“You told the sheriff we’d meet him at the hospital?” she asked, lost in her thoughts while he’d made the call.
“That’s right,” Duke said, grabbing her purse and cell. He tucked the phone inside and then threw the strap over his arm.
“I can help.” She started to get up, but gravity gave her a hard no in return. She plopped right back down on her backside. Her head felt like it might actually explode when she tried to move, which made her dizzy.
She also noted there was blood on Duke’s shirt where his side had been pressed up against her. She checked under her arm and realized she’d been nicked by a bullet fragment. Thank heaven it wasn’t much more than a scratch that might not even need stitches. Maybe a butterfly bandage and a little glue would do the trick.
“You were hit,” Duke said as he helped her up. He did most of the work of getting her on her feet.
“I got lucky,” she admitted with a small smile meant to reassure him. “It could have been a lot worse.”
He took in a slow deep breath and mumbled something that sounded a whole lot like, “I can’t lose you twice.”
Audrey slipped through the front door he opened, her weapon still in her hand. He managed to hold her up while at the same time he held her handbag and locked the front door.
She scanned the area for any signs of movement.
Duke fished keys out of his pocket and hit the button to unlock his truck as they neared the passenger side. With effort and a whole lot of help, she managed to ease onto the seat and buckle in. Most of the pain was coming from her skull. So much so, she hadn’t noticed the bullet graze on the inside of her underarm.
The idea of staying at the ranch for the night brought back a flood of memories. So many of them were the best of her life. Little did she know at sixteen years old she would have her absolute best three months. No other season or time in her life would live up to that summer.
Duke claimed the driver’s seat, started the engine and secured his seat belt.
Getting a dog sounded like a good idea if she ever wanted to feel safe again in her own home, wherever home ended up being. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She worked in law enforcement. She was trained.
She’d worked hard to overcome her past.
Not feeling safe in her own home brought back all the helpless feelings she’d experienced most of her young life. Would talking about the horrors she’d experienced help when training to shoot a gun hadn’t?
“My parents killed my sister and blamed it on me,” she said to Duke out of nowhere. “I was so young and so horrified that I lost the ability to speak. The psychiatrist I was ordered to see called it traumatic mutism. Only she believed I was traumatized by accidentally killing my sister when in reality I was terrified of my parents. They didn’t know I was hiding in her closet when they came in that night and roused her from bed. I was, though. They got fired up about something she was supposed to do around the house but forgot. The long and short of it was that they ran a bath and then basically waterboarded her until she was exhausted. I sneaked into my room, but they came for me, too. Forced me into the bathroom and told me to watch her. My job was to scream if she climbed out of the tub.”
Tears streamed down Audrey’s face at the memory.
“She was so tired, she sank to the bottom of the tub,” Audrey continued after catching her breath. “I thought she was playing a game and holding her breath. I wasn’t watching because I was curled up in the corner, shaking like a leaf. I didn’t offer help when I could have saved her.”
“You were a child,” he said with the kind of compassion that made her want to believe those words. “You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“So why haven’t I been able to let myself off the hook ever since?”
DUKE’S HEART BROKE at hearing what Audrey had been carrying around all these years. He wished there was something he could say to ease some of her pain. Rather than try and fail, he reached across the truck and squeezed her hand while stopped at a red light. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through, Audrey. I really am.”
Her hand relaxed in his, and she managed a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m damaged goods, Duke. You’re better off staying far away from me.”
There was no way in hell he was letting her talk about herself in that manner. “You’re a survivor, Audrey. And a damn good one, too. Not many folks could endure what you did and still come out willing to help others. You’ve been taking care of my grandparents when it should have been one of us.”
“You guys had places to go,” she argued. “Your careers took you away from home, but that didn’t stop you from coming back to help out when the need arose. Your grandparents are lucky to have such loving people in their corner.”
He wasn’t so sure they’d done everything they could, but this conversation wasn’t about him, so he guided it back on track. “When you came to live with us that summer, you didn’t say the bruises were from your parents.”
“That’s right,” she confirmed. “They did a number on my face.”
“How did you escape?”
“They locked me inside my room,” she said quietly. “I set the house on fire with matches I found, so they’d have to let me escape. That was after going two days without water and three without food. I was desperate.”
“And then what happened?” he asked.
“A favor was called in from one of Grandpa Lor’s old friends at the marshal’s office and I landed at the ranch to ‘stay with a friend’ until their trial.” Her voice took on a detached note. It was almost as though she had to distance herself from reality as far as possible in order to talk about it. He’d seen the same thing with other crime victims during his career.
“And that’s how you ended up in Mesa Point with my grandparents.” One positive from this difficult to hear conversation was that Audrey was finally opening up to him and talking about something significant from her past. She usually redirected the conversation when he asked questions about what happened.
She nodded. “The thing is, when I acted in desperation back at home and set the place ablaze, I lost the ability to speak again.”
“But you spoke to me at the ranch,” he said.
“I know,” she admitted. “You were the first and only person who made me feel safe enough to speak, is the best I can figure. It was most likely having someone my age to talk to that did the trick.” She shrugged.
It was probably wrong of him to want to be special in her eyes. To want to be the reason she opened up at all and not just because they happened to be the same age and in the same place.
“It was easy to talk to you,” he admitted. “You were an old soul even back then. More mature than your age dictated.”
“Thank you, Duke. That means a lot coming from you.” She tapped her index finger on the armrest. “Your friendship has always meant the world to me.”
Duke didn’t argue her word choice, but they’d been a couple planning a future back then, not merely friends. Could they become friends moving forward? All he knew for certain was that he wanted her back in his life.
“I’ve decided to turn in my notice at work,” she said. “I’m moving out of Mesa Point, but I don’t want you to think it’s because of the perp. No one gets to take my power away again. It’s important for me to stand up for myself. You know?”
He nodded, trying not to give away the fact her news was the equivalent of a gut punch. “Standing up for yourself is important,” he said. “And I know you’ll do it the right way. You won’t go off half-cocked at the perp.”
