Blood in the Water(116)

Chapter Twenty-Two



She’d sat in the back of that van on the way to Doc Anderson’s house and hadn’t said a word to Paul. She hadn’t spoken when he’d knocked Doc Anderson out of his bed or while they’d been sitting in his front room while he’d examined Terry and stitched him up. Apparently Terry had been extremely lucky, but the Doc still wanted him to take it easy for a while. She’d been prodded and poked and prodded some more. The only reason that she could even find the smallest thread of sanity to cling to as the doctor checked her over was that he’d been their family doctor since she was a child; the club always called on him when they had an injury that was more than she could take care of and they couldn’t risk inquisitive hospital staff.



Doc Anderson knew not to ask questions about club business, but he’d had to ask her some so he could care for her and she’d answered as best she could. He’d been legitimately concerned about the state she was in and she’d had to admit, on top of the bruising and the split lip that she’d collected during the course of the night, that she probably hadn’t been taking care of herself as well as she could have done, so she’d let him take a couple of vials of blood for some tests.



Tag had been planning to take her to the clubhouse, but she asked him to take her to Paul’s so that she could collect her car and go back to her own apartment. Terry had vetoed the idea of her driving, as strenuously as he was able to past the painkillers that the Doc had given him, so she’d agreed only to pick up her apartment keys. Paul had stayed in the van while she’d found what she needed in his house. She had seen the way his face twisted when she came out wearing the dress she’d worn for the funeral, having discarded his bloodstained sweater, but she’d been too exhausted to care.



Somehow her car had been in the parking space allotted for her building when she’d woken up about twelve hours after her head had hit the pillow. She didn’t care how it got there, or who had put the keys in her mailbox, but she was glad that someone had. It meant that she hadn’t had to go to the house and face him to ask for her keys.



She couldn’t avoid him now, though. It had been a little more than a week. She hadn’t realized in the first days, mainly because she hadn’t left her bed, but when she had decided to face the world again she’d realized that most of her clothes were no longer in her wardrobe. Lots of her everyday belongings were no longer in her apartment. So here she was, standing on his porch, trying to find the courage to knock on his door.



She wasn’t afraid of him, only of how much his betrayal had hurt her, and of how much power he still had to cause her pain. Her father had told her that she could be here without fear, but he hadn’t known what her fear truly was. If she had been presented with a magic wand and a word to say that would have transported all her stuff back to her apartment, she would have used it. The next best thing was to ask the boys to get everything for her, but she couldn’t remember what was here or where everything was; and she felt that they’d been witness enough to her stupidity and humiliation. For the second time she had trusted a man who had thrown her away, had broken her. She needed to do this on her own, whether she wanted to or not.



She’d left it as late as she dared. It was Friday afternoon. He would need to leave for Church in a couple of hours. At least she knew there was going to be a deadline for this torment. It was painful enough just being on the porch. Memories from the first day, the day that Paul had moved in, were vivid in her mind. She could see Chiz in his cast, sitting on the edge of the decking, her father and Dizzy hefting furniture. She and her mother had cleaned this house from top to bottom. There wasn’t a nook or cranny that she couldn’t visualize. Even with the furniture in, she was sure she could find her way around this house blindfolded.



She lifted her hand and knocked twice.



Maybe he wouldn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t home. It was a futile hope. She could see him through the clouded glass, a vague shape becoming larger and larger until the barrels of the locks clicked and the door began to open.



“Beauty...”



“Don’t. Don’t call me that. I’m only here to get my things.”



He stepped back and motioned her into the house with a sweep of his arm. “I’ll wait in the kitchen ‘til you’re done.”



She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to know if he felt pain or satisfaction. She tuned out the tone of his voice, concentrating only on the words themselves. He was going to be in the one room in which she thought she owned nothing. That was fine by her. She went through the house, systematically checking each room. She even checked upstairs, even though she knew it wasn’t inhabited. The majority of her belongings were in the bedroom. Unfortunately, that was also the room that contained the majority of her memories. She had to concentrate on anything other than what she was doing to work her way through that room. Every time she moved something or shoved a garment into a black trash bag, there was a memory attached, stuck with superglue. There was a lot of history, even for such a short time, that she would be bringing back with her.