Sally Berneathy - Private Vows

“Yes,” he countered, and she didn’t have the strength to protest a second time.

As she made her way back inside the shelter, through the noisy main room and into a private office, she could feel Cole’s presence behind her, supporting her and giving her strength as surely as if he were physically touching her.

She picked up the telephone on the desk. “Hello?”

“This is Pete Townley. We’ve got a John Doe down here we’d like you to come look at. Fished him out of the river this morning. He’s been dead about two days, has type AB blood, the same as what was on your dress, and multiple stab wounds.”

Stab wounds.

The cold, shiny blade of a knife slashed through her mind.

A torrent of red burst over her, filling her nostrils with a coppery scent and her soul with unbearable horror.

She had to get away from it, run as fast and as far as she could, into the dark oblivion that beckoned her with its promise of escape.

“Mary?” Strong arms gripped her, pulling her back from the edge. “Mary!”

She clutched Cole’s chest like a lifeline, holding herself barely out of the void.

That must be what had happened before. She’d allowed herself to seek the relief of complete forgetfulness when her life became unbearable.

Had she just retrieved the first memory of that life? If so, she didn’t want it!

“There was so much blood,” she whispered.

“Whose blood?”

The prosaic question snapped her completely back to the present. She looked into Cole’s dark eyes, now shadowed with concern. He’d been able to pull her back because he’d known where she was going. He’d been there himself.

Whatever had happened, whatever she’d done, she had to face it the way he’d faced his nightmare.

She realized she still clutched the telephone receiver in one hand while a small voice asked, “Are you there? Mary? Hello?”

With a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she pushed away from Cole, into the thin air of the world, and lifted the receiver to her ear. “I’ll be there to look at the body,” she said, forcing the words up her constricted throat and past her dry lips.

Cole had been present many times when someone had to look at a body. Most of them cried, especially the women and some of the men…cried from grief if they knew the person, from relief if they didn’t. Some of them passed out. Some got sick.

Mary just stood beside the slab in the morgue, trembling, arms wrapped around herself, staring down at the body.

“Look familiar?” Pete asked. “Ring any bells? Set off any alarms?”

She shook her head, the movement jerky.

In spite of knowing he couldn’t help her and should stay as far away as possible so he didn’t make matters any worse, Cole wrapped a comforting arm around her and pulled her rigid body against him.

“Nobody you know? You’re sure?” Pete pursued, and Cole resisted the urge to tell him to back off. Pete was only doing his job, the same job Cole himself had done many times. It couldn’t be helped that Mary wasn’t strong enough for this kind of ordeal. Some people just weren’t, and there was nothing he or Pete or anyone else could do to change that.

“How can I tell if it’s somebody I know when I didn’t recognize my own face two days ago?” she whispered.

“Let’s go,” Cole said, gently turning her away from the cold marble slab with its grisly occupant. “She can’t tell you anything, Pete.”

Pete nodded. “Thanks for coming down.”

When they finally got back outside the building, into daylight and warmth, Mary stopped on the sidewalk and drew in a deep breath.

“I never thought I’d enjoy the smell of exhaust fumes,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Yeah, I guess it does beat the hell out of smelling death and decay.” He had to admit, he shared her relief at getting out of the morgue. The place had been a part of his life for twelve years and he’d thought himself immune to its horrors, but today Mary’s distress had affected him, had made its way inside his pores.

Empathy.

Guilt.

“I need to get used to that, don’t I?” she said, staring across the street toward the parking lot but, he suspected, not really seeing it. She held her hands at her sides, clenched into tight fists.

“Probably. Every stiff they dig up that has AB blood, they’re going to want you to come take a look. It could be worse. Could have been type O blood on that gown. A more common blood type, more bodies.”

She grimaced. “Yes, I suppose things could always be worse.”

She didn’t sound as if she believed her own statement, and he didn’t blame her. Things were pretty bad in her life right now.

“You ready to go get some lunch and visit with my friend about the ring?” he asked, thinking how small a contribution he was offering to her well-being, considering the major contribution he’d made to her problems.

“I’m not hungry. I think I’d like to go straight back to the shelter.”

“You’re so thin. You need to eat.” He wanted to bite back the words as soon as he said them. He sounded like her father, for crying out loud. She was a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. She didn’t need anybody to take care of her.

She’s a frightened, vulnerable woman alone without even her memories. And no matter what anybody said, he’d had a hand in making her that way. He had a responsibility even though he wasn’t sure he could fulfill that responsibility.

“They’ll have lunch at the shelter. I really need some time to deal with this.”

She was going to deal with it on her own. He was off the hook.

But something deep inside didn’t quite buy it as he thought of her in that crowded, anonymous shelter, eating anonymous food among strangers, sleeping with no privacy. She wasn’t strong, couldn’t stand alone. If he hadn’t run into her, she’d be safe in a comfortable home somewhere with a fiancé who loved her and could take care of her instead of planning to return to that place for people who’d lost their lives.

Nevertheless, he didn’t know what he could do to help at this point.

“I understand,” he forced himself to say. “We’ll visit my friend tomorrow.” With one hand he gestured to his car in the parking lot across the street, resisting the urge to place that hand at her waist, guide her, touch her. Any excuse to touch her. He sensed she felt the same attraction he did, but he wasn’t going to start down that road, take advantage of her helpless, needy situation.

Especially not with her engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket and the man who gave it to her probably frantic with worry by now.

As she started to step off the curb, a delivery van zipped past, pulled over and parked a few yards up the street…and Mary whirled around, eyes wide, pupils shrunken to pinpoints, face ghostly pale, sheer panic in total possession of her.

He grabbed her as she lunged forward in an effort to run down the walk, get away from the harmless van.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” He held her tightly as she struggled to get free. Over and over he repeated the nonsensical phrase. Of course it wasn’t okay when anybody was that terrified. He’d said the same thing over and over for Angela and achieved only minimal, temporary results, never anything approaching okay.

Gradually she stopped fighting him, closed her eyes and slumped in his arms. For a moment he thought she might have fainted.

She drew in a deep breath and her spine stiffened, though she kept her face turned to his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft with a slight quaver but an underlying determination. “I have no idea what just happened.”

“The van,” he speculated. “It’s basically the same kind of vehicle as the ambulance you didn’t want to get into the other night. You must have some kind of phobia about ambulances.”