The Dangerous Hero (26 page)

"Of course he was an abuser," Stephen interrupted. "He put you in the hospital, didn’t he? You have that scar because he dragged a jagged piece of glass across your skin and sliced you open. You’re lucky he didn’t cut your artery."

She shivered a little. "I’m not making excuses for him. I’m just taking responsibility for my own part in the disaster that was our marriage."

"Fair enough. But you don’t assault someone because they fantasize about other lovers."

"I know. I just—I still feel bad about it. I had vowed the whole 'for better for worse, til death do us part' thing."

"That's why people shouldn’t get married at the age of 23 or whatever you were. That’s too young to be making solemn vows that are supposed to bind you for the rest of your life."

"You’re right that I shouldn’t have married him. It was a huge mistake."

"Why did you marry him?"

"I thought I was in love. He was urbane and intelligent, a full professor of anthropology, and he had that Aussie thing going for him—you know, the accent and all. A little bit of rough under the smooth exterior. In the beginning, the sex was good. He even reminded me of you."

"Gee, thanks."

"I just mean he was the first man I’d met since you who knew how to push my erotic buttons. He really excited me."

"Was he kinky?"

"No, not overtly. But he was rather dom-ish, taking control in the bedroom, telling me what to do, generally stage managing everything."

"Hey, I don’t stage manage everything. Do I?"

She laughed at him. "You do. But I like it. You have a much lighter touch. You make me laugh; we have so much fun together.

"But Derek regarded me as this younger creature whom he could shape and mold. He wanted to control every aspect of my life. He had ideas about my studies, my career. He was constantly advising me, and if I didn’t follow his advice, he would sulk. He insisted on managing all our finances, treating me as if I was an idiot child who didn’t understand taxes, investments or health insurance.

"Even around the house—I moved into his house when we wed—everything had to be just so. There was a schedule for cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry and the dishes. If I missed my turn to cook, he was scathing in his comments. If I left a dirty dish in the sink, he would lecture me on my untidiness. I’m not the neatest person in the world, and his criticism was hard for me to bear.

"He was possessive, and that kept getting worse. He was suspicious of all my friends, especially the guys. He tried to prevent me from socializing. If I was late coming home from my classes, he interrogated me about where I’d been and with whom. He grew more and more critical. I couldn’t do anything right.

"At the same time, though, he was popular among his students. He could be charming. My friends didn’t realize how different he was when he was alone with me. I saw a face that he hid from everybody else, and sometimes I wondered if I was imagining things, or if there was something screwed up about me. When things went wrong, I blamed myself."

"This is classic, you know," Stephen said. "This is exactly how domestic abusers behave with their spouses. They crave control, and when they lose it, they get violent."

"He wasn’t violent at first. He didn’t even yell when he was angry. He got sarcastic instead. He would express his disappointment in me, as if I were a teenager with bad grades. I began to feel pressured and hemmed in.

"Then sex started getting weird. Not kinky, but hostile. Resentful. If I didn’t have an orgasm, he took it personally. He started having performance problems, for which he blamed me. I would try everything I could think of to please him, but it wasn't working and he made sure I felt responsible. Soon I began to dread having sex with him. I avoided it whenever I could, and felt guilty about
that
."

"Was that when you started wanting out?"

"Yes. I reacted to his control freakiness by turning rebellious. It seemed like ages since I’d laughed or had any fun. So I drank one more glass of wine than I should have at a department party and danced with this cute visiting professor from Italy. We were slow dancing. I'm sure it must have looked flirtatious, but we didn't actually do anything. Didn't even kiss. Just dirty danced a bit.

"But people saw us together. It was my department, not Derek's, which was why he hadn't deigned to come with me, but there were a couple of people from his department present. When I sobered up, I was ashamed."

"Did someone gossip to your husband?"

She winced. "No. I confessed. I felt sincerely guilty about making a spectacle of myself." She gulped a breath. "But if I’d known...if I’d had any idea what would happen…." She closed her eyes and shuddered. Stephen stroked her gently. This was going to be hard for her, he knew.

"We were in the kitchen after I got home from that party. I was sure some troublemaker would call Derek in the morning and tell him that his wife had slutted it up on the dance floor. So, awkwardly, with many hesitations, I explained what had happened. I made a heartfelt apology for the dancing thing and asked for his forgiveness. Then I went on to explain my feelings about our marriage. I had already suggested counseling, which he had refused. So I said I wanted to try a separation. I told him we couldn't continue the way we were.

"He didn’t say anything. He let me go on and on. He had this ashen look on his face, as if he were about to throw up or pass out or have a heart attack." She shuddered. "I started to worry about him. I stood up and went to try to touch him, embrace him, and his face turned all red and he leapt at me. He grabbed me around the neck and started squeezing, as if he was trying to strangle me." Her voice broke. "It’s still so painful to remember."

"Sweetheart. Can you feel my arms holding you? Can you feel my body sheltering yours? You’re safe here. Let’s excise this bad memory once and for all."

"I don’t know if that’s possible," she said in a low voice. "He started throttling me. I couldn’t breathe. His fingers were digging into my throat. It hurt horribly. He twisted, as if he were trying to snap my neck.

"Everything turned black, and I was sure I was going to die. I must have been thrashing and struggling, but it was as if he had super-human strength. I couldn’t free myself. At some point he flung me to the side and I must have collided with the kitchen counter because I felt a sickening pain in my chest. Next thing I knew, I hit the floor."

She stopped again. Her heart was pounding and her palms were slick with sweat. She focused on Stephen’s comforting body, his steady heartbeat. "Derek dropped down beside me and starting punching me, pounding me, slamming my head against the tiles. He hit my breasts, my chest, my stomach. He kicked me in the side. He was shouting. I don’t know what he was saying—I must have been half unconscious because nothing made any sense. I was vaguely aware of things crashing around us. I guess I kicked out at the table and knocked the plates and glasses off. Or maybe he did that.

The next thing I remember is that he had a big piece of glass in his fist. I think it was part of a tumbler that had fallen to the floor and broken. He put it to my throat and I thought, he’s really going to kill me.

"I fought, trying to get away, tossing my head around wildly. I felt the glass cutting into me and I heard myself screaming. Somehow, I got my hand up and grabbed his hand, the one that was holding the glass. I shoved it back toward his own face as hard as I could. It gouged his cheek. He howled like an injured animal, and then he started crying. He was trying to kill me, but he was the one who began to sob. There were tears streaming down his face.

"That was when I squirmed out from under him and made for the back door. I was barely conscious and every single part of me was screaming with pain. But I vaguely remembered that I had a cell phone in my pants pocket and that dialing 911 would summon help.

I got the phone out and called. I don’t know exactly what I said. As I begged for help, I kept
crawlin
g. I was slick with my own blood. It was night and I couldn’t see properly. I don’t know where Derek was by then or why he stopped attacking me. I made the call, and then I passed out.

"When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My father was with me. He stayed with me every minute, and he promised me Derek would never come near me again. For a while, after I got out of the hospital, I lived in terror that he would come after me, but the only thing he did was call me obsessively.

"The police had arrested him for domestic violence and assault, and I filed for divorce. He got a crack defense attorney. Because he'd been cut by the glass as well, he tried to sell the story that I had attacked him first. Maybe they believed him. Anyway, it was his first offense and he’d never even had a traffic ticket, so he got off easily—anger management classes or something.

"I didn’t care what happened to him. I just wanted it to be over. I moved in with my dad, because I had no place else to go. In the beginning, I was so traumatized that I was afraid to be alone. I didn’t want anything from Derek—money or property or anything from the marriage. I just wanted to be free and for him to leave me alone.

"Dad took amazing care of me. He didn't leave my side. I know you don't like my father, but when this happened, he was awesome."

"I'm glad he was there for you." Her father, gruff and domineering in so many ways, had always been protective. He was an arrogant bastard, but hell, Stephen had no doubt that he'd have done everything in his power to take care of his daughter.

As he intended to do now.

"I used to think I was good at reading people," she went on. "But I never saw Derek's violence coming. Before it happened, I was certain he would never lay a rough hand on any woman, much less someone he professed to love."

"He probably didn't love you anywhere near as much as he loved himself, the bastard."

"That's it exactly. Deep down all there was in him was a void. Even after the end, after he beat me so badly, after I left him..." she paused. "He tried to get me back. Back under his control. Sometimes I'm afraid he's still trying."

"What do you mean?" His voice had grown sharp.

"I don't know. There have been some hang-ups on my phone. Probably just marketing calls—I get those all the time and I ignore them. But I'm anxious so I'm imagining things. There was a car that parked on the street outside my house the other night for a few minutes. It made me remember how obsessive he was about me."

"What car? Did you get the license plate number?"

"No, it was dark. But it could have been anybody. Just someone visiting the neighbors. Hopefully Derek's still on the other side of the globe."

He'd fucking better be or the guy was going to be damn sorry. "We can find out."

"We can? How?"

"I know some people. There are ways to track these things down."

"It would be a relief to know he's still in Australia."

They lay in silence for a few minutes while he gently massaged her tight shoulders. "Thank you for telling me. I know it was hard for you. But you did fine. You got through that explanation like a champion." He smoothed her cheeks and kissed her forehead. "No tears. No panic. You didn't break down."

"I haven't cried since that night. Not once. I did see a therapist for a while, and she thought I needed to cry about it. But I won't. I won't give that creep the satisfaction."

"You do know that what happened wasn't your fault?"

"I know. The marriage would have ended anyway, but maybe it wouldn't have ended in violence if I had been a little more mature, a little more insightful."

"Viola. There is never any excuse for what he did to you. Never."

She hugged him hard. "You're one of the good guys, Stephen. Thank you for being so understanding."

"No problem, babe. You make it easy to care about you."

Chapter 26

Later that night, Stephen had one of those ideas for his book that was so insistent that he was forced to get out of bed and write it down. It happened often when he was in one of his creative periods.

He left Viola sleeping and went into the living room with the laptop she had lent him. The neighborhood was quiet, since it was well after midnight. He vaguely heard a car driving down the street. He probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if he had not grown so accustomed to the lack of traffic near his quiet beach side home.

He went to the window and glanced out. The car has passed the house and continued on down the street. He watched for a couple of minutes, but it did not return. There was no reason to think that Viola's fears about Derek's possible return were anything but the shadows she had admitted them to be. Still, he wanted to make sure, so he decided to call Max.

His friend Max was a computer genius and a software baron. And he was almost always awake in the middle of the night. Stephen pulled out his phone and called.

After the usual cheerful insults were exchanged, he asked, "Can you check whether somebody is actually in the country where he is believed to be? As opposed to being here in the USA?"

"Sure. Within limits. If he's an ordinary guy, it's easy. If you want Ed Snowden's precise whereabouts, that will be a little bit harder."

"I think this guy is ordinary. Middle-aged. Not a techie type. He is believed to be in Australia, where he returned after living in the States for a number of years. But I want to be sure he's on another distant continent instead of here, stalking my girlfriend. He's her ex-husband, and he abused her."