Deadly Expectations (71 page)

I had tipped over against the head of the bed and worked my way down so my feet were closer to where they should be.

“In the bag … she must have had it with her,” Ray said.

“Weeks?”

“Yeah, she’s bigger.
 
But I won’t check her until she’s awake.
 
The bruises are gone from her foot.
 
I could see that last night so she was somewhere for a while.”

Paul sighed.

“Denis thought we had an intruder … he had her on the wall.
 
He feels terrible.”

“I know, he told me on the phone when I called back.
 
Not his fault … or hers.
 
She would have done the same thing if he came in and she wasn’t expecting him.”

True, I thought.

“I’m going to grab a nap here with her.
 
I’ve never heard her so upset.
 
You did the right thing trying.”

“She refused to let me give her anything and managed to calm herself down after a while.
 
Even after she fell asleep her lungs kept gasping she’d been so worked up.”

“Thanks for staying up with her … you and Denis get some sleep too.”

“Yeah,” Ray yawned.

I felt the bed shift as Paul curled up behind me.
 
His arm went around me and his hand rested on my stomach.
 
I’d missed him so much.
 
She was quiet now so after a few minutes I rolled over and tucked my head under his chin.

“Hey Sugar,” he whispered.

“Hey,” I said and slipped back under.

Chapter 52

Paul was still snoring when I went to the shower.
 
He’d been woken in the middle of the night and had driven four hours to get back.
 
He didn’t seem to need any help catching up on what he’d missed.
 
After I quietly got dressed I checked the kitchen for something to eat but we’d been gone for almost a month and Denis must have cleaned out anything perishable.
 
There wasn’t even milk for Paul’s coffee and I didn’t want soup and granola bars for breakfast.
 
I left him a note and took my wallet and my keys for the
Lincoln
.
 
I took my newspaper with me to the car and drove downtown.

He was drinking his coffee black at the table when I got back.

“Hi Paul, I got you milk,” I said.

He came and took the groceries and put them on the counter then he wrapped his arms around me.
 
Andre stood in the hall watching.

“Not out of my sight again,” Paul said, “please?”

“Okay.”

He let me go and started cooking eggs and bacon while I put milk in his coffee and put the rest of the things away.
 
I leaned on him by the stove while he worked and put in toast when everything else was almost ready.

“Alina?” he asked.

“Yes.”

My eyes started to tear so I turned so he couldn’t see.
 
He briefly tightened his hold on me before getting down plates.
 
We went to eat in bed.

“Are you going to sleep soon?”

“Probably,” I shrugged.
 
I didn’t care.
 
He’d go somewhere and I’d wake up alone again.
 
I would be mad at him for not spending the next day or two glued to my bedside.
 
He didn’t want me out of his sight but it was okay for him to be out of mine.
 
He’d be silently frustrated by having to wait so long to show me how much he’d missed me this time and I wasn’t so sure I’d be receptive at all.
 
All the nights sitting up at Alina’s kitchen table had left me with pain on either side of my tail bone. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shrugged again then I straightened up painfully and put my hand on my lower back.

“You lie down,” Paul told me so I did while he took the dishes to the kitchen.

Ray joined him while he cleaned up.

“You doing okay?” he asked Paul.

“We’re okay … she’s really depressed.
 
I think something happened with her sister while she was away.”

“Is now a good time to check her?” Ray asked.
 
“I’d like to before she goes down for a couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Paul said.
 
“She’s in bed.
 
I think she’s having some bad back pain now.”

I heard Ray pat Paul on the back.
 
They talked while Paul finished up the dishes and for some time after.
 
The newspaper rustled.
 
Ray hadn’t been able to pinch it this morning since I’d gotten to it first.

“Come with me,” he said.
 
“We’ll see if she wants to tell us about it.”

Great.

Ray felt my stomach and measured it.
 
Took my blood pressure.
 
I wouldn’t get up to fill his little bottle for him so he left it in the bathroom for me.
 
I told him about the back pain.
 
He said it was just my pelvis getting ready to have the baby.
 
I should rest as much as I could and could expect it to get worse.

“Three months now … maybe twelve weeks left,” he said.
 
“How long were you gone?”

“Three weeks,” I told him.
 
I felt empty inside.
 
Disconnected from all my feelings.
 
It was hard to care enough about them now to cooperate much less actually want to reassure them.
 
“Alina made me go to a walk-in for a check up a week ago.
 
That doctor said the same thing.”

“You were with Alina again?” Paul asked.

“He beat her Paul, the night I dreamed of her … the night I fought the man in the forest.
 
We went to sleep in Hope and I found myself in her hallway.
 
The police were there,” I told them.
 
“I had to blackmail her to get her in the ambulance.
 
I asked James how a man could give her so many bruises without breaking everything.
 
You know what he said?
 
Practice.
 
That bastard practiced on Catherine alright.
 
He destroyed Alina.”

“Who’s James?” Paul asked.

“One of the paramedics.
 
She’s an emergency doctor … she knows them all.
 
I think James is sweet on her.”
 
I wiped my eyes again.

“Turned out he broke her arm.
 
He held a gun on her and raped her.
 
Beat her with it.
  
Bit her so badly they had to get a plastic surgeon to put her shoulder back together.
 
Who’s ever going to want to make love to her now with another man’s teeth marks in his face?
 

“They kept her in a few days … the black sleep took me there.
 
I woke up hospitalized, sharing a room with her.
 
She had every specialist she could find get in on watching Anna sleep.
 
She made me stay until they were sure nothing was wrong then they let me out.

“I took her home and fed her and held her.
 
We did nothing for her Paul.
 
Nothing.”
 
I was getting upset again.
 
“I spent three weeks trying to put her back together and now that I’m back here she’s going through the whole thing alone.”

“I thought you were going to do something to help her,” I yelled at Paul then I rolled over and turned my back to him.
 
“You told me to do nothing … you would help.”

“Get out.”
 
I ignored them until they left.

Paul wasn’t around when I woke up but I wasn’t alone.
 
I could smell Andre’s muddy uniform as he rubbed the small of my back.

Sshhh,
he said.
 
They’re in the kitchen.

I nodded and waited.
 
He sounded like he was going to be nicer now.

You want your child’s father around when this is over?

I nodded again, more tears started.
 
I was so tired of crying.

He’s a good man,
Andre said.
 
He loves you so completely, like you love him.
 
But if you want to keep him alive he has to leave soon … we know that.
 
I have a plan … don’t be too easy to get along with.
 
Make him work for it.
 
You have to do what I say.

“Okay,” I told Andre but he was gone.

I spent a few minutes in the bathroom and went to join Paul and Ray at my table.
 
They watched me come in and sit but they didn’t say anything.
 
I wasn’t as angry now and hoped to do a better job of keeping it under control.
 
Part of me suspected they would stoop to involuntarily sedating me for my own good if I became too much of a problem.

“I’m sorry,” I told them.
 
“I hoped it was a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from.
 
I was so upset about her when I got back and had no idea how long you would have been looking for me.
 
I felt terrible that I might have hurt you like that again.

“Anyways, sorry,” I got up and started digging through the cupboards.
 
Nothing.
 
They were still eating at Bee’s.
 
I hadn’t thought about her in a long time.

“Is Mrs. Desmond okay?”

“Better,” Ray said.
 
“Just an inhaler now … had to make her quit smoking.”

I didn’t envy them for having to be with her through that.

“Okay, let me know if I can help.
 
I need some things.
 
Can I go or do I need an escort?”
 
I looked at Paul when I said it.
 
He looked displeased at the little dig but he didn’t say anything so I went back to my room and sat on the bed.
 

He’s not letting you out alone,
Andre muttered from the doorway.
 
He has too much at stake to risk losing track of you again.

Bingo, I thought.
 
Before I’d been back to see Alina I would have thought that Andre was being manipulative.
 
Controlling.
 
He was just stating the obvious.
 
I felt emotionally shut off to keep the pain from what I had done to Alina away.
 
I still desired Paul like always but it was a selfish need for gratification, not any need for bonding or strengthening our attachment.

I heard Ray leave and Paul followed me in.
 
I realized my arms were crossed so I put them at my sides before he came through the door.

He didn’t uncross his.

“I didn’t hurt your sister, or send you there.
 
I tried to pull in every favour I could.
 
All I asked was that you look after our daughter.”
 
His voice rose as he worked himself up.
 
As much as I had it coming I didn’t want to hear it.
 
He didn’t know that I’d abandoned Alina and betrayed her, made sure she was left alone with Damian on the word of a stranger in a corn field.
 
There was nothing he could say to me that would make me feel any worse.