Lovers and Madmen(Sasha McCandless 4.5) (3 page)

Finally,
a faint, female moan rose from the ground.

Connelly
met Sasha’s eyes and nodded. She could fit behind the trash receptacle, but he
couldn’t. She pressed herself against the rough brick wall and inched toward
the hand.

A
slight woman—more a girl, really—was slumped against the building. Her head
hung down toward ground, and a curtain of hair fell forward, covering her face.
Connelly aimed his light on the shape, and Sasha saw a streak of purple in the
light brown hair.

“Kathryn?”

The
Pitt student who worked the counter at Jake’s was about the right size, and she
had an affinity for streaking her hair with colors not found in nature.

Another
moan. Then a sniffle.

The
cat sprung past Sasha and ran to the girl. It licked the girl’s slack hand
roughly and purred loudly.

The
girl raised her head and looked straight at Sasha.

Sasha
sucked in her breath sharply. It was Kathryn, but she was barely recognizable.
She’d been brutally beaten. Her face was a mishmash of swelling and angry
bruising. Blood ran down from an open cut on her forehead. Her lower lip was
split and coated in more blood.

Sasha
rushed toward her, and the bricks snagged at her clothes, slowing her momentum.

Over
her shoulder, she yelled to Connelly. “It’s Kathryn. She’s hurt.”

The
girl’s shoulders shook and she began to cry.

“Shh,
shh,” Sasha crooned, as she crouched beside her. “Can you stand up?”

“No,”
she moaned.

“Listen,
I’m going to get you up on the count of three.” She slipped her hands under the
girl’s arms and clasped her shaking shoulders.

“Okay.”

“One,
two, three.” Sasha straightened her legs and lifted Kathryn to her feet as
gently as she could, grateful that the girl was one of the few people who was
roughly her own size.

Kathryn
leaned her head against Sasha’s shoulder. Slowly, Sasha inched her way out from
behind the dumpster with Kathryn clinging to her.

Connelly—who
had seen more gruesome scenes that anyone Sasha knew—paled at the sight of
Kathryn’s battered face.

“Who
did this to you?” he said in a thick voice.

Kathryn
looked from Sasha to Connelly with dull, red eyes. Then she said, “No one.”

Connelly
opened his mouth but Sasha cut him off.

“We
can talk about it later. We’re taking you to see a doctor.”

“No!
I’m fine.” Her eyes darting from side to side like a trapped animal.

“Kathryn,
you’re
not
fine,” Sasha said, as gently as she could.

“Please,”
she begged. “Please, just take me home. Before he comes back.”

“Before
who comes back?” Connelly asked.

She
clamped her mouth shut in a grim line and shook her head at her own mistake.

Sasha
raised a brow at Connelly, and he understood instantly. He nodded.

“That’s
it, you’re coming home with us,” he said.

He
scooped the girl up under her knees. She leaned against his chest and flopped
her arms around his neck. She was either too scared or too tired to argue
further.

She
raised her head and met Sasha’s eyes. “Can I bring the kitten?” 

Kathryn curled herself
into a tight ball in the corner of Sasha’s couch and hugged the gray and white
kitten to her chest. She stared blankly at the wall and showed no reaction
while Sasha gently cleansed her face with warm water. The washcloth and the
bowl of water were both pink when she finished. Sasha’s stomach roiled.

She rinsed the cloth and filled the bowl with
fresh water at the kitchen sink.

“How is she?” Connelly asked, his voice low.

Sasha turned from the sink and left the water
running to cover their conversation.

“Her injuries look bad, but they aren’t serious.”

Kathryn had been mute since asking for her cat.
Her eyes were vacant and distant, and she seemed to have shut down emotionally.

Sasha turned off the water and returned to the
couch.

“Kathryn,” she said in a gently voice, “I’m going
to clean the blood off your cat now.”

The girl snapped her eyes up to meet Sasha’s and
then down to the kitten’s fur. Its ruff stuck out stiffly, coated with dried
blood. She recoiled and handed the cat to Sasha.

Sasha rubbed the cat’s chin with one hand while
she wet the washcloth and worked on loosening the sticky blood from its fur.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Sasha said, hoping to
draw Kathryn into a conversation.

“Um, I don’t know?”

“You don’t know?”

Kathryn’s eyes filled with tears. “I just found it
yesterday. Its mother was hit by a car near campus. I found this little thing
crying right by the curb. I couldn’t keep it at the dorm, so Ocean let me stay
at her place last night. I was going to take it to the vet today and then see
if I could find someone to take it, but I had to get my check first so I could
pay for the appointment. I don’t know its sex, and I didn’t name it because I
can’t keep it.”

“That’s what you were doing at Jake’s—picking up
your paycheck?” Connelly asked, joining them in the living room.

The cat purred, its throat vibrating as Sasha
stroked it.

“Yeah. I knew Ocean and Reba were working, and I
thought if I brought the kitten in, maybe Reba would want it? So, I came in
through the back door to show her the cat.”

“Did you leave through the back door, too, then?”
Connelly asked.

“Uh-huh.”

She reached for the cat, and Sasha handed it back
to her.

She took the blood-streaked cloth and the water to
the kitchen and returned with a hand towel to dry the cat and two ibuprofen for
Kathryn.

“Take these,” Sasha said, handing her the pills
and a bottle of water.

Kathryn swallowed the pills while Sasha rubbed the
cat with the towel. It swatted a paw at Sasha’s moving hand, and Kathryn
giggled.

Sasha lowered herself to the couch and took
advantage of Kathryn’s lightened mood.

“Tell us what happened,” she said.

Kathryn’s brief burst of laughter evaporated.

She was silent for so long that Sasha thought she
wasn’t going to answer.

But she took a swig of water and said in a halting
voice, “He was waiting for me by my car. He was really upset because I hadn’t
returned any of his calls or texts for a couple days. I was just busy, you
know? I had, like, a big project due? But he was so angry—” her voice broke and
she stopped abruptly.

“Who, Kathryn?” Sasha said.

“My boyfriend,” she mumbled, looking down at her
hands.

“Name, Kathryn. We’re looking for a name,” Leo
said, a hint of steel in his voice.

She looked up blankly. “I guess it doesn’t matter
anymore. Nick.”

“Nick?” Sasha repeated.

“You know—Nick. Nick Costopolous.”

Sasha sat back. She was so startled she felt as if
she’d been slapped.

“You’ve been dating
Nick Costopolous
?”

Kathryn nodded miserably. She hooked her hands
behind her knees and rocked herself in a gentle back and forward motion, like
she was trying to soothe an infant.

“I knew you’d be mad. So, I made Ocean promise not
to tell you.”

She
was
mad—no, she was furious. What was
Kathryn thinking, dating a man nearly twenty years older than her, let alone
one who’d been accused of bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death with a hammer?

Sasha had known the girls in the coffee shop
thought her client was handsome in a swarthy, mysterious way, but she’d been
very clear with them that they should stay away from him. She would have taken
that position even if she hadn’t believed he murdered his wife; but since was
certain he had, she’d been insistent.

She bit back her first response, and her second.

Once she was sure she could keep her tone
nonjudgmental, she asked, “How long have you been seeing him?”

“Um, since November, I guess. I ran into him out
one night, and he recognized me from Jake’s.”

Sasha arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

“He beat you up because you didn’t return a few
phone calls?” Connelly said, incredulous.

“Yeah. He’s very protective and passionate.”

Sasha lost her slippery grasp on her temper.

“He’s not
passionate
and
protective.
He’s
abusive
. You’re lucky to be alive!”

Kathryn’s lip started to wobble, and tears began
to flow again.

Connelly put a warning hand on Sasha’s arm.

“Why don’t you preheat the oven and uncork the
wine so it can breathe?” he suggested in a mild voice.

Sasha shot them both a glare and then stalked
toward the kitchen. Kathryn’s unnamed kitten jumped off the couch and followed
her, its tail twitching.

“I don’t have anything to feed you, kitty,” she
muttered. “Hope you like lasagna.”

She banged around in the kitchen while Connelly
talked to Kathryn in a low, urgent voice. Sasha imagined he was trying to get
through to her that there was nothing romantic about Nick’s behavior.

She took the corkscrew from the drawer near the
sink and banged the drawer shut in frustration.

Kathryn jumped, and Connelly threw Sasha a look.

“Oops,” she said brightly. “Connelly, while the
oven’s heating, maybe you could run out and pick up a litter box and some food
for the cat?”

She stabbed the corkscrew into the cork and
twisted it violently.

“Sure. I was just talking to Kathryn about calling
the police.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sasha said in the same
false, bright tone.

“She doesn’t want to. Maybe you could talk to her
about getting a restraining order, what’s it called, a PFA?” he suggested. He
rubbed the girl’s shoulder in a reassuring way and stood.

“A protection from abuse order. Sure, you can get
one, Kathryn. It’ll make some judge feel like he’s doing something. And maybe
it’ll give you a false sense of security. But that’s about it.”

Connelly cocked his head and looked at Sasha as if
she had sprouted a second head.

“Sasha—” he began.

“A PFA is a piece of paper. It can’t stop bullets.
Or fists.”
Or hammers.

Kathryn’s face morphed from hopeful to terrified.

Sasha softened. “I’m sorry to be so blunt,
Kathryn. But, if you aren’t going to report Nick’s attack to the police, you really
need to do something more to protect yourself. I can help you find a women’s
shelter.”

“A shelter? No. I just want to go back to my dorm.
I’m sure Nick feels terrible,” she said.

Sasha switched gears. “How’d you end up behind the
dumpster if Nick attacked you at your car?”

“Uh, after he left, I lay there for a while. I
think I passed out. I woke up to the cat licking my face. And I thought maybe
if I could make it to the door, I could get help, but I couldn’t get there. I
had to rest, but I was afraid he’d come back. So I crammed myself in the corner
behind the dumpster to hide. Then you guys came along.”

“So you do have some self-preservation instinct,”
Sasha commented.

Realization bloomed in Kathryn’s eyes.

Connelly paused at the front door and buttoned his
coat.

Sasha and Connelly both watched her think. Dozens
of decisions that she was far too young to have to be making played out on her
face.

“I … I want to go back home—to my parents’ place.
Back to Chicago.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When Connelly returned,
Sasha put a finger to her lips and pointed up toward the loft, where Kathryn
was sound asleep in the fetal position in the center of Sasha’s bed. The kitten
jumped off Sasha’s lap and ran over to inspect the bags that Connelly set on
the floor while he eased the door closed and quietly engaged the locks.

The cat rose on its hind legs and stuck its head
inside a bag that held several small tins of food. Connelly laughed and his
eyes crinkled.

He scooped the kitten up in one hand and the bag
in the other and met her in the kitchen. She poured them each a glass of
Chianti, while Connelly scooped the cat food into a small metal dish that he
took from the bag.

The cat began to purr and squeak before the dish reached
the floor. It ate rapidly, taking great gulping bites. Connelly filled a second
metal dish with water from the tap and placed it beside the food.

“She’s sleeping?”

“Dead to the world. She went upstairs to use the
bathroom after we called her parents. She never came back down, so I went up to
make sure she was okay. She was out cold, curled up in the middle of the bed.”
She handed him his glass of wine.

Sasha sipped her wine and watched the cat, who had
devoured the food and was now lapping at the water.

Connelly checked on his lasagna.

“How’d the call with her parents go?” he asked
over his shoulder.

“As well as could be expected. They’re horrified—who
wouldn’t be? Her mom seemed to be equally upset by the idea that Kathryn was
dating a forty-year-old man as she was by the fact that he beat her to a pulp.
But her dad jumped in and told her she should take the rest of the semester off
and come home right away. They’ve already booked her a flight for tomorrow
morning. Her parents will come out next weekend to pack up her things and drive
her car back to Illinois.”

He closed the oven and turned back to her. “I
forgot about her car.”

“I called Jake’s. Jake was there. He said she can
leave the car in the lot until her parents come up. I also asked him to have
the girls keep an eye out for Nick and to call me if he turns up.”

“Call you? Shouldn’t he call the police?”

She shrugged and sipped her wine.

Connelly waited.

“Yes, he probably should, but to what end? I took
another run at Kathryn while you were gone—she doesn’t want to press charges, and
she wouldn’t be around to testify anyway. The police can’t do anything.”