Some Day Somebody (2 page)

He closed in on her, hot breath in her face once more, his tone low and dangerous. “You’ll never know another man if I can help it.”

She jerked away, overpowered by a repulsive mixture of cologne, stale tobacco, and beer. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

He cupped her chin roughly. “That’s a promise.”

Carrie pulled away from his touch, ignoring the chill his words caused. She clucked her tongue as one of the town’s black and white units made a u-turn on the boulevard and hit the lights. “They’re
hee-erre
,” she said, standing her ground until the cruiser carrying two of Gardiner P.D.’s finest pulled up to the store.

The Chief of Police hitched his jeans and
harrumphed
, sounding somewhat like an outboard boat motor. Rob
LeDoux
stood an impressive six feet two inches, and even in his mid forties, came across as solid as a wall of brick and mortar. In his prime, he’d been a hell of a line backer for Gardiner High. Carrie watched him approach and make one final adjustment to his navy blue cap. 

“Carrie,” he said, with a slight nod.

“Hey, Rob. I see you survived the slumber party. I’m on my way to pick up Lauren and Gretchen from your place.” She smiled up at the Chief, whose daughter had been friends with her girls since first grade.

Rob glanced at his watch. “Yep, they might be awake by now. When I called at noon, Mona said
Abbie
and your twins were still asleep.” He focused a scowl on Dave. “So what’s the problem?”

Carrie jerked her head toward Dave. “He won’t let me by.”

“We need to talk,” Dave growled.

“We’re done talking.”

Before Dave could respond, the big man in uniform clasped his shoulder in an iron grip, giving him a back-the-hell-off glare only a fool would ignore.

The younger officer, a T. Hardin, according to his pin, stayed behind to question her.  He relieved her of the grocery bags. “Ma’am, are you hurt?”

Carrie unlocked her car and popped the trunk open. “Nope, inconvenienced is all.”

The officer placed the bags into the trunk and slammed it shut. “What’s his excuse for bothering you?”

“Our divorce is finalizing soon, and he’s not happy about it.” She peered around the guy’s biceps to keep an eye on Dave.

“Maybe he thinks marriage is too important to walk away so easily.”

Carrie whipped her head around to face the officer, a good looking guy in his late twenties to early thirties, well groomed and muscular. His hunky looks didn’t quell her irritation at his judgmental comment. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“If you were, you’d know how many times he’s walked away in the last eighteen years.”

Carrie watched the man’s hooded gaze turn to scrutinize Dave. She could tell the moment the officer’s opinion morphed from ‘desperate husband’ to ‘perpetrator’.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Maybe you are better off without him.”

“And maybe you’d be better off not jumping to conclusions before you get the whole story.” When he turned his gaze back to her, Carrie didn’t falter, still too full of heart-pumping adrenaline to back down from anyone.

“You may be right.”

She jumped at the slam of a truck door, and pulled her gaze from the young officer’s mesmerizing green eyes. She turned in time to see Dave tear out of the parking lot like he was late for a fire sale at a whore house.

Chief Rob walked over to meet her. “He won’t give you any more trouble.”

She raised her hand to block the sun’s glare from her eyes and squinted up at her old friend. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

The chief pulled a plastic wrapped toothpick from his shirt pocket. “If he does inside city limits, I’ll find his ass.” He popped the pick in his mouth then pulled a business card out of his wallet to write something on the back before handing it to her. “As soon as I get back to the office, I’ll call the Sheriff’s office and fill them in. You call this guy if you have any trouble outside of town.”

“Ma’am?”
She cringed in mock horror at the label. “I’m not a ma’am...My
mother
is a ma’am.”

His gaze grew somber. “It’s not an age thing, but a gender thing for me, I assure you.”

“It still makes me feel old.” She thanked them both and left to pick up her girls from the slumber party.

She parked her sedan in front of a wood-frame home and tapped on her horn.

Mona
LeDoux
came to the door and waved. “I’ll send them out,” she called from the front door.

Carrie nodded then settled back to wait for her girls.  She stared out at Mona
Ledoux’s
collection of garden gnomes, wondering what kind of life she could look forward to.  No husband to bring her down, responsible for herself and her kids, with nobody to blame but herself if things didn’t work out.

She dropped her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes for a moment to consider the ‘Dave situation’. Over the past six months of their separation he’d made some half-hearted attempts to get her back, but she knew the truth behind his empty promises. He’d still be the unfaithful, controlling, unsatisfied man he’d always been. Would he continue to cause trouble for her once the divorce was final? Once she moved into her rent house in January?

She wasn’t afraid of him...for all his bluster, Dave was harmless, but she was tired of trying to avoid him. She wanted to skip the next six months...fast forward to a time when he’d already have someone else so he’d leave her the hell alone.

That thought made her wonder what she would be doing six months from now.  She adjusted the rearview so she could see herself.  “I won’t be with a man, that’s for damn sure,” she murmured, wiping a smudge of mascara from the corner of one eye. “Dave cured me of that for good.”

What baffled her was the way her almost-ex had fought this divorce every step of the way. Lately, his attempts to win her back had grown to the level of desperation.

Carrie rubbed her eyes, exhausted from the hour commute after a long work day. She yawned, wishing there were good job opportunities for computer drafters closer to home. As long as she lived in Gardiner, it was a given that she’d be stuck on the road two hours a day, five days a week, for God knew how many years. It exhausted her just thinking about it. Her mother had suggested that she move closer to her work, but how could she uproot her kids in the midst of a divorce?  Her mom’s words from their last discussion came back to her. “
Carrie, kids are resilient.  We relocated twice when you kids were young and you all survived.”
 

“But our parent’s weren’t going through a divorce,” she said, readjusting her mirror.

Carrie tightened her grip on the steering wheel, recalling her husband’s hateful words.
“You know you can’t do this on your own...”
The comment ate at her, made long-dormant feelings of inadequacy rise to the surface like dead fish in a stagnant pond. Feelings she thought she’d buried with the college degree she received. No...Earned...Fought for, by defying Dave’s demands she stay home and be
just
a wife and mother. He’d always said it like there was no effort involved. As though the years she spent raising children and tending to the household was a minor thing, but still, all she could handle.

Bitterness and resentment rose from the pit of her stomach to sour in her mouth. She sought the image of the middle-aged stranger staring back at her in the rearview mirror. She raised a finger to the worry lines creasing her forehead. “What made you think you could do this, you stupid, stupid woman?”

Carrie inhaled a deep, cleansing breath before side stepping the self-doubt. “What you should be asking is what made you think you couldn’t? Or who?” She shook her head forcefully, disgusted she’d let him get to her. “Damn you, Dave.”

Long after Gretchen and Lauren joined her in the car, she continued to launch low curses targeted at her ex.

“Mom?”
Gretchen asked, interrupting Carrie’s personal rant.

“Hmmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, you look kind of mad,” Lauren chimed in.

Carrie gazed back at the looks of concern on her twins’ faces, and knew she couldn’t give in to her fears. Years from now, she wanted her kids to remember she was strong when she needed to be.

“I was, but I’m over it,” she said, pinning her gaze back on the roadway.

“At Dad?”
Lauren asked.

“I was scared more than angry, but it’s my fault for letting him get to me.”

Gretchen turned in the front seat to face her. “Are you still scared?”

Carrie reached out and brushed Gretchen’s golden brown curls back from her face, then smiled at Lauren in the rearview mirror. “Not anymore.”

And she wasn’t afraid...Not until the two a.m. phone call the next morning. He spoke no words, made no sounds, but she could somehow feel the threat, more dangerous because of its ominous silence. Was it him?

You’ll never know another man if I can help it.

The memory of Dave’s threat haunted her, kept her awake, tossing and turning, until the five a.m. alarm sounded for work.

***

One week later

Lafayette, Louisiana

The
 
young
woman’s sightless eyes fixed on the ceiling, her face, void of expression—vacant—as though she’d taken herself far from the tiny apartment.

He stared down at her, pleased with the effects of their latest session.  Vivid, red whelps combined with the pattern of purple, black, and blue, mimicking the patchwork quilt draped across the back of her couch.

He leaned closer and whispered, watching for any reaction from her. “You’re tough, I’ll give you that.”

He fastened the sturdy, square buckle and threaded his belt through its last loop. Recalling the sharp
whack
of smooth leather meeting her skin, made him long to hear it again. No time for another round with her. Several weeks of careful planning had culminated in three glorious days of self-indulgent pleasure.

His motivation to maintain the carefully structured schedule had been the same for nearly a decade. 
Freedom.
 
To play...Without having to pay.

He pulled on his boots and straightened, studying her one last time. “Maybe that mulish pride will keep you fighting long enough to survive.” He paused to brush the back of his hand down the length of her face and neck. “If you do, maybe I’ll pay you another visit one day soon,” he murmured, mildly disappointed his threat hadn’t produced fear in eyes that were otherwise useless. Some would consider her unlucky for being blind since birth, but he knew the truth of it, and so did she. No sight—no way to identify him—a chance to live.

***