Erica Spindler - Cause for Alarm

"Luke," she called again, louder this time, not taking her gaze from the other woman. "You'd better get out h-"

"I'm here." He laid a hand on her shoulder and bent close to her ear. "Take Emma to the bedroom."

Kate looked over her shoulder at him, uneasy. "Why? What do you-"

"I don't know. Do it, just in case."

She nodded and went for the car carrier and Emma, skirting wide around Julianna. She needn't have worried. The other woman didn't even notice her.

Kate set the carrier in the bedroom, then shut the door partway. She didn't know what Luke feared was going to happen but she wasn't about to take any chance of her daughter getting hurt.

When she returned to the living room, Julianna had the photo clutched to her chest. Her hands were riddled with cuts and bleeding; she had rubbed blood across her face and onto her khaki trousers. She was humming under her breath and rocking.

Kate met Luke's gaze. "We have to do something. That glass is tearing her hands to pieces."

He nodded and squatted down beside her. "Julianna, honey, come on. You're hurting yourself."

"It's me," she said, showing him the picture. "And John."

"I see that." He cupped her elbow. "You can bring it back to the motel, if you like."

"I don't understand." She lifted her gaze to his-Kate saw that her eyes were filled with tears. "How could he do that to me? I was just a…just a child. A little girl."

"I know, sweetheart. But it's over now. It's okay."

He took her elbow, but she shook off his hand, turning her gaze back to the photo. She dragged in a shuddering breath. When she released it, it came out as a high, thin wail of grief. Another one followed. Then another.

She drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest, beginning to cry, wracking sobs that seemed to come from the very center of her being. When they eased slightly, Luke bent and scooped her up. "Come on, honey. You're hurting yourself."

At first she lay limply in his arms, crying softly. Then, suddenly and with a roar, she fought him, squirming, kicking, trying to claw. He lost his grip on her, and she broke free.

With a howl of rage, she grabbed the lamp off the end table and flung it. It hit the wall and shattered. "I was just a baby!" She screamed. She took the phone and yanked it from the wall. "How could he do that to me! How! I loved him!"

Her gaze landed on the photograph and she fell on it, ripping and tearing at it until she could no longer grasp the pieces, they were too small. "I trusted him!" Panting, grunting with exertion, she ran, stumbling, to the bookshelves and began tearing the volumes from the shelves, flinging them as far and hard as she could.

As suddenly as the rampage had begun, it ended. She collapsed to the floor, spent, whimpering like a wounded animal.

Kate went to her. Kneeling beside her, she took the younger woman into her arms, holding her as she would Emma, rocking and murmuring sounds of comfort.

Julianna turned her face into Kate's chest, clinging to her. "I was just a little girl. How could he do that to me? How?"

"I don't know, baby. But you're safe now." Kate stroked her hair, and lifted her gaze to Luke's, her heart breaking for the younger woman. "We won't let him near you, not ever again."

Luke finished the search while Kate comforted Julianna. She helped the younger woman clean her wounds, carefully washing and drying her hands, picking out slivers of glass, then disinfecting each cut with the rubbing alcohol she found underneath the sink in the master bath.

Julianna sat unmoving on the couch while Kate applied the alcohol with a cotton swab, not even wincing though Kate knew how much it must burn. It was as if she had spent one hundred percent of her emotional energy, leaving her a shell, disconnected and empty.

Kate's heart hurt for her, and she wished she could say or do something that would make everything all right, repair the damage John had inflicted on the mind and spirit of the trusting little girl Julianna had been.

But there was no such thing, Kate knew. The damage was done, and it ran deep.

She capped the alcohol and set the bottle on the coffee table. "Why don't you lay back and rest a moment," she said. "I'm going to check on Luke."

Julianna did as Kate suggested, though she didn't close her eyes. She stared blankly at the ceiling, her expression devoid of emotion. Kate gazed at her a moment, wishing again that she could do or say something to help her, then went in search of Luke.

She found him in the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder at her when she entered. "Find anything?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"We've got a problem." She told him about the photograph, about realizing that John Powers and a regular patron of The Bean's, a man named Nick Winters, were one and the same person. "If, as I suspect, he's the one who murdered Tess, he has my Rolodex. Your name and address were in it."

"Son of a bitch. That means he could have figured out we're together."

"Yes."

"Then we do have a problem." Luke swore again. "The motel, Kate. I registered under my own name. I thought it would be safe, I assumed he wouldn't know we were together. Dammit to hell, that was stupid. I put us in jeopardy."

"I thought the same, Luke. That we would be safe. I never would have dragged you into this if I'd known who Nick Winters was."

"I'm glad you didn't know."

Their gazes held a moment, then he made a sound of frustration and looked away. "We're going to have to change motels. As soon as possible."

"I don't know if Julianna's up to it. She's pretty traumatized."

As if cued, Julianna began to whimper in the other room. Luke's jaw tightened. "I hate this man, Kate. If he had walked through that door earlier, I swear I could have killed him. With my bare hands. I-" He drew in a steadying breath. "I never thought I could say something like that and really mean it. But I do mean it. I could have done it."

She laid a hand on his arm, and he covered it with one of his own. "How old do you think she was when he… when he began molesting her?"

"I don't know," he murmured. "Really young, I think."

She thought of her own daughter and of the girl Julianna might have been and tears stung her eyes. "Do you think she's going to make it? She's lost so much."

"The human spirit is resilient, Kate. With therapy she might overcome the damage. People have bounced back from worse."

"I suppose." She turned her gaze toward the living room. Through the doorway she could see part of the couch and Julianna. "I feel so…bad for her," she murmured. "Twenty-four hours ago, I couldn't have said that. After what she did to me and Richard, I would have sworn I could never say that."

"She gave you Emma."

"Yes."

They both fell silent. After a moment, Kate cleared her throat. "Even with everything, I always felt grateful for that. Someplace inside me, I was always thankful to her." She looked at Luke. "What does that say about me?"

"That you love your daughter very much."

"Or does it mean I didn't love my husband enough?"

"Don't do this to yourself, Kate. It's destructive. Counterproductive. Let it go."

He was right; she knew he was. But she couldn't let it go, as much as she longed to. "Julianna told me that in return for Richard, she gave me what I wanted most in the world." Her eyes filled with tears. "Did I want to be a mother no matter the cost?"

The tears spilled over, and she swiped impatiently at them. "I've asked myself that question a hundred times. I've asked myself, if I could bring Richard back to life, if I could have our lives as they had been before, and all I had to do was hand Emma back-" Her throat closed over the words, guilt and grief and shame choking her. "I can't honestly say I would, Luke. I love her too much."