A Thread of Truth (28 page)

Jerking my hair, he pulled me off of the car and then twisted me around to face the hood, tugging the fabric of my jeans and underwear down around my hips with his free hand while simultaneously pushing down on my head, forcing me to bend over the car.

My mind screamed out, No! I wasn't going to let him do this to me. Not ever again. I wanted to shout with rage but instead I made my voice soft and pleading. “Hodge, don't. Please, Hodge, don't.”

“Oh, now it's please, Hodge? Please? You should have thought of that before you made your little declaration of independence, baby. I'm going to remind you who you do belong to. By the time I'm through with you, you're going to say please like you mean it.”

There was nothing Hodge enjoyed quite as much as my fear. It gave him a sense of power that went to his head, made him a little drunk and, if I was lucky, distracted.

I let a sob escape from my throat, which didn't require much acting on my part, and though it sent a fresh shock of pain to my scalp as he pushed me closer to the hood of the car, I pretended to stumble. That gave me a chance to flex my knees, center my weight and blast upward like a submarine performing an emergency blow, exploding to the surface without warning. With the silvery tip of the car key wedged tight between the middle and forefingers of my left hand, I concentrated every ounce of primal energy I could into my arm and gouged the pointed key into the orbit of his eye.

He screamed, let go of my hair, and clutched at his eye. I howled, “No!” and spun my body to the left and pumped my arm like a piston, driving my elbow into his stomach as hard as I could. He doubled over. I ran toward the open car door, hitching my jeans up as I did.

I almost made it. I was behind the wheel with my fingers wrapped around the door handle, ready to slam it shut, when Hodge wrenched it open with such power that my arm jerked and I could feel a burning sensation in my shoulder socket. He grabbed me again, by the arm this time, and pulled me from the car. I could feel the firestorm of rage in Hodge's powerful right arm, more violent and uncontrollable than before, and instinctively knew that, at that moment, he was absolutely capable of killing me.

He was a monster, furious and snarling. Once he had me out of the car, he grabbed the keys from my hand and flung them across the top of the car. I heard a dull clink as they fell onto the gravel far out of reach.

Hodge pushed me against the side of the car, pinning me against the metal frame, and shoving the hard edge of his hip into my stomach. He gripped my left arm and stretched it out so my fingers hung over the edge of the door frame.

“You want to play with the car door? Is that right? You want to shut the door on me?”

He clutched the door handle with his right hand and, as hard as he could, slammed it shut on my hand.

There was a sickening crack of breaking bone. I screamed in agony.

Hodge screamed, too.

My eyes were screwed shut in pain, so I didn't see what happened. All I knew was that Hodge had let me go. The car door opened, releasing my broken, bleeding hand. I crumpled to the ground, overcome by pain.

And suddenly Margot was on the ground next to me, shaking, crying, and wrapping my hand in her pink and green scarf.

I opened my eyes and saw Hodge doubled over, howling, with his hands covering his face, and Liza standing in front of him, eyes blazing, her feet planted wide apart, both hands fully extended, gripping a tiny metal canister and pointing it straight at Hodge.

Just behind Liza stood Evelyn and Abigail, armed and dangerous, each holding a big sixty-millimeter rotary cutter with new, sharp blades that glinted in the moonlight, and expressions that made it clear that if Hodge made one wrong move, they'd give no more thought to using those blades on him than they would to slicing through a bolt of fabric.

Groaning, Hodge rubbed his eyes and raised himself upright, blinking as he looked from one female face to the next as if his eyes might be playing tricks on him.

Keeping her eyes trained on Hodge, Abigail called out, “Ivy, are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said, swallowing back the pain. “I'm okay.”

“Good. Mr. Edelman, move slowly back to the wall. Spread your feet apart, lift your hands over your head, and keep them there.”

Hodge stopped for a moment, assessing the situation. His eyes shifted from Abigail to Evelyn and back. His mouth twisted into a sneer and he laughed. He thought they were bluffing. Reaching out both arms, he took one quick, large, lunging step toward me, daring anyone to stop him, certain that neither woman had the guts to do so.

He didn't know them the way I did.

Striking like a cobra disturbed in its lair, uncoiling in one fluid motion, Evelyn took her right hand off the cutter, sprang toward Hodge, swung her arm behind her head and brought it back down again as hard as she could, slapping him for all she was worth! The crack of her palm against Hodge's shocked face echoed off the alley's brick walls, a sharp, stinging sound, decisive and startling as a gunshot.

“Ahh!” Hodge's eyes widened with surprise. His hand instinctively flew to his cheek to absorb the shock of the slap. He retreated a step as Evelyn, all flashing eyes and fury, crouched down into a stance like a sumo wrestler, menacing him with the glinting, circular blade of the cutter, thrusting it forward like a gangster brandishing a switchblade and forcing him backward, step by step, until his back was against the wall.

“Hands up!” Evelyn commanded. Her chest was heaving and her breath was ragged. Hodge hesitated just a moment, trying to decide if this delicate-boned, fifty-year-old quilter was as dangerous as she looked.

As if reading his mind, Evelyn hissed, “Go ahead. Just try it. Right this second there is nothing that could make me happier than having an excuse to slice you up like a leftover pizza pie. But remember—there's one of you and five of us. Think about that, you cowardly, pathetic louse, before you try to take one more step toward Ivy.” Her voice dripped with disgust and anger. She looked at him as if he were vermin, a bug to be squashed.

For once in his life, Hodge did the smart thing. Slowly, he raised his hands over his head, keeping both eyes on the blade Evelyn held clutched in her hands but refusing to look her in the eye, as if afraid doing so might provoke her.

He was afraid! Hodge Edelman was cowering with his back against a wall and his hands raised helplessly over his head, too frightened to move a muscle, and Evelyn Dixon, a woman, was the one who'd put him in his place! I could hardly believe it. If not for my mangled hand, I'd have jumped up and given her a high-five.

Abigail stepped forward. “Very good, Mr. Edelman. Wise move. Margot,” Abigail said in a deliberately steady voice. “Come over here and hold this cutter. I need you to keep an eye on Mr. Edelman while I make a phone call.”

Sniffing, Margot got to her feet and took over for Abbie.

“Thank you. If he moves, just lunge for him. You don't need to be particular about your aim. That blade is brand new and sharp enough to cut to the bone. If you have to use it, anything you hit will cause serious damage. But do try to stay away from the major arteries, dear. If you hit one, he'll probably bleed to death before our eyes.”

Hodge's eyes shifted from Evelyn to Margot and he swallowed hard. And somehow, in that hedging, frightened glance, I finally saw him for what he was—all the names that Evelyn had called him. A louse. Pathetic. A coward.

Abigail took her cell phone out of the pocket of her slacks and held it to her ear. “Franklin? What? Yes, I know I'm late, darling, but I've been delayed. We had a little problem over at the quilt shop. Could you come over here right away? We're in the back alley behind the shop.”

She glanced at Ivy and then at Hodge. “And while you're at it, could you please call the police? We're going to need an ambulance and a squad car. Thank you, darling.”

W
hen you're standing in a dark alley with nothing except a canister of pepper spray and two rotary fabric cutters between you and a violent monster, five minutes feels like five years.

After the initial surge of adrenaline that had coursed through my veins when we burst through the back door of the shop into the alley, spotted Hodge and Ivy a split second too late to prevent him from crushing her hand in the car door, and “taken him down” as Liza would forever after refer to it, I felt drained. My hands, clutched so tightly around the handle of the cutter that it would have taken surgery to remove it from my grasp, began to tremble slightly, but I held my ground, praying that Abigail's sternly delivered warning had convinced Hodge Edelman not to move until the police arrived.

She wasn't kidding. Those rotary cutters were sharp enough to slice through human flesh and if Hodge tried to get away or, worse, harm Ivy or any one of us, I was absolutely prepared to do what I had to do. But that didn't mean I was anxious to prove it. I'm a quilt shop owner, not Rambo. I'd never before felt such anger, such rage as I did when I slapped Hodge Edelman. I hope I never do again.

Except for the whine of the town whistle that pulsed through the streets of New Bern whenever the fire department received an emergency call, the next five minutes passed in tense and uncomfortable silence. And then New Bern's finest arrived, all flashing lights and sharply issued instructions, telling all of us to drop our “weapons” and put up our hands until they figured out who was who. Such a relief.

Franklin arrived a minute later. The Fire Department EMTs were on his heels. That's another advantage of living in a small town: News travels fast, and help arrives even faster.

Having sorted the good guys from the bad, the police officers handcuffed Hodge, read him his rights, and loaded him into the backseat of the cruiser. As soon as the police said we could put down our hands, Abigail, Liza, Margot, and I kneeled down on the ground next to Ivy.

Blood was seeping through Margot's hastily improvised bandage, turning the yarn of her scarf a dark red. “Sorry about that,” she said to Margot. She looked a little pale and was breathing heavily but otherwise seemed all right.

The EMT, Denise Fraser, who had taken a table-runner class at Cobbled Court, a beginner's project, after we first opened and had gone on to become a good customer and a good quilter, came up carrying a box with first aid supplies and knelt down on the ground next to Ivy. She gave Ivy a quick once-over, making sure she wasn't suffering from shock or any hidden, more serious injuries.

The Denise I knew from the shop was always quiet, even a little on the shy side, but now she was professional, efficient, in command, and observant. “Ivy, your jeans are undone. Were you raped?”

My heart skipped a beat.

“No. He tried, but I fought him off.”

Denise bent down to begin unwrapping the blood-sodden scarf from Ivy's hand. A trace of a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Yeah, I saw that. My partner is over at the squad car bandaging up an eye. Seems somebody tried to pop it out of the socket with a car key.” She winked. “Good girl.”

Ivy winced as Denise continued unwrapping her hand. She looked at the ring of solemn faces surrounding her. “Well, I just finished thanking you for one thing, make that months of things, and now you all come riding in like the cavalry to save me again. As soon as this hand heals, I guess I'll have to start working on some more place mats. Really, we've got to quit meeting like this.”

Ivy laughed weakly, but no one joined in. Abbie looked like she wished Hodge had bolted, so she'd have had an excuse to slice him into quarter-square triangles, and Margot was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Ivy tried to reassure everybody. “Don't look so worried. It's just a hand. It'll be all right. Look!” She held up the fingers of her good hand and wiggled them. “I've got another one just like it. But thanks for showing up when you did. Your timing was perfect.”

Liza frowned at Ivy's mangled left hand. “Not quite.”

“It's nothing. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. It's the same hand he smashed before. My sewing hand is still good, see?” She pinched an imaginary needle between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand and mimed a quilting stitch.

“Well, thank heaven for that,” I said with a smile and reached out to brush a lock of hair from her forehead.

“Speaking of perfect timing,” Ivy continued, “how did you find me? I figured you'd all leave through the front.”

“We were about to,” Margot said, “but then the phone rang in the shop. Even though it was after hours, something told me I should pick it up. It was Karen; she was wondering when you were going to pick up the kids…”

Ivy's already colorless face turned a whiter shade of pale. “Oh, my gosh! The kids!”

Abigail patted her arm reassuringly. “Don't worry. I called her as soon as the police arrived. The children are fine with her, for the moment. Franklin and I will go over and collect them later. They can stay with us tonight.

“Anyway,” she continued, picking up the story where Margot had left it, “once Karen called, we started to worry. You'd had enough time to get home by then. Then we heard the sound of yelling in the alley, so we all started running for the back door. Liza had the presence of mind to dig her pepper spray canister out of her bag.”

“A girl living alone in the big city has to be prepared,” Liza said proudly.

“And as we were headed out the door, Evelyn grabbed two rotary cutters off the notions rack and handed one to me,” Abigail finished. “Very quick thinking.”

“Very quick. Thanks, Evelyn.”

I nodded. “I don't think I'll ever look at a rotary cutter quite the same way ever again.”

Franklin called Arnie and then Garrett, who was having dinner at the Grill. He and Charlie got there right after the police. Arnie arrived just as Denise had finished cleaning Ivy's broken hand and was rewrapping it in a less-improvised bandage. Ivy thanked her.

“My pleasure,” Denise said. “And as an added service, we'll give you a ride to the hospital. I'll even turn on the lights, if you want. No sirens, though. You're going to need an orthopedist, but it's not life-threatening.”

“I'm her lawyer,” Arnie said. “I'd like to come along in the ambulance.”

“It's already pretty crowded with all the equipment. How about if you follow us instead?”

Arnie nodded. “That's fine. Margot, can you come, too? It'd be a big help if you could take notes while I interview Ivy.”

“Okay.”

Denise and her partner brought a gurney and strapped Ivy onto it for the ride to the hospital. As they prepared to load her into the ambulance, Arnie patted the white sheet covering Ivy's legs and said, “This isn't exactly how I'd have planned it, but you know something? This might be the break we've been looking for.” Arnie glanced at the fat bandage around Ivy's hand and winced. “Sorry. No pun intended.”

Ivy brightened. “Really? You think so?”

Arnie nodded. “It's going to be pretty hard for him to claim he isn't an abuser when he intentionally slammed your hand in a car door in front of four reliable witnesses. And, in my experience, exposing one lie has a way of unearthing all the others. This might be your loose thread, Ivy. We've still got some work to do and this whole turn of events is bound to delay our court date—for one thing, the judge is going to have to decide what to do first: give Hodge a divorce, or three-to-five for assault.” Arnie grinned. “But I've got a feeling that after this, Hodge's whole story is going to come apart at the seams.”

“I hope you're right.”

The squad car left with Hodge in the back. Arnie and Margot followed the ambulance to the hospital. Abigail and Franklin went to pick up Bethany and Bobby. That left just Liza, Garrett, Charlie, and me.

“Gosh, Mom, I never realized that underneath that mild-mannered exterior, you were such a commando. I can't believe you actually hit him! Way to go, Mom! You could give Lara Croft a run for her money. Or James Bond. I mean, a rotary cutter that doubles as a dangerous weapon? Who knew? What else do you have up in the workroom? Quilt hoops that double as satellite tracking devices? Bolts of fabric that are actually invisibility cloaks?”

Liza approached, carrying Ivy's quilt. “That's Harry Potter, not James Bond. Keep your characters straight.”

Garrett kissed her on the top of the head. “You did good tonight.”

“Thanks.” Liza grinned and held up Ivy's abandoned quilt. “I found this over by the side of the car. It's okay, just a little dirty, but it's ripped in one spot. Mind if I go back inside the shop and get some thread to fix it?”

“Would you? That would be great. I just want to go home, climb into bed, and go to sleep. I'm exhausted. Oh, wait a minute! I just remembered. I never locked the doors.”

“Don't worry about it, Mom. I can lock up.” Garrett squeezed Liza's shoulders. “How about you? Are you exhausted or do you want to come up to my place and watch a movie?”

“Sounds good. I'm too jazzed to sleep, anyway.” Liza grinned at me. “You know what? I'm kind of proud of us. I wish we'd gotten there before he broke Ivy's hand, but imagine what could have happened if we'd never shown up at all? It just goes to show you, you do
not
want to mess with the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle. Cross one of us, and you're going to have to face all of us.”

“Good night, Liza.” I gave her a hug and Garrett a kiss. “Good night, sweetie. See you at work tomorrow. Thanks for locking up.”

They left, disappearing through the back door of the shop. A minute later, a light turned on in the window of Garrett's upstairs apartment.

“Watching a movie and eating popcorn. Think that's all they'll be doing up there?” Charlie asked.

I shot him an irritated glance. “I don't know and I don't want to know. None of my business. They're of age, and I'm too aged to want to think about it.”

Charlie smiled. “Sorry. Probably not the sort of question I should ask a woman who's worn out after a long day of crime fighting and all.”

“Probably not the sort of question you should ask a mother—ever.”

“I stand corrected. Now, can I take you to the Grill and buy you a drink, or are you really too tired?”

“I'm really too tired. But thanks for the offer.”

“In that case, I'll walk you home. You shouldn't be out on the street alone at night. Not that I'm worried about you, mind you; it's everybody else I'm concerned about. Nobody should have to meet up with you in a dark alley.”

“You're hilarious.”

“I know. A comic genius.”

“Yes, but only in France.”

I picked up the abandoned rotary cutters off the ground, making sure the blades were on safety before shoving them in my back pocket.

“Wait a minute. Let me see that.” Charlie whistled low. “Whoa. These are lethal. You could've cut him to ribbons with one of these things, you know that?”

I felt a lump in my throat and hot tears in the corners of my eyes. “And if he'd so much as blinked…if he'd taken one more step toward, Ivy, I would have. Happily.” Fear and anger and exhaustion pooled in my heart and spilled out of my eyes.

“Why did he do that to her, Charlie? He hit her. He tried to rape her. And then he purposely slammed the car door on her hand. Why? What's wrong with some men? Why are they so cruel?”

Every trace of humor faded from Charlie's face. “Oh, Evelyn. Sweetheart. Come here, my brave one. I'm so proud of you. It's all right. Everything will be all right now.” He folded me into his arms and I cried until I couldn't cry anymore, until his shirtfront was soaked through with my pity and my tears.