The cop was young, his chin covered with peach fuzz. “You all right, ma’am?”
“I’m fine.” What had it been, five minutes since Nick left? It was close, too close. She thought about tucking her underwear in the pocket of her robe, but figured that would only call more attention to it.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” He scoped out the stairwell and the slash of room visible at the top.
She felt like throwing her hands in the air, but the underwear might just might catch the light. “Yes, I am very, very all right, Officer.”
Her bed was empty. The killer she’d harbored was gone. Her husband had left her for the astral plane. What a question. Of course, she was fine.
The cop tapped the brim of his cap. “Well, Detective Long wanted me to be real sure.”
“Witt sent you?” Now why didn’t that feel like a relief? It smacked more of checking up on her than looking out for her. But at least it meant he wasn’t lurking nearby.
“We’ll do drive-bys all night, ma’am.”
“I can’t tell you how safe that makes me feel.”
He looked at her, apparently figured there was no sarcasm in that comment, and smiled.
When he was gone, Max slammed the door, locked it, then ran up the stairs. She climbed into the shower before the water even got hot.
Witt. The beat of the water on the top of her head couldn’t stop the flood of shame.
She wondered what he would have done if he’d known how close the young cop had come to finding Nick inside her apartment. Inside her.
Jesus God, what had she just done?
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dark. It was cold. It was stuffy. She hated the closet. Hated being afraid. Hated that he could make her feel so terrified.
Max put out a hand to touch the walls, felt something soft brush the top of her head as she moved. Clothing. Wendy’s clothing. Wendy’s closet. Wendy’s dream from when she was young. But it was Max’s nightmare, too, the one she began living when her mother died and they sent her to her uncle’s house.
Terror rose in her throat.
No, not again. Her own thoughts paralleled Wendy’s. She couldn’t catch her breath, the walls moved closer, and the sharp angles of Wendy’s Sunday shoes dug into her hip. She tugged her knees tight to her flat chest, wrapping her arms around them and clasping her fingers until the pressure made her hands throb.
Together, she and Wendy rocked on aching butt cheeks. Back and forth, back and forth, until she was dizzy.
Dizzy with Wendy’s thoughts. If she could just make it through to morning. He’d be sorry, put a hand to her face, beg her not to make him punish her again, beg her to be good, beg her to call him Daddy. All she had to do was wait till morning when he was so different from the nighttime Daddy. The bad Daddy.
The closet door jerked open.
She almost screamed.
He was a dark shape against the hall light, and all she saw were his legs wrapped in cotton pajamas and his ugly, bare toes. She was thirteen years old, and she knew what was coming. She had known since she was six. Sometimes it was better if he was naked from the start. That way he didn’t make her undress him. If he was dressed, he always made her touch him when she undid the buttons on his pajamas.
She hated touching him.
“What the hell are you doing in there?”
I knew you were coming, Father, and I hid. She didn’t say it out loud. Best to say nothing. She couldn’t win anyway. He was too strong. Always had been, always would be.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.
Max’s heart pounded, her head pulsed with a litany of run-away-run-away. But Wendy had stopped running years ago.
He shoved her to her knees, her bones slamming on the hardwood floor. The shockwave rumbled up her spine.
“I told you no party, no gifts, and you did it anyway.”
Just a small party, with her two friends after school. Just small gifts, playing cards with pink and yellow fish, a paperback book, Marguerite Henry. She loved Marguerite Henry’s horse books.
But he smelled deception like a police dog sniffed out drugs, and he’d come home early.
“How many times do I have to teach you a lesson before you finally learn it?”
She didn’t answer, reached instead for the pearly white buttons on his pajamas. She just wanted it to be over. He slapped her hand away. “Not until I tell you.”
She bit her lip. Her teeth shuddered.
He grabbed her hair, yanked her forward, ground himself against her face. The tinny taste of blood seeped into her mouth where her teeth had split her lip.
“Do it now. I know you can’t wait, you little whore.” Moments later, his blue pajamas lay bunched around his ankles, and she didn’t have to say anything anymore. He groaned.
Max started to cry, felt the tears on Wendy’s cheeks. Felt them on the inside, too.
Wendy felt nothing.
He wrenched a fistful of hair. “Get on the bed. Take that nightgown off.”