Between Now and Goodbye (33 page)

I'm aware now that I'm crying, but I don't stop to tidy myself up. I just step out of Charles' room, walk down the steps from the attic and run straight into Charles.

He's just gotten out of the shower by the looks of things, he's wearing jeans, but his hair is wet, and he's got a towel draped around his bare shoulders.

'You've really got to stop sneaking int...' His smile drops as he takes in my appearance. 'Libs, what's wrong?'

'I....' I can't speak, the tears fall fast and I drop into Charles' arms. He holds me tightly as I cry.

Forty One – Charles

I've never seen her like this. I've seen her cry before, I've seen her get upset and freak out, but this is different. She's shaking in my arms, holding on like she's scared if she lets go something awful will happen.

'Libs what's happened?' I ask her, she doesn't answer. She's crying too hard to get any words out. 'Ok.' I rub her back gently. 'What do you need?'

'Safe...I...I just need to be somewhere safe.' She says through her tears.

'You are safe Libs, why wouldn't you be safe?' I hold her a little tighter.

'He's...Char I don't know what to do...I need...some place safe.'

'Ok, shh, it's ok.' I take her up to my bedroom. I expect her to sit on my bed, or Lewis', but she curls up on the floor at the foot of my bed. Curling herself up small, her back to the bed and her side to the wall. I quickly pull a black shirt on, and then slide into the space next to her, holding her close to me. I don't talk. I just let her cry.

My mom comes in at one point, asking me what's wrong, and I don't have an answer for her, so she heads back downstairs, promising to keep Lewis out of the room.

After half an hour of crying in my arms, Libby finally managed to gain some control over herself. She looks up at me and I can see the fear in her eyes.

'I'm sorry.' She sniffs.

'Don't apologize, just tell me what's the matter. Libs you're really scaring me.'

'I was...Char he found me...found us.'

'Who did?' I ask, rubbing small circles on her back.

'My dad.' She says catching my eyes. 'I thought we'd finally managed to break away from him. It's been over two years since he last tracked us down, and even then it was just a phone call. Now, though... He's here, he's at my door and I...' She's shaking again.

'It's ok.'

'No,' she shakes her head, 'it's never ok when he's here, it's never safe.' She pulls out of my arms and stands up, looking frantically around the room.

'Why isn't it safe?' I'm on my feet as well, holding her arm gently. She stops moving and looks into my eyes, a broken look is washing over her face.

'I've wanted to tell you so many times. I've never wanted to tell anyone before, but you... I almost told you so many times.'

'Told me what?'

'The truth. Why I'm here, why I don't talk about my dad, why he's not around.' She shakes her head and starts looking around the room again. Finally, she spots my laptop under some papers on my bed, she pulls it out and sits back in her spot at the end of the bed. I join her, as she pulls open my laptop and starts searching for something.

It doesn't take her long, whatever she's looking for, she knows how to find it quickly. She takes a deep breath, shaking as she hands me the computer.

I look at the headline on the article that she's brought up.

Police chiefs eleven year old daughter, Elizabeth Vine, involved in a home invasion, leaving her in the hospital.

'Libs, what is this?' I look at her.

'I'm Elizabeth, the girl in that article...that's me.' She says quietly.

'But I...'

'Keep reading.' She says, curling herself up a little bit tighter. I do as she tells me and read the full article.

'Libs.' I choke out once I'm done. I close the laptop and push it to one side, 'is that article right? Did you...' I can hardly say it, 'were you attacked?'

'Yes.'

'And that's why you left Oregon?'

'Yes.'

'That's why you've been running?' I ask her.

'Yeah.'

'But Libs...what does that have to do with your dad being at your house now. Surely he wouldn't have come if it would have put you in danger.'

'That article,' she says, staring down at her hands, 'it's only part of the story.'

'Then what's the whole story?' I ask her.

'I was attacked that night,' she says quietly, 'I was beaten and cut, and thrown down the stairs and left bleeding. I almost died.'

'Libs.' I pull her close to me. I want to go back and protect that little girl, stop her from being hurt.

'But...' she breathes heavily, 'there wasn't a break-in.'

'I don't understand.'

'I was supposed to be asleep, it was late and I should have been safely tucked up in my bed, but I'd needed a glass of water. I'd gone down to get one, and when I got to the top of the stairs, that's when my dad got back from work.' She says quietly, tearfully. 'My mom and Pippa were asleep the floor above where my room was, and my dad came upstairs. He'd...he'd had a bad day at work. There was this case that he'd been working on. It was this huge thing, and they'd been working to bring this guy down for months, but that day...the case fell apart on a technicality. A piece of evidence went missing, or a witness withdrew their statement. They had to let the guy go, and my dad... He was angry, really angry about it.'

'Libs.'

'No, please, just let me get this out.'

'Ok.' I hold her close, let her curl into me as she talks with a scary calmness, an almost numb calmness.

'He used to get angry a lot, and when he did, my mom and I were his first outlet. We'd protect Pippa, she was so little. Whenever he was in a bad mood, we used to get her to hide away. There was this panel in her bedroom, it opened up into this little crawl space. Just big enough for her, and my dad didn't know about it. She used to hide in there. My dad never cared, never went looking for her, because he had my mom and me to...to take his anger out on. My mom... she tried to protect me too, but he was just too strong, and he threw her aside and came after me.' She pauses, breathing slowly, 'This time it was just me awake, and when he slammed the door shut I got scared. I dropped the glass of water, it broke and he heard it. He came upstairs and he was so angry that I'd broken it. He told me that...that he'd teach me a lesson, and if I screamed, he'd hurt Pippa. She...she wouldn't have been able to hide, I was so scared. So I stayed as quiet as I could while he hit me. Over and over he hit me, until I fell to the ground into the glass. Then he took his belt off,' she's shaking again, crying again, 'he brought the belt down on my back and I couldn't help it. I screamed. He pulled me up to my feet and called me a stupid little brat. My...my mom heard me scream, and she came running down the stairs. She found my dad shaking me. I was bleeding and beaten. Ribs already broken from where he'd hit and kicked me. And...my mom started screaming at him to let me go, but he wouldn't, he told her to leave him alone, let him discipline me as he saw fit. She tried to grab me away, tried to push him back, but he was too strong. He let go of me and shoved her hard. She fell against the wall and I screamed again. I...I tried to run away, but he grabbed my hair, slapped me hard across the face, and then he shoved me hard. I felt myself falling backwards, braced myself for the painful hit against the wall, but it didn't come. I kept falling. I went straight down the stairs, and...' She stops talking and I kiss the top of her head.

'It's ok.' I whisper, 'You're safe here.'

'I, uh... the next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital. My mom was there, and she was smoothing my hair back, and then she told me a story. She told me that the people had broken into the house, they'd found me awake while they were robbing the place. That they'd beaten me and that dad had found me, called 911, got me help.'

'I don't understand, why wouldn't she tell the truth?'

'She was scared.' She replies, 'We were always scared. My dad had already told the police his version of events, and...Char he's the police chief in that town. My mom was scared that nobody would believe her, and that it would make things worse.' She sniffs back another flow of tears. 'After what happened that night, my dad...he agreed that if we went along with his story, that he'd give mom a divorce and we could all leave. She'd been saving money, and this was our way out. She knew we had to go. He'd never hurt me that badly before, normally it was just a few punches, always easy to hide under my clothes. This time, he almost killed me.'

'So that's when you left?'

'Yeah, we went straight from the hospital. At first we didn't go far, we needed to keep in contact until the divorce was final, and we were so scared that he'd change his mind, but...I don't know if he was shocked by how far he'd gone that time, but he didn't back out. The divorce was final. He spun a story about getting us out of town to keep us safe. He let us go. We moved away and for a few months it was good, we were building a life, but...he must have decided he didn't want us to get away, because he started looking for us, and he'd always find us eventually. He'd call us, or turn up at our schools. He never got close to us, never got to speak to us. We were always paranoid he'd show up, so we were on our guard and always saw him first and ran. We moved from place to place, and then mom met Matt. They started seeing each other, and she told him all about my dad, and Matt said he'd protect us. When mom married Matt, Pippa and I took his last name, we moved here and the trail went cold, or he stopped looking, or...we thought he had. Two years we've been here, and there hadn't been a single hint of him.'

'Until now?'

'Yeah,' she holds her knees to her chest, 'he showed up at the house. I freaked out, came here. I need to call my mom. I sent her a message warning her he was here, but I dropped my phone. What if she... she might think he has me and...' She's crying again.

'It's ok.' I say quickly. 'I'll call her.' I get up and slip out of the room. I hurry downstairs to get my phone, not wanting to leave her for long.

'Honey, I was just about to come up.' My mom catches my arm as I walk into the kitchen. Pippa is sat at the table, she looks pale, her face streaked with tears.

'What's wrong?' I feel dread squeezing me tight.

'Mom came home to look for Libby.' Pippa says, choking on her sobs. 'My dad...he was waiting and managed to get inside the house. He started yelling at my mom, shouting that she was keeping his kids away from him. Poisoning us against him. When I got back to the house with Matt...he was...he was hitting her.'

'Oh Pippa,' I shake my head, 'Where is she now?'

'It's ok,' my mom rubs my back, 'she's at her house with Matt. She wasn't badly hurt, Matt and Pippa arrived before anything worse could happen. She's talking to the police.'

'And Libby's dad?'

'Matt and I called the police when we got back to the house. Matt kind of kept my dad arguing until they arrived, so he didn't have a chance to run, and...I wasn't about to let him get away with it like he did all those years. I was too young to do anything when we lived with him, but now...I was ready when we arrived at the house and heard shouting. I filmed it, and I showed it to the police. He's...he's been arrested.' Pippa replies. 'Once I'd spoken to the police, my mom sent me here.'

'Honey, Pippa says that the police need to speak to
Libby. They said that they need her to make a statement about what happened in Oregon, about the break-in. Do you know what they mean?'

'Yes.' I nod, Pippa looks shocked, 'I'll get Libby.' I head back upstairs and find Libby, still curled up against my bed.

'Libs.' I crouch down next to her.

'Is my mom ok? Does she know I'm here?'

'She knows.' I say, 'The police need to talk to you.'

'What?' His head snaps towards me and I give her all the information that I just got from Pippa and my mom. 'Is my mom ok?'

'She wasn't badly hurt.' I promise her.

'I need to see my mom.' She jumps to her feet. Moves towards the door quickly, but then stops. 'Come with me?' She asks shakily.

'Of course.' I take her hand and walk with her over to her house. When we get there, her mom pulls her into a tight hug.

There's the start of a bruise forming around one of Mrs Reid's eyes, and a mark on her arm where it looks like she was grabbed. Other than that she looks fine. Shaken, but fine.

'Thank goodness you're ok.' Mrs Reid sobs into her daughters hair. Libby holds her so tightly that I'm surprised either of them can breathe.

'Miss Reid.' The older of the two officers in the room speaks up. Libby pulls out of her mother's arms, finds my hand and takes it, then turns to the officers who are seated on the couch.

'We need to ask you a few questions about some claims your mother has made.' The younger officer says.

It takes a while. Hours of going over statements and answering questions. Libby cries her way through stories of her dad hitting her. Shakes as she tells them the story she'd just told me up in my bedroom, and numbly nods as they tell her that with the video that Pippa gave them, all they'll need is her written statement to put him away.