Danielle Steel - The long road home

“He wanted money from me… I've been giving him money for months,” she whispered, and he'd been taking it, but she didn't have the strength to say that. She could tell them the rest later. “And a friend just left me some money… He wanted me to give him all of it, or most of it… or he'd say I tried to have him kill the professor… He left me the money. Steve wanted it all… wanted to go to Europe… said he'd kill me if I didn't give it to him.” And he had very nearly delivered on the promise. And then she added the final blow to what she had told them. “I think he killed the professor… tried to… hurt him… then he had a stroke… he left me the money.” It was a little garbled, but they thought they could get the rest from the landlady and the other boarders at the boardinghouse, and there was plenty of time to ask Gabriella more questions later, when she felt better.

“Did he use any weapons on you?” they asked her then, and she was surprised by the question.

“Just hit me.”

“Nice guy.” They flipped their notebooks shut and thanked her and told her they'd come back when she felt better. They told her they hoped to have good news for her shortly, and she was surprised to realize as she lay back and closed her eyes that she wasn't sorry. She had done the right thing, and she knew it. It was time to stop the people who hurt her. Some of them couldn't help it, like Joe, and Mother Gregoria… but her mother… and maybe even her father… they didn't have to do it… and Steve… all she could do now was stop him. It was too late for the others.

She opened her eyes again after they left and was surprised to see Peter still standing there, watching her. He was trying to guess what she was thinking, if she had really loved the guy, and was heartbroken over what had happened. She didn't look it. She looked happy, relieved in a way. And he could almost guess that underneath all the wounds and bruises and bandages, she might be pretty. He would have liked her anyway, he realized. There was something incredibly powerful about her. She had come through hell, and she was smiling at him.

“Good work,” he said.

“Bad person… terrible… he killed my friend.”

“He nearly killed you,” which was more important to Peter. She was his patient. “I hope they catch him.”

“Me too.”

Both their wishes were granted. The police came back at six o'clock that night just before Peter finally went off duty.

They had found Steve at four o'clock that afternoon, gambling in Atlantic City. The FBI had a file on him, and Texas and California had been very helpful. He had denied everything, of course, told them they were crazy, said Gabbie was psychotic and had threatened him. But with the condition she was in, he didn't have a prayer of anyone believing his story. It was all over for him. He had violated parole in three states, and even if he'd never laid a hand on her, he was going to be serving time all around the country. It was only miraculous that they hadn't caught him sooner. And if they had, maybe he wouldn't have hurt her. But after what he had done to her, he was going to be put away for a long time. They read him his rights and arrested him on the spot. They were charging him with attempted murder, and they were going to see if they could make manslaughter charges stick in the death of the professor. Steve had been right in the end. This was the Big Time. Gabbie listened to them in amazement.

“Will he go to jail?” she asked, still whispering. She didn't have the strength, and it still hurt too much to speak louder. Her ribs shrieked every time she moved or spoke, or even whispered.

“For a long time,” they reassured her, and she nodded. She was sorry all of it had happened. It was all so ugly, and so terrible, and she was still sick about the professor. She would much rather have had him than his money. Before the police left, they told her the boardinghouse was in an uproar that night, and everyone sent her their best wishes. But so far, no one had been allowed to visit. They would come as soon as the doctors let them.

“That's me. I'm the bad guy. You need to rest,” Peter said to her after the police left. “How do you feel?” he asked her, looking concerned. She'd been through a lot of emotion since that morning. Deciding to turn the guy in couldn't have been easy for her, and now hearing the consequences of it. It was a hard thing knowing you had sent someone to prison, even if he deserved it. And for her, there had to be added conflict, since Peter assumed she had loved him. She had, in a way, but it had been more of an entanglement and an addiction. She hadn't known how to get out of it, how to stop giving money to him, particularly once he started pressing her for it. He had been a con man and he had manipulated her, and she had been easy prey for him. But she knew now that she had never really loved him,

“Are you okay?” Peter asked again, and she nodded.

“I think so.” She still wasn't sure what she felt, it was all so confusing.

“It must be difficult, thinking he was your friend.” He could only imagine that her sense of betrayal was beyond measure.

“I don't think I ever knew him. I don't know who he was,” she said quietly, and he saw something in her eyes that touched him. She looked up at him then with a question. “How long will I be here?” She reminded him suddenly of the old lady who had fallen down the marble staircase the night before, and wanted to get to the hairdresser in the morning.

“Do you have a hair appointment?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Not exactly.” Her hair was lost in the bandages somewhere. He could hardly guess what color it was, and hadn't really noticed. “I just wondered.” She spoke very softly.

“A few weeks. Long enough to get you tap-dancing again, or whatever it is you do. What do you do?” He knew from her chart that she was twenty-three years old, single, had no apparent family, lived in a boarding-house, and worked in a bookshop, and nothing much beyond that.

“I'm trying to be a writer,” she said shyly.

“Ever publish anything?” he asked with interest.

“Once. The New Yorker in March.” It was very prestigious and he was impressed to hear it.

“You must be pretty good.”

“Not yet,” she said modestly. “I'm working on it.”

“Well, don't write about this one yet. Let's get you healthy first before you go back to work. Where did you meet this guy anyway? At a convention for ex-convicts?”

She smiled at him, she liked him. He'd been good to her, and she could see that he cared about what had happened to her. Everyone had been nice to her here, even the nurses. “He lived in my boardinghouse.”

“Maybe you should think about getting an apartment. Speaking of which,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Try not to get into too much trouble. I'm off for two days.” And then he patted her leg gently under the covers. “Take care, Gabriella.”

“Gabbie,” she corrected him. She had meant to do it earlier, but she kept forgetting. Gabriella sounded so formal after all they'd been through together. She was sorry to see him go, he was her only friend here. He waved as he left the room.

And when he came back two days later, she was the first patient he saw on his rounds, and he was impressed by her progress. She spoke almost in a normal voice, but it still hurt to laugh, and she didn't attempt it often. They had sat her up on the edge of her bed twice each day, and she could manage it now without fainting, which she had done the first time. And they were promising to get her out of bed by the end of the week, which seemed like an impossible goal to Gabbie. Mrs. Rosenstein and Mrs. Boslicki had come to see her by then, and all the others had sent cards and little gifts, and the two ladies had brought her roses.