My Tye (5 page)

In the year he’d known her, he’d never touched her like this. There’d been very little physical contact between them, nothing more than a few professional handshakes early on or an easy palm lingering at the small of her back as he’d hold a door open for her more recently. He supposed she had a pretty good idea he wanted more though, since he’d never kept his desire or willingness a secret from her. He loved flirting with her, and loved even more those little telltale signs that he might finally be getting to her, too.

But he’d never pushed the issue, not once. Guys like him just didn’t do that. Free will was top priority, and meant way too much.

Dr. Seaver stopped at the doorway and only entered when Tye finally looked up and met his concerned stare. Tye took one step away from the bed and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.

“How bad is she, Jim?”

Jim Seaver leafed through the papers clipped to her chart as he stepped closer to Laine’s bedside. “Honestly, not as bad as she looks. Most of this,” he indicated the bruises on her face, “is superficial and should heal relatively quickly. The eye socket is intact and the cut on her cheek is small enough it shouldn’t need anything more than that butterfly, but I’ve called in plastics to look at the laceration along her hairline.

“She does have a concussion, though. Most likely from the blow to the side of her head that caused the deep cut. It’ll take a few days for the pain from that to ease up.”

“And those marks?” Tye barely choked out the question. Of all her visible injuries, those were the ones that concerned him the most. They were too similar to the ones found on the four victims attacked outside a hush-hush sex club two counties over almost five years ago. But the sheriff there, Jack McKay, he had nailed that guy. The perp ended up sharing a cozy cell in the state prison facility, serving ten to twenty while praying he never accidentally dropped a bar of soap.

Jim hooked the chart on the end of the bed, took off his reading glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Quite frankly, they look like rope burns to me. Her wrists aren’t as bad as her neck, though. She’s got significant bruising and swelling, and chances are she’ll have some difficulty speaking once she fully wakes up.”

“Which will be?”

The doctor shrugged. “That’s hard to say. There are too many factors that can come into play with injuries like this.”

Perfect. A person either possessed the blessed trait of patience or they didn’t, and Tye had always prided himself on his. But this, Laine lying here hurt and unconscious, tested every bit of that patience.

“And just so you know,” Jim went on, “there’s no sign of her being sexually assaulted. She was fully clothed when the paramedics brought her in. Keep in mind, though, we haven’t been able to confirm that, not with her going in and out of consciousness the way she’s been.”

Damn if Jim hadn’t read his mind. But somehow knowing she likely hadn’t been violated in that way didn’t go very far in helping Tye feel all that much better about the situation.

He blew out a quiet “Yeah, thanks,” and rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “All right,” he said a little louder, composing himself a bit more. “I’ll be right outside the room talking with Tom. I want to know the instant anything changes.”

“You got it, Tye.” Jim tucked his reading glasses in the front pocket of his lab coat before reaching out to squeeze Tye’s shoulder. “Try not to worry too much. You know she’s become one of our own. We’ll take good care of her.”

All Tye could do was nod as he and Jim headed out of the exam room together. A raw edginess ignited at the base of his spine when Jim rattled off a list of instructions to Laine’s nurse. Before Tye could quash it, the restlessness had burned a trail up his back to center between his shoulder blades. He hated the feeling, hated how the itch crept down into his arms to pool in his palms. He wiped away the sweat gathering there, watching in silence through the doorway as the nurse went in to check the IV bag, then adjusted the tubes carrying the oxygen, along with the mask covering her nose before leaving Laine alone and heading back to the nurse’s station.

Whoever did this to her was going to pay, and pay big. Tye would make damn sure of that. First things first, though—he had to find the fucker.

He tore his gaze away from Laine and spun on his deputy. In a lame attempt to extinguish the fire making a mad dash to his nerve endings, he folded his arms over his chest and once again asked the question that had eaten away at him for the last half-hour.

“What the hell happened?”

Tom cleared his throat. “A call came in to HQ from a cell phone around one forty-five with a report of an injured woman in the alley behind Pete’s Tavern. Chuck and I arrived less than five minutes later to find Pete squatting beside Ms. Morgan, holding her hand. He told us he stepped outside to dump a load of garbage about fifteen minutes after last call and spotted her next to the dumpster.”

“Anyone else hanging around?” Tye asked.

Tom shook his head. “Not that he—or we—saw. The paramedics arrived only a few minutes after we did, and Ms. Morgan spent most of that time going in and out of consciousness. She couldn’t tell us or the medics anything, so nobody knows what happened.”

“Chuck out there getting things started?”

“He is. He did an initial search of the area and talked with the last of the stragglers hanging out in the bar.”

“And?” Tye asked.

“I talked to him about ten minutes ago. He didn’t find anything. Not her purse, her car, nothing. Of the people he interviewed at the scene, not one of them saw anything, and Pete said she hadn’t been in the bar earlier.”

Tye dropped his hands and paced the width of the hallway. “Okay. Call Steve in from SBI. Tell him to get out there and scour that alley to see if he can find any trace evidence.” He stopped and threw Tom a hard glance. “He knows the drill, but I want you to go back out there assist him anyway. You and Chuck make sure he bags and tags even the tiniest speck. Nothing is to be considered irrelevant. I want the fucker who did this caught, and caught quick.”

Tom straightened, nodded with a quick, “Yes sir,” and headed out of the ER, leaving Tye alone to deal with his thoughts. He leaned against the door frame and stared at Laine’s motionless body. What in God’s name had she been up to? Those rope burns… Jesus. Scenario after scenario bombarded his mind with possibilities of how she got those, but only one captured the top spot. The whole thing was just too similar to what that guy lurking around Club Euphoria had done all those years ago.

Hoping to hell he was way off base, he silently moved to her bedside. He had to know, had to see if she had any other markings anywhere else on her body. Even as he gently pulled on the edge of her hospital robe to get a better look at her neck and upper chest, he couldn’t help but think how much of a dick he was for entertaining the idea that Laine would readily go to a sex club at all, not when she was lying here completely beat to hell.

He supposed it was the Dom in him taking over. He was a friend of the county sheriff where those beatings had taken place, and he and Sheriff Mckay had a private lifestyle in common. He’d been more than willing to help care for those women in the aftermath of what the lowlife’s lawyer had so wrongly labeled during his trial as
consensual
erotic bondage roping
. There was definitely nothing consensual
or
erotic about what that guy had done to those women. He had blatantly attacked them and held them against their will for hours before hogtying and beating them to within an inch of their lives, only to toss them away after he’d had his fill.

Could he have been released from prison so soon? Or was this someone new, some sort of copycat? Even as Tye contemplated those two questions, a third and fourth raced through his mind. Was Laine into the bondage scene—a thought that, even though the situation was a grim one, had his mind and cock warring with each other—and if that was the case, was the nightmare from five years ago starting all over again? Was Laine a new victim?

If she was—or even if she wasn’t—the rope burns meant only one thing. She’d been tied up.

He didn’t see any other marks on the upper part of her body where ropes may have cut into her skin, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. His gut churned as he lifted the blanket off her legs to take a peek further down. There was nothing—until he got to her ankles.

Hell. They were just as red and raw as her wrists.

As rage welled inside his chest, he settled the blanket back around her legs and lifted his gaze to her face. She looked so damn peaceful, tranquil almost. But he knew that wouldn’t last. Once she woke up, turmoil would replace that beautiful calm expression. He hated for her to go through the roller coaster of emotions waiting for her and vowed right then to stand by her side through every bit of it. He’d hold himself in check and be there, no matter what she may say or do to convince him otherwise. Because deep down he had a raw, unshakeable knowledge that he and Ms. Laine Morgan were completely in sync. He could feel it to his bones, he could taste it on his tongue.

And through all the hell that was to come, he’d do his damnedest to show her that. If his hunch was right, if she
had
visited one of the few private clubs in the area…

Fuck, even if she hadn’t, it didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was finding the person who hurt her. That and helping her get through this. He’d damn well do anything and everything within his power to make that happen.

* * * * *

Laine tried to lick her lips. They felt thick—too thick. Dry and sore, too. When she lifted her hand to touch them with the expectation of finding cracked skin, her fingers hit some sort of plastic instead.

Odd, but she couldn’t seem to care. Lord, she was tired. So damn tired. Weak and achy too. She dropped her hand and rested it on her hipbone, curling her fingers around a soft blanket.

A blanket? She didn’t have a blanket with her. Especially one that felt like this.

Still, she didn’t care. She was warm, sleepy. Grabbing the blanket to pull it higher, she tilted her head the tiniest bit, ready to snuggle further into it, when a blinding pain pierced her left temple and throbbed a stabbing trail of ice picks across her forehead.

Holy crap.

Her breath caught and she bit back a moan. What in the world…

In an excruciating rush, panic replaced confusion.

The darkness. The cold. The ropes. Her screams.

No.
No, no, no
.

With her held breath aching in her chest, she forced her eyes open, but only managed to barely crack one. Even though the room around her glowed with a dim bluish hue, she had to squint against the searing stab the faint light caused. Steady beeps filled her ears along with muffled, raspy breaths she realized were her own.

Okay, so she wasn’t being held inside that old van
anymore. Nor was she bound and gagged. She was… Safe? Or not. Or… Oh God, she didn’t know where she was.

In an attempt to ease the daggers shooting through her brain, she closed her eyes and let out a slow, even breath. But it didn’t work. Nor did it calm her out-of-control heart rate or put a halt to the gruesome images stampeding behind her eyelids. One after another they popped up, each one more frightening than the last.

Fight or flight grabbed her in a chokehold, and the choice was a no-brainer. She had to get the hell out of here.

But where was here, exactly?

Despite the incessant beeps, the rest of the room was quiet—almost too quiet. A weak groan escaped her lips when she tried to open her eyes again and sit up to get a better look around. Every square inch of her body ached and even the tiniest movement made her head pound even more. The aches and throbs she could deal with, if only her thoughts and vision would clear.

Movement from the corner of the room snagged her attention. There was somebody there, somebody watching her. But she couldn’t focus, couldn’t see. She couldn’t tell who the hell it was.

It was him. It had to be him. She thought she’d escaped. She had, hadn’t she? But he found her. Somehow he found her. She sucked in another breath, pushing herself back, back, away… God, she had to get away.

He moved then, creeping toward her. Stalking her. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t. A god-awful screech came out instead, one that made her throat burn as if she’d just swallowed a ball of fire.

She didn’t have enough time, she wasn’t going to make it. He kept coming, just like he had before. He was reaching out to her now with those hands. Those huge hands.

Damn her blurry vision. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to look into the eyes of the person who was going to kill her.

The thought was brave, yet fleeting. In the next second, self-preservation took over. “No!” she squeaked. “No, God
no
…” She curled into herself and covered her head with her arms the best she could, kicking out with her legs, trying to save herself, to keep him away.

“Easy, easy! Laine, stop.”

She couldn’t stop, she couldn’t let him hurt her again.

“Laine! It’s me. Stop.”

The man grabbed her legs and held them down by practically lying on top of her. He was strong, so strong, and she was far too weak. She didn’t stand a chance.