“And the cocaine. All of it. I know all about it so tell me. Start talking.”
Stubbs slapped her on the hip, not hard, but enough to make a loud smack.
That snapped her out of it. A hoarse scream. Eyes wide. Startled, even amid the terror, at the sudden slap. She pushed past Stubbs, started to run for the door. He grabbed her hair, yanked her back. She yelled again, high- pitched and panicked.
Stubbs grabbed her by the upper arm, fingers sinking in soft flesh. He let go of the.45 in his pocket, used the hand to slap her face. Hard. Tears in her eyes. She kicked, twisted, pulled away.
Two more slaps. Bells in her ears, flashes of light drowning her vision. Ginny shook her head, and her sight came back. She was on the floor, curling into a ball.
Stubbs stood over her, straddling. “Little slut.” But Stubbs wasn’t talking to her, only muttering to himself. He tugged his belt loose, unbuttoned his pants.
Ginny shook her head. No. Please. But the words wouldn’t come. The weight was back on her chest, no breath. The horror of the world pinned her naked to the cold floor, the unreal thought that this was actually happening to her. She watched Stubbs reach for her, her tears turning him into a blurry apparition.
Morgan froze when he saw his front door halfway open. The house was quiet, dark.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
He ran in, paused in the living room at the crumpled sheet on the floor. He picked it up, looked at it, looked around the room, dropped it again. “Ginny?”
Dread sprang up in his gut. “Ginny!”
He ran to the kitchen and back, then into the bedroom. When he tried the bathroom door it was locked. He knocked, tried the knob again.
No reply.
He banged with his fist. “Ginny! You in there?”
Morgan backed up three steps then threw his shoulder into the door. It made a cracking sound but didn’t give. Pain lanced through his shoulder.
“Fucking shit.” He rubbed the sore spot, gritted his teeth.
He backed up for another go at the door when he heard the voice. Weak, tentative.
He put his ear against the wood. “Ginny? Open up. It’s me.”
“Professor?”
“It’s me, Ginny.”
Shuffling on the other side, scratching. “Professor?” Dazed.
“It’s Professor Morgan.”
He heard the lock work. He pushed at the door. It opened an inch then stopped. He looked in. Ginny leaned against it naked.
“Ginny, now, come on. Back up and let me in. I’m going to help, just back up a bit, okay?”
Her head flopped. She reached, draped her arms around the toilet bowl, pulled herself out of the way.
Morgan went in, knelt next to her. “It’s okay. I’m here.” He took her in his arms, eased her down onto the tile. Her faced turned to his.
Morgan’s eyes grew wide. He stifled a gasp. Both her eyes were swollen and purple. Dried blood from her nose and the corners of her mouth.
“Professor…”
“I’m here. It’ll be okay.”
“I think I need some… a doctor.”
“Yes. I’ll take care of it.”
Ginny struggled to talk. Only half her mouth seemed to work. “I screamed, and he… he went away. I screamed and screamed.”
“Don’t talk, Ginny. Take it easy.”
“He said he knew about the… drugs…” She tried to pick her head up, neck limp, eyes unfocused.
“Take it easy. Just be still.”
Morgan ran to the bedside phone. He had to dial three times with shaking hands before he got the 911 operator.
The paramedics seemed to take forever but finally found them in the bathroom, Morgan cradling Ginny’s head in his lap.
By the time Morgan got to the hospital, they’d already taken Ginny back for X rays.
He paced.
Finally, a nurse came and told him that Ginny might have a concussion. The nurse was short with him. Cold.
Morgan went to the men’s room, splashed water on his cheeks and in his eyes. The memory of Ginny’s swollen face was still too vivid, the bruises on her upper arms, the deep red welts on her legs and backside.
He went back to the nurses’ station, tried to appear benign. “Will I be able to see her soon?”
“It will be a while yet.” The nurse was tight-lipped, didn’t look at him. Shuffled papers into charts as she spoke. “I’ll notify you if she wants visitors.”
Morgan noted the
He sat at the end of a line of hard, molded plastic chairs. The sick and injured passed before him, two hours dragging his eyelids down into a doze.
“Mr. Morgan.”
His head jerked up, eyes focusing on the nurse.
She said, “You can go back and see her, but she’s still a little groggy. The doctor gave her a mild sedative.”
“Thank you.”
He followed the nurse back, and she pointed behind a plastic curtain. Ginny lay on the other side, curled on an examination table. A stool nearby. Morgan sat, reached to stroke her hair but pulled his hand back. She’d been bandaged, put in a hospital gown, a light blue blanket pulled up to her shoulders.
Her eyes flickered open. “Professor?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice flat, eyes dark.
Morgan couldn’t imagine what she was sorry about. “How are you?” The dumbest question in the world.
She told him, her voice small, each word precise like she was reading the ingredients to a complex recipe. They’d x-rayed her skull, nothing busted. No concussion. One cracked rib. Two stitches below her left ear. One tooth knocked loose. An orthodontist would have to be called in, but no complications were expected.
“What happened?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t have to talk. Rest.”
“He was looking for you,” Ginny said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He was crazy, asking about drugs and Annie.”
A chill crept over Morgan. “What else?”
“I thought he’d ask about the peach orchard, but he never did. He thought we had some drugs, I think. Maybe hidden. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. I’d have told him anything, but I just couldn’t understand what
