Officer in Pursuit (26 page)

“If the brake line had been completely
severed, your light would’ve come on and you probably would’ve
noticed something was off almost immediately,” Jeremy said. “But
there are ways of damaging the line so that you don’t lose all
braking power immediately. Does your ex-husband know much about
cars?”

Kerry shrugged. “He was a bit of a
shade tree mechanic. Just about all the men where we lived were. He
was no professional, though.”

“Anyone could look up how to mess with
a brake line on the internet,” Grey said. “It’s not rocket
science.”

“I realize that,” Jeremy said. “And I
realize you must be exhausted, Kerry, but I’m going to have to ask
some more questions in the morning. I’ll leave you to rest right
now. I just wanted to let you know.”

After Jeremy left, Grey extended a
hand to Kerry and helped her rise from the couch. “You ready to get
some sleep?”

“I don’t know if I can. Knowing that
Brad messed with my brakes… It doesn’t surprise me, but it makes
everything seem real, somehow.” She raised her bandaged hand to the
side of her head, where the six stitches she’d received to her
scalp were covered by a square of white gauze. “That must sound
stupid after everything else that’s happened, but that’s how it
feels.”

“I hate that he did it, but I’m
grateful as hell that Jeremy thought to check,” Grey said. “This is
just more evidence against your ex. With every evil thing he does,
he’s building a solid case against himself. No court will throw
this out, Kerry.”

“Maybe you’re right. But what if he
kills someone before it gets that far? The things he’s doing are
potentially deadly. I didn’t really think I was going to make it
out of that motel room alive. Anything could happen.”

“No. We’ll be careful. I won’t let
anything else happen to you.”

“I don’t like the thought of you
throwing yourself under the bus for me. I’m a grown woman – I made
my own bed, and the only person who should have to lie in it is me.
I hate that I’ve dragged you into Brad’s sights.”

“He knows about me. If I have any idea
what kind of person he is – and I believe I do – he’s mad as hell
at me for daring to so much as look at you. What’s done is done,
and we might as well stick together.”

CHAPTER 20

Kerry looked up, her gaze locking with
Grey’s. “You make everything sound so rational. So good. I mean,
the situation is bad, but… This is so different than dealing with
this on my own. I can’t believe you’re willing to go through it
with me.”

She bit her inner lip again, causing a
dent to appear as she continued to hold his gaze. “I don’t know why
you’d want to. The only thing I can figure is that you’re a better
person than I’m capable of understanding.”

“I’m not exactly a saint,” he said. “I
have a considerable, very selfish interest in keeping you alive.
Especially now that you admitted you like having me
around.”

“I love having you around. I just
can’t comprehend why you’d want to deal with the shit storm I
brought from Kentucky.”

“I like you enough to deal with so
much more than this,” he said. “It’s true. And look – I know what
it’s like to live with a tyrannical asshole who treats you like his
own punching bag. Part of this is personal.”

She was silent for just a moment.
“Your dad – it wasn’t just your mom who he hurt?”

Grey shook his head. “It was both of
us. I had to back down then, because I was a kid. But it killed me.
I felt so guilty for letting him hurt my mom like that. Looking
back, that’s what I remember most: the guilt. And the
fear.”

“How old were you?”

“I was 9 when she left
him.”

“You were way too young to have done
anything about it.”

“Yeah, but she took the worst of it –
I realized that, even then. And I know I was too young, but that
didn’t stop the guilt. But I’ve put on twenty years and one hundred
pounds since then. I won’t watch anyone else be abused by someone
like him. Not ever again. Especially not you.”

“I feel stupid now,” she said, “for
assuming you could never imagine what it was like. I guess the only
part you can’t imagine is why I ever chose to be with him. It’s not
like I was a helpless child, like you were.”

“It’s not like that. No one deserves
to be treated the way he treated you. It’s no one’s fault but his.
Besides, I saw my mother go through the same thing, and I know how
hard it was for her to leave. I had all the respect in the world
for her.”

“Had – she’s gone now?”

Fear flashed in her eyes, a muted
spark of light.

“Yeah, but it didn’t have anything to
do with my father,” he said, sorry he’d put that fear in her heart.
“She got sick a few years after she left him. It doesn’t seem fair
– she moved heaven and earth to be free from his bullshit, and she
only got to enjoy it for a little while.”

“I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

For a while, neither of them said
anything.

“Why don’t we go to bed?” he finally
asked.

They did just that, stripping down to
their underwear and climbing into her bed. The mattress was only a
full, and the quarters were close. Grey had welcomed the limited
space during the times they’d had sex there, but now that she
needed rest, he felt bad for cramming her against the
wall.

“I’d be glad to take the couch,” he
said. “This is kind of ridiculous.”

“No.” She shot an arm across his chest
and held onto him, her grip surprisingly fierce. “Please stay here.
Unless you’re too uncomfortable…”

“I’m fine,” he said, and felt her
breath rush against his shoulder in what seemed like a sigh of
relief.

She was still and silent against him
after that, her body molded to his side. Long after he figured
she’d fallen asleep, her voice rose out of the darkness.

“I didn’t want to marry him,” she
said, “even in the beginning. I got pressured into it by my family
because he got me pregnant. I found out right before I graduated
high school, and we got married a month later. It was stupid. I
should’ve refused.”

The image of Kerry – looking so young
– in her white dress rose up in Grey’s mind. He tried to imagine
what it must’ve been like for her.

“You were only what, 18 when that
happened? It’s hard to stand up for what you want at that age.
Hell, it’s hard to know what you want.”

“I was afraid. It was the kind of
place, and I lived in the kind of family, where having sex was
basically the worst thing I could’ve possibly done. I felt so
ashamed, it seemed like I didn’t have a choice. Everyone made it
out like marrying the father was the only decent thing I could
possibly do, and I was naïve enough to believe it.”

“So you married him. And you had the
baby?”

“Yes and no. I miscarried just nine
days after the wedding.”

“Did he—”

“It wasn’t his fault. It just
happened. I was only two and a half months pregnant at the time. I
felt like such an idiot then, chained to him because of something
that wasn’t even real anymore.”

“Sorry.” He hurt for her, though what
she’d gone through wasn’t something he could really
understand.

“I was upset, but when I look back on
it, I’m relieved. Maybe that sounds bad, but I know if I had a
child, I’d still be with Brad. And I can’t stand the thought of a
kid growing up with a monster like that for a father. I’m glad
there was no baby.”

Grey didn’t feel qualified to comment.
He thought of his own childhood and what a hell it’d been for his
mom to leave his dad. Now that he thought of it, he’d surely made
it harder for her.

Silence reigned, and the rhythm of
Kerry’s breathing changed. She was asleep, and she hadn’t moved,
hadn’t stopped holding onto him.

Thinking about what she’d said kept
him awake for a while, but he didn’t mind. She clearly felt safe
enough to sleep, and he was glad to be able to give that to
her.

* * * * *

There was no alarm clock, no noise.
There was a dull ache behind Kerry’s skull and in her left hand,
but those sensations were muted by the intense comfort of her warm
bed and a long, deep sleep. She wasn’t sure why she’d woken
up.

Now that she had, though, she was
aware that it was late in the morning and she was lying against
Grey.

“Wow,” she said, raising her head from
the pillow beside his shoulder, “have you not moved all
night?”

He was lying just as he had been when
she’d drifted off: on his back, with one side of his body more or
less pinned to the mattress by her weight.

“Not much,” he said.

“How long have you been
awake?”

“A little while.”

“Do you need to, um, get
up?”

Fully conscious now, she was aware of
more than just his presence. A sheet covered him almost to his
chest, but did little to hide his erection.

“Never mind that,” he said. “You can
keep on resting.”

“That’s a lot to ignore, Grey.
Besides, I’m up.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position,
leaning back against the wall so that she was no longer anchoring
him down. Had he been lying there awake and unmoving just so he
wouldn’t disturb her?

The thought was ridiculously sweet,
although lying there in just his underwear, the sheet tossed aside
now, with his hard muscles – hard everything – on display, he
looked anything but.

“Do you feel okay?” she asked,
wondering if he’d lain awake all night, uncomfortable but unwilling
to disrupt her sleep.

“I’m fine. I just… I’ve really gotta
take a piss.” He stood, nearly tripped over the sheet and hurried
out of the room.

She felt bad for laughing, but she
couldn’t help it.

He was back in a minute, asking her if
she wanted him to make breakfast.

She was about to answer when something
dawned on her. “Don’t you have work today?”

“I called in and took some vacation
time.”

“Grey! You didn’t have to do
that.”

“You did it for me last week. Don’t
worry about it.”

She did worry though – worried that
she was stretching the limits of his generosity, accepting kindness
she had no right to.

“Sasha called,” he said five minutes
later as he stood at the stove, scrambling eggs, “to check up on
you.”

“When?”

“When you were in the bathroom a
minute ago. She called me – I guess she was afraid she might wake
you up.”

“I wonder how she knew you’d be
here.”

Grey looked at her over his shoulder
and raised his eyebrows. “That woman is so nosy she can sense a
sexual encounter a mile away. I’m pretty sure she can look into
your eyes and tell the last time you’ve done it, and who it was
with. Besides, she’s known since the wreck that I spent the night
at your place.”

Kerry snorted into her coffee and sent
a few drops flying onto the tabletop. Hastily, she cleaned them up
with a napkin.

“Besides, do you think there’s any way
she would’ve left you here alone? If I wasn’t here, she would
be.”

“She’s a good friend,” Kerry said.
“Better than I deserve.”

The memory hit her like a freight
train: her trying and failing to pull Sasha through a window, out
of a burning building. Her laughter over Grey’s comments died
inside her.

“Why do you think you don’t deserve
her?” He pulled the skillet off the stove and scraped its contents
onto two plates.

“You know what happened at Wisteria: I
let her down, and she almost died.”

“It was because of you that Ernesto
and Phil knew what was going on. They never would’ve been able to
unlock the door and get her out if it hadn’t been for
you.”

“I never thought of it that
way.”

“Seriously? That’s how everyone else
thinks about it. You saved her life, no question about
it.”

Kerry’s heart skipped a beat. Was it
true? It made sense, but she still wasn’t the one who’d gone into a
burning building and carried Sasha out. Phil and Ernesto had been
the ones to do that.

“I just wish I could be as good to the
people in my life as they’ve been to me. I feel like I owe
everyone.”

“Maybe your perceptions are a little
off because for the first 24 years of your life, everyone you knew
treated you like shit.”

She recoiled, but didn’t quite know
what to say. She took a long sip of her coffee as she considered
it. “I wasn’t always with Brad. I wasn’t always getting beat up or
walked all over.”

“Yeah, well, your parents don’t
exactly sound like gems.”

“Maybe not, but they certainly
could’ve been worse.”

He set her breakfast down on the table
in front of her. “People like you. They like having you around.
That’s why they do nice things for you. It’s called having friends.
Nobody thinks you owe them anything.”