Turning Point (The Kathleen Turner Series) (39 page)

“I don’t know what they gave her, so I don’t want to try to counteract it. Best to let it wear off. She needs fluids, though. I’ll start an IV.”

Beyond the doctor, I could see a couple of others in the boat. One was driving, and another just watching. They all seemed familiar somehow, but I couldn’t remember. My teeth cracked together hard as my shivering intensified. The man holding me pulled me closer, his arms wrapping tightly around my back.

“You’re okay, Kat,” he whispered softly in my ear. “I swear to God you’re going to be okay.”

I felt a stinging sensation in my arm, but I was used to it and didn’t care. I focused on the green eyes staring intently into mine. They were beautiful, mesmerizing. The man’s hand brushed my head, tangling in the wet mass of my hair.

“Stay with me, Kat. Stay with me, baby girl. Nothing’s going to hurt you now. You’re safe. I swear.”

He seemed so upset, his words strangling in his throat and coming out as hoarse whispers. I wondered who he was, wished I knew of a way to comfort him. But my body
wouldn’t obey and neither would my tongue. So I just listened, staring into his eyes as he kept whispering to me, his promises and pleas melding into one melody of sound. I listened until I could no longer resist the warm pull of sleep and I slipped down into the depths of exhaustion.

A
week. I’d lost an entire week of my life, with no real memory of the events I’d witnessed or what I’d endured.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the sink in the hospital bathroom. The bruises on my face had finally begun to disappear, the black and blue fading to yellow. My lips were no longer swollen, cracked, or bleeding. I’d lost weight—my clavicle bones protruding sharply underneath my skin, my arms sticklike. Even the bones of my hips jutted out further than I would have wanted. Granted, I’d always wanted to be slightly less curvy, but I thought I just looked sickly now.

None of those things held my attention for long, though. It was my eyes that I couldn’t look away from. The eyes that stared back at me in the mirror held a knowledge and sadness that hadn’t been there before. Gone was the optimistic innocent; in its place was a woman who knew firsthand the evils there were in the world, the people who would treat other human beings as though they were cattle, to be used and slaughtered. I would have been one of them, for the rest of my life, if not for Blane.

I hadn’t believed my eyes when I’d woken from my drug-induced stupor to see Blane sitting in a chair next to the
hospital bed. He was leaning forward, his head resting on his folded arms, asleep. Even in sleep, his hand maintained a firm grasp on mine.

Confused, I’d looked around, realizing I was in a hospital, safe. It was late. The window showed a dark sky, and muted lights bled underneath my door.

“Blane?” I croaked.

His head shot up immediately, instantly alert.

“Where am I?”

Thankfully, he knew what I meant without me having to elaborate.

“Home,” he replied. “We’re in Indy.”

Tears burned the back of my eyes, but I held them back. Home. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see it again.

“How?” My voice was a rasp of pain, my throat burning.

“The GPS,” he replied, pouring water into a paper cup nearby. Sliding an arm behind my back, he helped support me so I could take a drink. “It tracked you to an island off the coast of Cuba.”

“Cuba?”

Well, that explained the tropical part.

“Yeah,” he said. “Once you were in their territory, the feds couldn’t do anything. Todd and Rico run a security business, they still do a few ops on the side. They put a team together to come get you.”

I leaned back against the pillows, my throat feeling better now after the water.

“What happened to the cops?” I asked. “I was so sure they would come any second, and they never did.”

Now Blane’s face turned to cold granite. “In the middle of the operation, the feds showed up, told the police to shut
it down, that they were inhibiting a federal investigation. The cops were going to come get you, but the feds wouldn’t let them, told them it was more important to track where they took the women than to stop them. Their goal was to shut the whole operation down, not just this branch.

“I got out, came after you myself,” he continued. “But I was outnumbered.”

“They shot you.”

Blane nodded. “About then the feds finally let the cops come help me. They arrested the men still standing and got Chance out.”

Relief flooded me. Chance was okay.

“But that was the most they were allowed to do. They were kept from interfering when the plane took off, and I was out cold from the bullet wound.” His hand brushed the hair from my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Kat. I never should have let you go. I’m sorry that I failed you.”

“Stop,” I said, lightly pressing my fingers to his mouth. “It’s not your fault. It was my decision to try to find Chance, my decision to try and help Lucy and Billy. You did all you could. I trusted the cops. Trusted them to have my back.”

He kissed my fingertips and gently held my palm against his cheek.

“I almost lost you,” he rasped. “Again. Forever. When you fell from that boat…”

His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, then reopened, their deep gray depths tormented.

“Shh,” I soothed him. “We’re together now. That’s all that matters.”

Blane reached into his pocket, and my eyes widened when his palm opened to reveal my diamond engagement ring.

“How did you find it?” I breathed in wonder.

Blane took my hand in his, gently sliding the ring back onto my finger. “Found the bastard that took it. He regretted that action, very, very much. I… encouraged him to cooperate with us, tell us where Matt had taken you. That’s how we found the yacht.”

I didn’t want to think through the details of what that “encouragement” had entailed, but I hoped it had been extremely painful.

“They were able to trace Amanda Webber’s whereabouts from the intel we gathered on the island,” Blane continued. “She’s recuperating at home with her family now. I thought you’d want to know. The island where they took her and you is in Cuba’s territory, but the Navy is keeping an eye on it. I doubt they go there again.”

That was a relief. I couldn’t imagine the hell the women were going through who hadn’t been rescued.

“Xtreme has been shut down. Several of the employees have been arrested for their involvement in the operation.”

I hoped one of them was Jack, the bastard.

“What about Matt?” I asked. “Is he in jail?”

“He’s dead.” Blane’s voice was cold and flat. “I made sure of it.”

My eyes slipped closed in relief and Blane’s grip tightened on my hand.

Blane didn’t leave my side again.

After three days in the hospital, I was more than ready to go home. Pushing away the memories that disturbed me, I pulled on the soft yoga pants and sweater Blane had brought from home. The doctor had taken his sweet time releasing me, and it was already after five and dark outside. He’d pressed a card into my hand as I left, speaking vaguely about “people to talk to” and “specialists in this sort of thing.”

I wished I had something to tell a specialist, but the truth was I couldn’t recall most of the ordeal. The doctor had told me the drug cocktail they’d injected me with had scopolamine as its primary ingredient, which accounted for why I couldn’t remember so much of the time I was missing. Usually used to treat motion sickness, a high enough concentration of it combined with other chemicals and it acted much like a date-rape drug.

I insisted on walking out of the hospital. I’d never gotten used to their rule about wheelchairs and wasn’t about to start now.

“Did you announce your candidacy while I was gone?” I asked Blane once we were in his car and headed home. He just looked at me strangely.

“You’re joking, right?”

I flushed and he continued. “I put all that off. Nothing else mattered. Only finding you.” His hand found mine, linking our fingers on the empty space between us.

“You’re still going to run, right?” I asked. I didn’t want what had happened to me to cause him to not pursue his dreams.

He hesitated. “Maybe now’s not the right time,” he hedged.

“Blane, you can’t do that. You can’t put your life on hold just because something awful happened. You want to run for governor, then run for governor.”

Blane glanced at me, then back at the road.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“It’s your life,” I replied.

“It’s our life,” he corrected. “This affects you as much as it does me.”

I smiled weakly. “I don’t have a degree in Politician’s Wife,” I said ruefully, “but I love you. I believe in you.”

“That’s all that’s required,” he said with a soft smile.

Mona greeted us when we got home, as well as Tigger, who’d fattened up since last I’d seen him.

“And you certainly could use a few home-cooked meals,” Mona said, tears sparkling in her eyes as she gave me a bone-crushing hug.

“That sounds wonderful,” I replied. It felt so good to have a mother figure fuss over me again. Were we ever too old to not want our mothers when life got to be too much?

I had another nightmare that night, waking screaming and drenched in sweat. Blane folded my shaking body into his arms, hushing me in gentle tones. He rocked me, pressing his lips against my temple every now and again, until I’d calmed. I’d had bad dreams in the hospital, too, refusing to take a drug that would knock me out. I was through taking any drugs I could reasonably avoid.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wishing I didn’t have to burden him with my fears, no matter how unconsciously done.

“Don’t apologize,” he said fiercely. “If there’s anyone who can understand, it’s me.”

That made me feel slightly better. We sat in silence for a while, my racing heart slowing to a more normal speed.

“Is there anything you want to talk about?” Blane asked. His voice was quiet in the stillness of the night.

I tensed in his arms. “What do you mean?”

“Anything that… happened… while you were gone? Sometimes it helps. Talking about it.”

Blane had been wonderful, never once asking me The Question. The question that had immediately come to mind when the drugs had worn off and I’d been able to think clearly.

“I wasn’t raped,” I confessed. I’d requested an exam, wanting to know everything that had happened to me during that period missing from my mind.

Blane’s body went still and he was silent for a moment. “Do you remember—”

“The doctor examined me,” I explained. “I don’t remember anything, no.” Except, apparently, in my subconscious.

“You know it wouldn’t have mattered to me,” Blane said carefully. “I wouldn’t think differently of you if you had been.”

I leaned back to look at him. “I’m not lying,” I said. “I know I didn’t tell you before about Avery, but I’m telling you the truth now.”

He nodded wordlessly, pulling me down beside him in the bed, his body spooning mine. Surrounded by the feel and scent of him, I felt safe, and was able to drift back to sleep.

The days passed in a blur of activity. Blane announced his candidacy for governor at a press conference rather than
the lavish party his uncle had planned before my disappearance. He opened a small office for his campaign staff, mostly volunteers, who wore red, white, and blue shirts proclaiming
Blane Kirk for Governor.

I helped where I could, running errands, making copies, keeping the volunteers happy and not squabbling with one another. Blane had taken a leave of absence from the law office, transferring his cases to Charlotte, and spent his days crisscrossing the state, visiting small towns and shaking hands. Some days I went with him, others I stayed home.

Mona was helping me plan the wedding. Between all the things to be done for that, plus Blane’s candidacy, I was kept plenty busy. So busy that I could sometimes sleep the whole night through. If Blane was there, I often could.

When he wasn’t—well, on those nights when I woke up screaming, I wandered the house. Sometimes I’d make a cup of tea and drink it in the library, the room that most strongly reminded me of Blane. Other times I’d wrap myself in a blanket and sit on the back patio, looking up at the stars. I didn’t tell Blane this, though, since he worried enough about leaving me alone. When he asked how I’d slept while he was gone, I smiled and said, “Just fine.”

It was on one of these sleepless nights that I was curled up in the leather sofa in the library, staring into the dancing fire. It was late March, but the chill of winter refused to ease its grasp. I didn’t know what time it was, though I thought I’d heard the grandfather clock chime three times earlier. Absently, I stroked Tigger’s ears while he curled on my lap.

“Can’t sleep?”

The male voice came from behind me, startling me from my reverie so badly that I screamed, for a flash of an instant
plunged back into my nightmares. Tigger hissed and leapt from my lap while I scrambled, grabbing the gun I now always kept close at hand. I quickly turned, my shaking hands barely able to hold the gun steady.

“Princess? You all right?”