Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (22 page)

She looked over her shoulder.
Steve
was
leering at her. Her heart jumped in
to
her throat.
Oh no.
But she couldn’t let him
see
her fear.
“
W
hat
do you want
?”

“
Let me h
elp you.
”
He
pulled her to her feet. “Just thou
ght I’d stop by and say hi
. Wher
e’s your
new
boyfriend?
You know, the tall
skinny
one.”

“At work.” S
he
refused to look at Steve as she
continued up the hill toward
her
apartment
,
try
ing to catch her breath
as she walked faster
. “You don’t need to follow me
.”
She rubbed
the grass and dirt off her hip
and tried not to limp
.
“
I didn’t think you were taking classes this fall
.
”

“
I’m not
.
”
He matched
her stride for stride. “
Look
s like you’ve
got more than yourself in there.” H
e bumped her belly with the flat of his hand.

“Stop it.
Why don’t you leave me alone?
” Her
pulse climbed again
. As she op
ened the door of the
apartment
building,
Steve
pushed it wider and
followed
her
inside
.

“Go away.” P
anic
swe
pt
over her. She fumbled for her key and turned to push him away
.
Doctor Wright’s words to her, about
Steve having assaulted her and that it was a crime
,
rang in
her
ears
.

Steve
shoved her inside the apartment and slammed the door.

“Get out!” she
screamed
, scrambling away from him.
“Leave me alone!
Or I’ll
call the cops.
”

“I don’t think so.
” He grabbed her hand and pulled her around to face him.
“
Look
at me.
”
H
e slapped her
left cheek
.
“
I said
,
look
at me!”
H
e hit her again
and again
with the flat of his hand
,
now
concentrating on
her ribs and her
stomach.

“Stop
it! I hate you
!” S
he screamed
and
slid down to the floor
, drawing
up
her knees
to protect the baby
.
“Get out
and leave me alone
!”

“
Not before you t
ell me. Is it my kid? Or have you been putting out for someone else?
” H
e tried to pull her up onto the couch. “
Y
ou were a lot
friendlier
last spring
, Danni
.
How ’bout it, w
ant me to
s
how you how?”

When she shook her head, h
e
slapped her
face
again
.

Her head snapped back and
she fell against the wall
,
her head ringing.

“
Tell me
if the
brat
is mine.”

Her head spinning, she managed to
blurt out
,
“
N
one
of your business,
”
as s
he
tried to
crab-walk
away from him.

Steve
kne
eled
down and
began
pulling up her shirt.

“Stop it, Steve!
Leave me alone!
”
She fought to push his hands away
, frantic that he was going to hit her again
.

“What’s going on
in there?” H
er landlord’s voice penetrated
Danni’s
panic
when he
knocked on
the door
.
“Are you
okay
,
Dannilynn
?”
She heard the man
wiggl
e
the door
handle
.

Steve grabbed her around the throat and whispered. “Tell him you’re fine.”

But h
is grip had cut off her breathing. For a moment, she imagined her baby dying from lack of oxygen, and struggled to grab his arm, to pull his fingers away from her throat. Then he loosened his grip slightly and she was able to take a quick breath.
She
nodded,
desperate to make Steve leave,
afraid to look away from
him
. She
coughed and
croaked out,
“
I’m okay
, Mr. Minor
.
Really.
”
Then s
he
shoved
Steve’s hand
s
away and glared at him
, keeping her voice low
. “Get out
. Now,
or I’ll scream.
And I won’t stop until you’re gone.
No
matter
what you do.
”

“
You better not call the cops or your landlord.
The
n
ext time I see you,
you
’re
gonna tell me if that
kid is mine
.
And if it
isn’t, who you’ve been screwing
.
”
He
turned and
slammed
the door
behind him
.

Danni
sat
on the floor for several minutes
before getting up and
making sure
the doo
r was locked
. Her face was red and the skin around one eye was starting to swell.
She walked unsteadily to her desk and pulled out her phone.

“I need to talk to a
police
officer
,” she
sai
d, her voice hoarse.

“Just a minute, miss.”

A moment later, a man
’s voice
came on the phone. “Officer Osborn. Who’s this?”

“Um, is there a woman I could talk to?”

He
seemed to hesitate. “What’s the trouble, miss?”

“A guy attacked me.” She brushed
her fingers lightly over
her
cheek
where Steve had
slapped
her.

“Where are you now?”

“M
y apartment.”

“I’ll send someone right over. Is your door locked?”

She nodded, and then remembered to answer the question. “Yes.”

After she gave her address, she sat back down, her knees shaking
. The sobs
she’d been holding back
erupted
with a vengeance.
She had just finished mopping her face
and blowing her nose
when a knock was heard at her door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Officer Osborn and Officer
Pedersen.”

Danni opened the door to the two officers
. The tall male officer glanced around the room. The female officer smiled, her eyes focusing on Danni’s reddened cheek
. She motioned to the couch and they waited until she shut the door before sitting down.

Osborn spoke first
, his words
enunciated rapidly
. “You said you were attacked. Do you mean raped?”

Danni scrunched up her face in a vain attempt to avoid tearing up
again
. “No. He didn’t do that, but maybe he was going to. He hit me, though.”

Officer Pedersen stood up. “Perhaps we should go into your bedroom and you could show me where he hit you.” She offered Danni a hand and walked her into the bedroom.

Danni pointed to her cheek
,
and her ribs
,
and nodded when the officer
asked with her eyes to pull up Danni’s top to see her skin.
The officer pulled out a digital camera and took shots of every place on Danni’s body where she said Steve had hit her.

“How pregnant are you?”

“About five months. I’m not exactly sure when I got pregnant, but that’s what the doctor said.”

“And this man who hit you? Why did he do that?”

Danni choked back a sob and tearfully said what Steve had wanted to know.

“So you didn’t tell him it was his baby?”

“No. I hate him! He doesn’t deserve to know. I was so scared he was going to hit me again and maybe try to kill the baby. He told me I shouldn’t call you, but what he did was wrong. I’m scared he’s going to come back again.”

Officer Pedersen motioned for Danni to sit on the bed. “Let me talk to my partner. Why don’t you lie down and rest for a minute?”

She
did so and listened to the officers conferring with each other
in the living room
, their words
muffled as the male’s words seemed to override the female officer’s higher pitch
. 
Danni
rose
, opened the door
and walked back into the living room, where Officer Osborn was scribbling into a notebook.

“Ms. Kelly, we need
the full name and
a descriptio
n of the man who attacked you,
”
he said.

She nodded and described Steve. “But he’s not on campus this term.
What are you going to do?
I don’t know where he’s living now.”

Officer Osborn spoke up. “We’re going to find him and talk with him.
Are you going to press charges? If you do, we’ll
take him in.”

“But
then
he’ll know I called you and he told me not to. What if he comes back?”

“We’ll let him know that’s a bad idea.
What he did
i
s battery
. It’s a misdemeanor
. He might claim you
attacked
him
, that he was justified, that he was
just
protecting himself
. Did you?”

“No! All I did was try to get him to take his hands off me, to leave me alone.” She squeezed her hands together. “I was
so
afraid he was going to strangle me.”

Officer Pedersen pulled out
the
camera and took another picture, this time of Danni’s neck, where she pointed
at the red marks left by Steve’s fingers
.

“We’ll speak to your landlord. I suggest you see your doctor,
to make sure your baby is okay.” Officer Pedersen handed Danni two business cards, one for each officer. “Call us if he approaches you again.”

Danni nodded and let the officers out before going back into her bedroom.
She undressed and
felt the sore spots
where
Steve’s
hand
s
had
connected with
her body. She lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep. Each
time she w
ok
e
that night
, she
found herself trembling
as she relived how Steve had terrorized her.

Afraid she would see him on campus, s
he skipped her classes the next day and
,
when she went to bed
that night
, she slept with the light
s
on, unable to stop thinking about
what Steve had done
.
When she
dressed
the next morning to go to the library, she
noticed blood on her nightgown
and panicked. She called Angela’s office and tearfully asked
Phoebe
for an
immediate
appointment.