Husband by Choice. Tara Taylor Quinn

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      “Five years ago he was working as a P.I.”

      He hadn’t known that.

      “Steve had written to her via the last shelter she’d been in, using her newest assumed name. The letter was the basis for the order....”

      He was trying desperately to remember things he’d only wanted to forget.

      “Private investigators have to be fingerprinted to get a license to practice in Nevada,” she said. “So I ran a search, matching the Steve Smith named on Meri’s restraining order with a Steve Smith in the fingerprint database under the same address. It came up a positive match.”

      “So he was a private investigator.” Not great news, but not the end of the world either. “I’m guessing Meri didn’t think that was nearly as frightening or noteworthy as him having been a cop. It was his police connections that scared her. And he had to do something when he left the force.”

      “Do you know why he left?”

      “Meri was certain he left so he could pursue her exclusively.”

      Frustrated at his lack of knowledge, Max waited while Chantel continued to type and read. Steve Smith had been a ghost in their lives—one who’d left a lot of fear.

      “The restraining order was reinstated in California when she moved here. It’s good for five years.”

      He’d known it was good in California. He hadn’t known about the reinstatement part.

      “Steve was a detective with the Las Vegas police for ten years.”

      “I told you he was a cop.”

      Chantel continued to read whatever private database she had access to. “I didn’t realize he was this decorated. The man would have contacts, Max. And there are a lot of loyal men on the force....”

      He’d heard stories from Jill about how fellow officers overlooked claims of domestic violence against their own, understanding that a bit of aggression came with the territory.

      Believing, too, that a man who risked his life every day to save others wouldn’t cross the line and hit a member of his own family.

      If there were allegations, the force recommended counseling. They watched over him. Made sure there were support facilities available to him and to the members of his family.

      “He retired from the force without a blemish. I find it hard to believe this is the same man that would behave as Meredith told you he had.”

      Chantel knew police work. She knew Jill. She didn’t know Meri.

      “Talking about Steve upset Meri,” he said with confidence while, inside, he was running scared as hell. “He hadn’t been around since she left Arizona and I was certain he’d moved on. He didn’t follow her to California. Either he got the message to leave her alone, met someone else and let Meri go, or was in jail. Didn’t much matter which it was as long as he stayed out of our lives.

      “I assumed Meri didn’t know and didn’t want to know what he was doing. I honestly didn’t think he was still a threat, because of the order and because he’d gone so long without bothering her. In my mind, the problem wasn’t so much his showing up again, as it was the effect his years of abuse had had on her. I tried to play down her past to help her move on.”

      “Restraining orders are enforceable in all states. And she could have filed for one in California, had her hearing, without him ever having to attend. He would’ve known that.”

      Chantel continued to scroll. And he needed her to understand.

      “When I first met Meri she was always looking over her shoulder. Not afraid of her shadow so much as being in constant preparation for a hit from behind. It was as if she didn’t think she was allowed to live a normal life and be happy.”

      “Sounds like a woman used to keeping secrets.”

      Her words seemed to be a direct threat to his marriage.

      “I’m not saying that she’d betray your trust or anything, but that maybe keeping secrets had become a matter of survival to her.”

      Chantel’s big brown eyes were filled with compassion.

      Max focused on his own computer, where he was searching social networks for Steve Smith. There were lots of them.

      Lots of Steve Smiths. Ordinary-looking guys with ordinary families. And jobs.

      “I’m just... I guess what I’m trying to say is that someone like this, someone who’s had to hide to this extent...it’s understandable that you might not know her as well as you thought you did. In terms of you being so certain that she wouldn’t leave you.”

      Chantel was talking about a woman she didn’t know. Making her sound like someone he didn’t know.

      His job was to stay calm.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      AT A COMPUTER in a private cubicle at the library in the main building of the Stand on Saturday, Jenna studied various domestic violence websites, reading about the abusive personality, fantasy bonds, dependent relationships. All things she knew about, but only from the victim perspective. She had to get into the mind-set, to imagine the feelings so deeply that she could predict reactions to stimulus. The goal was to figure out what stimulus to use on Steve to get the reaction she needed—him to choose to set her free.

      She read statistics and psychological data. On victims. And abusers—who’d often been victims themselves. She read victims’ stories. There was Emma, who’d left an unfaithful husband for a wonderful man, Robert, she’d met online, a man who was a friend to her for a couple of years before she finally divorced her cheating husband and moved in with him, only to end up bruised and broken a couple of years later.

      There was Lottie, a teenager abused by her boyfriend. Belinda, who’d suffered abuse since childhood at the hands of her father. The list, the stories, went on and on.

      She felt as if she knew each and every one of the women she read about, wanted to give each of them a hug and a promise of emotional support from now through eternity.

      Jenna acknowledged the feeling, understood it as a consequence of identifying with them so completely. And she moved on.

      She wasn’t here to read about her sisters. She had to know everything she could find out about abusers. Not how to identify them. She knew those lists all too well—could remember the first sickening time she’d been on a website, reading a list, and finding Steve in every single characteristic she read.

      But what made a man do what he did? She had to know how to get him where he hurt. To find the humanity in him and appeal to it somehow. Not verbally of course. That would just feed his sense of control—hearing her beg. Experience had taught her that during her first year of marriage.

      She read for hours. Unaware of fatigue. Or hunger.

      And then she found James.

      His СКАЧАТЬ