Bailey's heart felt like it was being held in a fist, slowly squeezing the life out of it. Maybe she knew what he was going to tell her would rock her world, more than it had ever been rocked before. Or it could have been the threat to her peace of mind. Or maybe she'd just flipped out. Or it could have been that she'd never learned to trust. Whatever it was, it was enough to compel her to hit reverse, stomp on the gas and zip out onto the street. She'd always been in this alone. She'd find her own answers.
His eyes opened wide in shock and then settled into a disappointed, knowing look. It was a look she'd perfected when her mom had told her yet again they were moving. The look he had on his face, reminded her of too much. She burned out of there, going well over the speed limit. She whipped in and out of lanes, turned down side roads, drove around, sometimes kind of lost, until finally she pulled up in the back alley of her mother's place. It was just something she did on instinct, which she didn't question. Her sixth sense had saved her on many occasions. Some of the men she'd encountered as a teenager had thought they'd be the ones to initiate a virgin. It had only been because she'd listened to her gut that she'd saved herself. They'd been sorely disappointed when they'd been arrested by the cops for being nude in public. The police had listened carefully to their story about being with a woman. They could never explain how she'd disappeared. Of course they couldn't tell the police that really they were trying to rape a minor.
Blowing out her breath, she let go of those old memories, grabbed her purse and keys, quietly creeping across the lawn to the side door, to let herself in. She unlocked and opened the door, gently closing it behind her. She was grabbed from behind, one hand clamped over her mouth while an arm wrapped around her middle, like a band of steel. She was almost overwhelmed by the stench of smoke, alcohol and who-knew-what.
Not again.
"Where's the picture, bitch?"
Long ingrained instincts kicked in; she lifted her right leg forward, then drove her sneakered foot back into his knee. At the same time she smashed her elbow into his ribs. He yelped and swore but didn't break his hold on her. They stumbled backwards, crashing into the table. She took advantage of his loosened grip, ripping it from around her. She made it to the door and got it open a few inches before his body slammed into her, pinning her there. His hands encased her wrists. "Try that again and I'll kill you. I don't care what I've been told. Got that?"
She held herself perfectly rigid but didn't respond.
"Good. Now where is that picture?"
"At the photo store?"
"What?" He grabbed her arms with one hand and yanked a handful of hair, pulling her head back at an awkward angle. "Listen, lady, I'm not here to play games. The picture I'm looking for is old. Where is it?"
Bailey snorted in disbelief. "Pictures. You want pictures. Well, let me tell you something you big over-stuffed-"
He smacked her wrists against the door.
"Listen? uuuuhh."
He jammed his knee into the back of hers. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to will away the pain. "There have been no photos in my life. My mom didn't believe in them. I? DON'T? HAVE? ANY."
Grabbing her left arm, he twisted it behind her back which brought her around. He marched her into the living room. In the dim light she could barely see her way and stumbled over the mess on the floor.
"What's in those bags?"
"The garbage bags? Newspapers my mom collected over the years."
"Where's your mom's room?"
"Kiss mine."
He jerked back and up.
She tried not to respond but she was sure her shoulders were but one thread away from being dislocated. Tentatively walking down the hallway, she tried to avoid the overturned bags of stuff that now littered the floor. The son-of-a-bitch who did that could clean it up. When she tripped and almost took him down with her, he jerked her arm halfway up her back. She stood on tiptoe to ease the pain and the blackness that was threatening to engulf her.
"Do that again and I'll rip both arms out of their sockets."
Biting her lip so she wouldn't scream, she said, "Then turn on some damn lights. I can't see a thing and since you saw the need to redecorate, it's your fault."
"All right, turn on the bathroom light. Don't do anything funny."
She almost laughed at that because when he let go of her wrist, her arm flopped to her side. It took a moment for her to be able to lift it. It protested loudly when she raised her hand so she could flip the switch. She allowed him to shove her into the bedroom and although flopping on the bed was preferable to him having his hands on her, she wasn't staying there in case he got ideas. A quick move and she was back on her feet. He immediately backhanded her. She fell backwards onto the bed; the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She swiped at her lip with her hand, as she propped herself onto her elbows. He pulled open dresser drawers and dumped them. It wasn't how she'd have tackled emptying them but it might save her time in the long run. There was banging, crashing and smashing. It made her cringe, she had no idea what was being destroyed but she also didn't want to attract his attention.
The man's right hand shook like he was thirty hours into a detox. He sure didn't smell like that though. Soaking for a week in a bathtub might have been able to loosen the caked dirt, grime and other things she didn't even want to guess at what they might be, coating his body and his clothes. Of course he'd first have to soak just to get the clothes off that looked like they'd been worn so long, they were becoming part of his skin. "Where'd your mom hide pictures?"
We don't have any pictures. Not even of me growing up. So I don't know what?
Bailey's eyes opened wide. The only photo she'd even seen in thirty years were the ones in her purse - which was somewhere on the kitchen floor. What would he want that picture for? It was really old. There was nothing? The tiara. Had someone stolen it? Was someone going to steal it? Why want the photo?
She sat upright. He was so busy ripping apart the room he wasn't paying any attention to her. She lifted her feet and rammed them as hard as she could into the butt that was pointed in her direction. Then she took off running, she headed out through the kitchen, yanking open the door and hitting the lock on her way out. It wouldn't stop him for long but it might slow him down. As she was about to close it, she noticed her purse off to the right. Scooping it up, she ran out, slamming the door behind her and sprinted across the back lawn. She spit out a mouthful of stale blood, as she went. Once in her car, she hit the gas and drove away, the back tires spitting dirt and grass. Winding her way through the streets, she looked for a main road that would take her west.
Flipping open the glove box, she pulled out the two envelopes. Someone had answers. She feared it might just be her.