Danielle Steel - Journey

“How long do you think it'll take us to do this?” Maddy asked with a look of concern. Bill Alexander had wanted her to leave Jack the day she told him about it. But she couldn't do that yet.

“That's a hard thing to measure or predict. You'll know when you're ready, it could take days or months or years. It depends how frightened you are of him, and how much of you is willing to believe him. He's going to make you a lot of promises, and threaten you, he's going to try everything he can to keep you, like a drug dealer offering you your drug of choice. That drug at the moment, for you, is abusive behavior. And when you try to give it up, it's going to scare him, and make him more abusive.”

“That sounds awful,” Maddy said with a look of embarrassment about her addiction to abuse, but she knew there was some truth in it. It sounded right to her, and hit a familiar chord.

“Don't be ashamed of it. Many of us have been there. The brave ones admit it. It's difficult for other people to believe that you would love a man who would do that to you. But it goes back a long way, a long time, to what people told you about yourself in your childhood. If they told you you were worthless and wrong and terrible and unlovable, it's a powerful message for the dark side. What we have to do now is fill you with light, and convince you that you're a wonderful person. And I can tell you one thing, not only are you going to find another job in the first five minutes you're free, there are going to be men, good men with healthy attitudes, flocking at your feet as soon as they know the door is open. But it doesn't matter until you believe it.” Maddy laughed at the vision she conjured. It was certainly an appealing picture, and very comforting to hear. She felt better already. She felt utterly confident in Dr. Flowers s ability to get her out of the mess she was in. And she was grateful that she was willing to help her. Maddy knew just how busy the doctor was.

“I'd like you to come back and talk to me in a few days, about how you're feeling. About yourself, about him. And I'm going to give you a special number where you can call me, night and day. If anything happens that scares you, Maddy, or if you believe yourself in danger, or even if you're just upset, call me. I carry my cell phone everywhere, you can always reach me.” She was a one-woman wife-abuse hotline. And Maddy was relieved to know that, and grateful for her help.

“I want you to know, Maddy, that you're not alone. There are a lot of people out there who want to help you, and you can do this, if you want to.”

“I want to.” She said it in barely more than a whisper, and she said it with less certainty than her supporters might have liked. But as always with Maddy, it was honest. “That's why I came here. I just don't know how to do it. I don't know how to get free of him. Part of me believes I'll never make it without him.”

“That's what he wants you to believe. Then you'll need him, and he can do anything he wants to you. People in healthy relationships don't make decisions for each other, don't conceal information, don't tell each other they're worthless or that they're poor white trash and will wind up back in the gutter if the other one leaves. That's abuse, Maddy. He doesn't need to throw bleach in your face, or hit you with a hot iron to prove that. He doesn't have to. He does enough damage with his mouth and his mind, he doesn't need to use his hands to hurt you. What he does is very effective.” Maddy nodded in silence.

Half an hour later she left and went back to her office. And as she walked into the building, she didn't see the girl with the long black hair standing near the entrance again, watching her. And she was still there at eight o'clock that night, across the street this time, when Maddy got into the car to go home. She seemed to be waiting for something. But Maddy never saw her. And when Jack came out a little while later and hailed a cab, the girl scurried away, concealing her face from him so he wouldn't see her. They had already said everything they had to say, and she knew she'd get nowhere with him.

Chapter 12

T HE NEXT DAY, WHILE MADDY WAS working on some research on a story about the Senate Ethics Committee with Brad, the phone rang, and someone listened for a long time and said nothing when Maddy answered. For a moment, she was frightened. She wondered if it was another stalker, or a crank call of some kind, but then they hung up, and when she went back to work again, Maddy forgot about it.

The same thing happened that night at home, and this time she told Jack, and he shrugged it off, and told her it was probably just a wrong number. He teased her about being afraid of her own shadow, just because one nutcase had stalked her. Given her high visibility on the air, it wasn't surprising that she'd had a stalker as far as he was concerned. Most celebrities had them. “It goes with the territory, Mad,” he said calmly. “You read the news. You should know that.” Things had calmed down again between them, but she was still annoyed that he hadn't warned her about the stalker. He said that she had better things to think about, and security issues involving talent on the air were his problem. But she continued to believe he should have told her.

She was talking to the First Lady's private secretary on the phone Monday about changing the date of the next commission meeting. The First Lady had to join the President for a state dinner at Buckingham Palace. And she was trying to mesh schedules with Maddy and the other eleven people on the commission, and Maddy was frowning distractedly as she went over dates, when a young woman walked into her office. She had long straight black hair, and she was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked neat and clean, but inexpensively dressed, and very nervous, as Maddy glanced up and wondered what she wanted and who she was. She had never seen her before, and thought she'd been sent by another department at the network, or maybe she just wanted an autograph. Maddy noticed that she didn't have a badge, and was carrying a bag of doughnuts. And suddenly, she wondered if that was how the girl had gotten into the building.

“No thanks.” Maddy smiled at her and waved her out, but the girl didn't move, she just stared at her, and for an instant, Maddy panicked. What if this was yet another stalker? Maybe she had a gun, or a knife, or was mentally ill. She realized now that anything was possible, and she thought about hitting the panic button under her desk, but didn't. “What is it?” She put her hand over the phone and asked her.

“I need to talk to you,” the girl said, and Maddy eyed her with suspicion. There was something about her that made Maddy extremely nervous.

“Would you mind waiting outside?” Maddy asked firmly, and the girl reluctantly left her office, carrying the bag of doughnuts.

Maddy gave Phyllis Armstrongs secretary three possible dates and the secretary promised to get back to her, and as soon as she'd hung up, Maddy picked up her intercom and spoke to a receptionist at a desk in the hallway.

“There's someone waiting for me outside. I don't know what she wants. Would you talk to her and find out, and then call me?” Maybe she was a celebrity hound or an autograph seeker, or wanted a job. But Maddy was annoyed that she had walked in on her with such ease. Given what had happened recently, it was unnerving.

The intercom rang a few minutes later, and Maddy picked it up quickly. “She says she needs to speak to you. It's a personal matter.”

“Like what? She wants to kill me? She has to tell you what it is, or I'm not seeing her.” But as she said the words, she looked up, and the girl was standing in her office doorway with a look of determination. “Look, this isn't how we do things here. I don't know what you want, but you have to talk to someone before you can talk to me.” She said it firmly and calmly, with her fingers resting lightly on the panic button, and her heart pounding. “What do you want from me?”