too?
Laura, a botanist who studied the medicinal properties of desert plants, had locked herself in with her closet full of remedies.
Please, God, don’t let her be destroying evidence.
“I called the police. They’re on their way.” They were going to scout the area, as well, in case anyone wearing black leather gloves and a hood happened to be hanging around. That wasn’t too damn likely, he supposed, but he wanted them to look.
“They got in through the sliding glass door in the family room,” he continued. Talking because it was the only connection he had to her.
“They lifted if off the track, although I have no idea how. It’s back on and I’ve got a broom handle in the track. The officer said that would keep intruders out.”
More movement in the bathroom. He listened carefully, hoping, but the sound wasn’t coming closer.
“They assured me that the chances of anyone trying to get in again tonight are almost nonexistent.”
Didn’t make him feel any better.
“Laura? Please?” He drew out the last word until his voice broke.
And then he heard the shower.
She hid her nakedness behind the curtain, aware of the water pulsing down around her. Little cold pellets. Striking her skin. She should turn the dial, heat up the water.
But didn’t care enough to bend down.
Or have enough strength to do so.
Just then, a warm flood hit her inner thigh, galvanizing her into action. She had to get that vile stuff off her. Out of her. Dripping, she hurried over to the cupboard for a new bar of soap—unable to touch the bar she and Harry had both used the morning before. She tore off the paper, dropping it on the floor, and started scrubbing her skin before she was even back beneath the spray. She scrubbed until her skin hurt. Scrubbed everywhere. Her arms, her neck and face. Places they’d touched. And places they hadn’t.
They’d touched her. They’d left traces of themselves behind.
And she couldn’t get rid of them.
Because they weren’t just on the outside.
Yerba Mansa.
Out of the shower again, standing in front of the linen closet across from the toilet, Laura snatched the jar of dried, crushed root and the douche bag. She filled the bag with hot water, then opened the jar and inhaled the herb’s eucalyptus odor.
Calm. It will make you calm.
Hands shaking, she spilled as much of the precious, healing powder as she managed to pour into the bag’s opening, screwed on the applicator lid and listened to her mind repeat pages of botanical facts about the root, let it take care of her as she lay in the bathtub, with the cold water still stinging her skin, and applied the mixture.
Mixture of this root with a cup of hot water, injected vaginally, treats venereal disease, uterine cancer and stops excessive bleeding after childbirth. A sitz bath with yerba mansa will heal tearing….
The muscles in her arm twitched, but she held on to the bag until she’d completed the dose. And then, as if this last effort had taken every ounce of strength and determination left in her, Laura curled into the fetal position, closed her eyes and waited to die.
Harry’s entire upper body throbbed. Standing outside the bathroom door he struggled to concentrate, to focus only on the here-and-now.
He realized all movement in the room had stopped. He could still hear the shower but no Laura.
He couldn’t wait any longer. Dignity and respect were secondary to more immediate concerns. Like Laura’s safety. Her life. His chances of breaking down the door with his injured shoulder weren’t great, so Harry hurried out to the garage for an Allen wrench that would be thin enough to let him pick the lock.
Minutes later, the door gave way and Harry stumbled inside.
The police were going to be there soon.
“Laura?”
With one panicked glance, he took in the sight. The floor was soaked. Some kind of powered herb littered the countertop and spilled into the sink.
He couldn’t see Laura’s shape in the shadows behind the shower curtain. Yanking it open so forcefully he ripped one of the plastic-lined holes holding it in place, Harry spotted Laura immediately.
Oh, God. “No!”
Down on his knees, completely uncaring about the cold water that was spitting on them, he hauled his beautiful wife out of the tub and onto his lap on the floor.
“Laura?” he cried softly, hating the weakness in his voice, his limbs, his heart.
She was breathing. And conscious if the tears were any indication.
“Oh sweet baby, we’ll take care of you, I promise,” he said, conviction behind every word. “We’re going to make this better. We’ll get them.”
He didn’t know how, but he knew, in that second, that he’d keep this promise to her.
Harder sobs were Laura’s only response to his vow—to his presence in general. Tears streamed from beneath her closed lids. She wouldn’t even look at him.
Harry prayed to God she was still in there. Laura was a peacemaker, always had been. A gentle, loving person.
Had they wreaked irrevocable damage on that precious spirit he loved so completely? Broken her?
“Come on, sweetie,” he said. He pulled a blanket from the bottom shelf of the still-open linen closet, wrapped it around her shivering, limp body and hugged her to his chest. The pain in his shoulder was growing more noticeable, yet he welcomed it—needed the immediate feeling to focus on. He had to get away from the horror, the fear of what this night had done to Laura, if he was going to get them through these next hours.
“It’s okay now, love,” he crooned, his bruised face close to her neck. “I’m here, I have you. You’re safe.”
He didn’t know if her shiver was from the cold or in reaction to him. God, he needed her to talk. To yell at him, to whisper her fear or blame him for not being man enough to protect her. In their own home, their own bed.
“You’re strong, Laura.” He had no idea where the words came from, but he couldn’t stop them. “You know that. Anytime a fight’s been necessary in your life, you were ready for it. You stood up to your parents when you fell in love with me, fought like crazy to be a black man’s wife.”
“Y-y-y-our…. wife…”
Tears prickled his eyes again as he heard that soft voice. The love of his life was still here with him.
With a silent oath, Harry once again dedicated himself to finding out who’d done this to Laura—and to making sure they were locked up and put away forever. If all he could give her was peace of mind from
