Officer in Pursuit (24 page)

Kerry recognized the opportunity Sasha
was giving her to be alone with Grey, and while she longed for it,
she also dreaded it. In the end, she said that yes, she’d like some
dinner.

And then Sasha was gone, and Kerry’s
heart was racing.

* * * * *

It was a sweet relief to see Kerry
sitting up in bed, talking. At the same time, it was agony to think
of what had happened to her in the past 24 hours.

“I can’t believe this happened,” Grey
said, standing now where Sasha had been, at the very edge of
Kerry’s bed. “And I especially can’t believe that I was at work all
day without a clue while you were going through all
this.”

“I wish I could be as surprised as
you,” Kerry said. “I’ve been dreading something like this for the
past three years. Part of the reason I didn’t tell anybody about
Brad is because I knew they’d think I was paranoid. But I knew I
wasn’t, and that was the worst part: knowing I was the only one who
understood how insane he really is.”

She stared down at her sheets as she
spoke. “It was always like that.”

“No one believed you?” Grey asked,
sinking down onto the edge of the bed, careful not to bump
her.

She shook her head, almost laughed.
“He started acting crazy as soon as we got married. Before that he
was jealous and controlling, but he didn’t hit me.” She shrugged.
“I thought all men were like that. Anyway, when it got so bad I
couldn’t take it anymore, I finally realized it was only going to
keep getting worse. I agonized over it and finally made up my mind
to make a big confession to my parents.

“I thought it would be this big,
pivotal moment when everything would change. But my mom just said
that ‘all marriages have rough patches’ and that I ‘just had to get
through the newlywed years and figure out how to keep my husband
happy’.”

Grey’s gut balled up. It felt like a
tangle of barbed wire inside him. His head ached with the pounding
rush of blood that anger brought. He could feel the stitches at his
temple, itching.

Had it really only been a week ago
that they’d been dealing with his little jiu-jitsu injury? It
seemed far away and almost funny now.

“What about your dad?” he asked. She’d
gotten out of her abusive marriage eventually. Hadn’t anyone helped
her?

“He was even worse. He told me I was a
woman now that I was married, and I couldn’t whine about things
like a little girl, expecting them to fix it. He said I was Brad’s
responsibility, and keeping Brad happy was my responsibility. I
don’t think he or my mom believed me at first, about how rough he
was with me. And I couldn’t tell them the worst details. It was too
humiliating.”

“But you moved back in with them
eventually?”

She shrugged. “It took me almost a
year to build my nerve up again after my confession turned out to
be such a bust. But I did, and I basically showed up on their
doorstep and refused to leave. They let me stay, but they didn’t
like it. And then, when Brad started stalking me, showing up and
doing crazy things, making threats against my whole family, they
didn’t want me around anymore. By the time I left for North
Carolina, I’d more than worn out my welcome.”

Grey tasted blood in his
mouth, though he couldn’t remember biting his lip. “What shitty
parents. My dad beat my mom, and eventually she left him. But I
don’t think she would’ve done it – I don’t think she
could
have – if it
hadn’t been for my grandparents. They took her in and helped her
get back on her feet. Her and me. They were great.”

Kerry finally met his eyes. Hers were
wide and seemed darker than ever. “Did he leave you two alone after
that?”

“Yeah. I haven’t heard from him since
I was 9.”

Kerry frowned.

Grey couldn’t stand not touching her
anymore. He reached out and took her unhurt hand. It looked like a
tiny doll’s hand in comparison to her other one, which was twice as
thick as usual, thanks to the bandages it was wrapped
in.

“I wish Brad would leave me alone,”
she said, looking toward the window, “but I know he
won’t.”

The barbed wire in Grey’s gut got even
sharper. “The point is that he’s done something he can be locked
away for. The police will catch him.”

She shrugged. “It’s his word against
mine though, isn’t it? It’s not like anyone saw what he did. He’ll
probably say I went with him willingly to go back to
Kentucky.”

“You’re injured,” Grey pointed out,
not liking the direction her thoughts were going in.

She shrugged again. “He injured me
plenty of times before. When people asked – and they usually didn’t
– he’d make up some lame story about an accident, and they’d
believe him. Every time.”

“Kerry. Come on. We’re not talking
about some good ol’ boys back in coal mining country. We’re talking
about him being prosecuted in a court of law.”

She met his eyes again, and he saw
that hers were shining. “My own parents didn’t believe me! I doubt
anyone else will, even in court. Domestic crimes get swept under
the rug all the time.”

“It wasn’t a domestic crime.” Grey
heard the hard edge to his own voice, but didn’t know how to soften
it. “You’re not his wife. You hadn’t even seen him in years. He
kidnapped you like some sort of asshole movie villain! He’s not
going to get away with it.”

“You don’t know that. I wish I could
believe it, but I can’t afford to get my hopes up. I’ll probably be
dealing with this until one of us drops dead someday – me or
Brad.”

“Don’t say that.” Grey’s voice was
harder than ever now. “If by some miniscule chance he’s not put
behind bars for this, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Don’t talk like that, Grey. He’s
already seen you. He yelled at me about you! You need to stay away
from him!”

Grey stood, so mad he was shaking. He
couldn’t help it. “No! No, I won’t.”

He stared at Kerry’s bandages, and he
thought of his mom’s face too, always bruised or black-eyed for no
reason, for so many years. And he remembered the paralyzing,
all-consuming fear that’d ruled his early life. And what it felt
like to be beaten for nothing at all.

And he thought of how many times he’d
been told to stay out of the way, to not make his father mad. And
how it had never worked.

People like Bradley Sawyer fed off
that kind of fear, off of people bending and cowing and rushing to
indulge their every whim, arranging their every action around the
desperate hope to not get hit again.

For him, all that was decades in the
past and had been deeply buried, until now. Now, the anger was
fresh and he had to imagine what it would feel like to be 27 years
old and still be living with what for him had been a child’s fear,
a child’s hell. He couldn’t stand to see Kerry go through it. Most
of all, he couldn’t stand to see her so resigned, so sure that this
was her lot in life.

“There may be some people who are
cowardly enough to ignore this sort of thing,” he said, “but I’m
not one of them. I’m not going to watch you act like this is your
life, like it’s not going to end. Because it is.”

“How can I be sure, though?” She still
held his gaze. “I hit him back, Grey. For the first time. I thought
it would be enough to get away, but it wasn’t. So I picked up a
handful of broken glass and smashed it into his face. And after all
that, he just drove away. He’s still out there.”

Grey’s stomach dropped as a single
tear slid from one of Kerry’s eyes. She looked so defeated, so lost
and lonely. He hated to see it.

He sat back down on the edge of the
bed and put his arms around her, as carefully as he could. “He
won’t be for long. And until then, you’ve still got me. And Sasha.
She threw a temper tantrum when I tried to get her to stay
home.”

“She’s a lot braver than me,” Kerry
said. “And I’m not just talking about her choice in swimwear. She
fought off a convicted murderer with a kitchen knife. And I could
barely get away from my own ex-husband! I wish I was more like
her.”

Grey sucked in a breath and tried not
to laugh. “As someone who just spent the past six hours alone with
her in a car, I’m glad you’re you.”

Of course, Sasha reappeared at that
very moment. “No offence Grey,” she said, swanning into the room
with her arms full of fast food bags and cups, “but the feeling is
mutual – I’d take Henry over you any day.”

Kerry trembled against Grey, and he
experienced a split second of panic before he realized she was
laughing.

A surge of relief hit him as Sasha
plunked two bags down on the bedside table. “There were only two
places open this time of night,” she said. “Kerry, I got you a
salad with grilled chicken because I know how you feel about
anything that’s been fried or slapped on a bun. Grey, I got you a
hamburger and fries with a milkshake – an adult version of the
kids’ meal, basically. I thought you’d like that.”

Grey rose from the bed and shot her a
sideways look. “You think I got this body by binging on burgers and
milkshakes?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how you do
it, I just know I’ve seen you eat. The shake is chocolate, by the
way.”

He was starving, and secretly glad
that Sasha had brought him so much food. But he wasn’t about to
admit that to her. “I guess if I made it through your driving
without suffering a heart attack, I’ll make it through this
meal.”

He tried taking a sip of the milkshake
but quickly resolved to wait until it’d melted a little. It was the
consistency of wet cement, and there was no dignified way to
consume it – the slurping sounds were bad enough to wake the entire
hospital. Sasha, of course, hadn’t brought him a spoon.

“You’re welcome,” she said,
settling into a visitor’s chair with a chicken sandwich, “for the
driving help
and
the food.”

Grey unpackaged the food she’d
brought, lifting Kerry’s salad from its bag and unwrapping the
plastic utensils that’d come with it. He put a straw in what Sasha
said was unsweetened iced tea too, but when he turned to Kerry, she
was lying curled on the thin hospital pillow, her eyes
closed.

“Let her sleep,” Sasha said, “I’ll ask
the nurses if there’s a fridge I can put the salad in.”

Grey settled into the only other
chair, which was directly beside Sasha’s, and pulled a fry out of
the greasy bag she’d brought him. “This has been one of the
weirdest fucking days of my life.”

“This whole summer has been
like one long episode of
The Twilight
Zone
. I didn’t think anything could
surprise me anymore, but when I found out that Kerry had been
married…” Sasha shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her,
but I always thought she just naturally fell a little on the
prudish side. It never occurred to me that she was keeping
secrets.”

Grey didn’t say anything – it felt
like any comment or speculation would’ve been a betrayal, somehow,
of Kerry’s trust.

“I wish she’d trusted me,” Sasha said.
“I hate to think of her going through all this alone, for three
whole years. I wonder if there’s anything else we don’t
know.”

CHAPTER 19

When Kerry woke up, for a split
second, she couldn’t make any sense of what she was looking at.
Grey and Sasha sat slumped in two chairs against an off-white wall,
clearly asleep. Grey’s head rested against a table on wheels, and
Sasha had stuck one of her elbows in his side, which looked
painful.

He clearly hadn’t noticed.

It was a bizarre scene, until the
texture of hospital sheets and the pressure of bandages against
Kerry’s hand, arm and head registered. Then she remembered where
she was and why and what Grey and Sasha were doing there.
Immediately, the tension sleep had banished rushed back, making her
stomach cramp.

She experienced a mild sense of panic
as she looked at Grey and Sasha. They knew everything now, and they
were still here. Orange light was splintering in through the closed
blinds, announcing that the sun was rising – they’d stayed all
night. Kerry felt humbled and grateful and guilty all at
once.

They were both supposed to be at work
today – so was she, for that matter – and here they all were,
somewhere in West Virginia, crowded into a hospital
room.

The nursing staff must’ve been trained
in ESP, because Kerry had been awake for less than a minute when a
nurse strolled in.

The door creaked faintly on its
hinges, causing Grey to jerk and open his eyes. Sasha woke up a
second later, when he pushed her elbow out of his side.

“What are you doing?” Sasha hissed,
narrowing her eyes at him.

Grey pointed down at the chair arms
between them. “You were on my side.”

“Oh, grow up.” Sasha
scowled.

“Guess you’re not a morning person,”
Grey said.

“Guess you need to brush your
teeth!”

The nurse rolled her eyes in their
direction. “You know, those chairs aren’t bolted to the floor – one
of you could sit on the other side of the room.”