“I’m sitting right here,” Laura snarked.
Bill patted her on the shoulder and continued. “She’s really jumpy, the nightmares—she’s not acting at all like herself.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Laura,” he said, big brother written all over his voice. “Please let me talk.”
She shut up and blew her nose.
“I guess her friend Shayla was there when you talked to her the last time. She told Rob, who told me, about PTSD. I looked it up. She’s showing a lot of the symptoms.”
“I was strangled and beaten half to death,” Laura said. “Wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”
He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Rob’s trying to find her old journals to see if they’ll help with her memory, but so far we haven’t located them.”
Laura shut up. She hated feeling like they were treating her like a kid, but the fact that Rob was looking for the journals helped somewhat.
Dr. Simpson focused on her again. “We talked about this. That the trauma of the attack might trigger post-traumatic stress disorder. It certainly sounds like you’re going through that.”
“Look, can’t you just give me that drug and see if it jogs my memory loose? Everything’s obviously stuck in there somewhere. I remembered fucking laundry soap and a refrigerator magnet, for chrissake.”
“I told you I’m hesitant to prescribe that. I’d rather you try other means first. I don’t like using drugs for that purpose unless absolutely necessary.”
“Getting my memory back is absolutely necessary.”
“There is no guarantee it would work. It’s not uncommon for there to be false memory retrieval. Dr. Collins is a psychologist, and a licensed hypnotherapist. Try working with her for a while, see if you make any progress. Give her a chance. I talked with her before you arrived today. She can fit you in at eight o’clock Monday morning.”
Laura sighed. “Fine.”
* * * *
Laura didn’t speak on the ride home despite Bill trying to engage her. She wanted to go to the shop, but after Bill made her lunch she fell asleep on the sofa.
Unfortunately, she dreamed about the flashing skull and the pounding on the front door. Only this time she actually made it to the front door, where an ominous shadow raced toward her when she opened it.
When she awoke that afternoon, her pain had returned enough that she didn’t want to go to the shop.
She damn sure didn’t want another pain pill.
And the bad dreams had freaked her out and stolen her reserve.
What am I going to do when Bill leaves?
The thought terrified her, even as she chided herself. I have to stand on my own two feet. I can’t spend my life terrified.
She was dozing again when the thought struck her between the eyes, so hard and sharp she woke up laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Help me up.”
He did, following her to the den where she powered up her desktop computer there and started going through it. Frustrated at first, eventually she found what she was looking for. Buried in a subdirectory in the Documents folder, she found a file called journal.doc.
The first entry was dated January first, six years earlier. Thinking she’d found the answer, she skimmed through to the end, when her hopes crashed again.
The final entry was dated December thirty-first, months before she’d met Rob.
She stared at the screen, another wave of depression setting in as she processed the defeat.
“What is it?”
She closed the file and started looking through the folders, hoping she’d missed something. “It’s got to be here.”
“What?”
“My journals. It doesn’t make sense that I’d just stop.”
“When you came out to visit me, you brought your laptop. You said you only kept the desktop as a backup. That you used the laptop for everything.”
“Then where are my journals?”
“If I knew, believe me, I’d tell you.”
He helped her copy the files. “You know, you should put this on your iPad. That way you don’t have to juggle a computer while you read.”
Confused, she stared at him. “What?”
“Your iPad. Email yourself the document file and read it on the iPad.”
He made the same connection she did and beat her out to the living room, where the device sat on an end table, plugged into the charger. She watched as he went through it, looking at document files.
Nothing.
Defeated, she sat on the sofa. “It was worth a shot.”
“You need to email yourself the file from the other computer.”
“Can you please do it?” she quietly asked. “I left Gmail open.”
He nodded and went to do it. A minute later, when she pulled up her email on the iPad, the file was waiting for her.
Bill returned to the living room and showed her how to download the file into her documents and open it.
She settled in to read from the beginning but feeling like she was stepping into the middle of a television series without any clue about the plot and cast.
Most of the entries were short and focused on mundane topics.
Others gave her brief insights about her parents.
We all got a good laugh today when Dad got a new cell phone…
She read until Bill’s cell phone rang a little before six. He looked at it, frowning as he answered.
“Yeah. She’s right here.” He handed it over to her. “Rob.”
“Hey.”
“Hi, honey.” He sounded exhausted. “Where’s your cell phone?”
She winced. “Sorry. It’s in my purse.”
“Okay. Delete the five messages from me.”
“Sorry.” Apparently, before, she’d been pretty adept at dealing with technology. “Are you on your way home?”
“No, that’s why I’m calling. We just finished working a wreck, but there’s another one. We have to cover until the other crew comes back. I’m going to be late.”
Laura fought back her disappointment. “Okay.”
“Shayla and Tony are still coming tonight, though.”
Part of her desperately wanted to see them.
Part of her wanted to hole up in bed and read and wait for Rob to get home.
“Okay.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“It’s okay.”
She thought he might have let out a sigh of frustration. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine.” She glanced up at Bill, her gaze darting away from him.
“Let me talk to Bill.”
She returned the phone to him.
Busted.
He stared at her while he talked to Rob. “She’s in a lot more pain than she’s letting on… Uh-huh… Yep. Exactly… All right. Here she is.” He handed the phone back to her.
She fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him.
“Yeah?”
Rob did let out a sigh this time. “I’m going to call Shayla and Tony and ask them not to come tonight.”
She wanted to argue but suspected from his tone of voice he wouldn’t be swayed. “Okay.”
“I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
She returned the phone to Bill. “You ratted me out.”
He snorted. “Duh. I’m your big brother.”
* * * *
After the fact, she was glad Rob had canceled their plans. Bill cooked them dinner and she curled up on the couch to watch TV and tried not let Bill see how much pain she was in.
He wasn’t buying it. “You need a pain pill. And you’re going to take one.” He held out one hand, the pill in his palm. In his other he held a glass of water.
“I don’t want it.”
“I don’t care if you want it or not. I don’t want to see you in that much pain. You’re taking it.”
She suspected he’d stand there all night until she did. Resigned, she carefully
sat up, wincing as she did.
“See? You’re in pain.”
“Fine.” She took it, washing it down with the water.
“Now go to bed and watch TV in there.”
“Fine.” She started to go when she turned and grabbed the stack of mail he’d brought in earlier and she hadn’t gone through yet. “Can I take this and read it?”
“Yes, you damn smartass.”
She curled up in bed. There were several bills, a couple of catalogs, and three get-well cards from people she apparently knew, but whose names she didn’t recognize.
The last one she thought might be junk mail, because her name was computer-printed on the envelope, but there was no return address and the postmark was from New York City.
The outside of the card had nothing but a smiley face on it. Inside, in the same computer-printed font, was an inscription.
Welcome home, Laura. Sorry I wasn’t there to greet you personally. Don’t worry, it won’t be long before I see you again.
The scream caught in her throat for a moment while she processed what it meant and let the card fall to the bed. When she finally let the scream rip, Bill burst through the bedroom door seconds later.
* * * *
Rob stood in the living room of Laura’s condo with Det. Thomas and Bill. Once again, Laura was sleeping in the bedroom with the aid of an anti-anxiety pill.
The card and envelope now resided in a clear plastic evidence bag. “I’ll be honest,” Thomas said. “He printed it out, meaning it’s pretty much untraceable. He mailed it from New York City. I’m willing to bet we don’t find fingerprints on it, either.”
Rob ran a hand through his hair. “What about DNA? From the flap, or the stamp?”
Det. Thomas shook his head. “Good luck with that. I’m still waiting on the rush job on the DNA from under her fingernails. I seriously doubt he was stupid enough to lick the flap. And the stamp looks like one of the self-adhesive kind.”
“Can’t we get a deputy assigned to watch the house?”
“I don’t even have proof the same guy sent this.”
Rob looked at him in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Look, you and I can sit here and make wild guesses all night. I need proof to get those kinds of resources. Maybe it’s time to think about moving her somewhere else.”
Bill shook his head. “She won’t go for that.” He looked at the two men. “No, she’s not the same person she was. But the stubborn streak is still there. She’s going to want to stay here. In Englewood, at least. Rob might be able to talk her into going to friends’ houses for a while, but she’s going to dig her heels in eventually.”
“She’s got an appointment Monday with a hypnotherapist,” Rob said. “Maybe she can help her get her memory back.”
Thomas picked up the evidence bag. “Meanwhile, don’t forget to stop by the gun shop. And make sure she carries it.”
“She doesn’t have her license yet,” Bill reminded him.
The detective looked at him. “I don’t know how you all do it out in Montana, but Florida is a castle doctrine state. She kills this guy in her home, I don’t care if she has a carry permit or not.”
“I thought law enforcement didn’t espouse unqualified people carrying weapons?” Bill shot back.
The detective had reached the front door. He turned. “Then I strongly suggest Rob gets that friend of his back down here to make sure she’s qualified. Either that, or she goes to live with them for a while.”
Rob walked over and locked the door behind the detective. “I can take her back to Montana with me,” Bill suggested.
“Like you said, she won’t go for that.”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
Rob rubbed at his forehead, fighting the impending headache. “Not right at the moment, no.”
* * * *
Rob found himself dreaming almost every night, about their life together, of times they’d spent together, sexy and otherwise.
The sexy times were the ones that usually stayed with him upon waking, bittersweet reminders of a life achingly just beyond his reach, one that Laura couldn’t remember.
He crawled into bed with her, eventually falling asleep. Tonight his dreams focused on a night a few months earlier. He’d had a Saturday and Sunday off, and Laura arranged to take the weekend off, too. They went to dinner at Sigalo’s with everyone before heading to the club.
There, he and Tony had fun tying up Shayla and Laura with rope, an informal competition to see who could come up with the most inventive and decorative design. At the end of it, both women found themselves on the receiving end of forced orgasm sessions from their respective Dom.
Neither woman complained.
But the club rules prohibited sex. And despite taking Laura to the point where she finally safeworded because her clit got too sensitive, she still jumped him when they returned home to the condo.
After he returned from walking Doogie, she shoved him down onto the couch, where she straddled his lap and eagerly worked on his shirt buttons.
Laughing, he grabbed her wrists. “Did I give you permission to do that?”
“Please, Sir?” she whined. “I want to.”
“You’re not naked.”
She leapt up from his lap, frantically yanking off her clothes before jumping on top of him again. “Please, Sir?”
He loved it when she got like this. “Oh, all right.”
If he’d blinked, he would have missed how fast she rid him of his shirt. Then she started working on his belt.
“This would be easier if you’d let me do this myself.”
Laura squirmed against him, rubbing herself against his thigh. “I like undressing you.”
He fisted her hair and made her get up, keeping her bent over as he led her to the bedroom. “I know you do. But we’re doing this my way.”
After leaning her over the bed and delivering a stinging, bare-handed swat to her ass, he said, “Stay.” She did, but he knew from the way she wiggled that she wanted to jump him again.
He kicked off his shoes and finished undressing. His erect cock led the way back to the bed, ready and willing for action. Stepping between her legs, he nudged her feet apart with his.
“Arms behind you.”
She immediately complied. She still wore the leather wrist cuffs from the club. He leaned over and snagged a snap clip from the drawer of the bedside table and used it to fasten her wrists together.
“Good girl.” He reached between her legs and found her, as expected, wet and ready for him.
Grabbing her wrists with one hand, he slowly fed his cock into her, both of them sighing with pleasure as he bottomed out inside her ready pussy.
“Who’s my good girl?”
She tried to fuck herself back onto his cock but he leaned forward, pinning her against the bed.
“Me, Sir.”
“I thought someone had more than enough orgasms earlier.”
“I…did. But I’m horny again.”
He tried to hold back his laughter. “Oh, are you? Should I get out the Hitachi?”
“No, Sir! Just your cock.”
He playfully swatted her ass. “Good answer.” Achingly slow, as slowly as he could stand, he fucked her, withdrawing until just the head of his cock remained inside her cunt before slamming forward again.
He knew if he did this long enough she would more than likely come at least one more time.
Whether he could hold out that long remained to be seen.
She felt so good, her pussy slick and grabbing at him, hot and ready. Perfection.
He fucked her for several minutes like this before pulling out and getting a disappointed moan from her.
He unclipped her wrists. “Don’t worry, we’re not done.” He flipped her over and made her put her hands over her head, Then he reclipped her wrists and lifted her legs to his shoulders.
Now he fucked her this way, able to go even deeper.
It also allowed him to pla
y with her nipples at the same time. She looked beautiful, eyes closed, skin flushed as she sought to get over one more time for him. He rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, her little sounds of pleasure sending jolts straight through to his cock.
“Are you going to come for me like this?”
She nodded. “Yes, Sir. I think so.”
He let go of her nipples and used his right thumb instead to lightly stroke her clit. He clamped his left around her calf and turned his head to nibble before he bit down.
That did it. She let out a cry as the walls of her cunt clamped down on his cock.
“Good girl,” he grunted, fucking her hard and fast, catching up and coming with her. As he stood there staring down at her, she opened her eyes and smiled.
He turned his head again to kiss the marks left by his teeth. “Good?”
Her eyes drifted closed again, but the smile never left her face. “Very good, Sir.”
Chapter Twenty
Laura jolted awake out of a nightmare early Sunday morning with Rob’s body protectively draped around hers. As she lay there and waited for her pulse to slow to a subsonic rate, she tried to remember everything she could about the dream.
It started at the computer again. The pounding on the door. This time, she let the shadow figure in and fought with it, wrestling like it was a tornado of energy.
Next to her, Rob stirred and raised his head. “You okay?”
She let him fold her into his arms as she shook her head.
“Nightmares?”
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his heart beating against her ear through his chest.
Another thing that felt oooh so right, even though she couldn’t remember a damn thing.
He felt right.
If it wasn’t for all the pain she was in, she would have given serious thought to kissing him and seeing where it went. She suspected they might have had a great sex life before.
There’s that fucking word again.
She kept her forehead pressed against his chest. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
He stroked her back. Through the T-shirt she wore, his fingers gently traced her spine as if he knew every ridge and curve.