She left the window open to let in the freshness of the August night. She took a shower and dressed in a gauzy nightgown before slipping into bed. Crisp, newly cleaned sheets, felt soft and cool against her skin, lulling her quickly to sleep.
The sleep didn’t stay with her long. It felt like her eyes were closed for only a few minutes when the other side of the bed dipped down, and warmth cradled her body. The darkness of the room sharpened her other senses. His touch sent shivers along her skin. He leaned toward her and touched his lips to the side of her neck. She tried to speak to him, but he silenced her with a kiss.
He gently rolled her onto her back and settled over her, the weight of his body pressing her down into the mattress and surrounding her. She could disappear into this. She could melt into the enveloping presence of him and not think of anything else.
And that was just what she did. She thought of nothing else and let him fade away the emptiness of the five days they were apart. They didn’t matter now. She fell asleep in his arms and knew nothing until morning.
It wasn’t a kiss or even the shift of his body that woke her up. Early sunlight came through the window, glowing on her eyes. She vaguely shed her layers of sleep enough to become aware of the sound of a car rumbling into the driveway. Her eyes snapped open. Was Ian leaving again? He just got home.
The other side of the bed was cold when she felt it. That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have gotten up that long ago. Slipping into her bathrobe, she rushed across the room. There was no smell of soap, no feeling of lingering steam from a shower coming from the open bathroom door. The closet door was still closed, a dress she’d hung from it the day before undisturbed.
She got to the window just in time to hear the driver’s side door close and see Ian walk around to the trunk. He opened it and reached inside for his suitcase. Confusion twisted in her mind. As if he could feel her eyes on him, he looked up and caught sight of her in the window. A bright smile crossed his face, and he waved.
“Hello, darling,” he called. “I’ve missed you. You’re up early. I thought I was going to get a chance to surprise you.”
Her stomach turned as searing heat clawed down the back of her neck. By the time Ian got inside, she was in the bathroom, soaking in scalding water and scrubbing away any of the touches that might have lingered on her skin.
Chapter Eighteen Now
Dean sets his piece of pizza down and wipes his hands off on a napkin as he stares at me.
“You mean you think she was helping your mother,” he says.
“Yes,” I tell him. “When I was younger, right up until the day she died, we traveled around all the time. We moved constantly. There would be stretches of time when my father was gone and then stretches of time when my mother was gone. My mother being gone wasn’t as common, but it always seemed that when we moved somewhere new, she would go away for several days, or had meetings or appointments. Then when it was done, we might settle down for a little while, but then we were scooped up and moved again. I always assumed it was my father’s CIA work. And I’m sure some of it was. But now I know we were moving, and she was leaving to help the women she was rescuing.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?” Dean asks, suddenly sounding almost defensive, like I’m threatening the already tenuous grasp he has on his mother’s life and what it all means.
“Maybe she was helping my mother with one of her missions. I can’t even imagine what these women were going through when they needed to be rescued. I can’t even wrap my head around being in a place in life where you feel so hopeless that the only option is to leave everything behind. To have to reach out to someone to help you. Can you imagine the fear?”
“Of course I can. I saw it in my mother’s face every day. Every time she watched the news and they talked about a woman getting attacked, or she saw surveillance footage of someone who looked even slightly like her ex-husband, I saw the terror all over again.”
“Then you understand why it would be hard. That level of fear doesn’t come from feeling like you have freedom or a life worth living. The most dangerous days of an abused woman’s life are the ones right before and right after she leaves. Statistically, that’s when most of them are killed. Their partner finds out what they’re planning, or they come home, and she’s gone. They know they’ve lost control, and they destroy the woman who angered and offended them. For some women, that terror is enough to keep them from leaving. They would rather just stay with the brutality and fear they already live with on a daily basis than have to try to make their own way in the world while also coping with the fear of losing their lives. As much as I would like to think that the women offered help by the Spice organization would be eager to accept it, my professional experience tells me it’s not that simple,” I tell him.
“Mine too,” he sighs. “I’ve been hired by those monsters to follow women and find out if they are
