Taken by Tuesday (Weekday Brides Series) (11 page)

“Not much of a fighter, are you?”

She shook her head, attempted to yell behind his hand that clamped over her mouth.

The man holding her shifted and tears started to roll down her cheeks. The only thing she could see was the dim light of the garage through the cloth. His shadow loomed over her.
Please God. No.

“Next time,” her attacker said against her ear right as something hit the side of her head, and the world went dark.

I’m being stood up.

Rick paced the inside of Michael’s house, more than a little irritated that the clock on the wall told him Judy wasn’t there. He didn’t see her as the kind of woman to play this kind of game. A phone call, a text . . . anything was better than this.

A little itch in the back of his throat told him his Judy wasn’t that kind of woman. She was honest with him when she didn’t want to go out, and wouldn’t hesitate to tell him to his face that she changed her mind.

He was about to give up and take the walk of shame back home when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.

Judy’s name filled the screen.

He hesitated, wondering what her excuse would be . . . or would she just tell him no again?

He pressed
answer
and lifted the phone to his ear. He forced a smile and said, “Hey, babe.”

At first, there was nothing. Then every cell in his body turned ice cold. “Rick?” Her voice was soft, scared. Judy sucked in a cry. “Rick?”

The skin on his arm stood on alert. “Judy? What is it? Where are you?”

“Rick?” She was crying full-on now.

“Judy?” He wanted to crawl through the phone. “Honey, what . . .”

“Let me help you,” he heard the voice of a woman and the shuffle of the phone. “Rick Evans?”

“This is . . . what’s wrong? What happened?”

The sound of a siren added to the alarm inside his head. Rick ran to the front door and jumped into Michael’s Ferrari, which was already waiting for his date.

“Mr. Evans, Judy is on her way to the ER at UCLA. She asks that you meet her there.”

With a direction, Rick sped from the estate, the cell phone to his ear. “Is she OK?” What kind of stupid question was that?
Of course she’s not OK.
“What happened? Car accident?”

“No. I’ll let her explain. I’ll tell the doctors to expect you.”

The call disconnected, giving Rick two hands to drive bat-shit crazy all the way to UCLA.

Chapter Eleven

Sometimes it took defining moments in your life to explain where clichés came from. The term “the longest fifteen minutes of my life” never had a real meaning until Rick was pacing an emergency room lobby waiting for Judy to return from a CAT scan. Damn it if no one would even tell him what she needed a CAT scan of. No one would talk to him at all. Yes, Judy Gardner was there, yes, he was OK to see her when she returned, but, no, they weren’t at liberty to tell him anything else.

His only savior of sanity was the knowledge that she wasn’t rushed to surgery and that she was at least in a condition to tell the staff that she wanted to see him.

“Mr. Evans?”

He shot from his small corner of the lobby, rubbed a hand down his chin, and said, “That’s me. I’m Rick Evans.”

The nurse nodded toward the doors she stood behind and Rick proceeded to follow her into the bustling belly of the ER. She led him a few steps into the department and found a quiet corner before she stopped. “I’m Kim,” she introduced herself.

Frustrated that he wasn’t being led straight to Judy’s bedside, he shuffled his feet. “Where’s Judy?”

“Down the hall.” She nodded in the opposite direction.

Rick turned away from the nurse only to stop with her stern warning. “Mr. Evans! I need a word with you first.”

Rick hesitated, knowing on some deep level he didn’t want to hear what the nurse had to say.

“She’s banged up pretty bad.”

“What happened?”

Kim looked at the plain tile floor, which had seen more grief than either of them ever would in their lifetime. “She was attacked.”

Rick held his breath, his nose flared, and his fists were poised at his side ready for battle. “Attacked?”

“I’ll let her explain, but she wanted you to have some idea as to why she’s here. She’s upset, of course. We’re waiting for the CAT scan results and the doctor is going to need to stitch her up.”

Rick only half listened. Someone attacked her. Who? Why? How?

“Tell me the police have someone in custody.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t even think they have a description yet.”

Rick met Kim’s eyes. “Take me to her.”

The short span of hall was a maze of people and medical staff going about their day. At the end of the maze sat a single door. Two uniformed officers were talking with the medical staff. Rick noticed them eyeing him as he walked through the door.

One look. It took one look to understand what might drive a man to murder.

His innocent small-town spitfire lay on top of a three-inch mattress on a gurney with IV lines and monitors. Dried blood ran down the side of her face, bruising already evident at her temple. Gauze covered one arm and around her head. Finger marks bruised her cheek. Her eyes were closed when he walked in so he moved slowly in her direction.

Kim caught his arm and cleared her throat.

The noise brought Judy to attention. “Rick’s here,” Kim said.

Judy couldn’t open all of her right eye.

“Hey, Utah.”

Two soft words and she was instantly in tears and reaching for him.

He moved to her side, fumbled with the side rail of the gurney, and pulled her gently into his arms. “Shh. I’m here. You’re OK.”

“I didn’t see him.” She clutched his back as if he was a life raft and she was sinking into an abyss.

“Shh.” He rocked her, slowly, and wished to hell that he could take away her pain.

“I stayed late. The parking lot was empty.”

Rick didn’t like the image her words knifed into him.

Her words grew soft. “I was almost at my car when I heard him. I thought he was going to kill me. Oh, God, Rick, I’ve never been so scared.”

Rick knew he was a big man, knew he needed to hold his muscles at bay while he held her and learned about the man responsible for her condition.

“Do you know who it was?”

“No. I never saw him.” She moved away from him long enough to look in his eyes. “I never saw him. When I woke up he was gone.”

“When you woke up?”

Her story was fragmented, her eyes unfocused. “He left me in the garage. One of the employees in the building found me.”

Rick clasped both her hands. “Have you called Zach and Karen?”

She shook her head, her eyes swelling with new tears.

“You don’t want them finding out about this from the media.”

Judy cried in his arms for ten more minutes before she let him go long enough to leave the room for the phone call to her family.

Rick spoke with Karen first, encouraged her to drive, knowing that Zach would probably get them both in an accident en route. Lord knew Rick nearly lost it on several turns on the way to the ER. His next call was to Neil. With no humor in his voice, something even Neil seldom heard, Rick offered only the facts he knew. Made the demands any Marine would.

“Judy was attacked in the parking garage of her employer.”

“No.”

“Yes. We’re in the ER at UCLA. The local authorities are here but she’s not ready to talk to them. Someone found her unconscious in the garage.”

“Shit, is she OK?”

“We’re waiting for radiology. I’ve not spoken to the doctors. He beat the crap out of her, Neil. She’s a mess. I want a team on that garage. I don’t want the local police to screw this up. Judy doesn’t know who did this, didn’t see the guy. I’ll get you more details when I know them.”

“I’m on it.” Then Neil hung up.

Rick’s calculating brain made its share of deductions and surged forward to unwanted conclusions. “Kim?” he called out for the nurse taking care of Judy before she walked back behind the closed door.

“I called Judy’s brother and his wife. They’re on their way. A colleague of mine, Neil MacBain, might show up as well.”

“I’ll tell the receptionist to let us know when they’re here.”

He stopped her before she could turn away. “One more thing.”

“Yes?”

The need to know just how broken Judy was crawled up his skin. “Do we . . .” The words wouldn’t come from his lips. “Was she?”

Kim’s eyebrows rose. “Was she raped?”

Nausea filled his throat. “Yes.”

“There’s no evidence. She was knocked out at some point so we’ve done a preliminary exam. The doctors try hard to avoid rape exams if possible because they can be very hard on the patient when they aren’t needed.”

Some relief filled his soul.

“Would it make a difference if she had been?” Kim asked.

“For me?”

Kim nodded.

“No. I need to be sensitive for her.”

The nurse seemed to approve of his answer with a single nod. “Treat her with kid gloves anyway. We really don’t know what happened when she wasn’t conscious.”

Rick nodded and took a few deep breaths before he entered Judy’s room a second time.

Rick sat by her bedside holding her hand when the doctor made his way into her room. “Looks like your scan of your head was negative,” he told her.

“That’s a good thing?”

“It is. But we want to keep you overnight for observation. Sometimes swelling isn’t evident on the first film. We’ll want to repeat it in the morning since you blacked out for such a long time.”

Judy glanced at Rick, who offered a nod.

“OK.”

The doctor smiled. “Good. The police are waiting to come in and talk to you.”

Her heart skipped, knowing she was going to have to tell them everything she remembered. Rick’s hand squeezed hers. “I’ll stay here if you want me to.”

“Please.” She wasn’t sure why she thought of calling Rick before her brother. Maybe it was because Rick was closer . . . or he was expecting her. Or maybe she just felt safe with him by her side.

“I’m going to have them come in now. They’ll want to take pictures before I stitch you up.”

She attempted to sit higher in the bed and winced with the pain traveling from her head to her arms.

“Let me,” Rick said as he gently took hold of her waist and pushed her up. With him close, she felt tears in her eyes again.

She hated the weakness inside her and longed for the laughter and banter of where the two of them had been just a couple of days before.

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered.

Rick looked at her as if she were crazy, leaned forward, and placed his lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to thank me, Judy.”

“Meg’s not home and I didn’t think about Zach and Karen until after—”

“You can always count on me.”

A reply sat on her lips when two uniformed officers stepped into the room, one male, one female.

The various weapons and radios hanging from their belts made a sound with every step.

“Miss Gardner?” The woman questioned.

Judy nodded.

“We know this is a hard time but we need to get a statement from you to move forward with the investigation.”

“I understand.”

“I’m Officer Greenwood and this is my partner, Officer Spear.”

Spear glanced at Rick.

Rick stood and offered his hand. “I’m Rick Evans,” he told them. “A friend.”

That was fair, Judy told herself.

“I’m also responsible for security at her current residence and head a security team that shadows her brother when he’s in town.”

Both police officers sent questioning looks to each other.

“My brother is Michael Wolfe.”

“The actor?”

Judy nodded. “He’s out of the country right now.”

Greenwood wrote something down on the pad of paper she removed from a pocket. “We’ll have to step up security at the crime scene.”

“I already have a team en route,” Rick told them.

“Private security doesn’t hold jurisdiction.”

Rick waved Spear off. “Let’s not worry about that now. I’m sure Judy wants to get this over with.”

Greenwood pulled up a chair and removed a recording device from her pocket. Rick fiddled with his cell phone and set it on the table. “Mr. Evans?”

Instead of addressing the police officer, Rick looked directly at Judy. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“Of course not.”

Rick tilted his head toward Officer Greenwood.

“Fine. Start at the beginning, Judy. Anything, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, can be the detail that helps us get this person.”

Her palms started to sweat and it took her nearly a minute to begin.

“I stayed at the office late.” She explained her position at Benson & Miller Designs and how she’d gotten caught up talking with Ms. Miller about a project. “I was so excited about the opportunity to work on something of importance I lost track of time. When I looked it was after six.”

“Do you remember the exact time?”

“Six fifteen, six twenty. Rick and I had a seven o’clock date.” She offered him a half smile and was relieved to see a small lift of his lips . . . s
omething she hadn’t seen since he walked in the room. “I was going to have to rush and even speeding I would have been late.”

“So you were walking to your car at six twenty?”

“No. I gathered my things and realized I didn’t have my purse so I ran back to the office. It was closer to six thirty. The garage was nearly empty.” She closed her eyes and saw the cavernous structure in her mind. “I took my cell phone out to check the time and I heard something behind me. I turned around and didn’t see anything. I was trying to keep calm, but felt someone watching me.” She shivered and Rick reached for her hand again.

Judy stared at the legs beneath the hospital-issue blanket and plowed through what she remembered.

“He grabbed me around my neck, used his full arm.” She lifted hers to demonstrate.

“A choke hold?”

“Yeah. I never saw his face. I was stunned, didn’t even respond at first. When I screamed he covered my mouth and pulled me toward the wall.” She winced and heard the crack all over again when she told them about slamming into the wall and having her face covered.

“I remember falling on my purse. He fell on top of me.” Judy blinked a few times, tried to remove the feeling of his hands on her. “I fought him, but he was so much stronger and he kept slamming my head. The next thing I knew, someone was calling out to me and I heard the sounds of sirens.”

Rick clasped his fingers with hers. She held them like a lifeline. If he’d been there, none of this would have happened.