After It's Over (6 page)

Paige was careful to tip their waitress double the going rate. Ben called as they were leaving the restaurant, but she ignored it. If Ben and the kids really needed her, then Bianca would call or text.

Ben can handle his own children for a day.

“Can you drive? It’s all freeway, so you just stay in one gear the whole time. I’m really beat.” Drew yawned.

“Yeah, you sleep, and I’ll drive.”

“Great.”

Paige buckled herself into the driver’s seat and glanced over at her brother. Curled up against the window, he almost looked like a kid again. She put the car in gear, determined to make the ride as smooth as possible. The freeway on-ramp was close to the restaurant and within minutes they were heading south of Salt Lake to the rehab facility.

My brother’s life has fallen apart and my marriage is a mess. It’s not even a real marriage. Both people have to participate for it to be an actual marriage. How did we get here?

As Paige drove down the freeway, memories flooded her mind; she drifted back to the day that her nightmare began.

***

“Are you feeling okay?” Kade asked, rubbing her belly.

“My stomach hurts a little. I think it’s just normal first trimester misery though,” Paige replied.

They’d gone for a walk along the path that bordered Commencement Bay. She’d needed a minute to rest so they climbed down to the beach and situated themselves on a couple of large rocks. Paige had been staring at the bay for the last five minutes. The sky was overcast and it was too cold to be near the water, but she didn’t care. This was where Paige came to think.

The full moon is making the tide crazy.

“I can take you to see my dad. He can check you and the baby out,” Kade offered.

Paige shook her head. “I’m okay.”

He wrapped his arms around her from behind; she leaned into his embrace, watching the waves crash against the shoreline.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“My mom knows.” She drew a deep breath. “Somehow, that makes this all the more real.”

“Oh.”

The wind tore through Paige’s long hair, winding strands around her face. Kade gently pulled her hair out of her eyes as he turned her around to face him.

“We could run away, you know,” he said. “Maybe go to Utah. My uncle has a ranch down there.”

“What would I do? Become a farmer?”

Don’t laugh. He’s just trying to help. Seriously, Utah? If we’re going to run away, couldn’t it be to Hawaii or something?

Kade chuckled. “I can’t see you shoveling manure. You hate anything that smells bad.”

Paige smiled at him.
I love that he gets me.
“Yeah, that’s not really the life for me.”

“So, we won’t go to Utah. We can go somewhere else.” Kade rubbed her shoulders. “Does your dad know?”

“I think the fact that I’m here with you shows that my father does not know.”

If he did, I’d probably be locked up in my room, or on my way to a clinic with my mother begging him to reconsider.

Paige shuddered at the thought of what her father would do if he knew she was pregnant. She grabbed Kade’s hand, her face filled with worry.

“Promise me that if my dad tries to force me to end this pregnancy, we’ll run away.”

“I won’t let your dad do anything to harm our child,” Kade replied. He pulled her in for a hug. “It really will be okay. I promise.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re the
one
, which means that we are meant to be together, and as long as we are—there’s nothing we can’t overcome.”

Kade’s eyes were filled with an earnestness that Paige had never seen before.

I didn’t know he had it in him to be so poetic. He’s always so laid back about things. It’s a nice surprise to discover that he actually believes we’re meant to be together.

She smiled, kissed him, and leaned her head against his chest. “You’re right. Everything will be just fine.”

As Paige spoke, a sharp pain shot through her side and across her abdomen. She doubled over and screamed.

“Paige? What’s wrong? What is it?”

“It’s the baby. Something’s wrong with the baby!”

Paige couldn’t remember exactly what happened after that. She vaguely recalled Kade carrying her to his truck. He told her later that she had blacked out as he rushed her to Tacoma General Hospital. She remembered him holding her as the doctor explained the pregnancy was ectopic. Paige had never heard that word before that day. The doctor explained that the embryo had implanted itself inside of her fallopian tube rather than in her uterus. The tube ruptured, which caused internal bleeding. The surgeons had to operate immediately to repair the damage.

Looking back, most of that day was just a hazy blur. Paige didn’t remember the physical pain, but rather the distinct sensation of emotional turmoil. The baby had been unexpected, but not unwanted. Her child had become a person to her; someone to be loved and protected, someone she had intended to fight for. In an instant, the baby and all of the hope she had for its future—all of that was obliterated into a bleeding internal mess that threatened her life.

Kade had called her mother and given Paige the phone. She stumbled through tears and pain to explain the situation. In the background, her drunken father raged about something. During their brief conversation, her father came to understand that Paige was pregnant. There was a scuffle; he fought with her mother for the phone. Her mother screamed in a way that she’d never heard before, and for once in their miserable marriage, her mother fought back.

The phone went silent. Paige yelled for either of them, but there was no response. Only a
pop! pop!
She screamed, realizing
that was the familiar sound of her father’s service revolver. It took two orderlies, a nurse, and an EMT to hold her down as they wheeled her into an operating room.

***

“Paige?” Drew’s weary voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“You’re about to miss the exit.”

“Right.”

Don’t make another wrong turn. You can’t afford it.

Paige pushed the past back into a corner of her mind where she sealed it behind a wall that only she could tear down.

CHAPTER SIX

The sun had just begun to rise as Kade stood at the edge of the pier. He took a deep breath and inhaled the salty breeze. The bay was calm; the waves gently kissed the shoreline below his feet. This was his favorite time of the day. The world around him was beginning to wake and life began anew.

There was little to no foot traffic along the bike path that bordered one side of Tacoma’s Commencement Bay. Kade reveled in the solitude; with music blaring from his headphones, he could run until everything else in his life faded away and it was just he and his memories of Paige.
She used to love this place.
Kade stood on his toes and flexed his calves; his arms were tense as he rotated them from side to side.

When his muscles had loosened, he turned and ran back up the pier. He’d only gone about half a mile when his cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his warm-up jacket. His instinct was to ignore it, but he was sheriff and ignoring calls wasn’t an option. He stopped, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and answered.

“Sorenson here.”

“Sheriff?”

He instantly recognized the distressed female voice on the other end.

“Marie? What’s wrong?”

“There was a fundraiser downtown with an open bar last night. Needless to say, Barry spent the entire evening drinking. Things got a little rough.”

This was Kade’s fifth phone call from the mayor’s wife. He knew this because he kept a meticulous record of each call over the past month. During their conversations, he’d come to understand the terms that Marie used to politely say that her husband had beaten her. She was a cultured woman in her late forties and in her world, an issue such as domestic violence was something she would endure, but never speak of. To speak of the violence would be acknowledging that she was a victim, and Marie Dubois Caulfield would
not
be a victim.

“Marie, do you need a doctor?”

On the other end of the line, she took a drag from a cigarette. She exhaled and tapped her manicured nails against the phone. Kade wiped the sweat from his brow and chewed on the inside of his lower lip. He itched for a bit of Copenhagen.

Why’d I quit chewing tobacco?
 

“Yes, I believe I do require medical attention. Could you send an officer, please? Preferably a young one who doesn’t want to lose his job. I can’t afford even a word of gossip.”

“I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

“We spent the night in the Grande Inn downtown.”

“Meet me in the parking garage on the south side.” Kade looked around. He was at least a mile from his truck.

“Splendid. How long do you think it will take you?”

Marie spoke as if they were making casual arrangements to see a movie, but Kade could hear that her breath was uneven and slightly ragged.

Did he crack a rib this time? If she would just leave!

“I can be there in twenty.”
Or fifteen if I run every red light.

“Very well. See you soon.”

Even battered, Marie was determined to maintain an appearance of normality. Kade shook his head. It had only been four weeks since she’d been found sprawled face down in Wright’s Park on a patch of wet grass. She had been nude except for the expensive tailored coat draped over her body. Covered in bruises from head to toe, her nose was still bleeding when she was discovered by a jogger. Marie couldn’t say who had attacked her; she said she couldn’t remember.

The city’s public relations department went into overdrive when they realized the wife of their millionaire mayor had been assaulted. They launched a social media campaign announcing that she had been mugged and the Tacoma police force wouldn’t rest until the culprit had been caught. While technically the crime fell under the jurisdiction of the police, the chief felt that calling in the Sheriff’s office was the only way to show the investigation was above board. Kade wasn’t stupid. The chief wanted to cover his own derriere by handing off responsibility for solving the crime. He was reluctant to get involved because of the political implications, but he couldn’t very well say no. That wouldn’t have helped his career at all.

Marie’s hospital room had been a circus of cops, media consultants, and mayoral staff. Kade had stood in the corner, observing who came and went. He noted the way she flinched when her husband arrived at the hospital and took his place at her bedside. He had to give her credit—Marie put on a good show, playing the dutiful politician’s wife. She served faithfully in multiple philanthropic organizations and appeared at all of her husband’s public events. Her devotion to him was strong, but not as strong Marie’s favorite drink—Long Island iced tea. Kade arranged to meet her at a bar outside the city one night. After two drinks, her facade crumbled.

Marie confirmed what Kade had suspected from the first moment in the hospital—the mayor was beating and raping his wife on a regular basis. Her voice had been soft as she detailed five year’s worth of horror, torment, and brutality. She shed exactly one tear when she got to the beating that had led to her being found in the park. Marie said it didn’t seem to matter what she did or how hard she tried to please him, her husband beat her anyway. Kade had listened as objectively as he could, though he wanted to find the mayor and do things to the man that would earn him a life sentence in prison.

Kade had been careful not to show his anger to Marie. He sensed that civility was something she needed to survive. She’d requested that he not document their conversations, but he always did. He memorized the dates and wrote down every single detail as soon as he left her. Marie wanted her husband sent to rehab; she was sure he’d be a changed man if only he were sober, but Kade knew that was a lie.

Once a wife-beating monster, always a monster. I bet he’s got a record.

The Internet was the key to uncovering the mayor’s past. After several hours of painstaking research that made his head hurt, Kade discovered the man running the city had been born with a different name. Contrary to his campaign slogan, the mayor did not grow up in Tacoma, Washington. Cross-checking against his old name, Kade found a string of domestic assault charges. This information proved his theory about the mayor being a monster, but it did nothing to help his case. As long as Marie refused to testify against her husband, Kade had one choice—find evidence of the mayor committing another crime.

Most cops would have given up, probably washed their hands of the whole mess, but Kade was determined. One way or another, without Marie’s help, he was going to put her husband behind bars or in the ground. Some days, he was just fine with the latter.

***

The parking garage was empty save the woman in dark sunglasses, scarf, and hooded raincoat. She was huddled in a corner near a set of stairs; a streak of dry blood ran down her bare leg.
She couldn’t physically clean herself.
Kade put his truck in park and hopped out to help her in. The truck was tough to get into even for an uninjured person.

“Hello, ma’am.”

“Hello, Sheriff.” Marie’s voice was horse.

Without lifting her glasses, she wiped her eyes.

“Please call me Kade.”

She doesn’t want me to see the damage.

“Very well,” Marie replied.

Kade was a calm, rational guy that was often accused of being emotionless. He showed the world a stoic exterior, while deep down he felt
everything
. As he carefully boosted Marie into the truck and shut the door, he felt a rage that made his hands shake and his vision blur. Slowly, he walked around to the driver’s door. With each step, he focused on the fact that it would take patience to gather enough evidence to throw the mayor in jail. He inhaled and exhaled; the burning desire to storm the mayor’s waterfront condo receded. He had the patience to build a case, but did Marie have the time?

This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. How long until he kills her in a drunken rage?
Career or no career, men like this can’t help themselves. The mayor isn’t the first powerful man to behave this way, but I’d give anything to make sure he’s the last.

Kade climbed into the cab of the truck and slammed the door shut. Marie rested her head against the passenger window, her hands lay folded in her lap. She was asleep before he pulled out of the parking garage. The silence gave Kade an opportunity to reflect on the feeling of déjà vu that had haunted him since the day they met. Marie reminded him of another woman, one whose death had inspired him to give up his dream of being a doctor and become a cop instead.

I can’t think about Paige’s mother without thinking about the day she died.

***

After Paige’s initial examination in the emergency room, a surgeon had been called. They gave her pain medication and sent Kade into the hall where the surgeon said it would take at least an hour to repair the internal damage caused by the ectopic pregnancy. They’d have to remove a fallopian tube and possibly more of her reproductive organs. The sympathetic doctor explained that the odds of Paige ever conceiving again were significantly diminished. Kade was grateful his girlfriend didn’t hear this last piece of information. There was no reason for her to hear the devastating news before surgery.

Kade came back into Paige’s exam room to offer moral support as she called her mother. He listened as she explained to Mrs. Birch that the pregnancy wasn’t viable, and the surgeons would have to operate. Her mother had been upset, but reasonable. At some point, Mr. Birch had arrived home. Paige motioned for Kade to listen in. Her father demanded her mother give him the phone. Mrs. Birch yelled back, refusing to hand it over. There was some ruckus and it sounded as if the phone had been dropped. A momentary silence followed, then came the sickening
pop! pop!.

Kade knew that was the sound of a gun being fired. There were no screams on the other end of the phone—just dead air. Paige, recognizing the sound too, became hysterical. Grabbing him, she begged him to take her home. But he couldn’t. She needed surgery. He stood frozen as the medical staff of Tacoma General Hospital wheeled Paige out of the ER and into the hallway. She was inconsolable and screamed that her father had shot her mother. He would learn later on that was an erroneous assumption on her part. The sound of gunshots echoed in his ears as Paige disappeared from view.

“Can I show you to the waiting area?” a small female voice asked.

Kade turned at the question and found himself face-to-face with a young candy striper. He shook his head.

“Are you alright?” she asked. She reached for his arm, but he turned and ran away.

I have to get out of here. Our baby’s gone. I wanted it to be a boy. I was going to teach him how to throw a baseball and cheer him on at every Little League game.

Kade ran all the way to the parking lot, jumped in his truck, and took off. Grief-stricken and angry, he made his way to some unused back roads. Racing through the dirt and gravel, he sobbed and pounded his fist on the dashboard. He cried out to a God that he didn’t know, demanding answers for the tragedy that had befallen them. Eventually, he wiped his tears and drove to Paige’s house. Kade couldn’t go back to the hospital without answers about her parents.

Thoughts of his loss ended abruptly when he saw his girlfriend’s house. The scene was organized chaos—several police cars were parked out front; their lights flashed as a coroner’s van pulled into the driveway. The area in front of the house was roped off with yellow tape; police officers questioned neighbors on the crowded sidewalk. Kade jumped out of the truck and ran through the bedlam to reach the house. A uniformed cop grabbed him as he stepped inside.

“You can’t go in there. This is a crime scene,” the cop said. He pushed Kade backward onto the front porch.

“Geez, what a mess,” said the solemn-looking woman who approached them. She carried a leather satchel and wore a black jacket that read
Medical Examiner
. “How many bodies are there?”

The young cop looked at Kade who’d dropped to his knees, his face contorted in anguish.

“There are two bodies,” the cop said quickly. He reached out to Kade. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

Kade pushed him away; his legs were weak to stand.

“Is he the son?” the medical examiner asked.

“I don’t know. Is this your family? Do you live here?” The cop squatted down to his eye level.

The medical examiner didn’t wait for his response; she entered the house.

Kade shook his head, trying to find his voice.

“This is my girlfriend’s house. She’s in the hospital. She lost our baby and now, her parents are dead. Is that right?” He looked imploring at the officer.

Please say I’m wrong. Please!

“I’m sorry, kid. It’s a real bad scene.”

“Deputy, we need you to block off the street,” a portly detective barked from the doorway. “The deceased male is one of our own. As soon as the press gets wind of this mess, it’s going to be a three-ring circus. Only blue gets past the barricades. Got it?”

“Okay, detective,” the cop replied. He shot Kade an uncertain look and walked away.