My Tye (10 page)

“Did you get a look at him then?”

“Not really. He still had his face covered with a scarf and he wore one of those ski caps on his head.” She damned her voice for trembling then. “Only his eyes were showing.” His eyes… Something about his eyes pricked at the back of her befuddled mind, something she couldn’t quiet grab onto. “Wait. He had a scar. It ran right across his eye. But it was so dark. I couldn’t see anything else, I couldn’t do anything else…”

She stopped at that point, choking back a sob and wrapping her arms around herself. Even though the temperature had to be close to eighty, she was so cold. Shaky and freaked and frozen to the bone. So frozen she thought she may never thaw out.

“It’s okay.” He spoke with a hesitant restraint, but he still didn’t move. “Keep going.”

She sniffled and collected herself as best she could. Digging her fingernails into her arms, she clenched her jaw to keep from crying. After what seemed like an eternity, she said, “The rest happened so fast.” Keeping her arms folded, she looked down at her wrists. “You can see what he did to me while I was knocked out.”

Tye thought for a moment that he might stroke out. And she hadn’t even got to the really bad parts yet. He already knew he was going to kill the man who did this to her, the only thing he had to decide now was how to do it. And the only question he really needed the answer to was the one he knew he didn’t want to ask. Dr. Seaver told him there hadn’t been any evidence of sexual assault, but what if her attacker tried, what if he touched her, what if he…

Fuck
.

“He tied you up. I can tell by the marks on your wrists and ankles. And I’m guessing, by the marks on your neck, that he had you restrained that way, too.”

When her chin quivered and tears welled in her eyes for a second time in as many minutes, he knew he’d held himself back long enough. He went to her, crouching in front of where she sat. With a light touch, he stroked up her calves. Her skin was warm through the scrubs, warm yet taut. She held every muscle in her body so rigid, just as he was holding himself.

He closed his eyes, but only for a second, in order to steel his control for what he had to ask her. “Did he touch you? Sexually, I mean.” He dropped his knees to the deck. “Dr. Seaver said there was no evidence, but—”

“No!” she croaked out. “God no. He didn’t. He tied me up, hit me, over and over, telling me again and again what a stupid whore I was, what an abomination women like me were. But he didn’t… No, no, he didn’t.”

“Thank God,” Tye said, sitting back on his heels and laying his forehead against her knees. Her adamancy, combined with a deep breath, went a long way in helping him relax just a fraction. Not enough to kill the urge he had to tear this fucker limb from limb, but enough for him to know he could handle the type of violence she endured way easier than if she’d been raped. In fact, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to handle it at all if she had been.

When she ran her hands over the back of his head and down to his neck, his body tensed again for an entirely different reason. He blew out his held breath before lifting his head to meet her gaze.

“He hurt me,” she said. “He’s got me scared to the bone, Tye. But he didn’t touch me. Not like that.”

“Tell me where you were.”

She brought her hands around to cup his face. “You act like you already know.”

He had a pretty good idea. He just needed her to confirm it. Raising off his heels, he straightened and met her eye to eye. When she opened her knees the tiniest bit, he slid right in between them. “I need to hear you say it.”

She shook her head ever so slightly. “I don’t want to. I’m afraid…”

Ah God. Hearing that nearly killed him. “Don’t be. Not of me. Don’t ever be afraid of me.”

“It’s not you, it’s…”

She didn’t say any more, and he didn’t push her. She’d tell him that particular detail eventually, one way or the other. It was important, and he needed to know, but for now he’d have to make do with finding out the rest.

“What did you do after he stopped and came at you again?”

She slid her hands down his chest and carefully leaned back in the chair. “The only thing I could do. He had that rope around my neck, and I was sitting up against the wall, tied to a hook inside the van so I wouldn’t get away. I’d turned away from him and covered my head as best I could with my wrists tied together, expecting the worst. That’s when my foot hit something.”

“What was it?”

“I wasn’t sure at first. I managed to get it under my foot and bring it closer. I didn’t know it was a screwdriver until I wrapped my hands around it.”

Son of a bitch.

“A screwdriver?”

She nodded. “One of those long-shafted ones. I got the butt of it in my hands and was able to turn on him just as he reached me.”

“You stabbed him with it.” It wasn’t a question. Didn’t need to be one, since the scene he found back at her house had already clued him in.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them a little. “He was coming at me and I just… I don’t know how I did it.”

He knew. Adrenaline. Instinct. And a shit-ton of bravery. “You did what you had to do. You did what anyone would do to survive.”

When she opened her eyes, a tear escaped. “I got him in the shoulder. He fell backward, against the rear doors, swearing and spitting and calling me every name in the book. It was like I was moving under some kind of fast-forward remote control then. I managed to get up on my knees. I remember my hands were shaking like crazy. But I did it. I untied the knot holding me to the wall. He kept lunging at me, but I started kicking at him—mostly trying to hit his head and that screwdriver—while biting on the ropes at my wrists.” She sucked in a deep breath. “It took forever, and he kept coming at me, punching me, but I eventually got loose. The rope around my ankles… That one was harder, tighter, but by then I’d kicked him enough and jammed that screwdriver in even deeper. At that point, he was clutching his arm against his chest and I was able to get one more good kick in at his head before I worked the rope free.” He wasn’t sure what rode him harder—the aching need to draw her into his arms and never let her go, or the blood-rage running through him to kill the man who did this to her. Each reaction warred within him, fighting for that top spot, the one that would make him react.

But she was here, sitting in front of him. Warm and alive, yet despite the strength he saw in her, also terrified to her bones. Taking her hands into his, he held on and prompted her again.

“That’s when you got away?”

She looked to their hands and nodded again. “I scrambled over to the side door, jumped out and just ran. I didn’t even look where I was going. Not until I saw a building with lights. I headed toward that, but I don’t remember getting there.”

“Pete’s place.”

“Yeah, must’ve been.”

When she withdrew her hand and placed it gingerly over the bandage at her temple and closed her eyes, he knew she’d had enough. He didn’t get all his questions answered—namely the one regarding where she’d been—but that was okay. For now. He had other ways of finding out for sure where the attack had taken place, but right now his top priority was to have her rest. Still holding one of her hands, he stood, tugging on it gently to both get her attention and have her follow him.

“Come on. Let’s get you in the house.”

She groaned. The delicate sound was both low and breathy, and despite feeling like he was ready to explode, he smiled a little at her not wanting to move.

“Can’t I just stay here?”

“You could, but I promise that you’ll be way more comfortable inside.”

He helped her stand, keeping one arm around her as they made their way to the front door. She fit so perfectly there, under his arm and by his side. The realization speared him more than he ever thought something like that would.

He threw open the screen and unlocked the door before ushering her inside. “It’s this way. You can take my room, I’ll bunk in the spare.”

“I can’t shove you out of your own room, Tye.”

“You’re not shoving me out of anywhere. I’m offering my room. It has a bigger bed and a way softer mattress than the one in the spare room. I just want you to rest, and it’s the best place I have in the house for you to do that. So not another word.”

The look she tossed up at him had him trying to decide whether to grin again or frown a little.

“You’re bossy,” she said.

“I’m practical,” he retorted, throwing his Stetson onto the living room couch before leading her down the hallway.

In a move that surprised him, she rested her head against his chest. “Bossy’s not always such a bad thing, you know. Sometimes people need to be bossed. Or controlled. Or…”

She left that last hanging, which damn near killed him. He wanted to ask, “Or what?” but he didn’t. Instead, he steered her into his bedroom and over to his disheveled bed.

Before he had the chance to tell her he wanted to change the sheets, she crawled into the bed and curled herself around the few pillows he’d strewn about when he left in a rush last night. The sight of her lying there on his bed and the way her dark hair contrasted with the pale blue sheets, combined with the way she closed her eyes and the sigh she slowly let out…

He swallowed once, then again, struggling to keep his composure. Struggling to keep himself from climbing in there with her. “Wait a sec, let me at least put on a clean set of sheets.”

“Mmm, no, it’s okay,” she said, not even opening her eyes or glancing up. “This is fine. Better than fine. These sheets, they smell…”

Well, yeah. The last time he changed them had probably been…

“Like you,” she finished.

Okay, that wasn’t what he expected her to say. Still, he liked that she did. Liked it enough that he had to force himself to leave the room to allow her to rest. He had some business to take care of, business that would never get done if he stood here and let his feelings and reactions get the better of him. He may want nothing more than to crawl into that bed beside her and hold her to keep her safe, but he also knew doing that wouldn’t readily solve the issue at hand.

With one last glance at her snuggled in his bed, he let the door hang slightly ajar and crossed the hallway into his home office. Once he sat in the chair behind his desk, he gave himself a moment to just…God, breathe. He felt like he hadn’t had the chance to since the phone rang and woke him last night. He had so many thoughts and images and what-ifs and who-the-fucks running through his mind, and he hated that. Hated not being in control.

His control defined him, defined who he was. And Laine Morgan had the power to send ripples of chaos over what was normally his even-keeled demeanor. If that chaos only uprooted his libido, shit, he’d be all for it. Hell, he might even like it. But her, hurt and in danger, being threatened and stalked? He wouldn’t stand for that. He couldn’t.

He reached inside his pocket, dug out his smart phone and opened the mapping program. When he keyed in the cross streets she’d mentioned earlier and the location popped up in full color on the screen, the breath he’d just taken turned into ice inside his lungs.

Club Euphoria was a block and half away from where she said she’d been parked.

Not again
, he thought.
Don’t let this start again.

Closing the map and opening his contacts, he scrolled down the list of names until he reached the one he needed, then tapped Send. The line was answered a split second after the first ring.

“McKay.”

“Hey, Jack. It’s Tye.”

“Tye. What’s up?”

No point in beating around the bush. “Wanted to check with you about an assault that took place last night. A woman was found beaten and unconscious, lying next to the dumpster outside Pete’s Tavern around one a.m. The victim is Laine Morgan, Lake County’s Public Defender. You know her?”

The muttered “fuck” coming from the other end of the line drove a knife straight into Tye’s gut.

“I take it you do.”

There was a heavy moment of nothing. Then a quiet, “We’ve met.”

“Where?” The hesitant silence wasn’t a good sign, so Tye pushed forward. “I’m not playing games here, Mac. I have to know. Was it at the club? Was she there last night?”

The sigh part-time Club Euphoria manager and full-time Samson County Sheriff Jack McKay let out went a long way in answering the question for him.

“You know I can’t just up and answer that.”

Tye figured he’d say that, and at any other time he’d respect the man’s reluctance to divulge private club information. But not this time. “This is me, Jack. Based on the fact she was brutally attacked…” Tye propped an elbow on the desk and rested his forehead in his hand. “You can either cut the bullshit and just tell me, or I can go the legal route and take your records into evidence.”

“Jesus, Tye. Don’t get all procedural on me. Our privacy policy—”

“Fuck your privacy policy,” Tye bit out, slapping his hand on the desktop. “This goes beyond that. This is about a woman who could’ve been killed.”

“The way you’re jumping all over me, I have to wonder if that’s all there is to it.”