Broken Pieces (16 page)

“Don’t make a sound or I’ll kill you.” The guttural voice of a man iced her to the bone.

He moved against her and his erection stabbed her in the thigh. She gulped in a breath, drawing the plastic into her mouth and gagging. Terror like she’d never known twisted her bowels and stole any strength she might possess. She was about to be raped. God help her, she was about to be attacked just like Mariah had been.

As suddenly as the weight of him had fallen on top of her, it disappeared. She remained unmoving for a second, afraid to hope that he’d just gone away.

Once again she raised her hands to get rid of the
covering over her head. The kick connected with her ribs with such vicious power her hands fell and tiny spots of light flickered in front of her eyes.

A second kick followed the first and it was as if a beast had been unleashed. Fists pummeled her face and all she could do was writhe and curl up in a ball in an attempt to protect herself.

“I broke you,” he hissed in her ear. “And now a piece of you belongs to me.” He kicked her once again and the tiny lights inside her head exploded and she knew nothing more.

Chapter 22

T
he Tavern was one of the most popular drinking establishments in Plains Point. It certainly wasn’t the atmosphere that made it a favorite watering hole. It had no atmosphere other than the smell of cheap beer, the noise of clacking pool balls and a jukebox that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s.

Location, location, location, that’s the only thing that kept the Tavern in business. Located on the town square, it was the easiest place to get to if you wanted to get your nose in the sauce, and it was the place Clay and his friends gathered for their weekly beer-drinking night.

“I’m heading out,” Clay said to Henry, the bartender. He scooted back from the table. Finn and Roger and Charlie had left almost half an hour ago. Joel Clarkson had sat with them for a little while, but even he had called it a night.

Clay didn’t want to be here anymore, but he was also reluctant to go home to another night of sleeping on the sofa.

He’d always known that Sherri was the jealous type, but who would have thought she’d be so nuts
about a girl he hadn’t seen for sixteen years? A girl he barely remembered on his best days.

As he thought of the charged silence that would greet him at his place, he sat down once again. “Ah, what the hell, bring me one more,” he said to Henry.

Henry had just delivered the draft beer to the table when Sam Kincaid crashed open the door. “Sheriff! We need you in the park. I think there’s a dead woman there.”

Clay jumped up, spilling his beer as he raced for the door. His heartbeat ripped through him as he looked across the street where a small crowd of people had begun to gather near the gazebo.

“What happened?” he asked Sam.

“Some kid saw a man beating the hell out of somebody on the ground. He hollered and the man ran away.” Sam hurried to keep up with Clay.

“Do me a favor—call the office and have Hazel call in all my deputies,” Clay exclaimed.

“Hey, she’s alive!” a voice cried out.

“Somebody call for an ambulance!”

“Everybody get back. Get back!” Clay yelled. Jesus, the crime scene would be compromised for sure. His blood turned cold as he saw the figure behind the bench. With the head covered by a garbage bag, it was impossible to know who it was, but Clay’s mind quickly assessed other details.

It was obviously female and if he was to guess, it was somebody young. She was so small, so dainty, and she looked so broken.

At that moment her chest rose with a discernible breath and Clay fell to his knees beside her. As gently as possible he ripped the garbage bag to free her face and nearly gagged.

“Oh my God,” somebody cried.

Her face looked like chewed-up meat. Blood oozed from her nose, which was obviously broken. Her eyes were swollen and already turning black and her bloody mouth was twice the size of what it had once been.

“Get back. Goddammit, everyone get the hell back,” Clay shouted as he took her poor, pitiful hand in his. The sound of an approaching siren filled the air.

He knew who she was, that friend of Mariah’s from Chicago. Why would anyone want to hurt her? Jesus, why would anyone want to beat the hell out of her?

Within minutes two of Clay’s deputies had arrived and had moved the ever-growing crowd back from the scene. An ambulance arrived and Janice Solomon was loaded onto the gurney and carried away to the hospital, where Clay wouldn’t bet she’d survive the night.

Sam pointed out the young man who had seen what had happened and had raised the initial alarm. Clay found him leaning against a tree, having just puked up his latest meal.

Clay knew most of the young people in Plains Point and recognized the slightly green-around-the-gills kid as Jess Cooper.

“You okay, boy?” he asked. A sheen of sweat lay on the young man’s brow. Jess nodded and drew a breath as if to pull himself together. “Want to tell me what happened?” Clay asked.

Jess leaned back against the tree again, his legs still wobbly. “I was supposed to meet a few of my friends at the café and I was cutting through the park to get
there when I saw a man beating somebody on the ground. Man, he was beating the hell out of her. He started to pick her up and I yelled. He dropped her and ran.”

“Which way did he run?” Clay asked.

Jess pointed to the left, toward an alley between the post office and a dry-cleaning business. Clay knew whomever Jess had seen was long gone by now. “What did he look like, Jess?”

“Like a big, dark shadow.” The young man swallowed hard, the bob of his Adam’s apple visible in the faint illumination from a nearby streetlight. A sob suddenly escaped his lips. “You think she’s gonna die?”

“I don’t know, son. You didn’t recognize the man?”

Jess shook his head feverishly from side to side. “I think I was in shock or something, but no. I can’t tell you anything about what he looked like.”

“Not even how he was dressed?” Clay asked.

Jess shrugged. “Sorry, it was just so dark.”

“All right, stay here and I’ll have somebody take an official statement from you.” Within minutes Clay had delegated a variety of tasks to his men.

Two deputies were combing the area around the gazebo for evidence, one had taken Jess to the sheriff’s office to get a written report from the traumatized young man, and Clay was on his way to the hospital to see if he was beginning an investigation into an assault or into a murder.

Chapter 23

M
ariah didn’t start worrying until it was nine o’clock. Most of the stores in Plains Point closed by eight thirty, and only the café, some fast-food joints and a few bars remained open later. So what was taking Janice so long?

Mariah couldn’t imagine her friend going into any of the bars, nor could she see her stopping in for a late evening snack by herself.

“She’s a grown woman,” Mariah said to Tiny, who was in her lap. He raised his head and looked at Mariah with loving eyes. “There’s no reason to worry about a grown woman.”

Tiny lowered his head and snuggled back down. He certainly wasn’t worried about Janice’s absence. And you shouldn’t be either, Mariah told herself.

But by nine thirty she was pacing in front of the window, watching the drive that led up to the house for familiar headlights.

When her phone rang, she raced to answer it, fully expecting the caller to be Janice apologizing for getting held up. Instead it was Jack.

“I was getting ready to call it a night and realized
the whole day had passed and we hadn’t talked to each other,” he said.

Despite her worry, she smiled and sank down on the sofa. “We’ve had a busy day. I’m thinking Janice will be glad to go home tomorrow, since I’ve been working her to death around here.”

Jack laughed. “She’s a neat lady.”

“Yes, she is, but at the moment I’m a bit worried about her. She took off in my car earlier to go into town and when she left, I had the impression she’d be home soon. But here it is after nine thirty and she still isn’t back.”

“You sound like a worried mother,” he teased. “Maybe she met somebody or decided to get a cup of coffee at the café.”

“I’m sure you’re right. I’m just being silly,” she replied. But by the time she hung up with Jack, her worry hadn’t decreased but rather had increased.

By ten thirty her mind began to play all kinds of scenarios and before she could make herself completely crazy, she called Jack back. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Janice isn’t home yet and I’m worried sick. I’ve been calling her cell phone, but it’s going right to voice mail. Would you mind coming to get me and taking me back into town to see if we can find her? I know I’m probably overreacting, but I just have a bad feeling.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Jack promised.

True to his word, precisely fifteen minutes later he pulled up in her driveway. She met him at the car and jumped into his passenger seat. “I feel bad about getting you out, but I didn’t know who else to call.”

“You still haven’t heard from her?” he asked as he backed down the drive.

“Nothing. I left a note at the house in case she gets home before us. She would have called me if she was going to be this late. I have visions of her in a ditch somewhere, unconscious and unable to call for help.”

He drove slowly and together they looked on the sides of the road for Mariah’s car but didn’t find it. When they reached town, they spotted it parked in front of a gift shop. The shop had closed long ago and there was no sign of Janice anywhere in the area.

“Maybe she did decide to go into the Tavern and have a drink,” Mariah said. “Although that’s definitely not her usual style.”

It was then Jack noticed the activity in the park and Mariah’s dread nearly exploded in the pit of her stomach. He parked and she got out of his car and began to walk toward the deputies she saw working the area with large flashlights.

“Hello?” Her walk became a half run as the dread became a screeching alarm in her head.

“Stay back, ma’am. This is a crime scene,” one of the deputies, a man Mariah didn’t know, responded.

“A crime scene? What happened?” Jack stood beside Mariah and placed an arm around her, as if to steady her.

“A woman was attacked.”

Oh God. Mariah’s heart seemed to stop beating. “Who? What woman?” she asked urgently, a gasp escaping her as her heart pounded so hard, so fast, she felt light-headed.

“I don’t know. The sheriff’s with her over at the hospital,” the deputy said.

Jack tightened his arm around Mariah and she welcomed the support, afraid that she might fall. “Come on, honey. We’ll check there.”

She felt as if she were in a nightmare as Jack led her back to his car and they headed toward the hospital. Maybe it wasn’t her—please don’t let it be Janice. The words were a mantra repeated over and over again in her brain.

Jack didn’t try to ease her worry and she was grateful for that. She wasn’t in the mood to hear any empty assurances. All her energy was focused on trying to make whatever woman was in the hospital not Janice.

However, when she and Jack raced through the emergency room doors, the first person she saw was Clay and in his sympathetic eyes she knew the truth. Her knees nearly buckled beneath her.

“Oh God, Clay, what happened?” Once again she was aware of Jack’s comforting closeness, his arm around her waist as if to anchor her in a raging storm.

“Somebody attacked her, Mariah.” Clay’s eyes were somber, his expression grave enough to twist her insides into a million knots.

“Is she all right? Can I see her?”

Clay shook his head negatively. “The doctor isn’t letting anyone in right now.” His jaw tightened. “It’s not good, Mariah. Somebody beat the holy hell out of her. Last report I got from the doctor is that she hasn’t regained consciousness.”

Mariah stumbled backward and might have fallen had Jack not caught her. Tears blurred her vision as she stared unseeing at Clay. “Who would have done this to her? Why would somebody do this?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. I swear I will,” Clay said grimly.

Jack led Mariah to the row of chairs in the waiting
room and she collapsed into one of the chairs. Burying her face in her hands, she couldn’t stop the deep sobs that ripped through her.

Not Janice. Oh God, not Janice. Mariah couldn’t imagine life without the spritelike woman with the heart of a giant and the wisdom of a sage.

She raised her face to look at Jack, whose expression mirrored her grief. “I don’t understand,” she said as she swiped at her tears. “I don’t understand why this happened. Janice never hurt anyone. She doesn’t know anyone here in town. Who would do this to her?”

Jack pulled her closer against his side. “We’ll get some answers soon,” he said. “Clay will find out who did it. Somebody had to have seen something in that park.”

She leaned into him and buried her face in his shoulder, the familiar scent of him oddly comforting at a time when comfort was in short supply.

For the next hour she mentally said every prayer she’d ever learned in her life. She held tight to a foam cup of hot coffee that magically appeared in her hand, and wished the warmth could seek out and heat the cold block of ice inside her.

Each time the door to the emergency room swung open, she sat up, hoping the doctor would come out to let them know what was going on, to tell them that Janice was going to be fine.

Mariah was grateful that Kelsey was spending the night with Katie and had no idea what had happened to the woman Kelsey loved like an aunt. God, she didn’t want to tell her daughter about this.

It was nearing midnight when a tall gray-haired
man came out to speak with them. “Brian,” Jack said in greeting. “This is Mariah Sayers, Janice’s closest friend. Mariah, this is Dr. Brian Walsh.”

Dr. Walsh nodded to Mariah, the stress lines around his eyes indicating near exhaustion. “She’s conscious and she’s asking for you.” Mariah closed her eyes in relief as Jack squeezed her shoulder. “In fact, she won’t let me run tests or do anything else for her until she sees you. She’s quite insistent.”

“Where is she?” Mariah started to sweep past Dr. Walsh, who stopped her by grabbing her arm.

“She’s in room three, but I have to warn you—she’s banged up pretty badly. I don’t want her upset. If you can’t control your emotions, then I’d rather you not go back there. She doesn’t need histrionics right now.”

For a wild moment she wanted to run, away from this hospital, away from this horror. She didn’t know if she had the strength to see Janice beaten and not lose it. She wasn’t at all sure she could do as the doctor had instructed.

Then she thought of all that Janice had done for her. Janice had given her life, more than her own mother had ever done. Surely Mariah could suck it up for the woman she loved like a mother, like a sister.

She nodded. “I’ll be right back,” she said to Jack, then swept past Dr. Walsh and through the doors that led to the emergency room.

Plains Point Hospital was a small facility and there were only three examining rooms. Mariah kept her gaze focused on room three as she summoned every ounce of inner strength she possessed.

Still, she couldn’t stop the gasp of shock that escaped
her lips as she stepped into the room. The person on the bed was not her friend. Her mind rebelled at the very idea, and yet it was Janice, beaten so badly she was nearly unrecognizable. If it weren’t for the point of her ears, Mariah wouldn’t have been certain it was her.

It was like seeing somebody horribly deformed. You didn’t want to stare yet couldn’t seem to stop looking. Janice looked dead and as Mariah approached the side of the bed, she felt as if she were in a nightmare. The whole thing felt surreal and she wanted somebody to jump out from behind a curtain and squeal “April Fools!”

But it wasn’t a nightmare and it wasn’t a prank. It was real, as real as the oxygen tube that went into Janice’s smashed nose, as real as the stench of blood and antiseptic that permeated the small room.

On wooden legs she walked to the edge of the bed. Janice’s face was swollen and black-and-blue and her very stillness terrified Mariah.

Emotion surged up inside Mariah and tears burned at her eyes, but she squeezed them back and instead reached out and touched Janice’s small, slender hand.

Cold. It was so cold it made Mariah ache. Janice sucked in a liquid breath and her eyes, mere slits in black pouches, gleamed overbright.

“I’m here, Janice. You’re going to be all right,” Mariah said fervently.

Janice’s fingers tightened on Mariah’s and her swollen lips parted. It was obvious she was in tremendous pain and despite all her efforts to the contrary, Mariah’s eyes filled with tears.

“It’s all right. Don’t try to talk. I just wanted you to know that I’m here.”

Janice squeezed her hand more tightly and her mouth worked feverishly as she tried to sit up. A monitor began to beep a frantic sound as Janice reached up and grabbed the back of Mariah’s head and pulled her close.

She held Mariah next to her with a surprising strength. “He told me he broke me. He broke a piece of me. That’s what he said.”

For a moment everything seemed to stop. The sound of the monitor hushed and a roar took its place, a roar inside her brain as she stared into Janice’s wounded eyes.

Mariah’s head spun wildly as Janice released her and fell back on the bed. At that moment the doctor rushed in. “You need to go,” he said to Mariah, who looked at him through a veil of shock.

As the doctor began to administer to Janice, Mariah stumbled backward, away from the bed. She bumped into a chair, nearly fell, then turned and ran from the room with Janice’s words thundering in her head.

He broke a piece of me
.

He broke a piece of me
.

She didn’t stop running until she collapsed in Jack’s arms. “It’s all right,” he said as he held her tight and stroked her back. “Shh, it’s going to be all right,” he said. But she knew that was a lie. Nothing was going to be all right.

Because now she knew.

He was still out there.

The same man who had raped her sixteen years ago was still out there walking the streets of Plains Point, and as long as he was out there, no woman was safe.