“He won’t get to you, Rabbit. Ever. He will never touch you again. Trust me when I say that.”
She looked at me and nodded. “I do trust you.”
I gathered her closely. “Do you want to go to bed?”
She shook her head. “Can we sit in the hot tub first? I’m cold.”
Inwardly, I grimaced. This was another sign of her exhaustion. I would feel so much better after Daniel saw her. I stood up, taking her with me. “You can have anything you want, Rabbit. Hot tub it is.”
Rabbit slept burrowed into me, her hands gripping my shirt. She whimpered a lot in her sleep but would calm when I pulled her tighter. Unable to relax, I found my fingers tracing the thickened spot on her neck repeatedly. What had the fucker done to her? I knew this wasn’t a tetanus shot. A small niggling thought kept rolling through my head, but I needed Daniel’s help to confirm it. If I was right, time was even more against us. Between my worry over the mysterious injection and the endless loop in my head of the memories Rabbit shared with me, I was tense and anxious.
When dawn broke and Rabbit seemed to finally slip into a more restful sleep, I slid out of bed and went downstairs to work out some of my tension. Before I left the room, I left a note telling her where I was in case she woke in a panic needing me. I left the bedroom door open, as well as the basement door, so I could hear her if she cried out. I threw myself into my workout needing to release some of the tension I was holding in. I knew today would be another rough one, especially for Rabbit, and I needed to be as calm as possible for her.
Just as I was finishing and getting into the pool, I heard her moving around. I finished up, wrapped a towel around my waist and went upstairs, heading straight to the kitchen, ignoring my dripping legs. I smiled at the sight before me. There in the kitchen was Rabbit, in my shirt, rolling out pastry at the counter. Bear was lying on the floor not far from her and I could smell the aroma of coffee brewing.
“Hey, pretty girl.”
She looked up from her task and smiled indulgently at me. I could see she was still exhausted. “Making your pies,” she offered sweetly, indicating the pastry.
I moved forward and kissed her. “Thank you. I’ll go grab a shower. Can I scramble some eggs for breakfast? I’d hate to interrupt the pie making.”
She laughed quietly and nodded. I turned around to go to the bedroom and stopped at the table. I picked up a couple of small Ziploc bags and held them up. “What’s this?”
The rhythmic sound of the rolling pin stopped. I looked over at her. “Rabbit?”
She walked over and took one bag from my hand. “These are the pills he was making me take that I told you about. I thought we could have them tested? Find out what they are?”
I nodded. We would definitely be having them tested. I held up the other bag. “And this?”
She leaned forward and took the bag from my hand. She gazed down at it for a moment quietly. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. “It’s the remains of the blouse I was wearing the day I ran away. I found it. I don’t remember why, but I had stuffed it, or at least part of it, in between the mattresses. When I saw it all the memories started coming back. I thought … I thought it may be something Adam could use.”
“How did you get it here?”
“I had it in my pocket. There wasn’t a lot of it left but I brought it with me anyway, just in case.”
I took it from her, opened the package and held it up. It had been torn badly but I could see what it was. I also realized I was looking at Rabbit’s dried blood on it and my stomach clenched at the thought. I quickly folded it and put it back in the bag. I pulled her to me. “That was good thinking, Rabbit. I told you how smart you are.”
“He … he was so angry, Joshua. He was screaming and swearing. He actually spit on me, he was so out of control. I’m sure some of that is on the blouse …” her voice trailed off.
I looked down at her. Tangible proof. DNA. She was smarter than she realized. People had seen her wearing that blouse just hours before she was ‘taken’. And, it was evidence of her blood and probably his saliva, not a fictional stranger’s.
I kissed her head. “You did it, Rabbit. You’ve nailed him.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Joshua