Somewhere in His Arms (21 page)

             
Sighing, she went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair. She studied the long locks critically. Long hair wasn’t at all practical. She’d have to whop it off. A bob maybe or even a pixie? Nah, she didn’t have the bone structure to pull that off. She pulled the black mass into a ponytail, too tired to fuss with it further. Then she gathered the rest of her toiletries and put them into her cosmetic bag. Lucy still had about twenty minutes left, so she tidied the bed and sat on the edge watching reruns of
Mister Ed.

             
Why was it that animals acted more humanely than the humans themselves? Go figure!

             
She was in the middle of the episode where Mister Ed had decided Wilbur wasn’t treating him right, so had hotfooted over to Mae West’s stable where he was discovering the grass wasn’t exactly greener on the other side. Lucy giggled as Mister Ed’s eyes widened at the sight of the needle used to give him his vitamin shot. Maybe she should have used that on Alec!

             
There was a knock on the door and she clicked the television off and went to find Eddie just returning from a late breakfast of
Huevos Rancheros.
Di would have a fit! “How was breakfast?” she asked him as she grabbed her backpack and made a final sweep of the room.

             
He patted his full belly with a grin of appreciation. “Delicious!” he said smugly. "Ready?”

             
He waited for her in the truck while she turned the key in at the front desk. “I need to stop at Rudy’s,” she told him as she climbed in and buckled her seatbelt.

             
His heavy brows lifted in surprise. “I thought you two weren’t speaking.”

             
“We’re not,” she replied, “but there’s a few things I left behind. Besides, he’s at court. I checked with Tia.”

             
“Okay,” he sighed reluctantly and started the engine.

             
The drive to Rudy’s Brentwood villa didn’t take long, and Eddie pulled up to the front gate. “You want me to help you with anything?”

             
“That would be great,” she grinned, and unbuckled herself.

             
Lucy punched in the code and just as the gate opened, Eddie’s phone rang. She waited patiently as he answered the call. “Work,” he explained while he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

             
She smiled and thrust her hands into her pockets feeling impatient to get her things and leave. It was the first time she felt uninvited. Then Eddie's voice took on an anxious tone. “What do you
mean
you lost the order?”  He started swearing profusely in Spanish, and Lucy wanted to plug her ears. Eddie finished the call with a furious look on his face. “Those
pendejos
screwed up again!” he seethed. “You think you can do without me for a few?”

             
She grinned up at him. “Sure, go ahead. I’ll give you a call when I’m done.”

             
He waved to her as he hopped back in his truck and then he was gone. Lucy walked up the cobbled lane feeling as if she were trespassing even though Tia had told her the key would be under the mat. She retrieved it and let herself in. It felt strange being here all by her lonesome. Tia was off today, so the house was quiet. It gave her the creeps.

             
Lucy rambled toward the kitchen where she fixed herself a sandwich and took it upstairs to nibble on. She found a cardboard box and began filling it with the few possessions she’d left behind after her hasty exit. There were a few stuffed animals, books, and a few clothes. These she folded neatly and soon the box was nearly full. She hadn’t realized how much junk she’d accumulated. She sat cross-legged on the carpet and took out her dog-eared copy of
Wuthering Heights.
  She always wondered what Cathy ever saw in Heathcliff.

             
Lucy was so engrossed in the fatal love story, that when she finally glanced at the wall clock, it was nearly two. She should get out of here. Tia had assured her that Rudy would be late, but she didn’t want to chance a confrontation. She was still recovering from Alec and wasn’t sure she had the strength to be guilted by Rudy’s expert oration. With one final glance at the room, she picked up the box and left. It wasn’t too heavy, and she was halfway down the stairs when she noticed the front door was standing wide open.

             
That’s odd
, she frowned. She was certain she’d closed it. Setting the box down on the bottom step, Lucy went to the door and glanced out. Had Eddie come back?  “Eddie...?” she called, her voice echoing throughout the deserted house. “Eddie? Is that you?” Still no answer. “Tia...?” Not so much as a greeting from the cat who remained missing in action. Where could he have gotten off to? “Hello? Anybody...?” she shouted.

             
Lucy shook her head. She was being silly and scaring herself out of her wits, there was nobody here. It was probably the wind. “Silly girl,” she scolded herself and shut the door, firmly this time.

             
She supposed she ought to call Eddie to pick her up. Just as she reached for her phone, a sudden sharp tap on her shoulder elicited a scream. She whirled about to find a vaguely familiar face staring back at her.  “Oh, I am sorry,” he smiled. “Did I startle you?”
              Relieved that it wasn’t some psycho on the loose, she smiled back. “You could say that,” she said faintly, placing her hand over her galloping heart. “You scared me out of a year’s growth!” Then she frowned at the man whose name escaped her. It was there on the tip of her tongue. But she couldn’t place him at the moment. “I-I’m sorry, Mister...?” she asked, fishing for a name.

             
He smiled again, deep crevices breaching his otherwise unremarkable face. “Mr. Molina,” he offered. “I’m here to pick up some papers for Mr. Bartlett.”

             
Mr. Molina?
The name didn’t ring a bell, but then considering her frazzled brain at the moment, she’d forget her head if it wasn’t attached. “Papers?” she repeated blankly.

             
He nodded and smiled again. “Yes, I was told they were here.”

             
Lucy wasn’t quite sure about this. Since when did Rudy start forgetting papers? But then he was in the middle of a rather nasty murder trial. It could have slipped his mind. So it was plausible he would have sent someone to fetch for him. She glanced down at the man’s three-piece suit and decided he was on the level. “They’d probably be in his office,” she told him, leading the way to Rudy’s study. “Do you work for Rudy?” she asked, just because something kept pricking at her.

             
“You could say that,” he replied, with an odd glimmer in his black eyes. “Rudy and I are old…
friends.”

             
“Oh,” she sighed in relief. She tried the doorknob and found it locked. “Wait here,” she instructed, “I’ve got to get the key.”

             
“There’s no need to hurry,” he said smoothly, folding his arms behind his back.

             
“Okay.”

             
Lucy left him there while she went to the kitchen to fetch the key. He followed after her. She began rifling through drawers looking for the skeleton key. “I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” she murmured, feeling his eyes on her. It made her uneasy and she couldn’t understand why.

             
“You were always such a pretty girl,” he said softly. So softly Lucy had trouble hearing him.

             
“Did you say something?”

             
“You were always such a pretty little thing,” he repeated, this time more loudly.

             
Somewhere in the forgotten shadows of her mind lay a memory that suddenly reared its fearful head. She had just turned four. It was a dark time of hushed whispers when she entered a room, a time when frightened parents walked their children to school, and the only time she’d ever seen Rudy cry. 

             
Her eyes widened in remembered horror. “You---” she managed to blurt out before her head was sharply wrenched back by her ponytail. Then her forehead was slamming violently into the shiny granite counter. The fragile tissues were breached open, and a steady stream of blood gushed out, scalding her eyes and mouth.

             
Blinded by the blow and choking on her own blood, Lucy had no time to react and was hurled like a rag doll across the table, landing in a broken heap on the floor. Her hands instinctively covered her belly in a vain attempt to protect the baby, stunned by the sudden and unprovoked attack. Her eyes blinked open and through a bloody haze she saw him reach for something. He loomed over her like a hellish nightmare brandishing a large butcher knife.

             
Lucy tried to scream...to plead with him not to hurt the baby.

             
Her brain was desperately trying to connect with her arms and legs to move--to do something--anything to get away from this maniac who seemed hell-bent on ending her life. But her traumatized body wouldn’t cooperate. So he leaned down basking in his revenge, and with his hot, fetid breath bathing her face whispered, “Send Rudy my regards,” before plunging the knife into her chest.

             
Lucy screamed as the sharp blade sliced through fabric, then hot searing pain, and the scraping of steel against bone. There was the sense of being suffocated as her lung deflated and blood filled the cavity. He yanked out the blade, laughing as he twisted it back and forth, and plunged into her chest again, withdrew, and the final impalement was done with such savagery that she heard the tip grate against the tile floor.

             
She heard him drop the knife with the dull clatter of metal, and through the roaring in her ears she could hear his expensive oxford shoes crunching on shattered plates. She stared up at the blurry ceiling, feeling cold despite the warm puddle beneath her, and Lucy’s last thought before slipping away was that she never got to hold her baby.

Chapter Fourteen

She was dressed all in black, and her new shoes pinched her feet. People whispered around her in disjointed sentences. They would begin to speak and then the voices would dwindle to nothing but hushed whispers. She tried to make out what they were saying, but they were doing their best to keep quiet. Someone had shushed the voices just as the pain began to torment her again. She didn’t know why they were whispering. Her mother was dead. She’d swallowed the whole bottle of those little red pills. She’d gone to bed crying over her father again. Why’d he have to leave? It was all her fault. Everything was
her
fault. If she hadn’t walked in on them, if only she’d kept her mouth shut, if only she’d been good. You see? It was her fault that he left. That he had to have her. It was just too much to expect a man to be content being a husband and a father. It was her fault. Get away from me! You’re such a bad girl. Her mother slapped her in another drunken haze of scotch and Valium. Mommy didn't mean it. Better get her out of here, Rudy. Mama isn’t well. They had to send her to one of those places to dry out. She’ll be good as new. Mama, wake up! She won’t wake up! She can’t live with us! I’m not a babysitter! Your father’s dead. This is my house, GET OUT! Will you marry me? Dean, what are you doing? We have the sort of marriage that no one wants. It just isn’t a good time right now. Tell Rudy I said hi...

             
“We’re losing her!” someone shouted.

             
“GET HIM OUT OF HERE!”

             
“Why did you leave her?”

             
“It’s all your fault!”

             
“You shouldn’t have left her!”

             
A rhythmic bleeping managed to filter most of the gibberish. Most of it was garbled nonsense uttered by shadowy figures that flitted in out of her consciousness. They hovered over her constantly, poking at her or touching her hand. She wanted them to go away. She was having a hard time trying to breathe and her throat hurt. The pain was hotly insidious, creeping up and down her body in constant waves, never really going away. Sometimes it receded while euphoric warmth took its place, but it was still a continuous and heavy presence within her.

             
And always that damned bleeping. Someone was touching her hair, then her cheek. Someone was crying... harsh wracking sobs that seeped into her quiet delirium and made her retreat further into a dark corner of her brain where she could hide from it.

             
She just wanted to sleep.

             
Let her sleep.

              Her eyes fluttered open. For a frightening moment she thought he’d come back to finish her off and gripped the sheets in blind terror. But then there was the familiar voice; smooth and deep, telling her everything was all right. Not to be afraid. She knew that voice. Heard it from somewhere. It stirred something within her. Something that was vaguely unpleasant. But when she tried to match the voice to the pictures in her head of people she thought she knew, her brain responded with a painful reminder that it didn’t want to make the effort required for this simple task, and she was left whimpering in agony.