Seeing Red (19 page)

Uncle Greg said, “Still processing them.”

If the police arrested Nate and stopped looking, they’d never find the guy Ellis saw between the houses that night.

If only she’d yelled when she’d seen him. Dear God, if only she’d hung her head over the edge of the top bunk to look for Laura, she’d have known her cousin was gone. If only . . . Those two words had been eating her alive.

Her dad asked, “What about the nylon stocking they found in the path?”

“He said they’ve sent it to the state lab but not to hold our breath.”

“What about”—her dad paused—“semen?”

Now she knew they’d forgotten she was here.

Uncle Greg said, “Must have used a condom.”

Aunt Jodi ran into the tiny bathroom and closed the door.

If Nate had wanted to have sex with Laura, he wouldn’t have had to beat her up to do it. Ellis wasn’t completely dense. She’d seen them sneaking around, Nate walking Laura up from the beach and helping her back in her window plenty of nights.

But Ellis wasn’t about to tell her uncle that. It wouldn’t help Nate.

“Nate Vance raped and beat my little girl,” her uncle said through clenched teeth. “He’s got to pay—DNA or no DNA.”

Ellis felt like she was going to throw up.

She jumped up. “It wasn’t Nate!”

Uncle Greg and Daddy both turned to her, looking startled.

“I told them what I saw!” she said.

“Sweetie,” Daddy said, coming toward her. “Let’s go to the cafeteria—”

“I don’t understand why nobody will listen to me!” Ellis stood rigid, with her hands fisted at her sides.

“The police know what they’re doing,” Daddy said.

“But I saw him. I
smelled
him. It wasn’t Nate!”

Uncle Greg said, “I don’t get this
smelling him.
” She could tell he was trying not to yell. “How could you smell him when he was outside, fifteen feet from the house?”

“You know Momma says I’ve got a dog’s sense of smell. And maybe he’d been
closer
to the window and was moving away.”

“The police know what you said. They’ll handle it.” Uncle Greg sounded mad.

Daddy put a hand on her shoulder. “We know you like Nate. But you’re just a child. There are things . . . ” He sighed. “It was dark, Ellis. People use that path all the time. You didn’t see this man
with
Laura; you were sleepy—”

“Dad! Stop!” She turned around and ran out of the room.

Now she knew she could never tell the rest of it.

She went past the nurse’s station and the elevators. For a few minutes, she hung out in the little lounge, staring at a wall-mounted TV with muted sound, not really seeing it. She heard the nurses talking at their station and the elevator
ding
as the doors opened and closed.

She had to calm down. She wouldn’t do Nate any good by yelling and running away.

After a few minutes, she headed back to Laura’s room. She had to convince them to
listen
to her.

She rounded the corner.

That’s when she smelled it.

Her head snapped up. She stopped dead and sniffed.

It was that same toos-trong cologne and sour-sweat smell.

A light-haired guy wearing a baseball cap was turning away from Laura’s door, as if he’d been peeking through the sliver of a crack.

Ellis ran toward him. “Hey!” she called, trying to get him to turn around.

He moved faster.

As she ran past Laura’s room, she slammed her palm against the door. “Dad! Dad! It’s him!”

The guy sprinted toward the stairwell at the end of the hall.

Ellis ran after him.

She heard her dad call, “Ellis!”

“It’s him!” she shouted, running.

The guy disappeared through the door to the stairs.

Her uncle passed her.

Ellis heard her dad calling for her to stop.

She hit the stairs at a run.

She saw her uncle a half flight down.

A door slammed below.

She caught her heel on a step and pitched forward. Lightning struck her chin as she fell onto the landing.

Before she could get up, her dad was there. He knelt next to her and held her down. “You’re bleeding.”

She struggled to get up. “It’s him! The man I saw!”

“You’re
sure
you recognized him?”

“It was him. I smelled him.” She got to her feet, but her dad held her arm, preventing her from taking off. “Why else would he run?”

“Uncle Greg will get him. Let’s get you back up to the nurse’s station. Your chin is bleeding.”

She nodded.

The second her dad’s grip lessened, she broke free and took off down the stairs.

“Ellis!”

She heard her dad’s thudding footsteps behind her.

The ground-level door opened into the lobby area.

People were pointing and staring at the front doors. She jumped over a little kid putting a puzzle together on the floor and sprinted for the entrance.

Once on the curb, she scanned the parking lot.

She heard tires squealing and metal crunching off to the right.

Her uncle was running after a white Taurus. He finally stopped, bending over with his hands on his knees.

Ellis caught up. “He got away.”

Her uncle raised his face. “I got the license plate number.”

“Thank God!” Ellis looked down at her shirtfront. No wonder her dad was freaked. “I guess I’d better . . . ” She took a step and everything faded to black.

In sixteen years, the memory hadn’t dimmed.

Ellis stopped rubbing the scar on her chin. How different things would have turned out if that call hadn’t come exactly when it had, if she hadn’t gotten in an argument with her family. The police might never have found a match to that fingerprint on the outside of Laura’s window.

Nate stood near the emergency room door, blending into the background, keeping sentinel over her. He was right. It could so easily have been him on trial.

She closed her eyes and suppressed a shiver.

“You okay?” her mother asked.

How could she admit she’d been sitting here thinking of Nate and not her father? “Just worried about Dad.”

Her mother patted her hand. “He’ll be fine. He was lucky he didn’t land on his head.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It’s not as hard as I always tell him it is.”

Ellis chuckled.

The door opened to the emergency area. A nurse wearing blue scrubs and a stethoscope said, “Mrs. Greene?”

Ellis and her mother stood.

“Y’all can come back now.”

Ellis was halfway to the door when she looked over her shoulder. Nate was right behind her.

He said quietly, “I’ll wait just outside his exam area.” He held the door, then followed her in.

Ellis didn’t know what she expected when she stepped through the curtain into the small examination room that held her dad’s gurney—his usual cheery hello? The reality of his condition slammed into her like a baseball bat to the chest.

His eyes were hooded and cloudy. His constant fidgeting attested to the strength of his pain. One side of his face was scraped raw from cheekbone to chin. His right arm was in a sling. His right leg was wrapped, the dressing soaked through with blood.

His gaze ran briefly across her, but he didn’t speak.

Her mother moved to his side.

Ellis stood rooted in place. She swayed. Her vision tunneled. The color bled from everything, leaving only dimming shades of gray.

She had to get out of here before she fell flat.

Turning, she batted the curtain away.

When she took that first step, her knees buckled.

Arms went around her.

Nate’s voice seemed so far away. “I’ve got you.”

She was hot, so hot.

“Here,” someone said. “Breathe this. Open your eyes for me now.”

The sharp scent of ammonia jabbed her nose and sinuses. She tried to turn away from the odor.

“Come on, baby, just one more sniff,” Nate said against her ear.

She mumbled, “I don’t faint. I’m not a fainter.”

“We know,” Nate said softly.

Her body began to return to her. “I’m okay now.”

Although Ellis was beginning to feel steady enough to walk on her own, she leaned heavily against Nate’s side. Hot only a moment ago, the air-conditioning now chilled her skin, and she welcomed his warmth. At least that was the basis of her justification. In truth, she longed to be wrapped in his arms, to rest her head on his shoulder, and pretend they were in some other place, brought together by different circumstances.

They went through the waiting area and out the same automatic doors they’d entered earlier.

“There’s a bench over there.” She pointed to a shaded area tucked between two wings of the building. It was a “meditation garden” donated by the local Kiwanis a few years ago. It seemed purely ornamental; each time Ellis had driven by on her way to a doctor’s appointment, she’d wondered if anyone ever used it. Now she knew. It was the perfect place to hide from the ugly reality of what went on inside the hospital walls.

A breeze whispered through the trees, making the temperature in the shade comfortable. Nate sat down with her, keeping his arm firmly around her shoulders.

They sat in silence for a while. Finally, she said, “I really don’t faint. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s just I’ve never seen him so . . . ” She shook her head.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“What?” She looked over at his profile.

He turned toward her, their faces inches apart. She couldn’t help but watch his lips as he spoke. “Not allow yourself to be like the rest of us mortals.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied. She couldn’t tell him that she feared if she let go of her control, even for a moment, she would never regain it.

When she would have looked away, he took her chin between a bent finger and his thumb, holding her still. “You don’t have to be the strong one. Not while I’m here.”

He leaned closer, that steady silver gaze halting the breath in her lungs and the blood in her veins. His lips brushed hers, once, twice, in a feathery light touch.

Her hand moved to the side of his neck and felt his strong, rapid pulse. When she opened her mouth to his questioning kiss, his arm tightened around her, and he tasted her like a man starved.

“I assume you discovered who left you that rose.” Rory’s voice came from behind her.

She jerked guiltily away from Nate. “Rory . . . ”

He stood at the entrance to the garden. His tone had been even, but his face was deep red.

She rolled her lips inward, as if she could draw Nate’s kiss inside where Rory couldn’t see it.

Nate stood, leaving a hand on her shoulder.

“I ran into Howie downtown,” Rory said, his words clipped. “Why didn’t you call me about your dad?”

She should have. Rory and her dad were close. But calling Rory hadn’t even crossed her mind.

She couldn’t tell him that. “I was waiting to see when they’re going to do the surgery.”

“I see.” His gaze lingered on Nate.

“Um, this is Nate Vance, an old friend.”

Rory stepped forward and offered his hand. “Rory Bales.” His eyes were not friendly, but his tone was cordial.

There was something about Rory’s nonreaction that made Ellis feel insignificant, cheated. Would she have felt better if he had punched Nate in the nose?

Of course not; that would be childish. Still . . .

It struck her that she’d never been so swept away by Rory’s kiss, even in the beginning.

Blushing, she told Rory, “Go on in. I’ll be there in a second.”

He turned and left without another word.

She waited until he was long out of sight before turning back to Nate.

“Does he always do whatever you tell him to do?” Nate asked coolly.

Ellis’s defenses came up. “He’s being considerate and a gentleman.”

Nate looked at her, his eyes snapping. “If you were mine, I sure as hell wouldn’t slink away without a fight.”

His tone sent shivers down her body—excited shivers.

Shame prompted her next words. “Luckily, I don’t
belong
to anyone. Rory’s giving me the space I asked for; we’re taking a break.”

Nate stepped closer and ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. The look in his eyes held her in place; the feel of his touch reached much deeper than the surface of her skin. “He’s a fool.” The low-spoken words whispered across her nerve endings.

The power of the moment left her temporarily stunned. She fought the compulsion to say things that couldn’t be recalled—foolish, fanciful, romantic things. Things with no foundation in reality.