Part 6

I picked Charlotte up and started moving to the front door. Fifteen seconds. I got her inside the truck and she was fully conscious now. Her eyelids were fluttering a little, her neck red from where his hands had been. I started the truck at the count of 35 seconds and drove off.

I looked back in the rearview mirror and I saw him in the street, looking at the back of the truck. I turned the corner and accelerated. I looked over at her as she took deep breaths, her hand at the base of her throat.

“Just breathe,” I said to her. I had to wonder why she had to call me. “Why didn’t you call Max?” I already knew the answer to that question. She didn’t want anyone to know about her history, but I asked the question anyway.

“No cops,” she said as I drove past the police station, automatically taking a different route just in case he tried to follow us. The streets were empty as I turned onto the road leading to my farm. I pulled into the garage and opened the door for her. She followed me outside and I closed the garage doors.

Charlotte walked in first after I unlocked the kitchen door. I unholstered the Jericho and put it down on the counter. I didn’t think she registered the presence of the gun and if she did, she didn’t say anything. She sat down at the kitchen table and I could see her face more clearly in the stark lighting of the kitchen. She had taken a good beating from him.

I put the kettle on and took two cups from the cupboard. “Don’t you have anything stronger?” Her voice was a little hoarse and I put one cup back and took out a whiskey glass. I took the unopened bottle of whiskey from another cupboard and put it down in front of her along with the glass. When I finished my coffee, I sat down opposite her.

“You’re not having any?” she asked as she filled her glass and took a sip from it. I heard the slight intake of breath as the whiskey stung her split lip. I never drank in the days before an assignment. I had rules and my routine was what kept me alive when I went on the hunt.

“No,” I answered her. The whiskey had been a gift from Quince the day I moved in here and it had been standing at the back of the cupboard for the past six months. She kept looking at the glass in her hand while I openly stared at her.

“Why did you call me?” I was still confused that she had.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and I frowned at that. She had friends in town. People liked her. She could’ve called anyone, but she chose me.

“Are you going to tell me the truth or just shirk around it and hope I don’t ask too many questions and life goes on?” Charlotte finally looked up at me and something in her eyes spoke to me. 

“I didn’t know who else to call. I can’t go to the police,” she said solemnly. “Something about you…made me feel like I could trust you.” Could she trust me? Yes, she could.

“Who is he?” I already knew who he was but I wanted to know if she was going to tell me. His name was Andrew Douglas, aged thirty-two, once employed as a detective in Nevada. More recently he retired, having cashed out his pension and started looking for Charlotte. He would still have friends and connections. Blue was blue.

“My husband,” she said softly. I was a little surprised by that. She had decided to tell me the truth for some reason. I looked at her and I wanted to help her. What exactly was my plan here? I wasn’t the hero type. I went in, I extracted or eliminated and I left. That was my life for as long as I could remember.

I had to be careful here because I already liked her and I never wanted to be in the position I had been in with Nataly. I had plenty of emotions but I was so used to suppressing them that I rarely felt anything and feeling something for this woman was somewhat of a problem for me.

“I guess I owe you an explanation,” she said and I just kept looking at her. I wasn’t going to push for her story, I already knew enough.

“I was twenty when I got pregnant and everyone pushed for us to get married, even him. At first it was a shove here and there but it escalated very quickly to the point where he would beat me unconscious. I lost my baby at thirty weeks. He would apologize every time. My parents died during that time in a car accident and I was alone. I had nowhere to go and no job, no friends…” The emotions in her voice were true and chilling.

There were no tears as she told me this. I could tell it had taken her years to be able not to cry about it. The emotions were still close to the surface though. I hoped she wouldn’t cry because the reality of the situation was that if that baby hadn’t died, she would still be stuck or dead herself. That baby dying was the best thing that could have happened to her. 

I was a realist and if I said those words to her, she wouldn’t appreciate them. For her this was still an open wound, despite the fact that she’d mastered not crying about it. I knew I was cold and emotionless about plenty of stuff but somehow, she made me feel.

“I waited until he passed out one night. I handcuffed him to the bed, took his card and car and left. I withdrew all his money, threw the card away, left my phone at home and just ran. He found me once before, five years ago. That’s when I changed my name and moved here to Epworth.” She emptied the last contents of her glass and refilled it.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” I said to her softly. I could relate to abuse, not that I was going to share my story with anyone. I got up and went upstairs to get the first aid kit. When I got back to the kitchen she hadn’t moved, but her glass was half again.