Hiding Out (6 page)

When he woke up just after seven that morning, Haley was sitting up with her legs curled under her, staring at him with a shy smile on her face.  He stretched and studied her for a moment to assess the situation.  What was she thinking this morning?  “I hope you were comfortable enough in that dress,” he said quietly.  “I didn’t want to undress you and have you worried in the morning.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “If you could just summon the driver, I’ll be more than happy to go home now.”  Her eyes kept darting back from the alarm clock to the door.

“Do you have to be somewhere?”  He asked, feeling her out.

She shook her head.

“So, you just don’t want to be here?”  He wasn’t upset, he just wanted to understand.

She shrugged.  “I have my routines.  I am usually up jogging by now.”

“Outdoors or in?”

Haley blushed.  “In.”

Sam was quiet for a moment then he decided to take a chance.  “Well, we never had an opportunity to discuss last night’s dinner, as it relates to the campaign, I mean.”  She just watched him with big emerald eyes.  “So, what if we go jogging together in the park, then come back here to shower and dress then discuss it over breakfast before I take you home?”

She considered it for a moment.  “I don’t have any clothes.”

“I must have something that will work.”

“At this rate I won’t be home for lunch.”

I was shooting for dinner.
  He shrugged.  “I’ll take that chance.”

She cocked her head to the side.  “You are pretty used to getting what you want, aren’t you?” 

He could tell that thought frightened her.  “You’re safe with me, Haley,” he said gently.

Sighing, she said, “Fine.  You get your way
this time
.”

Sam smiled.  Now that he had her here, he was reluctant to let her leave.  He knew she was safe here and cared for.  He knew that with him she would want for nothing.  And that he was even thinking this had him deeply unsettled. 

Adam showed up just as they were finishing lunch.  The day had gone exactly as he had anticipated until that moment.  Sam had some difficulty keeping up with Haley during the run.  She ran with an intensity that couldn’t be matched.  And at times he swore that she forgot he was there.  She always seemed surprised when he would, panting, ask her to slow down.  The clothes he had sent for arrived during their run, so once she showered she had a selection to choose from.  The simple denim jeans and v-necked white t-shirt gave her a classic look.  And it about killed him the way she thanked him so genuinely for every little thing.  None of the women he had dated had ever responded that way in the past.  It always felt as though they were milking him for everything they could get, but not Haley.

During breakfast she had picked at her food, even though she should have had a ravenous appetite.  At last he had coaxed her into the library to work while she sipped a hot tea saturated in sugar and he drank cup after cup of black coffee.  Sam had finally convinced her to stop and eat lunch at one after they lost track of time over work.  And her mind!  What had begun as a way to spend more time with her had quickly revealed her talent for advertising.  Sam, who was one of the best in his field, was duly impressed. 

And then Adam showed up.  He raised his eyebrows at her presence then greeted her warmly.  “Haley, right?”  She nodded.  “When did you get here?”

She looked at him shyly.  “Around midnight, I guess.”  Instantly she turned her attention back to the storyboards they had been working on.

Adam mouthed the word ’midnight’ to his brother, who shook his head to explain that it wasn’t what Adam thought.  

When Haley realized that Adam was settling in for the afternoon, she moved to leave.  “I’ll just have your driver drop me at home, if you don’t mind.”

Sam stood and walked over to her.  He glanced over his shoulder at Adam who leaned against the mantle watching with a morbid curiosity.  “If you’ll excuse us for a moment,” he said in a tone that suggested Adam should make himself scarce as quickly as possible.

“Certainly,” Adam said as he left the room and pulled the doors closed behind him.

Turning his focus completely to Haley, Sam said quietly, “You don’t have to go.  You could stay.”  He laid his hands on her shoulders and squeezed her gently.

For a moment, she almost couldn’t catch her breath, but then survival mode kicked in.  He was so charming.  And she had been hurt by his kind before.  She forced herself to step back.  “Under what pretenses this time?”

His brow furrowed.  “No pretenses, Haley.  I think you are incredibly creative and intelligent.  I think we are getting a lot of work accomplished.”  He could see that he was losing her.  She was already measuring the distance to the door.  Taking a giant risk, he stepped back and opened up to her.  “I like you, Haley.  I want to get to know you.”  As innocent and honest as he was being, he couldn’t have chosen anything worse to say to her.

Instantly, Haley was transported back to New Year’s Eve.  She had been searching the house party for David, her fiancé.  And while she couldn’t find him, she did run into Chase, his best friend.  The man had been drunk, reeking of liquor.  He had cornered her in the deserted third floor hall and opened the door she was leaning against, tumbling her into the room.  When she finally caught her balance, which took longer than normal because she was always clumsy but more recently frightened; she found herself against the side of the bed. 

“I like you, Haley.  I want to get to know you,” Chase said leering while standing over her, a sober five foot two, hundred and twenty pound female.  He was a former linebacker and his six foot six frame carried over two hundred thirty pounds. It was not an even match by any stretch of the imagination.  “I want to see what David is getting.”

Haley had trembled then.  “David hasn’t seen what David is getting.”  She had swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry.  “I’m a virgin, Chase.”  She had hoped the truth might scare him off.

He was practically on top of her already.  “I’ve never known anyone our age who looks like you to be a virgin.  Let’s see if you’re telling the truth.” 

She had put her hands out in front of her to ward him off.  They were like wet noodles and he captured her wrists immediately.  “No, please,” she cried over and over.  And when he grew tired of hearing her, of the sense of guilt at his actions, he began swinging with his free hand.

“Shut up!”  Every syllable was accented with a punch.  And when he grew weary of shouting and hitting, he pulled a Swiss army knife from his pocket to threaten her and cut her bra away from her back.  Her clothes were ripped for easy access.  Her face was on fire.  Blood trickled from her nose and wet the inside of her mouth, which made sense as it now felt like raw hamburger.  She could feel something warm and sticky on her back.  More blood, she assumed.  Her eye was rapidly swelling shut.  She had never been handled so roughly before.  And she laid there whimpering until he was finished.  Every inch of her body hurt, or ached or bruised or swelled or bled.

Finally, when he left the room she managed to exit the house in the hopes of hailing a cab.  She had no idea where David was, and she didn’t know how to tell him what had happened.  Haley didn’t know how to tell him his best friend, his college roommate; his law school study buddy had raped her.  She tried hailing a cab, but curiously enough, no one wanted to stop and pick her up.  She walked the three miles to the hospital in a blustering snow storm, wearing only her shredded clothes.

When she entered the emergency department, she was ushered immediately into a room.  They had seen it many times before.  Her clothes were bagged. A flurry of flashes commenced as pictures were taken.  The police were summoned and she was questioned and labeled uncooperative.  Then came the exam.  She required stitches inside and out, and on her back as well.  Haley was given a set of scrubs to change into and allowed to keep her shoes then left alone to dress.  As she was finishing up, she saw her medical folder lying open on the counter.  She studied the print out of the digital pictures taken of a body and face she didn‘t recognize.  She studied the physician’s notes and felt her stomach churn.  She swallowed the morning after pill the nurse had left for her on the counter and took a swig of water.  It hurt.  Everything hurt.  And then moving very gingerly, she stuffed the file down the front of her scrubs and cinched the draw string waist.

Peeking out the door, she saw everyone gathered around the nurse’s station to the right.  So, while they were distracted, she took a left.  The cabby didn’t look surprised to see a trauma victim leaving the hospital.  “Car accident,” she mumbled.  That was common place.  No one was afraid to go near a car accident victim.  She wouldn’t be nearly so lucky once everyone knew she had been raped.  And then what would happen once they found out it was Chase the All-Star, Chase the Golden Boy who did it?  And she was nobody; she was merely his best friend’s fiancée.  And she realized that was why she needed the file.  That was why she needed proof.

Back in the house she had left hours before, she started searching the rooms for David.  How he reacted would set the tone.  In a back bedroom on the second floor she finally found him.  He was sound asleep, a smile playing on his lips, looking peaceful.  The first hints of dawn were coloring the room in pink and orange.  Luckily, the naked woman in his arms looked good in orange.  

Haley didn’t have the strength to wake him or confront him.  It was all she could do to make it down the stairs through her tear filled eyes.  The cabby was still there, just as she had requested, in case David was out looking for her.  “Where to, lady?”

“Can we make a few more stops?”  She asked, her voice catching in her throat.

He smiled.  The rest of the city was asleep.  “We can do anything you are willing to pay for.”

So she went to one ATM after another to empty her bank account.  And she went back to her apartment to pack what she could carry, which amounted to a  bunch of clothes and the cookie jar that had sat on her mother’s counter the whole time she was growing up.  She left a note on her neighbor’s door with instructions for disposing of and selling the rest of her possessions then telling her to keep the money for her troubles.

Content that she had done everything that needed to be accomplished prior to her swift departure, she locked the door for the last time, and struggled out to the cab.  But this was the most challenging part.  The cabby would want to know where she was going and she really didn’t know.  Sighing, she decided.  “Last stop.  Take me to the train station.”  She settled back into the seat.  By now she hadn’t slept for nearly twenty-four hours.  And she had never traveled by train. 
Think of it as an adventure.
  That’s what her mother would say anytime they faced adversity, anytime life called for change.  She would have liked to cry, but her eyes hurt too much, and her ribs were too sore to sob, so it was easier to simply swallow her sorrow and move on.

Twenty minutes later, she stood in front of the departure board at the station remembering what David had said to her last time she had suggested she might like to travel or go into business once she graduated.  “You’re no shark, baby,” he had said smugly.  “You’ve got no business sense and you certainly can’t navigate the waters without me.”  At the time she had felt he must love her, must want to protect her.  And so even though she had never felt passionate about him, she had stayed with him.  Now, however, she saw it for the condescending remark it was.

Plastering a determined look on her face, she had selected the most dangerous destination she could imagine and boarded the train for New York City.  She hadn’t slept the entire trip.  Instead she had racked her brain for a connection in that vast metropolis.  That was when she remembered her undergrad roommate.  Ellen would put her up for a few days. 

Haley called her the minute she reached the station, and grabbed a cab to the address she was given less than five minutes after that.  She had a moment of regret when Ellen answered the door and her warm greeting turned to stunned silence.  Haley was ushered into the apartment where she took a luxurious shower, struggled to digest some chicken noodle soup, and then fell into a fitful sleep in the guest bedroom.  Thankfully, Ellen never asked.  She certainly wondered, Haley could tell, but she let her alone.  And as much as she feared being alone, she was grateful the inquisition never happened.

Slowly, with Ellen’s gentle prodding, she managed to pull her life back together.  She plotted ways to move on while flying under the radar.  She changed her name, not legally, but no one would be the wiser, since she was a temp and not a security risk.  She kept her life savings in her cookie jar.  She subleased a furnished apartment so her name wouldn’t appear on the phone or utility bills.  And she kept her possessions to a minimum in case she needed to leave in a hurry.  She would not be found, not by David and not by Chase.  Most importantly, she began to run.