Beverly Barton - Silent Killer

“If it bothers you to talk about him…”

“It doesn’t. Not anymore. But I’d just as soon not talk about the past, not tonight. I spent nearly a year talking to my therapist at Haven Home in Birmingham. I’m pretty much all talked out.”

One jukebox selection ended and another began, “Love in the First Degree” by Alabama. Even though the rhythm was upbeat, they continued dancing at a slow, clinging pace.

“Been there, done that and have a T-shirt that reads Graduate of the Psych Ward.” He splayed his hand across the small of her back and pulled her closer.

They stared at each other, and he figured she saw her own pain and guilt and loneliness reflected in his eyes. And a similar steely determination to maintain sanity at any cost. He suspected she sensed that they were kindred spirits. He knew he damn well felt it.

“I guess you heard about what happened to me last year when Reverend Randolph was murdered,” she said.

Jack nodded.

“This time, I didn’t fall apart. I won’t fall apart. Not ever again. I have to be strong for my son.” She broke eye contact.

Jack reached down, cupped her chin and tilted her face upward. “Why don’t you tell me about your son? What’s his name?”

“Seth. We named him in honor of Mark’s younger brother, who died when he was only a few days old.”

“That was a nice thing to do.”

“It pleased Mark and his parents. Mark was so good to me. I wanted to make him happy.”

Did he make you happy, Cathy? “Seth’s an only child?” Jack asked.

“Yes. And I love him more than anything in the world.”

“It’s good for a kid to know he’s loved like that. Your son’s a lucky boy to have you for his mother.”

“I’m the lucky one. Seth is a wonderful boy. He’s good and kind. He’s smart, makes good grades in school and has never given us a moment’s trouble. And he’s a handsome boy, if I do say so myself.”

He liked the way her face lit up when she talked about her son. The love she felt for the boy was there in her expression, in the glow of her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes.

“I suppose he reminds you of his father.”

Jack felt her tense and wondered why. Damn it, why had he gone and mentioned Mark Cantrell when Cathy had been so happy talking about her son?

“Actually, Seth is more like me,” she said. “He even looks like me.”

“Then I believe you when you say he’s handsome.”

That comment brought a smile to her lips.

Another oldie came on the jukebox: “Young Love” by Sonny James.

Jack wondered if she remembered that this song had been playing the first time he brought her here and they had danced together. Right before the song had ended, he had kissed her for the first time. That had been a lifetime ago. They had been two different people then.

Cathy pulled out of his arms. “I think it’s time for me to go. I don’t want to keep Lorie up too late.”

He grabbed her hand. She stopped, turned around, looked at him and said, “Yes, I remember.”

He reached out, circled her neck with his other hand and lowered his head. God, what he’d give to relive that first kiss, to feel the way he’d felt that night, to know she felt the same way.

“Please don’t,” she whispered.

“Cathy?”

“Not yet. Not tonight. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to handle the way you still make me feel.”

He lifted his head and released her. “You’re right. We’re practically strangers. We need to get to know each other all over again, don’t we?”

“We will. I’ll be working with your contractor and you as you restore your house. We’ll see a lot of each other.”

“Yeah, I guess we will. But…what if I asked you for a date? What would you say?”

“I’d say that I’m not going to rush into anything, not with you or anyone else. I’ve only recently become my own woman, and I need time to get my bearings. My life is a brand-new unexplored territory.”

“Sounds like we’re in the same boat,” Jack told her. “I just ended a long career in the Rangers, and I’ve moved back to Dunmore and started a new job. I’m taking things one day at a time, getting used to my new life.”

“How about taking me home now?”

“Sure thing.”

“Jack?”

“Huh?”

“Thanks for tonight. It was just what I needed.”

“You’re welcome, Kit-Cat. Glad to be of service.”

She squeezed his hand and smiled. He felt ten feet tall and twenty years old again.

His hot breath fanned her neck, moved across her collarbone and swept across her breasts. She lay beneath him, her body rigid with fear and revulsion. His mouth pressed against her breast, surrounding her nipple through her cotton pajama top.

Please, God, make him stop. Don’t let him hurt me again. I’d rather die than endure what he’s going to do to me.

His hand slipped inside her pajama bottoms and cupped her intimately.

Tensing, she held her thighs tightly together, fighting his probing fingers.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her, his voice a dark, evil whisper. “But if you force me to hurt you, it will be your own fault.”

It’s not my fault. It’s not. I don’t want this. I hate you. I hate what you do to me.

He forced his hand between her legs.

Tears lodged in her throat, tears she would not shed. No matter what he did to her, she would never cry, not ever again.

His fingers thrust into her. She bit down on her lip to keep from screaming. But in her mind, she screamed and screamed and screamed.

John Earl leaned over the bed and grasped his wife’s trembling shoulders. “Wake up, Ruth Ann. Wake up, honey.” He shook her gently.

Her eyelids flew open, and she stared up at him, her gaze filled with terror.

“It’s all right,” he told her as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You were having a nightmare. That’s all.”

Shivering uncontrollably, she nodded and reached out for him. He took both of her unsteady hands in his, brought her cupped hands to his mouth and kissed the tips of her fingers.

“You’re safe.” More than anything, John Earl wanted to erase that expression of fear from Ruth Ann’s beautiful dark eyes. He never saw that look except after she had one of those horrific nightmares. She seldom had them now; as a matter of fact, it had been well over a year since the last one.

She pulled her hands from his and eased up in bed, then offered him a reassuring look. “Did I wake you? If I did, I’m sorry.” Her gaze scanned over him, apparently noting that he was wearing his pajama bottoms.

“I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “I was sitting up over there reading”-he indicated the chair by the window-“when I heard you whimpering.”

“I was screaming. Inside my head. Begging God for help.”

“Hush now. Hush.” John Earl pulled her into his arms and stroked her back. “Don’t relive it. Let it go, sweetheart. Let it go.”

She gasped, then began to weep quietly. He soothed her with his touch and loving words, praying for God to help him comfort her.

In the first few months of their marriage, the nightmares had plagued her every night, but eventually they had become less frequent until he thought they had finally gone away forever. And then Mark Cantrell was killed. Burned alive as Ruth Ann’s father had been burned alive on that long-ago night when someone had set fire to their home.

Ruth Ann lifted her tear-stained face and looked directly at him. “Sometimes I wish I knew for sure who set that fire, but then, when I think about the possibility that it might have been-”

“It wasn’t. You know it wasn’t.”

“That’s just it-I don’t know. What if I’ve always known and just blotted it out?”