M Sellars: Perfect Trust

So, she was at home, on her couch, and it was dark. In the overall scheme of things, that really wasn’t much to go on. But at least she was at her home, and she hadn’t gotten drunk and gone home with some sleazy bar asshole. Or had she?

A different kind of fear rippled through her abdomen. Had she screwed up, gotten trashed, and brought some dumbass home with her? God! She hoped not! If only she could remember.

Without thinking, she lifted her arm to check her watch and regretted it instantly. A new ache added itself to the growing list, this one taking the form of a burning soreness in the vicinity of her ribcage. It seemed isolated to her left side, for the moment at least.

Opening both eyes this time, she struggled to focus on the face of her wristwatch. Fumbling with her free hand, she managed to press the button to illuminate the digital timepiece, although she was fairly certain that said button had always been on the opposite side from where she finally found it. Centered in the eerie blue glow, she watched as the liquid crystal flickered from something that looked like the number 9l followed by the letter E, to suddenly become the word Ll: E.

The jumble of LCD segments made little sense to Heather’s clouded mind, and she blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to get a clearer picture. The digits still read Ll: E.

“Lie?” she mused aloud, her voice hoarse and thick. “What the? Awww, screw it…”

The fear had finally become a faded shadow of what it had been a few minutes before, and she told herself that her earlier flashback to childhood must have been dead on. She probably just had a nightmare. She gritted her teeth and pushed upward once again until she was in a sitting position. Swinging first one leg, then the other, over the edge of the cushions, she let her feet touch the floor, then she leaned forward. Elbows on her knees, she cradled her head in her hands and massaged her temples.

The big question on her mind now was whether or not a nightmare could make you forget what you had done when you were conscious.

After something just short of forever, she stood and almost immediately fell. With a grimace she kicked off her heels, absently wondering why she hadn’t bothered to do so earlier. “Of course, since I can’t remember much of anything else, why should I be surprised?” she thought.

Heather stumbled through her apartment toward the bathroom on a single-minded quest for aspirin. If she could make the pain go away then maybe she could concentrate. Surely she would be able to remember how she got here. People don’t just lose entire chunks of time out of their lives, except maybe in those alien abduction movies.

“Yeah, right,” she laughed as she mumbled to herself. “Get real, Heather. You weren’t abducted by aliens.”

Her fingers found the light switch automatically and flicked it on. She squinted and turned her head away as the sudden flood of luminance assaulted her. She groaned audibly and wondered why her entire body seemed to ache. Flu, maybe? That could be it, she thought. Flu, fever, and the whole nine yards. Yeah, maybe that was the explanation.

Still squinting, she looked up and reached for the medicine chest over the sink. Through slit eyes she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped.

Her shag of blonde hair was an absolute mess, but that wasn’t what startled her most. Bright crimson smears streaked across her mouth, and her face looked splotchy, uneven. It was as if someone had haphazardly wiped away layers of heavy makeup. Reddish-purple bruises stood out against the pale skin of her neck, almost as if they were glowing.

The visual trigger set hidden memories in motion, and it was at this very moment that the source of her earlier fear called out from the secret places inside her skull where they had been laying in wait.

The parking lot…

The pain in her side like an electric shock…

The medicinal bitterness on the back of her tongue…

The darkness…

The feeling of helplessness as rough hands groped her without apology…

A deep feeling of violation bludgeoned her now. She backed away from the mirror as the earlier terror returned full force. Hot tears were already streaming along her cheeks, and she soon found her back pressed against the tiled wall. She allowed herself to slide down to the floor and hugged her knees against her chest even though it hurt like hell.

Heather Burke sat on the cold floor and sobbed for a solid hour before finally summoning the courage to drive herself to the hospital.

“Did you already do a rape kit?” Detective Charlene McLaughlin asked before taking a cautious slug of her hot drink.

She was still working on a chai latte from the corner stop ‘n grab she had hit on the way here and was already regretting it. She knew better than to be adventurous and try something new this morning. She should have just stuck with her regular large coffee-two creams, four sugars. That way she would have known exactly what to expect. Charlee hated surprises, and what was in her cup this morning definitely fell into that category. What was worse, it wasn’t of the good variety.

Everyone called her Charlee. Some even shortened it to Chuck, but only if they knew her very well. Even fewer people actually called her Charlene, mostly because it just didn’t seem to go with the overall picture. Petite and sporting an ash blonde pageboy coif, she could almost always be found wearing jeans and running shoes. Given her tomboyish appearance and tough demeanor, the moniker just seemed to fit.

Before her recent transfer to the sex crimes unit, she had been assigned to City Homicide. Among that close knit group of cops, there had actually been a running bet that she didn’t even own a dress or skirt. Catching wind of it, she’d made a deal to split the pool with an office worker then showed up one day wearing a nicely tailored skirt and jacket ensemble. She’d been totally uncomfortable the entire day and vowed to never again wear pantyhose for as long as she lived, but it had been more than worth the looks on their faces-the hundred bucks cash she got from the split was just icing on the cake. She never did tell them that she’d had to borrow the outfit from a friend.

This morning she was dressed in her usual. A well-worn leather bomber jacket fit over her torso, hanging just loose enough to hide the nine-millimeter Beretta riding in a shoulder rig beneath her left arm. Her badge was clipped on her belt, visible, but unobtrusive.

“The nurse is finishing up with her now.” The doctor nodded as they walked, answering her query about the kit before adding, “We called it in as soon as she arrived.”

Generic instrumental Christmas music was filtering softly in from overhead to mix with the ambient sounds of the ER. It wasn’t doing much to lift Charlee’s spirits though. She had been on edge with an itchy, nervous kind of energy for over a week now. She’d had the feeling before and she’d known what was coming-this. The truth is, she’d been fully expecting this call ever since that second case file hit her desk, and she’d been dreading it all the while. Now that it was here, the dread wasn’t subsiding.

“Good, good,” Charlee nodded as she absently took another swig of the latte then screwed up her face. Yeah, this stuff was definitely an unpleasant surprise. Trying to ignore the bizarre taste in her mouth, she asked, “Get anything?”

“Unfortunately, not much.”

“Did she wait?”

The doctor had traveled this road before and immediately understood the meaning behind the question. “No, not long. She said it had only been an hour or so since she regained consciousness. She’s a smart girl. She had enough wits about her not to shower or clean up, so there’s definitely evidence of the rape. We did collect semen, and that will be on its way to the lab shortly.”