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An officer walked to Rick’s side and knocked on the window. Leave it to Rick to have to be told to roll it down. As soon as his head was turned toward the officer, I made my break for it, nearly getting my arm ripped out of the socket when Rick snaked his hand over to grab a hold of me again.
“Little marriage spat,” he said, forcing a laugh.
“We’re not married,” I yelled, heaving my body toward my door with all my might.
It spilled open and another officer pulled me out, hurrying me away from the car. He stood in front of me while I watched another police car zoom in front of Rick’s, blocking him from driving away.
“Ma’am, do you want to be away from that individual?” the police officer asked in the matter of fact voice they always seemed to have.
“Yes,” I said, bursting into tears. “More than anything.”
He led me to the front squad car, where he helped me into the backseat. I was so grateful to be away from Rick, I didn’t care that I was being arrested for some reason. He didn’t close me in but stood in front of the door while I craned my neck to see two officers holding Rick face down on the hood of his car and slapping him in handcuffs. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I stopped crying, and confusion took over, but I was still too glad to be safe to be able to ask any questions.
At the station, the kind officer turned me over to a woman in plain clothes, who told me they needed to ask me a few questions and then I’d be free to go. She led me to a room and opened the door, motioning for me to go in on my own. Inside, my breath froze in my chest.
Will sat behind a small table in the nearly bare room. His eyes radiated worry, and he stood up the moment I entered the room. His face darkened when he saw the cut on my forehead, dropping his gaze to the blood that had dripped onto my shirt.
“Are you okay?” he asked stiffly.
The cold edge to his voice cracked what was left of my battered heart and I broke down, sobbing as I threw myself into his arms. All I wanted was for him to comfort me, tell me everything was fine. But I knew nothing was fine and Will’s arms remained stiffly at his sides.
Chapter 21 - Will
If ever I was glad I wasn’t talked out of a decision, it was when Marco called me to tell me I needed to get my ass down to the police station to collect Bailey. He’d been following her as usual and saw her get violently abducted on her way home from some fitness class she had taken. He recorded the whole thing, then jumped in his own car to follow them while he called the police, throwing my name around to make sure they took him seriously.
I spent what felt like hours in that small room, not knowing what was going on, if they’d managed to catch the creep who grabbed her, if she was hurt. If there was a reason why this guy had tried to take her. Marco assured me she definitely wanted nothing to do with the guy, and when I saw the video he took, my blood boiled. I never leaned toward violence except for the occasional need to keep my younger brothers in line when we were kids, but I wanted to tear that guy into pieces, slowly and painfully. He matched the description Harrison had given me of the man at the park, but I didn’t want to draw any conclusions until I heard from Bailey.
When the detective brought her to where I waited and I saw the cut on her forehead, the dried trail of blood down the side of her face and neck, and the stains on her top, everything in me froze. What if Marco hadn’t been following her? What if he’d lost them or the police didn’t catch up to them? Nobody grabbed someone off the street and knocked them out to get them in their car to show them a nice time. She stood there, hunched in on herself and shaking and all I wanted to do was pull her into my arms and make her see the world wasn’t all bad. But I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t lose someone else. In my experience, loving someone only led to pain. Pain that nearly killed me once. It was fear that kept me frozen, and that’s when I knew that I loved Bailey. Despite whatever she might have been mixed up in, I loved her.
She burst into tears and threw herself at me. I stood stock still for a moment, not sure I could do it all over again. And I still needed to get to the bottom of things. I kept my arms at my sides, despite all my nerve endings straining to hold her.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into my chest, clinging tight around my waist.
The sound of her shattered voice pushed me across the expanse of fear, and I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, pulling her even closer and stroking her back. The moment I touched her, I felt her relax and I couldn’t stop myself from dropping a kiss onto the top of her head. When her tears subsided, I led her to one of the chairs, pulling the other one around so I could sit close to her.
“He was my boyfriend,” she said. “I met him back home, but once I moved here with him, everything changed. I wanted out after a couple of weeks, but…”
She kept talking, telling me things I wished I didn’t have to hear and what’s more, that I wished never had to happen to her.
“I was coming home to tell you everything,” she said, her eyes red and swollen from fresh bouts of crying while she told me about her loser ex. “I should have told you sooner, and I’m sorry. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being around the kids again.”
The detective came in and took her statement, assuring her that with his prior run-ins with the law and the video evidence that Marco provided, Rick wasn’t going to be around anyone except other inmates after this.
Bailey kept apologizing, her face in her hands. As if she had anything to apologize for. The very fact that she thought she had to feel bad about being stalked and terrorized made me furious. I pulled her into my arms and eased her hair away from the cut on her head.
“It’s all right, Bailey,” I told her. “Now that they’ve got your statement, I want to take you to the hospital to get you checked out.”
She rested her head against my chest. “I’m fine,” she said, pulling away suddenly. “Oh my gosh, where are the kids?”
“I took them to Eli’s on my way over here,” I told her. “Your dog’s with them, too, so don’t try using him as an excuse to get out of it. The hospital isn’t negotiable. I’m sure you need stitches and we’ll need a record of your injuries to better nail Rick’s ass to the wall.”
She nodded and sniffled. “In that case, okay.”
I was in too much of a hurry to get my car out of the parking garage on my way here, so we took a taxi to the nearest hospital. The wait was interminable, but I stayed glued to her side, pulling her head to my chest when she dozed off in the waiting area. She woke up with a start, disoriented, looking like she might cry again. When she saw me, she relaxed and smiled. I was so happy to see the haunted look finally leaving her eyes that I pulled her to me in a tight hug, the kind I usually saved for the kids. The kind for family.
“I’m not going to let anything like that happen to you again, Bailey,” I promised her. “That scum will never bother you again.”
