Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

He moves up the bed. Her left hand sags free. Then her right.

Her body is beaten and tired and sore. She can't think. She can't move. But it's over, she tells herself, and feels the beginning of hysteria. It's over and she is still alive!

Then the man flips her over. Then the man climbs back on the bed. Then the man does stuff she has only ever read about, and this time she is sure she is screaming. She is screaming, screaming, screaming.

But the gag is in her mouth. The mattress absorbs the sound.

She is screaming and nobody hears a sound.

Time is gone. Reality has suspended. Her eyes glaze over. Saliva pools around the gag and drips onto her lovely Egyptian cotton sheets.

When he is finally done, she is beyond noticing, beyond caring. The man comes back. Sticks something in her unmoving body. Cold liquid gushes everywhere.

He rolls her back over, renews the ties at her hands and feet, then stares down at her face. Finally, almost tenderly, he reaches down and pulls the gag from her mouth.

“It's over,” he whispers. “Go ahead and scream. Call your neighbors. Call the police.”

The man disappears out her open window. At last, she is alone.

Carol does not scream. She is tied naked and spread-eagle to her own bed. She will not call out for her neighbors. She will not call out for the police. The man knew that, and now so does she.

She lies there instead, feeling the moisture run down her thighs. She lies there, with another man's semen running down her legs and she waits…

She waits for her husband to finally come home.

Six A.M. Monday morning, Carol Rosen prepared for her day. The day. Dan was already gone. He claimed that he wanted to get to work early so he could take the afternoon off if she was called to testify. They both knew that he lied. The state prosecutor, Ned D'Amato, has assured them that nothing happens the opening day of trial. The defense uses up the morning with last-minute motions to dismiss, then jury selection takes up the afternoon.

But Dan had insisted. You never know, he said. You never know.

Dan now came home by seven most nights. But even when he was here, he was gone, and it seemed to Carol that he got up earlier all the time. As if by five in the morning, he could no longer stand being alone with her in this house.

Carol hated him for that. But maybe she hated the house even more.

She went upstairs, showered forever with the curtain open, the bathroom door open. She needed lots of space these days. Had to see what was coming. Had to know where she'd been. The security system was always on. She had not turned off the TV in ten months. More often than not, she slept on the sofa in front of its babbling voices and multicolored screen.

After showering, she took out her new butter-cream suit. Dan didn't know about the suit yet. Lately, he'd been obsessed with money. Last month, she'd overheard him liquidating their brokerage account. She hadn't said anything; neither had he.

It was odd. In some ways he was more attentive than ever. Coming home for dinner, asking her what she needed. Right after that night, when she'd still been in the hospital, he had stayed glued to her side. Four days, four nights, probably the most time they'd spent together since their honeymoon ten years before.

When she had finally returned home, he'd already moved them into a different bedroom, one of the round turret rooms far from the scene of the attack. He had bought a new bed, new mattress, new sheets. He'd had elaborate, wrought-iron bars placed over each window.

She had taken one look at the round, shuttered room and collapsed in a fresh wave of tears. He had held her awkwardly, patting her back, though it was difficult for him to touch her and difficult for her to be touched. He didn't understand her despair, and she couldn't explain it.

For a week, he brought her a fresh bouquet of flowers each night and takeout from her favorite restaurants. Guilt, she decided, smelled like red roses and veal piccata.

The house held a deeper silence now. Dan didn't hear it, but she did.

Carol put on her suit. She stood in front of the mirror and gazed at the woman reflected there.

Most days, she still did not feel like she belonged to herself. That woman with the high cheekbones and stubborn chin could not be her. That woman with the pearl drop earrings and Chanel suit looked like she should be at a garden party, or a museum opening. Or perhaps another social sponsored by the Providence Preservation Society. In other words, the things that Carol used to do.

That woman in the mirror looked too normal to be her.

She took off the suit. When the hour was more civilized, say 7:00 A.M., she would call Jillian and ask her what she was going to wear. Jillian was the expert on these things. She always looked cool, calm, composed. Even at her sister's funeral, she had seemed to know exactly what to say and do.

Now, Carol put on a pair of gray sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. Then she went downstairs to the gourmet kitchen, where at six-thirty in the morning, she got out a pint of Ben amp; Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream. The morning news anchor babbled away in the family room. The grandfather clock sounded the half-hour gong in the foyer.

Six-thirty Monday morning. The Monday morning.

Carol Rosen looked down at her wrists, pale, delicate and still marred by faint white scars. She looked around her kitchen, with its cherry cabinets and marble countertops, still so goddamn empty. And she thought about her body, her supposedly beautiful, supposedly attractive body that now hadn't been touched in nearly a year. And then she was glad for today. She was extremely happy for today. She couldn't fucking wait for today!

“It's still too good for you, you son of a bitch!” she exclaimed hoarsely in the silent room.

Then Carol put her head in her hands and wept.

GRIFFIN AND WATERS EXITED THE WORLD WAR Memorial Park in time to spot Lieutenant Morelli, Captain Dodge and Major Walsh huddled together in the middle of the crowd of illegally parked police cars. Lieutenant Morelli looked up, caught their eye and hastily waved them over.

“Oh boy,” Waters said. Lieutenant Morelli's appearance was hardly unusual. The lieutenant of the Major Crimes Unit in the Detective Bureau, she generally attended a new crime scene if it involved a homicide. The detective commander, Captain Dodge, also wasn't too unexpected. He generally appeared if the case was considered high profile. The arrival of the Major of Field Operations, Major Walsh, the number-two man in the organization, aka the Boss, on the other hand, signified big-guns time. Headline case. High-pressure stakes. The kind of investigation that makes careers or breaks careers. The last time Waters and Griffin had seen this much brass at a crime scene…

Waters went back to studiously avoiding Griffin 's fist. Griffin went back to pointedly not looking at Waters's nose.

“Major,” Griffin said, clicking his heels together and rendering the proper salute. “Captain. Lieutenant.” He saluted them, too, then waited as Waters did the same. Waters only saluted the major and captain, however, as he'd already officially greeted Lieutenant Morelli earlier in the day.

“Do we have a description of the shooter yet?” the major asked immediately. He was looking photo-op ready, decked out in a sharply pressed Rhode Island trooper's uniform. The dark gray fabric was edged with deep red piping, and a buff-colored Stetson was pulled low to the ridge of his brow, while dark brown boots were laced up to his knees. Best damn uniform in the nation. Just ask Letterman.