Set Me Free (15 page)

I heard the sound of hinges creaking, then a
clunk
as Owen set his phone down. He began to play a Tom Waits song—the same ballad I’d played for him that day in his workshop. Despite what he’d said, he was good. Not perfect, but obviously talented. It made me wonder what he’d been like on the cello. Amazing, if I had to guess.

Owen fumbled a note in the ballad, and with a soft laugh he switched to another song. He didn’t sing the words, but I recognized it as
The Piano Has Been Drinking
. As the song went on, he began subtly shifting the melody, mixing the song about a drunk piano and a sleeping necktie into a different Tom Waits song that I couldn’t quite place. I’d thought I’d known all of Tom Waits’ albums inside and out.

Owen picked the phone up off the piano. “So now you know everything about me.” The hinges creaked again as he closed the piano cover. “Goodbye, Miranda.”

T
he next day
, the song Owen had played for me reverberated in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about him: getting off the plane, finding his bag, driving home. I wanted to see him.

After my lunch shift ended, I returned to an empty house. I had no idea where Scott was, but then again, I rarely did. Kaye and Andy were both working the dinner shift. I would have hung around at the bar with them, but Margot was working tonight, too.

Upstairs, as I took a shower, the song he’d played for me snapped into focus. It was
I Hope I Don’t Fall In Love With You
, off Tom Waits’ very first album. I hadn’t recognized it at first because Waits played it on the guitar instead of piano. The song was about a lonely man who sees a pretty girl in a bar, but she leaves before he can muster up the courage to talk to her.

Restlessly, I went back downstairs, poured myself a glass of wine, and sank onto the couch in front of the TV. There was nothing on. I kept looking at my phone, as if Owen were going to call me. He wouldn’t. I’d have to call him if I wanted to see him, and if I wanted
that
… That meant…

A knock sounded at the door.

It couldn’t be him. Owen would have told me if he was going to come by.

Self-conscious in my T-shirt and pajama bottoms, I got to my feet and walked to the front door, still holding my phone loosely in one hand. My heart raced at the thought of seeing Owen again, even though I knew, truly, that it could not be him.

I opened the door. For a moment, I thought I’d fallen asleep on the couch. But this was worse than a nightmare.

It was Rhys. He was real, he was here, he had found me, just like he’d said.

He leaned in my doorway, his ordinarily neat auburn hair mussed, a smile widening his mouth. “Hello, Miranda.”

I felt like I was falling, dizzy with shock and fear. Rhys.
Here
. I’d been so sure that I’d done this right. I had tried so hard.

“Rhys,” I gasped, “what are you doing here?”

“I came to bring you home.” He shouldered past me into the house before I knew what was happening. I stared after him in horror.

“Get out,” I said, hardly believing what I was saying. “Get out of my house.”

“Oh,
is
this your house?” Rhys replied archly, picking up Andy’s sweatshirt from where it was draped over the back of a chair. “You aren’t just staying with some man? I knew it,” he added bitterly. “I knew you’d found another man to take care of you. I knew that’s why you left me.”

“That is
not
why I left,” I snapped. “No, you know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

I was between him and the door—I could run. I could get into my car and drive away—except that my car keys were upstairs in my handbag, and I knew for a fact that Rhys could chase me down on foot.

“I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done to hurt your feelings.” Rhys’ voice was gentle as he moved back towards me. “If you come back, I’ll forgive you for whatever you’ve done here, on your little vacation, and everything will be better. You’ll see.”

I could run. I
should
run. Even if he chased me, I knew the neighborhood better than he did. I could hide.

“It won’t be like it was. It’ll be even better,” Rhys said. “We won’t fight anymore. Please, Mira.” Sadness flickered across his face, and that old self-doubt creeped back into my mind. He always acted like this was all just a big misunderstanding. Sometimes I’d wondered if he really did want things to be better between us. His parents had been so critical of him—he’d never learned how to love someone without tearing them down, too.

No.
No
.

I must have said it out loud, because he blinked at me in surprise. “What did you say?”

“I’m not going back.” I could hardly hear myself over the blood pounding in my temples. “It’s over.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean or don’t mean!”

“I’ll tell you whatever I fucking want.” He was right in front of me, taking up all my space. He snatched my hand and crushed my fingers together. I winced with pain. My phone slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, bouncing twice. It skidded to a halt in front of the coffee table.

“Stop it.” I would not let my voice shake.

“What do I have to do—” he tightened his grip, until I thought he might break my knuckles, “—to get you to understand that
I will not give up on us
.”

“You’re hurting me,” I gasped in spite of myself.

He smiled again, like an angel of God bringing salvation to the sinners. “I don’t want to hurt you, Miranda.”

“Then let go of me!” I struggled, but he just squeezed harder, until tears came to my eyes and agony shot up my arm. I pulled again, but I couldn’t get away—he was too strong; he had always been so much stronger than me. He was going to break my hand. My drawing hand. I couldn’t let that happen.

“How did you find me?” If I distracted him, he might loosen his grip.

“Your phone bill,” he said, shrugging. “Thanks for taking off and leaving me to pay all the bills, by the way.”

“
I
paid—” I choked out, but he crushed my fingers together again, and I gritted my teeth in pain. “I mean—how did—how did you figure it out?”

“Just looked at the numbers you’d called, did some online searches, and
voilà
. I didn’t think of it right away, of course. Actually, at
first,
I thought that you’d come back on your own, but then when I figured out that wasn’t going to happen, I went to Florida. No luck there, of course. And then when I got home, I thought, what the heck. So I called the phone company and got them to send you a paper statement, saying we’d had trouble with your online account. It took some convincing, but I’ve always been good at that, haven’t I?” With his free hand, he twined a strand of my hair around his fingers, almost playfully. It made me sick. “I did it for you, Mira,” he murmured. “I searched the country for you, because I’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” The words tasted like chalk, but they made him smile. His grip softened. I tried to jerk away—but, too quickly, he realized what was happening and snatched at my hand again. Something deep inside my wrist popped. Excruciating pain shot through my arm, but I stifled a scream, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d hurt me. I darted across the living room, trying to put the couch in between us so I could catch my breath.

“I should have known you were lying.” Rhys prowled towards me. “You’ve always been a liar. A liar and a whore.”

He face was flushed, and he had that light in his eyes… Only it was worse than usual, much worse. He must have truly believed he’d be able to cow me into going back with him, and now…

My heart pounding, I looked around for something to defend myself with. The empty wine bottle on the breakfast bar. I lunged for it, while he came at me from around the couch.

Just as my fingers curled around the neck of the bottle, Rhys punched me—

fireworks behind my eyes—agony in my jaw, radiating outwards like shockwaves—

I dropped to the floor by the barstools. The wine bottle came down with me, but rolled out of my limp fingers. Everything was too bright, too loud, too fast. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move; the pain in my jaw drowned out everything else.

Then Rhys straddled my waist, and the panic returned, stronger than pain. I had to get up—I
had
to get up—

“God damn it, Miranda, I will teach you how to behave if it’s the last thing I do—”

The wine bottle. I could almost reach it. I strained towards it, brushing it with my fingernails, until at last my hand wrapped around it again.

I brought it down with all my strength, hitting Rhys in the shoulder so hard I almost lost my grip. He howled in pain, clutching his shoulder, but he didn’t get off me. Instead, he slapped me across the face. “You fucking bitch!”

My head spinning, I tried to raise the wine bottle again, but he grabbed my wrist and pinned my arm to the floor. Oh, God. He was going to kill me.

I would go down swinging. Fighting him. To the last. With my injured arm, I swiped at Rhys’ face, clawing at his eyes.

All of a sudden, a deafening
crack
came from somewhere nearby—then, in a blur, a huge shape, a man, crashed into Rhys. They rolled off me and collided with the stools at the breakfast bar, sending pieces of wood and rattan flying in all directions.

I lay on the floor, gasping for breath. I was alive. Thank God.

I struggled to my feet, grabbing onto the arm of the couch for support, and could not believe my eyes.

Owen.

He’d pinned Rhys facedown, and he was sitting on Rhys’ back, holding him by the hair. Rhys’ mouth oozed blood. His eyes were dazed. Owen must have hit Rhys’ face on the floor. I hoped he’d done it hard.

Owen glanced over his shoulder at me, his face pale. “Miranda.” He jumped off Rhys and ran to me, scooping me into his arms, holding me tight against his chest. “Oh, God, Miranda.”

All the fear I’d been holding back overcame me. I threw my arms around Owen and buried my face in the soft fabric of his sweatshirt, shuddering.

“Shh, it’s okay now.” He kissed my hair, still holding me tight. “The police are on their way.”

“How did you kn-know?”

“You called me,” Owen said, drawing back so he could look at me. He smoothed my hair back from my face, careful to avoid my throbbing jaw. “Or—well—not you, but your phone, somehow. At first I thought—but then I heard what was happening, and…”

“My phone called you,” I echoed. For the first time in years, I made the sign of the cross. “Someone is looking out for me.”

“Your wrist.” Owen took my hand in his so he could look at my right wrist, which was easily twice the size of my left. “That
asshole
.”

“Get your hands off her.” Rhys staggered to his feet. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth onto his lapel.

Owen stepped in front of me, glowering at Rhys.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,” Rhys snapped, “but you are standing between me and my girlfriend.”

“She is
not
your girlfriend,” Owen shot back. “Now shut up before I break your nose.”

Police sirens wailed in the distance. Shivering, I sank down onto the arm of the couch, my face and my wrist both aching. I should have known I would never be able to outsmart him.

The sirens grew louder before abruptly cutting out, and the next thing I knew, two cops stepped inside the open door. I stood up to get a better look at them, teetering on my feet and clinging to Owen’s arm.

Of course one of them had to be Officer Not-Rhys, who, I’d found out after the fire, was actually named Nick. Or, to me, Officer Lacroix. The other one I’d seen at the Widow’s Walk occasionally. I was pretty sure his last name was Palmer. He looked terribly young and nervous.

“What’s going on, Larsen?” Not-Rhys—Officer Lacroix—demanded, glancing from me to Owen to Rhys, taking in the bruise flowering on my jaw and Rhys’ bloody mouth. He noticed my hand on Owen’s arm, and his brow furrowed a bit more.

I could tell that I would have to say something, even though I still felt like I was going to faint.

“This man is my ex. Rhys Bristow. He’s been stalking me since I left him months ago. He showed up here tonight, so…” I didn’t want to say my phone had acted on its own. “I called Owen.”

Rhys stood quite still, his expression calculating. I was sure he was thinking about law school, and bar admissions, and his dream of eventually becoming a judge. “Officer,” he said, relaxing into his usual charming smile, “she’s got it all wrong. I was worried about her, that’s all, after she took off in the middle of the night. I just came to check on her.”

I could see Officer Lacroix trying to figure out who was telling the truth. He had basically already busted me for vagrancy once before, and Owen was clearly not his favorite person. Rhys, on the other hand, always oozed respectability, even now, with blood dripping down his shirt.

“So you came here to check on her,” Officer Lacroix said to Rhys. “And then what happened?”

“This man just barged in here and attacked us,” Rhys said, gesturing at Owen. “He’s crazy.”

Beside me, Owen stiffened.

“That’s not—” I began, horrified, but Officer Lacroix held up a hand and turned back to Rhys.

“So he just ran in here and attacked you both? Why would he do that?”

“He’s obviously after Miranda,” Rhys said. “Look at him, touching her right in front of me like that.”

“If he wanted Miranda for himself, why would he hit her? I mean,” Lacroix added, “I could understand him hitting
you
. But not her.”

“He’s jealous, because he knows Miranda is going to come back to me,” Rhys replied, with such perfect certainty in his voice that I wondered if he believed it.

I took a deep breath. “I’m not—I’m not going back. Check my phone. You can listen to all the voicemails Rhys left me, if you don’t believe me. All the stuff he’s said to me, and the names he’s called me. For months. For a whole
year
. And Owen
did
hit Rhys, but only to get him off me. Owen saved me. I thought—I thought Rhys was going to kill me.”

“He had her pinned to the floor,” Owen said quietly. “When I came in, he was hitting her…” Without quite looking at me, his jaw firming into a hard line, he took my uninjured hand in his and squeezed it. I gave an involuntary sigh and leaned into his arm.

The younger cop, Officer Palmer, glanced at my phone where it lay on the floor by the coffee table.

“You can’t look at any phones without a warrant,” Rhys interjected, sounding like a lawyer for the first time. “I know my rights.”

“It’s her phone, and he’s the one that she called, not you,” Lacroix replied. “All I need is their permission. I don’t need jack shit from you.”

He glanced at Owen.

“Go ahead,” Owen said.

Officer Palmer picked my phone up and squinted at the screen. “Last call, 7:41 pm, made to Owen Larsen.”

“If you scroll to the texts from Rhys Bristow—” I began, but Palmer had already done it.

“Last one from him says, ‘I can find you.’”