“What else did you tell him?”
“I told him everything.”
Shame and horror washed over her and she felt faint. From a long way away, she heard Paul calling her name. Sinking into the chair at the conference table, she wanted to vomit.
“Put your head down,” Paul ordered. “Breathe, Torie. Breathe.”
He’d seen the cop drive into the parking garage when he went out to get coffee. What was the detective going back?
Of course he’d come back, another part of his mind reasoned calmly. There’d been another incident.
Damn it, he’d missed. How could he have missed twice?
His luck, so phenomenal except for the lottery, hadn’t helped him kill Paul Jameson.
The police had nearly caught him. Instead, they’d milled around in the dark, looking for him while he sat in a tree, waiting for them to leave. He hated trees. He was still itching from something which had bitten him, as well as nursing scrapes and bruises from the fall he took getting down.
He had to get to Paul before the police talked to him again. They were digging deeper. Nothing connected him with anything in the past or present. He had no ties to Paul, or Torie.
And yet, they were his main priorities.
Now they both had to die. He’d seen them kiss. He’d seen them together.
She would never turn to him.
Knowing that, he made his plans.
Chapter Eighteen
“I trusted you,” Torie whispered, head between her knees.
“I know,” Paul murmured, crouching down to face her. “And I betrayed that trust. I didn’t mean to, not the first time. I did it deliberately this time, and you can hate me for it, but Tibbet believes that it may be the key to stopping whoever’s stalking you, killing people. If that’s true, then it might keep you safe, and alive. I can’t lose you again, Torie.”
“W-wh-what do you mean?”
A knock sounded, and Martha entered at Paul’s hail.
“Detective Tibbet is getting impatient, sir,” she said. Catching sight of Torie, she shifted from professional to concerned in the blink of an eye. “Good heavens, are you all right, Ms. Hagen?”
“Please,” Torie managed weakly. “After all this, please call me Torie. And no, I’m not okay, but I’ll get through it.”
Martha hurried to the refreshment area to get a bottle of water, pour some in a glass. She glanced at the open bottle, the napkins covered with lipstick, but she didn’t say a word. Handing Torie the glass, she went back and tidied up, pulling bottles out of a cabinet to replenish the stock.
“Drink a bit of water, it’ll help. Would you like something stronger, Torie? You look like you’ve had a shock.”
“No, the water’s fine, thanks,” Torie managed, taking a sip.
“Very well. Mister Jameson?”
“Give us a few more minutes, then send Tibbet in, please.”
“Yes, sir.” She slipped out without looking at Torie again, but Torie felt as if she’d crossed some invisible line with Martha. Finally accepted. How ironic.
“Torie, I’ll ask for forgiveness till the end of my days, but if it helps keep you safe, the secrets need to come out. That’s what Tibbet used to persuade me. Your safety. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.” He said it softly, but defiantly. “The only thing for which I won’t apologize is for caring enough about you to want you safe.”
Before she could answer that, before it sank in, Tibbet was walking in the door.
“So, you let her know?”
Paul nodded, shaking the other man’s hand and motioning him into a chair at the conference table. Since Torie was already there, it was the logical place.
“Did you find your list?”
“I did.”
“List?” Torie roused enough to speak. “What list?”
Tibbet stepped into the breach, saving him from having to look even worse in Torie’s estimation.
“I figured that being a lawyer type, Paul here would have kept a list of everyone he knew who was at that party where your incident occurred.”
“Incident.” Her laugh was more of a harsh bark, and it held nothing of mirth. “It sounds so tame.”
“It wasn’t, I know,” Tibbet said in answer. “It was terrifying, and you felt shame and guilt. You were afraid everyone would judge you if they knew.”
Torie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was saying exactly what she felt. Exactly what she feared. “H-h-how did you know?”
“Because when something like this happens, it is how you feel. And you keep feeling that way until you decide not to, until you decide to put the shame and blame and judgment where it belongs.”
“W-where?”
“On the person who was cowardly, nasty, and sick enough to drug a woman, scare her to death, and probably rape her.”
“Oh-h-h,” Torie managed to say before the tears burst from her. His matter of fact recital of it, his complete acceptance, exploded the lock behind which she’d kept her feelings about the attack.
Paul was at her side in an instant, kneeling on the floor, supporting her as she sobbed out all the anger and fear. Both men waited patiently as she released the pent-up pain. Paul offered water and tissues, all while continuing to rub her back or hold her hand.
Finally, she began to master the flood, and choke back the tears. “I-I-I’m sorr-r-ry,” she said, her breath still catching.
“Take your time,” Tibbet said quietly. “You need to get it out. Lance the wound so it can heal once and for all.”
She couldn’t answer that, but felt the rightness of it. Wiping her wet cheeks, she nodded. It was long past time she stopped hiding in her fear. Hadn’t she already decided that this morning? Hadn’t she already decided it was time to stop waiting around for life to come to her?
It was time to blaze a new path without looking over her shoulder in fear, or worrying about who would judge her if they knew.
She already knew who the “judgers” would be. She worked for them. Those who accepted her already knew. And they still accepted her.
Torie managed a watery smile, directed it to Paul, and thought about Pam. They knew. They had known from the beginning. They had never judged.
What she had mistaken for judgment on Paul’s part, and for betrayal, had been something else. She shied away from naming it. She had enough to deal with. But it hadn’t been disgust, or dislike. Of that, she was now sure.
“If you think you’re able, Ms. Hagen, I’d like to go over Paul’s list, see if you remember any of the men he’s named, if any of them have contacted you over the years, or if any of them ever bothered you on campus.”
Torie nodded. She pulled several more tissues, worked to regain her composure. This was important. It might save Paul’s life, and that was important.
He was important.
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’ll do it together.”
He’d said that before. He’d said that a long time ago, too, as he’d sneaked her out of the fraternity house shaking and afraid. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ll get you home,” he’d said. “We’ll do it together.”
A sense of peace came over her, a rightness about the time and place of letting this go. Sitting up in the chair, she took several sips of water to clear her throat.
“Let me see the list,” she croaked.
Paul rose and went to his desk. Unlocking a drawer, he came back with three copies of the list. His was handwritten, and notes were penned in the margins in several different colors, as if he’d written the notes at disparate times.
The copy he handed to her and to Tibbet was clean, typewritten, and new. “I cleaned it up a bit, took out the people I knew weren’t there, or who had been away. I took Todd off the list,” he added, for her benefit.