In Search of Grace (35 page)

             
Alex laughed. 
“So
, in essence, what
you are saying
is
that I should stay, get the shit kicked out of me
,
and then try to run.”

             
“No
,
Alex!  What I am saying is take control of your situation.  Observe.  Find their weakness.  Kick their
kneecap
out
,
gouge their eyes
,
a
nyth
ing to give you the upper hand.”

             
“I don’t think
I
can hurt someone else.”

             
Seth stared at her
,
incredulous.  “
Do you think whoever hurt you gave a
rat’s
ass whether or not you felt any pain?”

             
Alex blanched.  “Don’t be a jerk
,
Seth.
  You don’t know what happened to me.
”

             
Seth grabbed her.  “I am not trying to be a jerk
,
Alex.  I am trying to save you
r
fucking life
!
”

             
“Let go of me.”  Alex gritted her teeth.

             
“No.  You need to hear me out
,
because I feel like I am not getting through to you
,
and you definitely are not ta
king
me serious
ly
.
W
e have been dancing around each other
on this subject
since we met
.
I have been getting bits and pieces of what happened to you, never the full story.
I have left you alone as you stonewall
ed
me
time and time again
.  The problem is with your avoidance
,
you are not facing reality.  Neither is your friend
,
Charles
,
for that matter
. 
I am going to tell you what the reality is
,
Alex
.
  I have two dead women and one barely hanging on at Brigham and
W
omen
’s Hospital as we speak
.  All three had the shit kicked out of them
,
and every one was raped.”

             
Alex covered her ears
,
and her face paled.  Seth grabbed her hands and yanked them
off
her head.

             
“No, dammit
,
you’re
not running anymore
,
and yo
u
’
r
e
hearing all of it.
 
Don’t you get it? 
Rape
was not
enough for him, he
could not
just leave them there
after he used them
, he strangled them, redressed them and then positioned their bodies
the way he wanted them to be
.  Before walking away, probably without even looking back, he placed a bouquet of lilies
in
their hand
,
laying them
on their stomach.”

             
Alex felt ill.  Dropping to her
knees,
she vomited.  Seth would not allow himself to feel any sympathy for her. Relentlessly he continued.  “Each one was left dead with their eyes open
,
with the initials P&G carved into their shoulders with a knife while they were still alive
,
because he is a sick and unfeeling bastard.”  Hauling her back up to her feet, he shook her.  “What is making me sick is that I think this is the
same
person that hurt you
,
but because you are running so hard
,
I can’t get you to talk about it. 
You know what else
I think
?
  I think those initials are part of the key.  I think that
those initials
represent Peter and Grace.
  You are Grace.”
 
Seth stabbed
her in the chest with his finger to
emphasize
his point.  Seth knew by the look on her face that he finally
hit home.
 
“
So, I don’t care if you whine until the cows come home.
I am going to get through to you one way or another
.
” 

             
Turning, Seth stormed into his house
,
slamming the door behind him
,
leaving Alex to stare blindly
after him
.  She felt alone and confused as she walked back to her house
,
closing the gate behind her.

             
Seth felt no remorse for talking to Alex in such a harsh way
,
k
nowing that his
cruelty
today
could be what saves her life tomorrow.  It made him sick thinking that this killer was still out there.  He believed in every pore of his being that Alex was the one that the killer was looking for.  No, found.  There he said it. 
Every one
of them ignored the fact that
this lunatic was stalking her
.  Hell he could be sitting outside right now
,
and no one
seem
ed
to care.
  Everyone, including him, too busy burying his or her head in the sand.
  Jumping in the shower, Seth scrubbe
d his skin until he felt raw. 
He felt like a fraud.  Here he was yelling at her about not facing reality
;
he was the biggest culprit of them all
,
and it was eating him up.

             
Stepping out of the
shower,
he thought of Richards
’s
wife
,
Jeannette.  He
had not
seen her or the baby since
Richards’s
funeral.  He avoided every phone call from her
, every piece of mail she sent
.  Eventually the calls
and mail
stopped.
He
swore
that when this mess with Alex was over, he would go and visit
her
.
 
Throwing on his
sweats,
he walked barefoot into his office and stared at the large
manila
folder sitting
in the middle of
his desk. 
Ignoring
it,
he
walked
over, poured a generous amount of whiskey in a glass, and took a huge gulp before pouring another shot
while the first burned fire down his gut
. 
Sitting at the desk, he reached out
, turning
the envelope over and over in his hand
s
.  He dreaded opening
it
up.  Dreaded seeing Alex, beaten and
bruised
and God only knew what else.  Mark had
warned
him that it was not pretty
and coming from
Mark,
that
said a lot to him.
  Very little shook
Mark
but what
ever was in this envelope
had done just that
. 
             

             
Leaning
back,
he took another sip
,
now twirling the letter opener in his hand.

             
“Fuck it!”

             
Slicing through the thick padding with the
opener,
he reached in and pulled the file folder out.  Steeling himself, he pushed aside the paper work until he got to the pictures.  Alex’s
eyes
s
tared at him
from the photograph
. 
Her hair was shorter but the same gorgeous brown that he loved so much. 
Seth was stunned.  The pictures spread out before him on the desk was of someone he did not even recognize.  Her face beaten to the point that she could not even o
pen her eyes,
her face
pale and
her throat covered with bruising from hands that had wrapped around her neck.
 
The bruising s
o distinct
,
that he could see where each finger had lain
across her throat
.
  The photographs showed vivid scratch marks on various parts of
her
body.  He felt ill.  This was not someone that survived an assault.  This was someone that survived a murder attempt.  This was personal.

             
This person
in the photograph
was just a shell
of
the woman he
knew today. 
She had held out her arms and wrists
for the photographer.  T
he ligature marks were raw and crusted over with dried blood.
Forcing down the bile that rose to his throat, he went to another picture.
 
This one was a close up of her legs.
Blood had matted and some
of it
ran in streaks down her legs
to her feet
while
her knees
were
scraped
raw,
probably from falling or
being
dragged
.  Large bruises on the inside of her thighs showed how much she struggled against him
f
ighting the inevitable.
She had covered her face
in this picture.
Seth could only image the fear, pain
,
and loneline
ss she must have felt that day.
He stood and grabbed the whole bottle of
JB
,
and with a hand now shaking
,
poured a full glass before he went to the next pict
ure.  This one was of her back.  It
also
was
covered
with
many bruises
.  So many that
he could not tell where one ended and another began.  On her upper right shoulder was the crude marking where he had sliced her skin
to form
the letter “P
.
”
  Seth turned picture after picture
over
until he reached the end before quietly clos
ing
the folder.  He sat for hours processing what he saw
,
knowing that if this guy was in front of him, he would shoot him without thinking twice and do the time with a smile on his face.

             
Two weeks later, Alex was lying flat on her back on the mat wincing from pain.
Every muscle was screaming at her
to stop
.  Seth had her pinned down again
,
and all she wanted was to
give up
.
  T
wo weeks
had passed
since Seth first started her training
and since she learned of the assaults on the other women.  S
h
e was emotionally and
physically
exhausted
,
and to add insult to injury, Seth
avoided
every flirtation she thre
w
his way
.  His
avoidance
was getting into her head
,
and her
nerves
were frayed
;
and right now with him on top of her pinning her down
again,
she could feel all sense of caring going out of her.
  This
was not
helping.  Her nightmares were getting worse.

             
Seth felt the fight leave her and wondered if he had p
ushed her to far these past
couple of
weeks.

             
“Fight Alex
!
”

             
“
I am done
,
Seth.
Get off of me!!!”