Mean Streak(58)
“How could Pauline be blind to it?”
“She knows, Doc. Of course she does. She hasn’t acknowledged it, probably not even to herself, but she knows. Why do you think she sent Lisa to live with her sister and brother-in-law in town?”
Emory propped her elbows on her knees and held her head between her hands. “It’s obscene. You read about it, hear stories about it on the news, but it’s hard for me to believe that things like this actually happen.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “Oh, they happen. Worse than this. Your nice, sanitary world protects you from the ugly side of our society.”
She lowered her hands. “Don’t you dare do that.”
“What?”
“Insult me like that.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes you were.” She stood up. “I can’t help it that my parents were affluent. I didn’t ask to be born into a nice, sanitary world any more than Lisa can help the circumstances of her birth.”
He set his book aside and raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re right. I was out of line. I apologize.”
“Don’t patronize me either.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Next you’ll be calling me a do-gooder again.”
He came out of the chair. “All right, then tell me something I can say that won’t piss you off.”
Still angry, she asked, “What will become of Lisa?”
“Hopefully the aunt and uncle will take her back.”
“They don’t sound like the most generous of hearts. A foster home might be preferable.”
“Foster home?”
“CPS could place her—”
“CPS?”
“Child Pro—”
“I know what it is,” he said, vexed. “But to get them involved, Lisa would have to report the sexual abuse.”
“Of course she’ll report it!”
“She hasn’t up till now.”
“But she will. Those two degenerates need to be in jail.”
“Yes. But it’ll never happen. It should. But it won’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know the mind-set, Doc. It’s a clannish mentality. They protect their own, no matter what. Pauline has ignored and denied it up to this point. She’ll go on the same way. She’ll handle it, but outside the law and without government interference.”
“If neither she nor Lisa reports it, if you don’t, then I will.”
“You would do that to Lisa? Put her through the fallout, which could involve harsh reprisal from Norman and Will on both her and her mother?”
“So we’re supposed to look the other way and let them get away with rape?”
He didn’t say anything, but Emory shivered at the look that came over his face.
“What are you going to do?” She looked down at the pistol. “You can’t kill them.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then walked over to the fireplace and began shifting the logs with the poker. “Not your problem.”
“You made it my problem.”
“Well, it won’t be from here on.”
She was about to launch another volley when she noticed the controlled actions of his strong hands. Not a single motion was wasted, each was deliberate. She experienced that misplaced constriction in her throat again. “You’re taking me back.”
He didn’t say anything, only stared into the heap of embers.
This accounted for his mood since he’d awakened her. She swallowed. “Tonight? Now?”
“Whenever you’re ready. The roads are clear enough.”
“We should go now then,” she said, although it hurt her throat to speak. “People are out in the cold, looking for me.”
“Not tonight.”
“What?”
“I went online and checked the news while you were asleep. They suspended the search until daybreak tomorrow.”
She glanced over at the laptop that she’d noticed earlier on the kitchen table.
“What are they speculating happened to me? Did you read anything about Jeff?”
“I only read the bullet points, not the details.” He kicked at an ember that had fallen just outside the grate. “What will you tell him about your time here?”
“I haven’t the slightest.”
His head came around, his right eyebrow slightly arched. The expression was so familiar to her now. He wanted an answer but didn’t want to come right out and ask for it.
“I have no idea what I’ll tell Jeff. Or anybody. I don’t remember what caused my concussion, so I can’t describe it as either an accident or an attack. I don’t know where we are, exactly. What can I tell them about you when I don’t know anything? Not your name or…or even why you brought me here.”
He cursed on a soft expulsion of breath as he braced his hands on the mantel and dropped his head between his arms. He remained staring down into the flames for several moments, then added logs to them and replaced the screen. He dusted his hands on the seat of his jeans.
Then he turned to her. “Well, I can clear up that last uncertainty for you. Why I brought you here. I found you on the trail. What I did for you, sheltering you, feeding you, providing first aid—”