just put her baby down for his nap when she heard the sound of breaking glass; she said it sounded like a struggle. It was followed by several short screams and a man’s yell. She was nervous and asked them to check it out when she heard more screams.
“The Gardaí arrived and were about to identify themselves when they heard screams. Entering the residence…” The detective paused, eyeing Sean as he took a sip of his tea. “It’s him.”
Sean was watching in horror, imagining Brit in a fight for her life against Jasper. He knew, to a point, what that fight was like. Only this had been her clown, the person she ran to for cheering when she was scared. How had he turned on her like this? Why?
“How do you know he’s the same as the rapist?” Sean asked quietly.
Detective Brady answered definitely, “It’s him.”
Sean pressed a hand to his mouth, the bile rising. How many times had she been alone with him? How many times could this have happened to her? The night Jasper had sent her home drunk—that night she had disappeared into the Cork darkness. Both times, Jasper had mocked Sean’s fears for her.
And now it had happened. She was lying on a table, and Jasper had done it to her.
He knew what Jasper was capable of—why had he not considered that he would be capable of doing it to anyone else? To Brit?
Detective Brady mumbled seemingly randomly, “It’s bound to find its way into media quickly once it’s out that the Cork Times reporter covering the rapist is the rapist.”
He left Sean to deal with that reeling revelation. Not only was Brit on the ledge between life and death, but Jasper was the one who had her dangling there.
He should have taken her away sooner.
Not that it would have saved the other women, some of whom had been his patients. He’d seen the damage that man had done… that Jasper had done. That he had done that to their own, to Brit… impotent rage roiled within him. And the bastard had been so cavalier talking about the rapes, about such horrible things he had done himself.
At that moment, Sean understood vigilante justice because it’s what he wanted. The prison would keep Jasper safe from the community, instead of the other way around. It didn’t seem right that the man should be afforded any protection.
Next in the line of visitors was Evie… Evie James, the Englishwoman who’d hit on him, the one who was Jasper’s friend… that Evie. Evie from the pub. Jaysus, when she appeared in the waiting room. He wondered at his sanity.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, less than polite in his current state of emotional turmoil. The last thing he wanted to do was fend off advances from this woman.
Evie gave a slight nod of acknowledgment of his mood but persevered. “I’ve been assigned to Britton.”
“Assigned to her? You write a sex column. You’re here for an article?” His tone made his distaste for the situation clear.
She corrected him, “I am a therapist who also writes a sex column.”
“I don’t want you as her therapist. I’m sorry for it, but it can’t be you.” It may have been unprofessional of him, attempting to dismiss Brit’s assigned therapist, but… Evie? Therapists weren’t typically associated with only one hospital, and perhaps he’d never paid attention before, but… how had he not known that this could be a possibility? How had he not recognized her?
“Only Britton can dismiss me,” she pointed out.
“You can be certain she will.”
Evie smiled. “It’s clear you see her pulling through this just fine; fine enough to dismiss me.”
Sean considered her observation. “There isn’t another option but for her to survive this. If she doesn’t, I’ll find a way to kill him and happily go to prison for it.” An empty threat, but he couldn’t help it; his anger needed to go somewhere.
“That would be a tragic end for the three of you,” she commented.
“You don’t find this tragic?” he challenged.
Contemplating her black pumps, she answered, “I find this unfortunate and sad.”
“Unfortunate?” Sean mocked.
“Yes, Sean, unfortunate,” she repeated. “And if Britton were sitting here with us, I don’t think she would balk at the adjective. But you will have the opportunity to ask her. And that is what separates this from a tragedy.”
“Don’t presume to know her mind.”
“I’ve seen her work. She’s seen tragedy.”
Sean shook his head, physically turning away from her. “This isn’t the time.”
“I understand. I will be notified when she’s been moved to her room. I’m telling you because I will be there, as well; fair warning.”
He didn’t respond.
“She’s been through a brutal attack,” Evie pointed out. “You know it’s the protocol for me to speak with her. If she chooses to dismiss me, then it has to be her call, independent of your wishes.”
Sean turned and gave her a baleful look.
Taking a step out of the door, she said sincerely, “She’s going to come through just fine; she struck me as feisty. There’s no way she’ll give Jasper the satisfaction of having the last word.”
Score one for Evie, because he held on to that sentiment.
When he was finally taken to her room hours later—hours during which he’d learned that she had been recommended for surgery after coding—he could only sit and stare at her. He had almost lost her while he’d sat useless in a tiny room. How had his own heart not stopped when hers had?
Then again, he wasn’t sure his had actually been beating. Or anyway, it didn’t start to beat again until he saw her, touched her, took her cold, bandaged hand in his. Her dark lashes lay on her pale, swollen, and bruised cheek. His eyes only left her to sweep the instruments over her head, silently marking her heartbeats, assurance that hers went on as she lay so still.
Of course, he knew it did, logically. But his heart almost stopped in terror between every beat of hers.
Even more hours later, predawn, a tall, bald, slim black man with dark blue eyes in a rumpled suit appeared. He was tired and unhappy that his photographer was in hospital. Ferris Grant introduced himself as her editor. He’d taken the first flight to Ireland.
Then all of a sudden, all three visitors were in the room together. They began vying for his attention, vying for time with her, wanting answers he didn’t have. But Sean was greedy; she was his. His every thought and breath belonged to her. Not to Evie James, not to Ferris Grant, and not to the detective, Brady. She was his, but he was hers.
“I only want to look at her and watch her breathe. I’m not moving until I can see her eyes.”
He felt their eyes on him as they came and went, watching as he watched Brit. He didn’t care. He lifted his hand and rubbed a red lock of hair between his fingers as though making a wish. Because he was: he wished that he could turn back time, fix everything he had done wrong, so this wouldn’t have happened.
Chapter four
BRIT
The void was bliss. Brit wasn’t even aware how content—how peaceful—she found the oblivion until someone tried to pull her from it. She didn’t want to answer the summons. She fought it, the pull toward consciousness, the thoughts that started to stir. She frowned. In her mind, she turned her head away.
She was terribly disoriented. She was supposed to meet Jasper—she was going to be late. Wherever she was… Wait. She had met Jasper.
Brit’s mind was suddenly full of the vision of Jasper’s face over her as he slapped his hand over her mouth, his hand rising to plunge the knife into her. She wanted to get away from her memory, away from this place. Her feet started kicking at the foot of the bed so she could escape, despite the pain.
A woman leaned over her, her hands attempting to soothe, saying something to her, telling her she was just out of surgery, asking her name.
Fighting the hands, panicking, Brit cried out, “Sean?”
The nurse looked up, her expression concerned, as she lightly grasped on to her shoulders, holding her to the bed. The woman watched whatever was taking place over her shoulder and then smiled down into her face as she drifted off again into the oblivion she hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place.
Moments of her life were captured in between snapshots, a snap faster than a blink. So it was fitting that her mind took over for what her hands could no longer do: it took pictures of her recovery in snippets, giving her the information in pieces to process it better. Her mind was protecting her in small spaces, allowing her moments of experience. As she recovered, more would come back to her, but until then, all she had to do was…
Blink.
Sean eased onto the hospital bed. He slipped a hand into her hair, his other hand on her shoulder, urging her back against the slightly raised bed.
She accepted the attention, the closeness, the silent instruction to lie back as her tears welled, having awakened in a panic. Her gauze-wrapped hand grasped at his shirt even though the action poured fuel on the flames already burning there. As he placed a tender kiss on her unmarred cheek, the first sob escaped her, followed by another cry of discomfort from the sudden motion.
“I’m here, mo chroí.”
“What did he do?” she whispered, their foreheads touching, his cheek gently resting against hers. Her body trembled with the tears, creating cascades of pain. “Why?”
Sean shook his head. “I don’t know why.” He let her grieve for a few seconds before he continued, “I can’t tell you why he did it, love. Our answers will have to come later. But you’re alive, and I am so thankful for it.”
Blink.
“I’m sorry, Sean.”
“Stop apologizing; I don’t know why you do it. You lived.”
“I’m sorry for accusing you of being the violent one. I never saw it in him. I never saw his violence before. He was never violent.” He’d hid it so well, wrapped in his laughter, his goofiness, his self-effacing manner. He’d been the one she’d brawled with, but she’d never considered him threatening. They’d fought. He’d hit her. In play. And she’d never seen it.
“Brit.”
She looked at him meaningfully and repeated in a lower tone, “I never saw it. You’ve seen it,” she pointed out, her tone hurt, slightly accusing. Not fair putting on him what she should have been alerted to.
Sean’s eyes narrowed in assessment as he looked up at her from the chair he was sitting in. Cocking his head, he asked cautiously, “What do you mean?”
“He told me.” She watched his face, his guilt. She was struggling with so much in such a short time: the physical pain, the agony of one friend attempting to take her life, and what she suspected was the betrayal of another friend—her lover—not forewarning her of the potential perils. Perils she’d missed and walked right into.
