Ace of Hearts, page 16
Felix was shambling toward us, favoring his knee, the brace on the outside of his jeans straining against the swelling. The three of us trooped toward the sound of the sirens, one man on each side of me, ready to help me if I fell or catch me if my panic got a hold of me again. But it wouldn’t. I would be brave. I had to be.
If I wanted my life back, I had to fight for it…and fight for everyone else he had terrorized, would continue to terrorize unless someone stopped him.
And it was me. It had to be me. I had bruises all up my arms in the shape of his hands. Surely to God, this time people would believe me. They couldn’t deny the proof, even if he was a pillar of the community.
Jasmine was talking animatedly, glaring at the officer she had cornered. They were standing by one of the patrol cars, which was throwing blue and red lights through the trees. It was the county police, not the state, so the bias would be less obvious…but I didn’t trust them. How could I? He was one of them.
“I need to give a voluntary statement.” My voice was bolder, louder than I expected. “And report unlawful restraint.”
The officer raised an eyebrow, surprised I knew the lingo. “Do you need medical treatment?”
“No. I just need to document these.” I shoved my arms out, deep purple standing out on the pale undersides. “And I need you to match them to the culprit.”
“And an abduction—” Jasmine started to argue.
“No. The abduction charge will be in Pennsylvania.” I fought against the reflex to heave. There would be more than one court case—more than one charge. I would have to relive every second since the gala on the witness stand, twice. If they didn’t dismiss it before it ever went to court. If he didn’t grow tired of the game and just kill me first.
Everyone thought that was dramatic. An exaggeration. But they hadn’t lived with him. They didn’t know the truth. I could point to every patched-over spot in the drywall he had punched through before.
Felix wrapped an arm around me, holding me steady.
“You’re okay now.” The officer—his collar brass said Jeffries—tried to usher me into the back seat of his car.
The impulse was immediate. If Felix hadn’t had such a good grip, I’d have turned tail again.
“No no no no.” It all came out in one breath.
There was no cage. The doors would not be locked. I would be free to go at any time. But going into that car felt like walking right back into a nightmare. Felix tossed keys—my keys, Calamity’s keys—to Jasmine.
“I’m riding with her. Meet us there.” He climbed into the back seat and held out his hand.
“Sir—”
“She is my wife,” he cut off the policeman with a glare. “And I am going with her.”
Jeffries nodded, and the knot in my chest eased. Felix had driven nine hundred miles to spring me out of this mess, and if he could get in, so could I. The officer shut the door gently, but the sound still made me cringe. We pulled away as another policeman knocked on Ray’s front door. Even with the windows up, the screaming was audible.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. I won’t entertain such a ridiculous thing. This is a misunderstanding! My daughter is just mad at me—”
We rounded the corner and passed several more cars on their way to assist. They should have waited until Jo was safe. They should have waited until he had no access to weapons. They should have waited until I was out of earshot, at least, before he started screaming his head off about how this was all my fault, that I was a petulant child throwing a tantrum, that he was the betrayed victim and I was the monster.
He had been spreading that lie for three years in my absence. Why would they believe me over him? To all outward appearances, he was a fine, upstanding man, an officer of the law with a beautiful wife. I really did look like the villain here. And here I was about to go tell his peers that he had loaded me up in his police car, hauled me across the country, tried to extort obedient behavior for my freedom, and held me captive in his basement.
“Breathe,” Felix whispered in my ear. “You’re spiraling. Don’t panic. It will be okay.”
“What makes you think it’ll be okay?”
He held out his hand—offering to let me hold it if I needed, ready to let it drop if I couldn’t handle it. The first tear trickled down my face, but he didn’t wipe it away. He let me cry, because it was what I needed, a way to release all that pent-up emotion. I grabbed his fingers so tight he should have pulled away, but he didn’t, just squeezed back in a slow and steady rhythm that I timed my breaths around.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he murmured, “but it’s okay to cry. It’s fine to feel the way you’re feeling, but you’re safe, okay?”
There were bags under his eyes, two dark-purple half-moons. Had he slept at all since the gala? It wasn’t so long ago, but felt like a lifetime, a monumental split that divided my life into before when everything was fine, and afterward when nothing would ever be fine again. Maybe he needed the comfort as much as I did, but I had no way to give it to him.
“This is where I’d tell you a pun, if I knew any.”
This took him off guard, eliciting a startled laugh. “I’ll teach you some when we get home.”
I stared out of the window at the houses we passed, getting closer to the county police department. “We’ll never get home.”
“As long as we’re together, we’re always home, Hes. My home is where you are.” He leaned his head over on mine, and I closed my eyes, still inhaling and exhaling to the rhythm of his hand tightening and easing.
Jeffries pulled around to the back. He was young, closer to my age than Ray’s, and pale, his blue eyes enormous when he caught sight of my arms again. I tugged on the sleeves of my too-tight T-shirt self-consciously.
“They’re going to be bringing in…ah…the accused.” He didn’t seem to want to say Ray’s name. “I don’t want him seeing you, so if you’ll follow me—”
“I need to file a restraining order. It won’t make a difference, because he thinks he’s above the law—” Jeffries’s ears went pink at this, but I continued anyway, louder. “—but I want it in writing that he can’t be near me, and he can’t have his guns.”
“There’s a victim’s advocate inside.” He opened the door and I sprung out as fast as I could, taking in great gulps of cold, fresh night air. “She’ll help you with that paperwork. I need to take photographs of…” He gestured toward my arms.
The three of us walked single file down a musty-smelling hallway with dark paneled walls and old gray carpet. A dehumidifier hummed somewhere close by. Jeffries made Felix wait outside the door of a cramped little office.
“Did he have anything to do with this?” he asked softly.
“What? No!”
“Domestic violence—”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but I know who attacked me. You’re not gonna want to hear it though.”
He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I just want to do this right and give you every opportunity to tell me anything that might be going on.” He slid a pad across the desk, a pen balanced on top. “Your voluntary statement.”
I held the pen over the paper while he rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a camera with a neck strap. I was poised on the edge of a cliff, and once I jumped, there was no going back. Where did I even start? Before the gala, he sent letters, he called and harassed me. Before I moved out to Pennsylvania, he spent my whole damn life making me feel stupid and ugly and weak and unlovable and inadequate. So I told it from the beginning, filling up one page, two pages, my hand cramping as I continued to write and write and write. I only stopped to hold out my arms for Jeffries to take photographs of every finger-shaped bruise. My face was also turning a delicate shade of purple where I’d slammed into the cage in the back of Ray’s car.
Jeffries got a text message, and he rushed over to the door while I filled up my fifth and final page and cracked it just enough to allow Felix to slip in.
“I don’t have a single police joke,” he murmured in my ear, and I laughed despite myself. “What a tragedy.”
He pulled his chair right up next to mine, the sides touching. I reached over, my hand hovering inches away from his face, and he nodded. His cheek was stubbly under my fingers, my thumb tracing gently across his sharp cheekbone.
I heard a voice, getting louder as its owner approached up the hall, and it took all my self-control to sit still. My fight-or-flight reflex was vibrating, urging me to do something, anything.
“You know how kids are. I went and got her out of a bad situation—”
“Even though she did you wrong,” another man grumbled. “I haven’t forgotten how she broke your heart when she left here.”
“But she’s my daughter. I just want what’s best for her.” Ray’s voice was oily, saccharine and terrible. “And this is how she repays me.”
“We have to investigate though, to cover our asses.”
“And charge her with filing a false police report when it comes up nothing.” Ray’s voice was fading as they passed, getting farther away with every step.
Jeffries looked at me with wide, lamp-like eyes. Felix took my hand from his face and kissed my knuckles, his expression troubled. A miserable understanding passed between the three of us. It was us versus them; the girl who was a pariah in town, the rookie policeman, and the failed football star versus the respected cop and the veteran officers who worked with him. We didn’t stand a chance. We were already the losers here.
Nobody would believe me, because nobody ever did…unless I could get Jo on my side. We would stand a chance if I could convince her it was more dangerous to stay than it was to stand up and fight. If I got an order of protection against him, they would take away his guns, potentially his job, and definitely his standing in the community. He would have nothing to lose.
Nothing was scarier than a man like him with nothing to lose.
“I need to see a judge and file an emergency order.”
“It’s New Year’s Day.”
“I don’t care.” I leaned forward, gathering all the steel in me and trying to sound confident, determined, with no room for argument. “I have been abducted, threatened, dragged halfway across the country, and locked in a room. The only time I was let out was for bathroom breaks—and those were supervised. Forgive me if I’m not willing to take the chance that it’ll happen again.”
If Jasmine was here, she’d punch my shoulder and yell, get ’em, girl! Even Felix looked impressed. Because if I’d grown a backbone and stood up to him instead of running away the first time, none of this would have happened. I would take whatever steps, whatever risks I had to in order to make sure he would never hurt anyone again.
THIS WASN’T HOW I expected to be reunited with Felix’s family. I parked Calamity in their driveway like I had a thousand times before, and Morlans came spilling out of the doorway, Molly in front. I barely managed to get out of the Jeep before she reached out and grabbed me. They had always been the reluctant exception to my no-touching rule, because that was simply how they were—rambunctious, affectionate, loud and messy and wild.
“Thank God!” she exclaimed, squeezing me like a doll. She was almost Felix’s height, long and thin but incredibly strong. “Felix called this morning and scared the shit out of me!”
“Watch your mouth,” Mr. Morlan warned, but he smiled warmly at me, taking his turn to hug me.
Anita and Logan stood back, smiling, a little more understanding of my issues with human contact, but the three youngest—Janie, Jules, and Jetta—barreled at me, shrieking and throwing themselves at me so hard the four of us almost tumbled to the ground, all talking at once.
“We miss you so much!”
“Molly never braids our hair like you did, can you do mine?”
“You’re our sister now!”
“Sister-in-law,” one corrected, and the first stuck her tongue out in response.
“Whatever,” she sniffed.
I raised an eyebrow at Felix. Clearly the cat was out of the bag. He smiled sheepishly at me, holding his hand up. His ring was still on his finger. I took mine out of my pocket and slipped it on. I knew his body language—he leaned toward me, his eyes full of something I didn’t, couldn’t, understand or reciprocate. He wanted to kiss me. I still couldn’t let him. I swallowed, looking away, and the moment was lost. He curled his hand around my waist and pulled me into his side, out from under the pile of Morlan girls who were hanging off me, one on each elbow and one with her arms around my neck.
“Nice hair,” I commented to Molly, surprised to find I could muster a grin. I must have cried myself out.
“Thanks!” She patted the bun on her head fondly, a knot of brown streaked with electric blue. “I’m a fan, though I think I might go pink next time.”
“Next time?” Mr. Morlan squawked, but she ignored him.
It made me want to draw her, and for the first time, I felt almost normal again. I reached into the little storage compartment behind Calamity’s driver’s seat and grabbed my go-bag with emergency art supplies—the same one I had taken into the hospital when Felix suffered his injury. It felt like a lifetime ago.
I wanted my little painting closet under the stairs.
I wanted our bedroom, our bed—because it wasn’t really mine anymore. I couldn’t imagine it without Felix in it with me.
I wanted to run away, go home, pretend like this was all just a bad dream.
And maybe it would be, if I fought hard enough. If this time, I won.
“I need my phone. Did you bring it?”
The herd of Morlans retreated into their trailer while I leaned against Calamity’s bumper, star-sixty-sevening my number so I could hang up quick if I needed and nobody could redial. I half expected it to be Ray who picked up. Maybe he was still at the station though, because it was Jo’s wary voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she asked cautiously.
I clutched my cell. In a different world, we could have been friends—she was closer to my age than Ray’s.
“Don’t hang up,” I begged. It would be her first impulse. I had left her behind to deal with his wrath not once, but twice now. “It’s Hesper.”
I expected her anger, but it wasn’t there, just a sad, tired sort of acceptance.
“What do you want?”
“To warn you that I filed an emergency order of protection against him…and to beg you to leave. Please.”
“I’m already ahead of you. I’m packing my bags now. I’m going to my parents’ house to ride this out.”
“Don’t ride it out. It’ll never get better.”
She was quiet for a long time. “You know how he is about control. He’ll hurt me if I try to leave.”
“Not if he’s in prison.”
“He’ll never go to prison.”
“He deserves to.”
“He never gets what he deserves.” She started crying, sniffling, her voice jagged and broken. “Why couldn’t you just do what he asked? Why did you drag his name through the mud? He’s not so hard to live with as long as you give him what he wants.”
My fraying temper snapped. I wasn’t just angry, I was scared—scared she wouldn’t be on my side, scared of what Ray would do to all of us if this mutiny failed.
“None of us should have to be afraid all the time. He gets away with everything. It’s gotta stop! You think it’ll end with me?” I slammed my fist down on Calamity’s hood. “He’ll never quit hurting people, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“The same thing I did—stand up to him. I know it’s terrifying. But if we both testify, we stand a chance at starting over. Of being free.”
She wasn’t even forty yet. She could still move on, have a life. I could go home and figure myself out, figure out how Felix and I could work on building a new life out of the ashes of our old ones.
“Call me later.” Her voice trembled. “I’m going to talk to my mom.”
The line went dead.
Chapter Fourteen
Felix
I NEVER WOULD have dreamed we’d have another New Year’s sleepover in my living room, but there we were. Well after midnight, Jasmine curled up on the couch, and Jackson stretched out by the heating vent, snoring softly in a spare blanket I recognized, belatedly, as Molly’s. I’d have to give him a Talk in the morning (not that it would stop them; they got on like a house fire, he acted mostly respectable around her, and God help anyone who tried to tell my sister what to do.)
As for Hesper and me, we laid out on a pallet of blankets on the floor. I wanted to crush her to me, to hear her heartbeat and feel her safe and sound, but her face and arms were swollen and varying shades of blue and purple and I was half-afraid to touch her. She was so strong in some ways but so fragile in others, like she’d break apart at the seams. It was taking everything she had to lie beside me, not to go outside, get in Calamity, start driving and never come back. She wanted to run forever—and how could I blame her for that? Our fingers were knitted together in the darkness, the only contact we dared to make.
When I looked at her bruises, I didn’t want to go to court and wait for the law to wind its slow path to justice. I wanted to fucking kill Ray. I wanted Hesper to be safe.
“I called Zach to let him know you’re okay. He knows where your spare key is hidden and he’s gonna overnight your medicine.”
Her breathing was low and even, but she squeezed my hand to let me know she heard and understood. She didn’t thank me, but I felt the gratitude in the spasm of her fingers. One less phone call to make was always a good thing for her.
“I don’t want to go to sleep.” Her voice was so faint I could barely hear her. “My nightmares can be…loud.”
I gently ran my thumb across her knuckles. “Nobody will hold it against you. I’d be worried if you didn’t have nightmares after that.”
It was a long time before she spoke again. “I’m sorry I ran from you in the woods.”
Her voice, her sobs, I’m so fucking scared—it played on loop, in my ears, in rhythm with the blood rushing through my veins. I couldn’t let the rage creep into my voice; I couldn’t let her think it was directed at her. I chose my words deliberately.
