Extreme Exposure (27 page)

He faced her and said nothing.

“I’ve got half a dozen witnesses who said you berated Ms. McMillan for dating a state senator, using foul language, and—let me make sure I’m getting this right—calling her companion her ‘boytoy.’ As I understand it, you accused her of compromising the paper and told her you’d respect her if she were fucking him for secrets, is that correct?”

When he said nothing, she continued.

“It’s my understanding Ms. McMillan became upset with you, called you a dick and said, and I quote, ‘Does anyone here question you when you choose to screw members of your own staff? That’s worse than sleeping with the enemy. That’s a lawsuit. Talk about compromising the newspaper.’ ”

Tom felt the angry flush creep up his throat onto his face. His own staff was turning against him, quoting him to Human Resources.
Reporters!

“At this point you told her you were writing her up, is that so? Answer me, Tom.”

“That’s essentially accurate.”

“Why is none of that on this form? All it says here is that she was insubordinate, not that you provoked her, insulted her, and harassed her. You’ve taken her alleged insubordination out of context and placed it in her permanent file. Would you do that in a news story?”

She had him there. “No. But my sex life was not making headlines.”

“Not yet, it hasn’t. Wait till one of those nineteen-year-old interns you like so much decides to sue. Now hear me: I
won’t put this in McMillan’s file! She’s absolutely right. Until you quit screwing the help, you can forget criticizing anyone else’s choice of bed partner. Got that?” Paula tore up the document and scattered the pieces on his desk.

“Got it.”

“And while I’m here, you might want to explain why you knew she was being threatened but chose to do nothing to protect her. The publisher wants to know.”

From out in the newsroom came the sound of cheers, whistles, and applause.

CHAPTER 20

K
ARA DRIFTED
in a narcotic haze, beyond pain but not quite beyond nightmares. At times she could feel his hands around her throat or hear his voice. Then she would fight him only to open her eyes and find her mother or Reece beside her, holding her hand, stroking her hair.

Outside of her dreams, she knew she was alive. She knew Connor was safe. But everything else seemed to blur. Holly, Tessa, and Sophie had come to visit her, though she couldn’t remember what they’d said—something about Tom getting in trouble with Human Resources. Then Tom had come to see her personally, and she thought she’d heard him say he was sorry—surely a drug-induced delusion.

The police had also come to visit. They’d asked her questions, and she had tried to answer. But with painkillers syruping through her veins, details from the attack were fuzzy. When they’d asked her about the story she was working on, she’d refused to speak and told them to talk to Tom.

More than once she’d awoken, sure there was something she needed to do, someone she needed to check on, but when she’d opened her eyes, all that remained was a niggling sense of urgency.
What was she supposed to do?

“Sleep,” Reece told her, then kissed her forehead. “Just sleep, sweetheart.”

And so she slept.

R
EECE KISSED
her cheek, pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, and watched her drift off. He hoped the last dose of pain medication she’d been given would last long enough to give her some hours of deep sleep. He could tell fear stalked her in her dreams, and he felt powerless to stop it.

He’d almost lost her. It had been so close. By the cops’ estimation, another handful of seconds and the bastard would have succeeded in raping her. Another two minutes, and she’d have been dead. Who knows what would have happened to little Connor.

Reece knew without knowing that Kara had lasted as long as she had because she’d been fighting to keep her son safe. It touched him in a way he couldn’t express, pushed a sore spot deep in his chest, perhaps because his own mother had never seemed to spare a thought for him, much less put her life on the line. It made Kara all the more precious in his eyes and gave him another in a long list of reasons to admire her. She loved her boy down to the last drop of her blood. It was as simple—and as beautiful—as that.

When he’d heard the call for a body bag and the medical examiner, a terrifying pain had lanced through him, the kind of pain he’d known only once before, when the state patrol had called to say his father had been killed. He’d run into her house, sure for a sharp string of seconds that she was dead. Then he’d seen her, battered and beaten, but alive. And a raging fury had pushed fear aside.

He was going to find out who was behind this, and if it was someone in the state government, Reece was going to use his authority as a member of the audit committee to make certain that person served a long prison term and never worked in government again.

No, it wasn’t an abuse of power. It’s what his authority was for in the first place.

He watched her sleep and felt an odd tenderness stir in his belly. He hadn’t been searching for a relationship. He hadn’t
been looking for someone. But he’d found her just the same. How had she come to mean so much to him so quickly? He’d only known her for a month, and already she was essential. When she was healed and this was all over, they had a lot to talk about.

A middle-aged nurse dressed in blue scrubs stepped into the room and walked over to check the IV pump. “How’s she doing?”

“I think she’s having nightmares.”

The nurse nodded and pushed a few buttons. “Poor thing. I’ll be back with her next dose of pain meds in about three hours. In the meantime, you ought to try to get some sleep yourself.”

“Yeah.” Except for a few hours yesterday evening, he’d spent all his time these past few days either at the Capitol or at the hospital, and he knew he looked pretty ragged around the edges.

His sister had said as much when she’d dropped by earlier this evening. Melanie had seen the photo of him shouting in Prentice’s face in the newspaper and had gotten worried about him. She’d tried to reach him at home that night. Of course, he hadn’t gone home. Except for a quick shower and change of clothes, he hadn’t been home since Kara was attacked.

Melanie had finally caught up with him on his cell and surprised him in Kara’s room with Vietnamese take-out. “It’s healthier than hospital cafeteria food,” she’d said.

She’d stayed with him for a few hours, fussed over how tired he looked, admonished him for losing his temper with Prentice, and then contradicted herself by praising him for ripping Prentice’s head off. Then she’d given him a hug and taken off to spend the evening with her new boyfriend. It was the most time they’d ever spent together outside of the holidays.

He wasn’t used to having a sister around, but he thought he could get to like it.

Miguel had called, too, expressed his concern, and asked
Reece again if getting involved with Kara was such a good idea. “She seems to come with trouble.”

This time Reece hadn’t bothered to hide his irritation. “This wasn’t her fault, Miguel.”

The public had poured out its love for her, filling the room with flowers and cards wishing her a speedy recovery and expressing admiration. In fact, so many people had sent flowers, that they couldn’t all fit in the room, and Lily had taken it upon herself to distribute a dozen or so bouquets to patients around the hospital who, according to the nursing staff, weren’t getting visitors or flowers of their own—old people with no family, people dying of cancer, homeless people.

Reece brushed a strand of hair from Kara’s bruised cheek, glanced at his watch, and saw that it was already past ten. He walked over to his briefcase and opened it, careful not to let his loaded nine-millimeter Sphinx semi-auto show in case a nurse came unexpectedly back in the room. Even with his concealed-carry permit, weapons weren’t allowed in the hospital. But he’d be damned if he was willing to leave Kara undefended again.

Reece retrieved the folder file containing the documents the state attorney had given him yesterday and sat in the chair, determined to figure out who was behind this. The trouble was that Kara was damned good at her job, sticking her nose into everything like a conscientious reporter should. Over a six-month period, she’d filed thirty-seven open-records requests.

Videos and state health department documents.

That’s what she’d told Chief Irving. Of course, as she handled the environmental beat, most of the requests she’d filed had been with the state health department. If he eliminated all but those, however, that cut it down to twenty-six. He’d take it in chronological order under the assumption that if someone wanted to kill Kara, she had to be pretty deep into the story.

He reached for the cup of lukewarm hospital swill that
was supposed to be coffee and settled in for another long night.

K
ARA STARED
into the hospital bathroom mirror and tried to come to grips with the stranger she saw reflected there. Her eyes were dull from narcotics and nightmares. An IV tube ran from a plastic bag on a pole into the back of her left hand. Her hair was tousled, tangled from four days in bed. And there were bruises.

She ran her fingers over her left cheek and felt the crushing blow of his fist. The bruises were fading from purple to red and yellow, but the flesh was still swollen, giving her a slightly lopsided appearance. A ring of purple around her neck showed where hands had tried to choke the life from her—big hands, a killer’s hands. They had squeezed so hard, squeezed until her lungs burned and the world had turned to black spots.

She slipped off the hospital gown and saw the dinner-plate-sized bruise where her ribs had struck against the coffee table, driving the breath from her body, collapsing her lung. A bandage covered the wound left by the chest tube they’d used to re-inflate her lung. A saucer-sized bruise marked where the toe of his boot had caught her belly.

But the hardest thing to see were the twin bruises on her inner thighs made when he’d slammed into her with his knee and forced her legs apart. Vague flashes of the ER doctor examining her came into her mind—her feet in stirrups, the cold stretch of a speculum, the doctor combing through her pubic hair for evidence, swabbing for semen. They’d done a rape kit on her, she realized—one last violation.

She would heal. She was alive, and Connor was safe, and that’s what mattered. But even as these thoughts filled her mind, she began to tremble, nausea uncoiling like a snake in her stomach. She could still smell his breath, hear the hatred in his voice, feel his hands hurting her.

They said he didn’t rape you, McMillan. He’s dead. Pull yourself together!

She leaned against the sink and took deep, steadying breaths that hurt her ribs. Behind her was the shower. Before she could admit to herself what she was doing, she’d pulled the IV from her hand, dropped her hospital gown on the floor, stepped into the shower, and turned the water on as hot as she could stand.

How long she stood there under the spray, she didn’t know. But gradually as the scalding water bathed her skin, her nausea and trembling subsided. She took up the courtesy soap, tore open the package, and began to wash herself, wincing as the water drove against her bruises with the force of a hammer. Finding little bottles of shampoo and conditioner, she washed her hair also, willing her terror and the darkness of her memories to slide down the drain with the suds. She was clean again. She was herself again.

It was only after she’d turned off the water and reached for the towel that the weakness set in. She found herself fighting dizziness as she dried off and slipped back into her hospital gown. By the time she’d brushed her teeth, she was forced to lean against the sink to keep from collapsing.

That’s how Reece found her, her dark hair dripping wet, her face pale as death, and looking as if she were going to faint. Her IV dangled uselessly, dripping onto the floor. Steam covered the mirror, the walls, the faucet. She must have been in the shower for a long time. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice, proof she hadn’t heard him enter, hadn’t heard him call for her, hadn’t even heard him open the bathroom door. “I wanted . . . a shower. I . . .”

He scooped the sweet weight of her into his arms as her knees buckled and carried her back toward the bed. He understood why she had wanted the shower—she was reclaiming her body. But it still angered him that she had taken such a crazy risk. “If you fall, you’re going to become a permanent resident, you know.”

Her head rested against his shoulder. “You shouldn’t be helping me.”

“Why not?” He laid her gently down in the bed and tried to avoid putting any pressure on her broken ribs.

“I’m investigating you.”

“I know.” He pulled up the blankets, ignored the flicker of anger in his gut. “I’m getting the nurse.”

He strode out of her room, down to the nurses’ station, flagged one of the nurses, and then watched as she took Kara’s vitals and inserted a new IV.

He’d found her open-records request this morning. It was crammed into his inbox with a stack of other neglected faxes that had come in over the past three days. He’d recognized immediately what it was, and it had hit him like a fist—not the fact that she had requested documents from him, but the fact that she hadn’t trusted him enough to simply ask. He’d have been happy to give her or any other reporter any document in his possession, from his campaign finance records to a record of his cell phone calls, without anyone having to use legal muscle to get it. He wasn’t a goddamned crook, and he had nothing to hide.

He’d known it was her way of keeping their relationship separate from their careers, but it had felt like a blow just the same. He’d read through it and tried to figure out what she was after.

Under Colorado Revised Statute
§
24-72-202(3), I am requesting all documents written or received by you pertaining to the state health department and/or environmental enforcement actions at the state health department
.
These documents will include, but are not limited to: Legislative Audit Committee correspondence, letters, memorandums, e-mails, inquiries, reports, and requests for information, as well as notes from meetings or phone conversations.