Danielle Steel - The long road home

He pulled her to her feet again then, and when he threw her against the wall, she knew her arm was broken. But she no longer cared, about any of it. He would get nothing from her, and the life he sought to take from her now meant nothing to her. There had been too many lies, too many heartbreaks, too much pain, too many losses, and he was just one more. She saw a white light around her finally as she lay on the floor and he kicked her, screaming at her, to call the bank, to give him what he wanted, and telling her how hateful she was, how rotten, how he had never loved her. His words raged at her with as much venom as his fists did, and as she looked at him, she thought she saw Joe, and then the professor, and finally her mother, all saying something to her… Joe was telling her that he loved her and couldn't be with her… The professor was begging her not to let Steve do this to her, and her mother was telling her that it was all her fault, that she was as rotten as he said and she deserved it. But as she listened to all of them she knew the truth of what they were saying. That it was not her, but them… it was all their fault, not her own… it was Steve who was the villain… it was Steve who had killed the professor, and now her… and with a strength she never thought she could muster again, she staggered to her feet to face him. She was bleeding all over and her face was completely distorted. There was no way he could take her to the bank now, no way he could call the police, no way he could do anything but run, without the money. And with a final burst of rage, he lunged at her and tried to squeeze the last breath from her. He shook her until the room spun around her, and still she held on, still she clung to him, clawing his face and fighting back now. She would not let him do this to her, no one would ever do it to her again. She refused to let go of life as he tried to strangle her, and then finally he dropped her to the floor, kicked her one last time, and left her.

She didn't know if she'd won or lost as she lay there. And it didn't matter. They had all tried in their own way to kill her… Joe… her mother… Steve… her father… they had tried and failed. They had reached down as far inside of her as they could get and tried to destroy her spirit, tried to extinguish it like a small flame but it was always out of reach, just beyond them, and for that they hated her more than ever. Gabbie rolled over on her back, and looked up at the ceiling with eyes filled with blood and pain, and she saw Joe standing there, looking down at her, telling her he was sorry. And this time, when he held a hand out to her, and beckoned her, she turned away, and walked slowly alone into the darkness.

Chapter 23

M RS. ROSENSTEIN SAW Gabriella lying there as she walked past the professors room late that afternoon, on the way to her own room. There was blood everywhere, the furniture was overturned, and at first she didn't even see her. Gabriella looked like a limp rag doll. Her face was unrecognizable, her hair was matted with blood, there were bruises on her neck, and she lay so awkwardly, it seemed obvious to Mrs. Rosenstein that Gabriella was dead. She had to be, she appeared not to be breathing. And everyone in the house came when they heard Mrs. Rosenstein screaming.

One of the boarders called the operator immediately and saw that the phone had been torn out of the wall in the professors room. He was one of the few guests with his own phone line.

Everyone in the house stood huddled and crying as they waited for the ambulance to come. One of the new boarders had searched for a pulse and said that she still had one, but barely. And it was impossible to know how much damage had been done, given the obvious blows to her head. It was entirely possible, one of the boarders whispered, that she'd be brain-damaged forever… so young… so beautiful… So terrible… they all whispered as Mrs. Boslicki sobbed, as they all asked each other who could have done this. For a moment Mrs. Boslicki wondered if Steve had done this and run away, but when someone looked in his room his things were all there. They were dreading telling him what had happened.

They were all standing around her like mourners at a wake as the ambulance attendants came running into the house. After one look at her, they moved her to the ambulance with lightning speed, and were gone in less than two minutes, with sirens screaming.

But Gabriella heard nothing this time as they drove. She saw no visions. Heard no voices. She had been in a coma since shortly after Steve had left her. She was in a faraway place free from all pain now.

The entire trauma unit team worked on her all afternoon, the arm was set, the wounds were sewn, the bruises were staggering, and this time nearly all her ribs were broken, but it was the head injuries that worried them. They did several EEGs, but the real test would be if her brain survived the swelling. Eventually a plastic surgeon came to work on her face. She had a long open wound on her chin, and another over her left eyebrow. But he was satisfied, when he was finished, with the repair work. He couldn't help noticing the bruises on her neck as well, and shook his head when he left her. He stopped to talk to the head of the trauma team, a young doctor he'd worked with before, he was the head of the department, Peter Mason.

“Nice job they did on her,” the plastic surgeon said, adding his notes to the chart. She'd already been in surgery twice that evening. Once with him, and the other time with the orthopedic man to put a pin in her elbow. “She must have really pissed someone off.” It was nothing short of amazing that they hadn't killed her.

“Maybe it's her cooking,” Peter said without smiling. It was the kind of humor that kept them going. They saw too much of this, car accidents, people who jumped out of windows and survived despite their best efforts not to, and near-fatal beatings. What Peter hated most was seeing the children. The trauma unit was not a place that left you many illusions.

“Have the cops seen her yet?” the plastic surgeon asked casually, handing the chart back.

“They took a lot of pictures of her after we got the arm set. It wasn't pretty.” And it still wasn't. Neither of them had any way of gauging what she had once looked like.

“Think she'll make it?”

Peter Mason whistled before he answered. His whites were still covered with her blood, the list of her injuries seemed endless, and their X rays showed a fair amount of earlier damage, maybe a car accident, it was hard to say. But what had been done to her this time had been damn near fatal. Her liver and kidneys were in bad shape too from being kicked, it seems like there wasn't any part of her that wasn't damaged. “I'd like to think she'll make it,” Peter Mason said optimistically, but he really didn't think she would. The head injuries just added one more complication. The rest would have been enough to kill her. Even one of her eyes had been affected.

“I hope they get the son of a bitch who did it,” the plastic surgeon said amiably, and went home to dinner.

“Probably her husband,” Peter muttered to himself. He had seen that before too. Husbands or boyfriends who were jealous or drunk or came unhinged for some minor reason that made sense to them and seemed to justify taking another life in order to soothe their egos. He'd seen too much of this in the past ten years. He was thirty-five years old, divorced, and afraid he was getting bitter. His wife had left him because she said she couldn't stand it anymore. He was never home, always on call, and even when he was with her, he wasn't. He was always thinking about his patients, or running out the door to save the victims of a car crash. She stuck it out for five years and left him for a plastic surgeon who only did face-lifts. And he wasn't sure he blamed her.