Once a Marine. Loree Lough

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СКАЧАТЬ the hesitation? Was he picturing her during their initial interview at the hospital? Or was he thinking about how she’d testified from a wheelchair, instead of on the witness stand, because even after two surgeries and months of physical therapy, she still couldn’t walk unassisted? If she told him that she still limped slightly, and that it might require another operation to repair the deep gash Samuels had carved into her cheek, would it give him just cause to keep that maniac in jail, where he belonged?

      “Do you have any idea where he’ll go?” she said instead. “Does he have a job? An apartment?”

      “He’s moving in with his grandmother. According to my sources, she’s on the Denver bus line, which will make it easy for him to get to and from work until he earns enough to buy a car and get a place of his own.”

      “Well, isn’t that just peachy. I’m so happy for him. He’s got his whole life all cleaned up, literally and figuratively.”

       While I’m a prisoner in my own home.

      She glanced at the flyer Alex had left on the kitchen table. A prisoner of my own making, she admitted. How had her young friend put it? You do have a choice. You don’t have to live this way.

      “I doubt he’ll bother you,” O’Toole said. “But if he does...”

      “I know, I know,” came her sarcastic reply. “I should feel free to call, anytime. And you’ll come running to my defense while I hit my knees and pray you arrive before he has a chance to finish what he started.”

      A pang of guilt shot through her. It wasn’t O’Toole’s fault that she’d become a self-pitying, scared-of-her-own-shadow hermit.

      “That wasn’t fair. I have no right to take things out on you. You’re the man who caught Samuels and gathered enough evidence to help prosecutors put him away, even if it was only for a short time. And you kept your promise to warn me when...when he was released.” And she was behaving like an ungrateful brat. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.

      “No need to apologize. I get it.”

      Summer hadn’t been his first victim of violent crime, so of course he got it.

      “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said. “I only wish I could do more.”

      Short of providing her with a rock-solid guarantee that Samuels wouldn’t make the trip from Denver to Vail to exact revenge, ever, what more could he do?

      She remembered that the last time they spoke, O’Toole had just found out his wife was pregnant. He’d been ecstatic, but tried hard to hide his enthusiasm because of all Summer had gone through.

      “So is the new baby a boy or a girl?”

      “Boy. Arrived December 23.” He sounded surprised that she’d asked. And why wouldn’t he be, considering the way she’d moped and sniffled all through the interview process, the way she was still feeling sorry for herself, even after all these months.

      She pictured a chubby-cheeked baby boy with fat, dimpled fingers wrapped around O’Toole’s beefy thumb, and thought of her doctor’s gloomy prognosis. “It’s too soon to know for sure,” he’d said. “But you should prepare yourself for the possibility that you might never have children of your own.”

      Summer forced a smile and took a deep breath. “What a lovely Christmas present.”

      “You can say that again! And the little guy got here just in time to legitimize a nice tax deduction.”

      During a break on the day he’d testified against Samuels, she’d overheard O’Toole on the phone, assuring his wife that he’d give serious thought to a promotion that would take him off the streets and keep him safely behind a desk.

      “Did you accept that promotion you were up for?”

      “You bet I did. Took some getting used to, but the wife and I both sleep better.”

      After another moment of small talk and a final reminder for her to call him anytime she felt the need to, they wished each other well and hung up. It was nearly suppertime, and thanks to Alex, Summer had a pizza in the freezer. She set the oven to 400 degrees and, while waiting for it to heat up, flicked on the kitchen TV.

      A news story filled the screen: a young woman had been brutally attacked and left for dead in Chicago. Her story, except that Summer had been attacked after recording a commercial for a Denver car dealership.

      “It’s a miracle she survived,” the anchorman was saying. Had the woman’s assailant subdued her by grabbing a handful of long hair, the way Samuels had?

      In the chrome finish of the toaster, Summer caught sight of her chin-length hair. She’d badgered Justin into giving her a boy cut before she’d been released from the hospital, but had kept it a little longer since. Now when she took the time to style it—which was rare, since she never went anywhere—the side curls almost hid the scar on her cheek.

      Her cell phone pinged, making her jump. She opened the text from her dad.

      We missed our plane, so Mom and I are taking a flight out in two days. That gives you plenty of time to make reservations so the three of us can go skiing when we get there!

      She typed back a response.

      Can’t wait. Love you guys!

      Her message was only half-true. Summer tensed, thinking of the lectures they’d subject her to when they learned she wouldn’t be joining them on the slopes. That she’d only been out of the house twice—both times to see her orthopedist—since they’d left to film a movie in Africa. Any day now, they’d stand face-to-face with the truth about who she’d allowed herself to become.

      Oh, she’d kept up with physical therapy—what else was there to do, all alone in her house every day!—but she hadn’t been outside, not even to pick up the mail or newspaper at the community box on the corner. She eased the guilt by telling herself that her parents were actors, accustomed to disappointment. But that frustration had come in the form of producer-and director-delivered rejections. Finding out that she’d deliberately misled them, no matter the reason, was a completely different kind of distress, and she knew it.

      “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” her mom had said as she packed for the trip to Botswana, “but your dad and I miss the plucky risk-taker you were before the accident.”

      Accident, indeed. If they couldn’t deal with the facts, how did they expect her to face them?

      Again, Alex’s words echoed in her head: you don’t have to live this way.

      The oven beeped, telling her it had finished preheating. She slid the pizza onto the top rack, set the timer and changed the channel. Not even watching a young man trying to coax his aging mother to give up years’ worth of hoarded possessions could distract her from Alex’s wise advice. The boy was right. She couldn’t stay in this house forever.

      Summer combed her fingers through her bangs. It had become a nervous habit, like feeling sorry for herself and hiding from the world. Things needed to change, and the sooner, the better.

      She grabbed the flyer. What could it hurt, she thought, picking up the СКАЧАТЬ