Stranglehold. Part 4

He tightened his grip, making sure she understood. And oh yes, it definitely got her attention.

He released her throat and grabbed the zipper of her jacket and ripped it open. She was coughing now and crying. He unb.u.t.toned her blouse carefully and saw that she wore nothing underneath it and shifted further down on her legs so that he could unzip her jeans and then pulled them down over her hips so that the panties came off with them. She started to try to get up then but he gave her a straight-arm to the chest and her head slammed back against the floorboards.

Down you go, b.i.t.c.h.

He got off her and grabbed her legs and flipped her over, moved around and took her arms and dragged her to the couch and flung the top half of her over the couch and she was really sobbing now and she was kneeling on the floor with her face pressed down into the backrest m.u.f.fling the sounds while he unzipped his own jeans and got it out-hard, real hard-and knelt and grabbed her around the belly and lifted and parted the cheeks of her a.s.s with his other hand and stuck it in up her a.s.s so that she emitted a single stunned shriek but he shut that up fast, smacking her head with his fist, another place it wasn't going to show, thinking she's never gonna tell after getting f.u.c.ked this way, not up the b.u.t.t, no way, she's gonna take it and shut the f.u.c.k up and go the h.e.l.l on home.

His bonus was her roommate Denise would never know.

Despite what she'd said he still had hopes for Denise.

She might forgive him after all.

She did sort of strike him as the doormat type.

She might. If not, there were plenty of others.

Ann had cleaned up in total silence in the bathroom of his apartment but walking back to the dormitory she found that she could not stop crying. He'd handed her tissues at the doorway.

Knowing she'd need them.

And she did.

Her father was the Reverend Richard Fletcher of the Ames, Iowa, First Methodist Church. He would never have understood this in a million years. Why she would even go to his apartment. Let alone allow him to do ... this to her.

Without dying first.

Her father had no idea that she even knew what the word "f.u.c.k" meant. He hadn't a clue. He would have fully expected her to resist him with all her might.

But her father hadn't seen the look in Arthur Danse's eyes the moment he turned and hit her.

She thought she was going to die in there.

She peered at her reflection in the gla.s.s double doors to the dormitory and saw how bad she looked. She'd have to make up some story. Though probably half the dorm already knew about her sordid little triangle with him and Denise and probably that would do to cover any questions.

The girl on desk duty noticed right away.

The girl was a freshman like Ann and her name was Lydia McCloud, from Maine or New Hampshire or something. She got out of her chair and asked if she could help, if there was anything she could do. Asked what happened. The girl seemed sincere, considerate, very nice really-but Ann was going to go to the grave with this one.

She could do that.

Her family had always had grit.

She might not have been tough enough to fight him back but she was tough enough to do this.

No regrets, Annie, she thought. You did what you thought was right going to his apartment and it turns out you messed up bad. So you lie in your tub for a while and hope he didn't hurt you too badly inside. And then go on with your life.

Like he never f.u.c.king existed.

You warn people that he's bad news if you can but you don't go into particulars. You warn Denise.

If you see him, he's invisible.

She went up the stairs to her empty room and sat on the bed and permitted herself to cry.

Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts March 1978 Lydia smoothed the skin tight across the old man's withered arm and neatly found the vein on the first try. She released the ligature and drew the blood and then withdrew the needle.

Beside her, Gloria Leonard, RN, nodded approval. The clinicals called Leonard "Pressure Cuff" behind her back, which had less to do with mercury sphygmomanometers than with the way she made them sweat. A nod from her was heaven.

"Nothing to it, right?" Lydia smiled at the man.

"Nah." The old man smiled back. You could tell the man liked pretty girls even if all they were doing was poking him with needles and stuffing thermometers under his tongue and waking him at five in the morning to hand him medication and change his sheets.

She patted his mottled hand. "I'll see you again tomorrow, Mr. Fischer, all right?"

"Oh yeah? You goin' off now?"

"Yep."

He glanced at Nurse Leonard, then at her. "You sure she's keepin' you busy enough?"

Lydia laughed. "Oh, I'm pretty sure. Yes."

In fact between her study load and the hours spent here at the hospital with her preceptor Lydia was running herself ragged. It was a happy sort of ragged though. She knew that her work was ranging from good to really excellent and that Leonard, her supervisor and teacher, appreciated that fact.

Finally. Something she was honestly good at.

She took the stethoscope and blood pressure gauge off the bed. She smoothed his sheets.

"You have a good night now," she said. "Is your wife coming back later?"

"Oh, sure. She'll be in."

"Well, say hi for me and tell her I'll bring her those clothes tomorrow."

"Will do."

They walked back to the nurse's station. She began the process of checking out, going through the paperwork. "Clothes?" Nurse Leonard said.

"Mrs. Fischer's temple has a used-clothes drive. I've got some old sweaters, blouses."

"Ah."

"That's all right, isn't it?"

"Sure. Got some myself. I'll bring them around."

She said good night and pulled on her sweater and headed for the elevator.

It hadn't been too bad today, actually. The ward she was working was mostly old people-heart, mostly-and during her shift the closest they'd had to a crisis was the remarkable efficacy of Mrs. Bragonier's stool softener, the result of which was a truly ma.s.sive bowel movement and screams of outrage from her room.

It was time to go home. Grab some supper and then hit the books. But first ...

There was a doctor she kind of liked working the emergency room. An intern. And she thought the attraction might be mutual. His name was Kelly. Jim Kelly. Blond and slim and, she thought, very bright.

She liked his hands.

The hands looked very gentle. Gentle was important to her.

She took the elevator down to one.

She walked the corridor past the treatment rooms and gazed into each of the rooms but he wasn't there. Marie Khurana was at the nurse's station.

"Seen Kelly?"

"You just missed him. He went off at five."

"Oh."

Marie grinned. "Is this a kind of a thing you've got here, Liddy?"

"You mean a thing like you and Daniels, Marie?"

"Hey. You're not supposed to know about that."

"Know about what?"

She laughed and walked away.

She pa.s.sed Admitting and the row of patients waiting to see a doctor. She gave them a once-over.

Nothing really desperate for a change. No gunshot wounds. No stabbings. A young, good-looking guy holding a badly swollen hand. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him. Probably broke a bone or two judging by the color and the swelling. She walked on past him out the door.

Arthur Danse watched her and thought she had a very good a.s.s and that he had seen her somewhere. She was attractive. Too bad about the hand. It prevented him from following her, giving her some line, buying her a drink or something.

But the hand was priority.

He'd broken it against his own bedroom wall when he'd learned that they were not going to give him the scholarship for the Masters program. Now he'd have to find the money somewhere. Beg it. Borrow it. Steal it.

He'd figure something.

Meanwhile the hand hurt like a b.i.t.c.h.

He'd have to try to control that s.h.i.t.

One of these days a guy's temper could get him into some real trouble.

Four.

Separate Lives Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts April 1982 "It's just work, Jim. What in G.o.d's name is wrong with my wanting to work?"

"We've been through this."

"My little sister Barbara works and she's just a soph.o.m.ore in college!"

"Barb needs the money. We don't."

"But it's not about money."

"My practice is fine, Lyd. You know that. h.e.l.l, I'm turning people away. We don't need it."

He wasn't hearing her. It was happening more and more these days-happening on many subjects but on two subjects in particular. Her getting back into nursing was one. The other was having children. And Lydia thought that Jim's patients weren't the only people he was turning away these days.

But she thought there was nothing to do but try again. She couldn't go on like this.

At least here in the restaurant he couldn't just walk away from her into the next room and turn on the TV or go to bed. They couldn't get into one of their shouting matches either.

"Jim, I'm bored to death here. Do you understand that? I'm twenty-seven years old. And you don't want children."

"Yet."

"... yet, and you don't want me working. So what's left? We have an apartment, Jim. A big, beautiful apartment, but that's all it is-an apartment! I clean it. Fine. It doesn't take much. I pick up the groceries and do the laundry and then what? Do you know how much time there is between breakfast and dinner?"

"You have aerobics cla.s.ses. You have the gym."

"Oh, for chrissakes, Jim. That's not a life."

"You have a life. You have friends."

"I have acquaintances. Casual friends. Mostly the wives of your friends. And even if I were close to them, that's no life either."

The waiter brought coffee and her slice of pecan pie. She was going to have to move this faster.

Jim looked disgusted with her. She'd seen the look before.

"Friends isn't a life," he said. "Having a good home and a husband isn't a life. What the h.e.l.l is it you want, Lyd?"

"You know what I want!"

"I don't want you working."