Hostile Desires (17 page)

Those two bastards had known just how to play her. They pulled her in, giving her access to details no one else had. Jin was a good news reporter, but she was still a little green. Because of that, she had almost paid with her life, and she had definitely lost a piece of her soul.

With a sigh, he stepped off his motorcycle, then walked up the path to her house. She’d never been a gardener, but she had kept it somewhat clean before. Now weeds littered the lawn, and it was at least three weeks overdue for a mow. Hell, there was trash lying there. The Jin he had known before her abduction would have never allowed that.

Ignoring the mess of her yard, he took the steps up to her front lanai. He didn’t know why he did this, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. It wasn’t that she really talked to him, and since she had left the hospital, she had only allowed him in her house twice. The second time, she had said it was too much. But, he still couldn’t stop trying.

He rang the doorbell and waited. The door opened slightly.

He could see her, barely, but it still wasn’t good. She had lost a lot of weight, and she rarely wore anything but pajamas. She seemed to be getting worse by the day.

“What do you want, Adam?” she asked. He hated the flat tone. He wanted the bubbly vivacious woman back.

“I wanted to see if you were doing okay.”

“I’m fine.”

The two words from a woman he knew meant the polar opposite.

“Did you need me to bring you anything by?”

She shook her head, and started to close the door.

“Jin, do you think you could let me in?”

She stared at him without blinking, then she seemed to wake up from a trance.

“No. Not today.”

The sound of her voice, the tremble told him she still could barely handle talking to him. Frustration filled him, but he kept his voice steady.

“Okay. You still have my number?”

She nodded, not making eye contact.

“Text me once every few days, just for my peace of mind, okay?”

She hesitated, then nodded and shut the door. He heard her lock the door. Four locks. The woman now lived in a fortress away from the world.

He waited, just for a second, wondering if he should demand more interaction, but he knew that was the wrong reaction. He turned and walked away, and realized he had fisted his hands. It was a damned shame one of the bastards had fallen off the balcony, and the other was in a mental institution. Adam really wanted to make both men hurt. Her attackers deserved to suffer for what they had done to Jin. It was hard to see the woman, who had enchanted him so easily, hollowed out. Six months since the bastards had assaulted her, and Adam still couldn’t get to her.

As he reached his motorcycle, Adam decided he’d have to talk to Elle about it. He knew her history, so she might be able to give him some kind of insight. He needed to do something or he might lose Jin.

J
in peeked
out her curtains and watched Adam as he drove away. It was hard on her, harder than he would ever know, to have these conversations. She stayed there, hidden by most of the material, until Adam’s taillights disappeared around the corner.

With a sigh, she walked away from the window. Most people wouldn’t categorize the interactions she had with Adam as conversations, but these days, it was what she could handle. Other than talking with her group or Elle, she rarely interacted with anyone. It was just easier that way.

But she lived for these days. Adam had been dropping by once or twice a week for months now. Twice, she had let him in the house. It had taken all of her courage to allow him beyond the threshold. It had been too much.

Her head started to pound. These days, any kind of stress caused migraines, which led to sleepless nights, but at least then she wouldn’t have nightmares.

T
he next day
, Graeme looked over the list of confidential informants, and he wanted to groan. Forty names. He had spent all of yesterday on it, and he felt as if he had made no headway. This was going to take forever.

“I see that face, but you should be happy Adam worked the list down some,” Del said.

Graeme scowled, looking up from his desk. Standing in the doorway, Del smiled at him.

“Quit being so bloody pleasant.”

His smile widened into a grin. “Sorry. Can’t stop it. Getting married in a few days, and I have a baby coming in less than a year. Plus, my mother is making red sauce with meatballs tonight. All is right with the world.”

Del’s mother had arrived the day before and apparently hit the ground running. She’d been cooking Italian dishes and babying Emma.

“Damn, you know how to make a man want to punch you.”

His boss chuckled, and walked into the room to take a seat in front of Graeme’s desk.

“So, how many names are you at?”

He handed over the list. “I have forty to run down. The easiest part is running them through the computer. I am assuming some of them are dead.”

“Don’t sound so chipper about wanting people to be dead. The mayor frowns upon it.”

Graeme shrugged. “Then he should deal with this bloody mess.”

“Always sunshine and rainbows, McGregor. That’s what I like about you. That positive outlook is a shining example of what Marines can do.”

Del paused, as if weighing what he would say next. “Is everything going all right with you?” he asked.

Graeme studied his boss. It was an odd turn in their discussion. Del wasn’t the typical boss, but he rarely “checked” on McGregor.

“I’m fine.”

He sighed. “Okay, I tried to be subtle. Are you having any issues? Remember, I know about your time in Iraq, read the reports. You lost a lot of your squad.”

He leaned back in his chair and realized that he never really talked about it with Del. Of everyone on the team, they were the only two who had seen combat in recent years. Both of them had worked Special Forces and had seen some of the worst of humanity, so Del understood. No matter how far you were from battle, you always carried the scars.

“I’m fine. I still have dreams every now and then, but that’s why I took a year off in Edinburgh with my family. I took each day as it came. Plus, there’s Dumfries; he’s really helped out.”

“Good. I just wanted to check in.”

Graeme studied him again and realized they shared something in common. “You’ve lost someone?”

Del nodded. “Hard ass sergeant who couldn’t deal with it when he came home. Started drinking, his wife left him.”

Del didn’t have to finish the story. Graeme knew exactly how it ended. Unfortunately, there were too many of them who understood too well what it was like to lose someone to suicide.

“I’ve had some scary moments, but I never wanted to go that route. Part of it is the thought of my mother. She would follow me into the afterlife and box my ears.”

Del smiled. “Yeah. I have a feeling it would be the same for me. Sounds like you like strong women.”

He nodded. “In my house, there was no doubt about it. Strong women ruled.”

“I’m assuming that’s why you like Elle.”

He shrugged, as he started tapping on the keyboard. “More like love.”

There was a beat of silence. He hadn’t even realized he was going to say that, and especially not to his boss. If there was anyone who should know first, it should be Elle.

“Want to repeat that?” Del asked.

Graeme looked at Del. He should hold back, wait until Elle was ready to accept it, but he couldn’t. He was just too bleeding happy, he had to tell someone. “I love her. Kind of hard to hide the fact. I would never get involved with a woman at work if I wasn’t serious.”

“Love her? As in marry and have babies and all that kind of thing?”

It was an odd reaction from a man who was doing just that. “Not sure about all that other stuff, but yes, spend the rest of my life kind of thing.”

Del shook his head. “If that don’t beat all.”

He shook his head. “You Americans and your weird sayings.”

“Really? You’re being judgy? You eat haggis.”

“My father makes the best in Edinburgh. I can’t wait to get back there this summer and have some myself.”

Del turned gray and made a face. “Please, my stomach’s still off.”

He chuckled. “Leave me to work. I want to get this done, so I can hunt a few of these wankers down.”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, about that trip, I want to take a couple weeks off this summer if that’s okay. I want to make the trip back to Scotland, see the family.”

“Just give me the dates and we can work around it,” Del said before walking out of the office.

Now that he thought about it, he would have to convince Elle she needed to go with them. She could meet his family, then she could take him to Inverness so he could meet her Granny. It was too fast, he knew that, but he didn’t give a bloody hell. Right now, he just wanted to enjoy the feeling and the woman who inspired it.

L
ate that afternoon
, Elle was ready to call it a day when the office phone rang. It was a local number and, while she didn’t recognize the number, she decided to take one last call before she closed up.

“Hello, am I speaking to Dr. Elle Middleton?” a female voice on the other end of the line asked.

“This is she. Who are you?”

“My name is Amanda Anderson from Hawaii Now Blog, and I wanted to ask you about a case.”

She sighed. It was part of the job, she understood that, but she did not like talking about cases. It was one of the things she loved about TFH. Del had a strict no press policy. She shut down her computer before she answered.

“Dr. Middleton?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot comment on an open investigation.”

“This one is closed. In fact, you helped close it seven years ago. I assume you are able to talk about closed cases, correct?”

Something tickled at the back of her throat, as dread slipped over her. Dammit, what the hell was going on?

“Seven years ago?”

“Yes.” Elle could hear the woman clicking on keys. “You worked with a Gerald Walton, is that correct?”

Her shocks dissolved as her anger started to rise. She would kill him. Better yet, she would tell her father, and he would kill him. Knowing her father, it would involve some kind of painfully slow-acting poison.

“I don’t understand why you would call me about an old case like that. The perpetrator was caught and convicted. He’s still in prison for murder.”

More keys tapping. Elle wondered if she was really looking for information on the case or logging into a social media site.

“I understand that you were one of his victims,” she asked. “James Farrington was convicted of your rape and the deaths of five women.”

Just hearing his name had her blood icing over. She never spoke his name. She had not since the trial. Some people would call it cowardly. She called it survival.

“No comment.”

“Is it true you deliberately put yourself into harm’s way?”

“No comment.”

“My source tells me you have a habit of doing this and causing problems with cases.”

“Your source? Let me guess. He’s a police officer from England, and he gave you all the juicy information.”

“I can’t reveal my sources.”

“I have no comment on any of it. If you want to talk to me about it again, I can give you the number to my attorney.”

She slammed the office phone down. Damn Gerald. She would call him and yell, but it would do no good. In fact, that was exactly what he wanted. She would not give him the satisfaction. In fact, it would be better if she used the lawyer line on him from now on. They had nothing together. No children, no property, and no connection whatsoever. This was just his way of trying to goad her into calling so he could plead his case again. It was not going to work because she would not allow it. He was the most passive-aggressive person she knew. After she had met his family, she understood it. His mother was the same way.

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, using the relaxation methods her therapist had taught her all those years ago. When she opened her eyes, she realized there was one person she wanted to talk to.

Graeme
.

She grabbed her purse and headed out to find him. Punching the button, she tapped her foot while she waited. If someone was on the trail of her former debacle, then it was going to hit the papers. She needed to warn Del. He knew about it because he’d had her investigated before hiring her. It hadn’t bothered her then. She had expected it. Now though, everyone she worked with, everyone she knew, would find out.

A couple minutes later, Elle was still agitated when she stepped off the elevator. She knew she shouldn’t be so mad at the reporter, but she didn’t need to be reminded of her past. She
lived
with it. She dealt with it. It had diddly to do with her career. What she didn’t want to do was lose the respect and trust of those she worked with. She had a feeling this was part of Gerald’s push to get her back to England to help.

Her heart sank a little when she saw that Graeme wasn’t in his office. The only one in at the moment was Adam.

“Did you need something?” he asked.

“I was looking for Graeme.”

“He’s on his way back. He was following up a lead. But, since you’re here, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure.”

She followed him into his office and sat down. He closed the door.

He didn’t say anything until he sat behind his desk.

“I wanted to talk to you about Jin.”

She blinked. “Jin?”

“Yeah. I’ve been by to see her a few times in the last six months, and she doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I just went by yesterday, and she would barely open the door.”

“Any better? Than what?”

He sighed and leaned back his chair. “I thought by now she would be moving on, or at least making progress.”

“So, you have a timetable?”

“It’s not that. I just wanted to know what to do to help.”

“And why ask me?”

“I know your past. As second in command, it’s part of the job. Plus, I know you’ve been counseling her.”

“I cannot comment on that.” That much was true. Jin had specifically said she did not want Adam to know anything, but Elle didn’t even want to mention that.

Frustration stamped his facial features. “I just want to help.”

“You can’t.”

“There
has
to be something I can do. I thought by now she would be ready to move on.”

The anger she had been trying suppress came boiling to the top.

“Move on?”

“Yes. I know it’s a process, so I figured in six months, she would at least be able to deal with seeing me, or talking to me.”

She heard the glimmer of confused male in his voice. Any other day, she would probably give him the benefit of the doubt, but today, her anger overrode any empathy she would normally have.

“So, you think there is some kind of fucking timeline that she should be on to recover from what was done to her?”

For the first moment, she saw he realized he might have made a mistake. His eyes widened, either from hearing the anger in her voice, or her use of a vulgar word. It wasn’t that she was a prude, but she didn’t cuss a lot.

“It’s not that.”

She jumped to her feet; pain stabbed at her as rage poured through her. She couldn’t stay still with so many different emotions bouncing around inside of her.

“After what she went through, the degradation, the loss of any kind of control, you think that by the six-month mark, she should be ready to bop on out for mani/pedis and be a regular girl, is that it?”

He opened his mouth, but she just ignored it. She couldn’t seem to stop.

“You have
no
idea what that is like. You have
no
idea how the whole entire world knows your business, knows exactly what happened to you. You have
no
idea that the one thing you need is compassion, and you can’t ask for it. Not physically. It hurts somewhere deep inside, and there is not one fucking bloody thing you can do to ease it. You need a gentle touch, but even the thought of someone touching you makes you want to vomit. What’s worse is that people blame
you
.”

She wiped away the tears that were now pouring from her eyes.

“They say you shouldn’t have dressed a certain way. You shouldn’t have been in
that
part of town. Or maybe, women are just not good on the job, and that somehow this proves it. And the people you need, the ones you thought would always be there for you, turn away from you. Blame, disgust...it doesn’t matter. It is
your
fault because you can’t get over what was done to you. Well, I’m sorry, Adam. There is no timetable. The rest of her life, she will remember. She will remember what it felt like to be violated in a way that will never heal. Not completely. And until you understand that, you will
never
be able to help.”

With that, she turned to walk out of his office. Before she could open the door though, she realized they had an audience. There, standing at the conference table were Drew, Charity, and Cat. The door had been closed, but she knew she had been shouting, and they had heard. Worse, she was a blubbery mess. She said nothing as she opened the door and walked out of Adam’s office. She walked past the team, not making eye contact. She made it all the way to her car before she completely broke down. She leaned against the steering wheel and let the tears fall. When she felt calm enough, she wiped away her tears and forced herself to drive. She needed solace and quiet.

T
he moment Graeme
and Floyd walked into the conference room, Graeme noticed there was definitely a solemn mood. Everyone seemed to stop talking the moment they walked in.

“What happened?” he asked.

Drew shook his head and looked at Charity.

Cat finally stepped forward. “I think you need to talk to Elle.”

He glanced around for the one person who was missing from the group, other than Elle. Adam.