Silent Scream (3 page)

He leaned over and pushed the “Close Doors” button, followed by the large “3" that would take him back to Maddie and back to the cops who were his friends and might have more answers than he had.

He walked down the hall toward Maddie’s room and saw that the door was still closed.  He’d expected as much, he mused while shoving his hands deep into his jeans pockets and pacing a short length of the linoleum floor, waiting. As he stood, at least three nurses brushed past while heading to their station across from Maddie’s room.  More than once, one of them looked at him.  Averting his gaze time after time, he simply focused on the closed door, waiting.  He toyed with his keys, tracing the rough edges with his forefinger.

Thirty minutes later, the door opened, and the two cops walked out.  David carried a closed notepad he’d thrust under one arm, and Steve fished deep into his pockets for his keys.

“Any luck?” Gabriel asked, nodding toward the doorway.

David shrugged.  “Not much.  She doesn’t remember many details, but in this case, I tend to think her memory is protecting her from the SOB who did this.”

“And if she can’t remember him, she can’t remember what happened,” Gabriel added, his shoulders stiffening.

“You got it.”  David flipped open the notepad and perused the data.  “He’s blond, he’s tall, and he drives a primer-spotted white truck she accidentally hit while going home last night.”

“How is she holding up?” Gabriel asked, pulling the keys from his own pocket as the three of them headed toward the elevator.

Closing the notepad, David looked back toward Maddie’s room.  “I’m no expert, but I think she’s bottling it up, and when it comes out, it’s going to have a whopping interest charge attached.”

The image of Maddie trying to pull away from him flashed into Gabriel’s mind, and he nodded, remembering the initial raw emotion in her eyes she’d buried seconds later.

 “I think you’re right.”

Chapter Three

Sleet pecked the hospital window as the police officers finally left Maddie alone under the harsh fluorescent lights.  She pushed herself deeper beneath the blankets and tried to forget the hell her life had become.

One moment, she’d been driving home; the next, she was here, trying to answer questions about a man who had...raped…and almost killed her.  A sob caught in the back of her throat.  She thought she’d go mad trying to contain.  Although her vision had blurred, she kept blinking until at last it cleared.  Her fists clenched at the blankets, which she drew even higher upon her body with her “good” hand. 
Yeah,
she thought. 
What’s good about it?  It hurts just like everything else.

Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about the conversation she’d just had with those two cops. 
You lied to them.
  Her heart raced, and she gritted her teeth.  She had told them she couldn’t remember much about last night, but she could.  God help her, she could.  Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, the blazing blue eyes that shone in the moonlight, blond hair shimmering like a crown of gold.  His hands had been like clamp, pinching and hitting, bruising her body as he raged over her.  He’d called her a goddamned whore, a slut, a piece of trash.

She shivered.

Handcuffed in his truck, she’d screamed until he’d plugged her mouth with a foul-smelling rag that seemed to go half-way down her throat, the fabric scratching her skin.  The dirty, oily taste had gagged her, and when she’d started to vomit, he’d smiled coldly.  “Go right ahead, Bitch.  It has nowhere to go.  It’ll save me from slitting your throat.”

The muffled whimpers had died.  She forced herself not to think about the rag, but she couldn’t ignore the growing panic of seeing the knife in his hand he’d lowered to her chest
.

She’d tried to move away but couldn’t, not between the handcuffs and one of his gigantic hands holding her in place.  The blade had slipped closer, inching toward the front of her shirt. 
Please, no.

He’d grabbed the shirt and jerked the knife vertically across the front, ripping the fabric into two uneven pieces.  Then he’d grabbed her bra and cut it as well.  As the silken fabric gave, exposing her breasts, she’d began shrieking, but it had come out as a muted wail.  Digging her heels into the seat, she’d arched her back and bucked.

“Be still,” he’d snarled and punched her in the face.

Her head had jerked from the blow.  Pain had exploded in her brain and a searing light had flashed inside.  Then blackness.

Maddie shivered as tears spilled down her face in thick streams.  “Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God,” she whispered like a mantra, over and over as she kept seeing his face, his eyes glowing with rapture at her pain.  She heard his raucous laughter ripping at the night.

The door slowly opened, and Maddie jerked her hand to her face, trying to brush away the tears as Gabriel re-entered.  As he saw her face, his steps faltered, and he stopped at the foot of her bed.  He toyed with something unseen in one hand, and a frown creased his forehead.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he said softly.  “I just wanted to tell you that I’m glad you’re okay.”  He looked at whatever he held in his hand and offered it to her.  “The officers said you were having a rough time remembering, so I wrote down my name and number for you, in case you’d like to go over what happened.  I mean, maybe if we talk about it, it might jar your memory—or even if you just wanted to talk.  I know you don’t really know me, and...I’m a guy,” he frowned and shrugged, “but if there’s no one else you feel you can talk to about this, I’d like to think because I was there with you, you’d think you could trust me.”

“I appreciate your offer,” she whispered.  Her lips ached with dryness and she ran her tongue over them.  “The police seemed to think given time, my memory will return.”  Maddie reached out and took the card with a trembling hand.

“Perhaps it will,” Gabriel agreed in a neutral voice, nodding.  He silently stepped back.  “Anyhow, it’s just an offer.  Don’t feel compelled just because I’m stumbling over my tongue like an idiot.”  He fished the keys from his pocket and grinned wryly.  “I guess I
am
an idiot.”  He turned and pulled it open.

“Gabriel?” she whispered, wincing from the harsh lighting.  Her injured eye throbbed with pain.  “Would you turn off  the lights”

“Sure.”  He walked over to the switch behind her bed and turned off the lamps just above her head.  “Is that better?”

Relieved not to have to squint anymore, she nodded.   “Much, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”  He started toward the door again, and although Maddie half closed her eyes, she saw him hesitate for just a moment to peer at her with a saddened expression, the corners of his mouth tugged into a frown, and then he left, quietly closing the door behind him.

She repeatedly ran her fingers around the edge of the card and over the front of it, as though she thought the card might have been embossed.  No, she realized, as she stared at it, holding it up under the faint light leaking around the blinds.  The name Gabriel Martin had been handwritten, along with his phone number.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered, remembering his face as he slowly departed.  “Why should you care what happens to me or what I remember?”  That face.  She winced and wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself tightly to forget she was alone in a hospital room where she usually healed others, not lay in bed, wounded, humiliated. 
Why should he care?
she wondered. 

She swallowed hard, tasting the salt of her tears as they spilled down her face and crossed her open mouth. 
Why
didn’t matter.  She clutched the card and rolled onto her side, hoping if she closed her eyes the pain would leave her to her dreams.

Or, more likely, her nightmares.

The hours ticked past slowly as Maddie watched the patterns of sunlight grow and diminish as morning shifted to afternoon and finally evening.  The glass darkened and frosted over with night.  Maddie had once enjoyed the isolation of darkness; now she hated it.   Even though she could hide in it, she knew other things hid there as well.

As time passed, nurses came and went, checking her vitals, asking her questions, gauging her pain.  And in the end, she found herself alone and waiting.  The question was, waiting for what?  To go home?  For nightmares?  Drugs?  Such appealing options.

Folding her arms across her chest, she brushed her good hand up and down her arm, trying to wipe away the goosebumps rising on her flesh.  Although she felt cold, it had nothing to do with temperature.  The chill started in the pit of her stomach and radiated outward, consuming her entire being.  I wish I’d stayed here longer last night. 
I wish I’d left much earlier.  I wish I’d never come to work at all that day.

In the end, Maddie wished simply that it had never happened, but, as her mother had used to say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”  She drew the covers higher upon her body and focused on the warmth.  Closing her eyes, she tried to relax.

Five minutes later, the door creaked open, and Maddie jerked upright in bed.  Tensing, she clutched the blanket apprehensively, but her fingers relaxed their death grip as she spotted Yolanda’s worried fact.  “Maddie?”  She stepped into the room, still wearing her lavender scrubs.  A stethoscope dangled about her neck, and, as usual, her long, salt-and-pepper hair was drawn tightly back into a thick bun.  “How are you?”  Crossing the room, she sat in the chair beside the bed and lightly patted Maddie’s hand.  She leaned toward her, waiting anxiously for Maddie to say something–anything.

Maddie took a deep breath and swallowed, trying to relax the tension in her throat—the same tension that often kept those damned useless tears from running down her face.  “I’m okay,” she said, forcing a flat tone.

Although Maddie didn’t meet her gaze head-on, she could tell Yolanda was focusing her attention on the bruises discoloring Maddie’s face—angry, purple marks—and  the cut that would soon scar the side of her head.  “It’s attractive, don’t you think?”

Yolanda’s gaze snapped back to her.  “I don’t care what it looks like if it means you’re alive.”

Maddie crossed her feet, trying to get comfortable.  “Looks like you were right after all about that late-night country drive.”  She looked at the frosted window, remembering when she had been eight and enjoyed tracing her name in the moisture collecting upon the pane.

“I’d rather I’d been wrong and you were still safe.  You didn’t deserve this.” Yolanda leaned back in the chair.  “No one deserves this.”  She glanced toward Maddie’s chart.  “Who’s been treating you?”

“Gordon.”  A long strand of her hair fell into her eyes, and she brushed it away.

“At least it’s not Ashford.  Small consolation, I know.”

Maddie stretched her back, and pain seized her chest as her fractured ribs protested.  She closed her eyes and winced, wishing to hell the pain would just leave her alone.  Instead it stayed with her, a companion unwilling to leave its friend unattended.

Yolanda leaned over her.  “You all right, Maddie?”

“Yeah.”  She opened her eyes and forced a smile she didn’t feel.  “How’s the ER?”

She shrugged.  “Ashford survived the triplets but not by much.  There’s a reason the man never had kids.  They would have checked him into a mental institution.”

“I thought Darwin’s theory had had something to do with that.”

Yolanda chuckled. “Yeah, that, too.”  Her expression evened out and she uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them.  “Have you given any thoughts to where you want to go after Gordon finally lets you leave?”

Rubbing her face, Maddie shook her head.  “I don’t know.  I guess I should be thinking about that, but these days I have trouble focusing on the present, let alone the future.”  She pressed her head deeper into the softness of the pillow.  “I want to get out of here, but I don’t know where to go.  I...I can’t go home.”  Her body trembled as though she stood in -10 degree weather without a coat.  “There’s that road I have to go down, and I don’t know that I can do it.”  Her voice wavered, threatening to die
.  Please don’t let me break down,
she thought. 
Please.

“Why don’t you come stay with me until you figure out what you want to do about the house.”

Maddie shook her head.  “I couldn’t.  I don’t want to impose on anybody.  This is my problem.”

Yolanda peered down at her watch.  “You always did feel the need to do things on your own terms.  It didn’t matter if those terms were wrong.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m your friend, Maddie.  We’ve worked together for years.  You walked me through my divorce.  I helped you when your mother died.  Better still, we’ve heard each other sing, and neither of us can carry a blessed tune.  Now
that’s
the sign of true friendship.”

“I can’t impose on you like that,” Maddie said as she looked at her arm, checking the flow of liquid through the IV tube.  “I don’t know how long I’ll be there, and I don’t even have a car right now.”

“They haven’t found it?”

“No, not yet.” Her focus shifted to the hand where the IV was hooked up.  As she looked at the site, she noticed her hand appeared a bit swelled.  Still, that wasn’t unusual.  IV’s sometimes did that.  “And I really don’t expect them to, either.  There’s no telling what he did with it.”  More goosebumps dotted her flesh as she thought about that car. Less than a year old, she had once loved it.  Now, she would always associate it with last night—the  night her life had changed forever.  Even if it were returned to her, she wasn’t sure she could drive it.  God help her, she didn’t want to remember; she’d do anything to forget.

“You wouldn’t be imposing.   I don’t like living alone, and you know it.  Has Gordon told you when you might be discharged?”

Maddie shook her head.  “Not a word.  I guess it’s top secret or something.”

“Hopefully it will be soon.”  Yolanda smoothed her shirt and stood.  “You shouldn’t be alone right now, either.”   She squeezed her shoulder softly, then nodded toward the door.  “I’ve got to head back before Ashford reports me missing.  God forbid he have to deal with another patient—that  just might send him into orbit.”  She shrugged.  “Then again, he might not even miss me.  I’m far from his type, considering I’m not exactly young and cute.”  Just before she stepped through the door, she said, “Just think about it, Maddie.  You don’t have to say yes right now.  But don’t say no just yet, either.  Think about it, okay?”  She tapped her fingers on the door frame.