Beautifully Wounded (The Beaumont Brothers) (10 page)

Every time I went up to see
Lena or bring her something, I stayed to talk. I enjoyed her company, and I hoped she was enjoying mine. I hated lying to her about her husband. Keeping up the ruse of not knowing whether she killed him or not grated on my conscience, especially the way she continued to agonize over the act. Lena was not a killer, but she believed with all her soul that she was. Today, I decided I would change that.

She sat in her usual spot on the daybed
, and I sat down at the other end, but I didn’t feel comfortable there. I needed to be facing her, so I got up and sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“
Lena, I know you’ll be pissed, and I’m sorry.”

Her eyes grew wide with fear. “What did you do?”

“I … ah … I’m sorry, but I took the liberty of doing some checking while you were sleeping yesterday, and I had to go through your purse to do it.” Her mouth gaped open, and I held up my hands, palms out, when she started to object. “Sorry, I needed your last name. I called a friend of mine that I went to school with, Luke. He’s an attorney residing in Portland. He checked on Troy Harington—that is your husband, right?”

“
Oh no! You didn’t! You promised! I need to get out of here.” She sat up, looking as if she wanted to bolt, but I didn’t think she really had the strength, and she remained seated. “How could you? I trusted you.”

“
Please, you
can
trust me. You’re safe here. I trust Luke. He would never betray me.”

“
You turned me in.”

“
No! I didn’t.” Shit. Agitated, I ran my hand through my hair. The last thing I wanted was for her to lose trust in me.

“
But the police, they’ll find me now.”

“
That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The police aren’t looking for you.”

“
How do you know?”

“
Because Troy is still alive. You didn’t kill him, so you can relax.”

“
He’s alive?” Lena closed her eyes and sank back against the sofa. “That’s even worse.”

“
No, it’s going to be okay.”

“
How did you find this out?”

“
I have resources. My buddy, Luke, the attorney I know, checked with his work. Troy called in sick the morning you stabbed him, but his boss said he sounded as if he was calling from a hospital. Luke called around to a few emergency rooms. He got lucky when he called a girlfriend of his that works at Medford Mercy. She told him that Troy had been in there needing stitches in his stomach. Apparently, he told the doctors he had some sort of accident while repairing a garage door. So, you’re completely in the clear.”

She didn’t
exactly look thrilled. In fact, she started to cry. “It would be better if he were dead. Now I have to keep running. I’d rather go to jail. At least I’d stay alive there.”

“
Lena, I won’t let him find you. I won’t let him hurt you. You need to trust me. You won’t go to jail for stabbing him either. You were defending yourself. We can have him picked up for beating you. He won’t have a chance once the police see you. They
will
believe you. I promise.”

“
No. You don’t understand. Even if he goes to jail now, he’ll get out eventually, and he’ll come after me. The only thing we’ll accomplish is making him madder.”

“
Okay, we’ll do it your way. We won’t have him picked up, but let me file a police report just so we have proof that he beat you. And at least let me help you file for a divorce. You can stay hidden; he won’t find you here.”

“
How can I stay hidden if I file for a divorce?”

I
scooted next to Lena and put my arm around her shoulder. She flinched a little, but I left it there anyway. I needed her to trust me, and the best way I knew how to do that was to let her realize I wouldn’t hurt her. I didn’t want her to go through the rest of her life being afraid of men, me in particular.

“
Well, I may appear to be your average Joe bartender, but underneath all this …” I gestured to myself by splaying my fingers out and let my hand flow down in front of me from my head to my waist. “I do know something about the law. So, I guess it’s my turn to tell you something about me. I said I’d tell you my secret if you told me yours, so here goes. I was going to be an attorney. My parents wanted—or my mother wanted—me to be an attorney. I graduated college, but never continued on with law school. Brodie talked me into joining the police department with him instead. Told me I was too tough to be a lawyer, and that I should be a cop with him. My brother knows me pretty well; we both knew I’d hate sitting in an office. We joined the police department, went through the academy together. We were both cops for a while. One day I got this wild hair up my ass and decided police work was too unforgiving, too violent. I’m an extremely placid guy, can’t handle too much violence. Anyway, I talked Brodie into going into business with me, to become Private Investigators and move out of the city. Sounded like a great idea to him. We grew up out here in this town, and we had both grown tired of the hustle and bustle of big city life, so we came back home. The thing is that there’s not too many people out here who need a good PI.”

I
shifted around so she could lean against me now that she seemed more relaxed.

“
I acquired the bar from my Uncle Joe a year ago. He died and left everything he had to my brother and me. My brother got his house, and I got the bar. I’m not sure why he did it that way, but he made a stipulation in his will that I couldn’t sell the bar for at least ten years. I guess my uncle knew me better than I knew myself. I hated what I was doing, the investigative work. The little work we did find turned out to be in nearby cities, and was mostly spying on cheating spouses, and those weren’t frequent enough to pay any bills. This is a small, sleepy town, and everyone knows everyone, so there was never any P. I. work around here. I tried working the bar by myself, but I was more interested in playing with the band, so Brodie volunteered to do most of the bartending. Seems he needed something to do with his time too since our Private Investigating firm went belly-up. Plus he figured it was a great way to meet the ladies. Unfortunately for him, this is a small town, and there aren’t very many ladies around. But he’s okay with it. He claims that the ones that come passing through are perfect. No strings attached. He’s been sort of on these one night stand kicks now since … well, anyway, he’s not really in a good frame of mind for getting involved right now. That’s the way he likes it. So, we still have our P. I. license, but as I said, it’s not a thriving business. My friend, Luke, in Portland, specializes in family law. He can file the papers for you, and Troy will never know where you are.” When she remained silent, I grew concerned. “You do want a divorce don’t you?”

“
Troy will never agree to a divorce.”

Lena

“He doesn’t have to agree,” Jackson countered so quickly it was as if he’d had the words on the tip of his tongue before I had a chance to make the statement. “Oregon is a no fault divorce state, just like California. All you have to do is state irreconcilable differences. The fact that you want a divorce, and he doesn’t, is sufficient. It is considered an irreconcilable difference. He can’t object to a divorce. He can only dispute the terms, such as custody and property division.”

“
Well, there’s no custody battle since we didn’t have any kids, and we didn’t own our house, but he’ll never sign the papers. He told me that.”

“
He doesn’t need to sign the papers. If he won’t cooperate you can get a divorce by what’s called—defaulting your spouse.”

“
What does that mean?”

“
It means we file a divorce petition, and have him served. With or without his blessing, we get an order from the court barring him from objecting to the divorce, and then ninety days after that we’ll submit a final judgment of divorce, with or without his signature. Even if he objects and files a response, the judge can, and will, order a divorce over his objection.”

“
You can really do this for me without him knowing where I am?”

“
Yes.”

“
My God, I’ve been so stupid.”

“
No, you’ve been scared, that’s all.”

“
Right. I was too scared to even investigate the possibility of divorce. I’ve been scared to breathe. It’s taken me a whole year to save money and get the courage to leave. If he hadn’t beaten me so badly the other morning, I would still be there.”

A shiver crawled up from the bottom of
my toes and settled at the base of my skull.

“
But you did get out. You had to endure hell first, but you did get out. That takes courage. You should be proud of yourself.”

“
This all sounds great, and I really appreciate it. You've been … you are wonderful. But … he’ll never give up. He’ll never quit looking for me.”

Jackson
straightened and turned to face me, taking my hands in his. “Lena, I’m not going to try to sugarcoat this. You’re right; he will look for you. That’s why we need to take every precaution we can to make sure that doesn’t happen, starting with you telling me every move you made from the time you stabbed him. I also need to take some pictures of your bruises. Is that okay?”

“
Pictures, why?”

“
We need to press charges and file a restraining order against him, that’s why. Not that that’s going to keep him from trying to get at you. If he’s anything like most abusers, he will keep trying. In his mind, you are his property, and he won’t stop hunting you.”

“
I’m scared, Jackson. I don’t think I can do this.” I wanted to get in my car and drive. I didn’t know to where, just away. Away from anyone who knew anything about me.

“
I promise I will do everything possible to protect you.”

“
I don’t see how you can make such a promise.”

“
I promise because I know the law. I know how jerks like him think.” He placed his hands on my shoulders and pressed his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes, breathing in the sweet smell of the haven he personified.

“
Now, let’s get some pictures before that ice heals you too fast. Then you can start telling me every detail from the time you stabbed him until you walked into my bar.”

Jackson
took several pictures of my face while I described my journey, complete with smashing the cell phone after calling the taxi, the bus, and buying the old Subaru. I told him where I left the SUV. He figured the SUV would be stolen or would eventually be impounded, and Troy would have to pay to get it out. He was impressed with the scheming and attention to detail I’d taken in order to hide my tracks. When he asked me to lift my top up a bit to reveal the bruising at my rib cage, I hesitated. I wanted to trust this man, needed to trust him more than anything, but no matter how nice Jackson was, or how much I knew deep down in my heart he wouldn’t hurt me, the tiniest speck of doubt continued to creep up the back of my neck and cloud my mind with fear.

“
Just up a little and only your side,” Jackson said and gave me a reassuring smile.

I lifted
the shirt up, just below my breasts, lowering it immediately after he took the pictures. He took some shots of the imprint of Troy’s hand on my wrist too. It was so ugly. I couldn’t wait for it to fade, which it actually had, some, but there was still enough of it left to show up in a picture.

“
You did great in covering your tracks, Lena. I don’t think he’ll have an easy time locating you, but just for extra precautions, you should probably dye your hair a different color. I have a friend who can help with that. I’ll arrange for her to come here. One more thing,” he set the camera down, “what name did you use when you bought the car?”

“
Lana Martin. Martin was my mother’s maiden name.”

He frowned.
“Did Troy know that?”

“
I don’t think so. He knew mine was Benton, but we never discussed families. I guess that was one of my mistakes. Maybe if I’d found out more about his family, I would have realized he had the potential for violence. I later found out that his father was in and out of jail for most of Troy’s childhood.”

“
Don’t beat yourself up about that one. Not all perpetrators had criminals for parents, and not all victims become perps. For now, go ahead and relax back on the sofa again. I’ll get you some more ice, and you can try to sleep while I send these pictures to Luke so he can start the ball rolling on the restraining order.”

I
slowly sank against the back of the daybed, and waited for him to bring me the ice. I wasn't tired anymore, and I didn't want to be alone. I was scared. I didn’t want to be a burden, but for some reason I felt safer with Jackson around. I guess I was beginning to trust him. “Jackson, I don’t think I could sleep right at the moment. Do you have any tea or coffee?”

“
Oh, of course. Sorry, I got so caught up in helping you, I didn’t think about what you might need or want. Which is sort of confusing when you think about it. Are you hungry? I’ll make you a sandwich. What kind of sandwich would you like? What kind of tea do you want? I think I have some of that Chamomile tea women like, or would you rather have just plain old Lipton tea or coffee?”

“
You’re rambling, but it’s sweet. The coffee sounds great, and I’ll have a sandwich if you’ll join me. Any kind will be fine.”

“
Yeah, be back in a flash. I’ll start the upload of the pictures while I wait for the coffee to brew...” he stopped, turned toward me, pulled his hand through his hair. “Actually, this is really ridiculous.”

“
What?”

“
Me running up and down these stairs, cooking down there and bringing stuff up here. How about if you just come down there and rest? My sofa’s much more comfortable than that old daybed anyway, and we have a spare bedroom you can stay in at night. That way I can keep an eye on you while I upload these pictures and start the necessary paperwork for everything.”