Brainstorm by Margaret Belle Read Free Book Online Page A

home, I have to go. If I don’t, there’s always
trouble. Audrey, every day he makes me to talk to him on my cell all the way
home, so he knows exactly where I am and exactly when I should be pulling into
the driveway.”
    “So you’re telling me that’s what you were doing when you
said you had to take your grandmother to the doctor?”
    She nodded. “I’m so sorry, Audrey. I hated lying to you.
You’ve been so nice to me.” She reached for the water glass on the table, and
at the edge of the hospital gown’s sleeve, I saw that bruise again; the one
that had gone green; it wasn’t new. I immediately felt like shit.
    I thought about the pancake makeup in her desk drawer,
and understood now that she used it to mask bruises that couldn’t be covered by
clothing. I got mad thinking about how little of that makeup was left in the
tin. “Well, you can’t go back there.”
    “Oh, I have to! I’m supposed to call him when I leave the
hospital, so he knows when to expect me. He’s probably already furious that I
haven’t been there to cook his meals.”
    “Does this guy have a job?”
    “If he had a job, he couldn’t control me all day long.”
    “How do you live? On what little I pay you?”
    “You’ve seen the place,” she said.
    “He wasn’t there when I went in yesterday. The door was
unlocked.”
    “He only leaves it unlocked when he runs out for beer or
cigarettes. You probably came within minutes of having him find you. I wouldn’t
want to think about what he would have done.”
    My temperature skyrocketed. “Okay,” I said, “here’s what
we’re going to do. You’re going to leave your car here; don’t worry about the
parking charges – I’ll cover those. It just so happens I want to stay away from
my apartment for a while; I’ll explain that later. As soon as you’re released,
the two of us will move into the second floor of the office. If your car isn’t
there, your boyfriend – what’s his name?”
    “Carl.”
    “If your car isn’t in the parking lot, Carl won’t know
you’re staying there. I just had a security system put in, so we should be
okay. Sound good?”
    “I don’t know, Audrey, I don’t want to piss him off any
more than I’m sure he is already. He’ll look for me at the office, and he’ll
kill me if he finds me.”
    “You can’t go back to him,” I said, “I won’t hear of it.
Has he visited you since you were admitted?”
    “He wouldn’t show his face around here, even though it’s
probably killing him not to – I’m sure he’s convinced himself that I’ve been
flirting with every doctor on staff and he’s just waiting for me to get back
home to punish me for it.”
    I gave her a hug. “I’m sorry about all this. I’m going
over to the office now and get the place ready. I’ll stop by my apartment and
grab some things we’ll need; we’ll figure out how to get your stuff out of your
place later. Hang in there.”
    “Thanks, Audrey,” she sniffed.
    “I’m just glad you’re okay. And I’m really happy that the
guy at the office didn’t injure you any more than he did. It’s awful that two
men have hurt you like that.”
    She started to cry all over again. “Audrey, oh, God,
there was no guy. No ski mask. It was Carl. He got angry over something stupid
and came to the office when he knew you weren’t there. I’m sure he’d been
sitting in his truck across the street, waiting for you to leave. He pounded on
the door and said if I didn’t open it, he’d break it down.”
    In disbelief, I stared at her. “ You let him in?”
    She nodded. “I know it’s hard to understand how he can
have such a hold over me, but I’m terrified of the guy. If I wasn’t, I’d have
left him long ago. But he said if I did, he’d find me and kill me, and I
believe him.”
    If there was one thing I understood, it was how a person
could be controlled, either by another person, a drug, or a disorder like mine.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “he