Dante tapped his head. “We’ve been watching his kind for years.”
She’d been hopelessly outmatched. It was a good thing on many levels that Couch hadn’t tried to attack her because she couldn’t have done anything to stop him.
“Tell us about your mom’s assault.” Trax’s tone turned deadly serious.
She’d already confessed that she wanted the man dead, so it wouldn’t do any harm to tell them the truth. “The first time Harvey Couch raped my mother was twenty years ago. As a result she got pregnant, but my brother was stillborn. She went into a postpartum depression that caused my father to leave us.” She inhaled to swallow the rage. “A few months ago, Couch returned. Only this time he didn’t seem content to rape her once more. The bastard came back week after week.” Tears streamed down her face.
They exchanged glances, but Trax was the one to continue the interrogation. “We’re terribly sorry. Do you have proof it was Couch?”
She stood, retrieved her purse, and pulled out her mother’s diary. “Yes. Last week, my mother committed suicide because she couldn’t take it anymore. I found this in her drawer.” She was proud she was able to state that fact without faltering. “I’ll read a little bit to you if that’s okay.”
“Please do.”
She inhaled to muster the courage to go through the horror of that night. “This is dated twenty years ago. Dear Diary,
“I don’t know if I can go on. The absolute worst thing in my life happened last night and I can’t tell anyone. Not even Brian.”
Liz closed the diary for a minute but kept her finger in the spine. She hesitated to read farther, but the men wouldn’t help her get Couch unless they heard the whole story. “Brian’s my dad. If my mom wouldn’t even tell him, it must have been bad. My father said in the beginning of their marriage, they’d shared everything.”
Trax nodded to the book. “There’s more I trust?”
“Yes. A lot.”
She opened the book again and read.
“Brian was out of town on business, and I was in bed reading when I heard a noise in the kitchen. I thought maybe he’d come home a few days early. When nothing else sounded, I assumed it was my imagination so I went back to my book. That’s when the nightmare started. A tall shadow appeared in my doorway. It was Harvey Couch grinning at me like I was some prize. I pulled the sheet up over my chest and asked him why he was there even though I knew. The man was pure evil.”
Liz swallowed hard. “The next few pages detail the rape. It’s horrifying.” She slammed the book shut as tears streamed down her face. She cried not only for what her mom had gone through but also because her mother had suffered the cruelty and degradation by herself. Liz sniffled and decided to paraphrase instead of read. The memory of her mom became too alive when she saw the words. “My mom wrote that because Harvey Couch was so wealthy, she believed if she went to authorities to turn him in, his lawyers would say she instigated it. After all, they’d spent weeks together while she showed him homes.”
Liz shut her eyes and imagined how horrifying that must have been for a woman alone. “Couch might have been pissed at my mom for some reason, but whatever the alleged offense, rape wasn’t the answer.”
“What did the diary say about the recent attack?” Dante asked.
She sniffled. “The entries became more sparse, but she named Couch as her rapist again.” Liz opened the book. “The bastard came again and raped me. Couch laughed and said if I talked he’d ruin Liz and anyone else I care about.” She closed her eyes. “The entries are blank for the next two weeks, but then she wrote, ‘He’s here again. This is the third time this month. I’m not sure I can take much more of this.’”
She shut the book one final time. “My mom killed herself a week later.”
Both men came over, sat next to her, and rubbed her hand. “We’re so sorry,” Dante said. “Couch is a bad man, but killing him isn’t the answer.”
Easy for him to say. “What would you have done?”
Dante’s lips firmed and turned down in a frown. “Me? I would have shot the bastard.”
She almost smiled at his vehemence. “So what can I do now?”
Trax stood and held out his hand. “You need to come with us. It’s not safe here.”
She nodded to Trax’s holster. “Does your gun have the right bullets?”
He placed a hand on his weapon. “Yes, but—”
“No buts. I want some. The next time I won’t try to poison him first.”