Prince Charming Wears a Badge (13 page)

She shook her head. “Not me. I'm okay.” Her quiet words were close to robotic.

“Are you sure?” He wanted to pull her close but now wasn't the time.

She took his hand and quickly pulled him through the house to the kitchen. “It's my dad. Please help him.”

The man was facedown on the kitchen floor, a cut in the back of his head that had bled onto his neck and face, as well as the floor. Tyler bent to check the man's pulse. “EMTs are right behind me,” he said to Callie over his shoulder. As soon as he got the words out, a shout came from the front door. “Back here,” he called to the paramedics then moved out of their way.

“What's the patient's name and age?” one of the paramedics asked Callie.

“Bart—Bartholomew James.” She paused as if trying to remember his age. “Sixty-eight.”

“Does he take any medications or have any other health issues?”

Callie's eyes widened. “I'm sorry. I don't know anything about his health.”

Tyler's officer, Joe Mansfield, trailed behind the EMTs and Tyler guided Callie to him once she'd provided as much information about her dad as possible. “Can you tell us what happened?” he asked her gently, maneuvering her to a living room chair. He knelt next to her, his officer standing close by.

“It was Ellen. My stepmother.” Callie paused. “My dad and I were having dinner and she suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway. She'd been taking a nap, according to my dad.” Callie stared at the far wall as she spoke, obviously reliving the incident in her mind. “She was angry. About everything. Dinner. The neighbor. She even thought I was trying to steal Wendy's husband. Nothing she said made sense. I've never even met Wendy's husband.”

“Where is she now?” He looked around.

“I think she took off outside. The back door was open when I found my dad unconscious on the floor.”

“Can you tell us what she's wearing, what she looks like?”

“She's a few inches shorter than I am, probably five-four, with long gray hair. She was wearing a sleeveless blue nightgown and she was in her bare feet,” she said. “And she's probably got her cane.” Callie stiffened. “She might still have the knife, too. I don't remember seeing it in the kitchen.”

Tyler spoke to his officer. “Call for backup, then check the kitchen for the bloody knife. As soon as backup arrives, go out and look for her. Be careful, especially if you don't find the knife.” Tyler turned to Callie. “How did your dad get hurt?”

“He...he was talking to Ellen calmly after she flipped the kitchen table over.” Callie turned her head and looked straight into Tyler's eyes. “I don't know how she had the strength to do that. She's had several strokes and even walks with a cane. She can barely stand on her own.”

“What happened after she flipped the table? Is that how your dad got hurt?”

Callie shook her head. “No, she grabbed a knife from the counter. I yelled to warn him, but he blocked her to protect me. That's when Ellen cut his arm.” She took an unsteady breath. “He said he could handle her, but when I saw him bleeding, I knew we needed help. That's when I called 9-1-1.” She paused. “I was still on the line with the dispatcher when I heard a loud crash in the kitchen. So I went back in and...and found him unconscious on the floor with the toaster next to his head, and she was gone.”

Tyler nodded. “Anything else you can add?”

She shook her head, very calm for what she'd just been through. But then her eyes widened.

“Tyler!” Her tone was urgent.

“What is it?”

“You need to check the neighbor's house. That might be where Ellen went. She spouted all this nonsense about my dad and the neighbor, just because the neighbor made lasagna for my dad and me. Ellen might have gone after her next.”

“Good idea. Do you know where she lives?” At Callie's violent shake of her head, he called over his radio. “Joe, go door to door and make sure Ellen James isn't there.” He paused. “And ask at each house if they made lasagna for Mr. James.”

Callie nodded her approval.

“Lasagna?” came over the radio from his officer.

“Correct. And if you find the right person, ask permission to search her place, and then be sure to have her secure her house until we find Mrs. James.”

“Right, Chief.”

Tyler turned his attention back to Callie. She was pale but holding her own. He took her hand. “Are you sure you're not hurt?”

She nodded. “I'm sure.” She moved to get up and he stopped her.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I need to check on my dad.”

He held her in place. “Let the EMTs do their job. I'm sure they'll transport him to the hospital and we'll know more when we get there.”

“We?”

“You don't think I'm abandoning you, do you?”

“But you need to find Ellen.”

“Officer Mansfield is going door-to-door and backup has probably already arrived.”

The noise of a stretcher being wheeled in through the front door caught their attention. “We'll be transporting Mr. James to Lewisburg Hospital,” the paramedic told Callie.

She nodded. “Thank you. How is he?”

“You'll have to talk to the doctor about specifics, but he'll need stitches on his head and his arm.”

“Is he conscious?” Callie asked.

“He's in and out, probably a concussion, but tests will confirm or deny it.”

“May I talk to him?”

The paramedic seemed to consider her request. “For a minute. I want to transport him quickly since we have no prior medical information on him.”

Tyler squeezed her hand before letting go.

She had barely walked into the kitchen to speak with her father when his radio sounded.

“Chief, we found her. She's holed up in a bathroom in the neighbor's house, the one who made the lasagna. It's two doors south of your location.”

“Is the neighbor okay?”

“She got out of the house uninjured. She's safe in my patrol car right now.”

“Good work. I'll be right there.” He ran into the kitchen to tell Callie what he was doing and then left the house.

He hurriedly jogged to the house in question where Joe met him at the front door. “Gary is trying to get her to open the bathroom door.”

“Is there a window?” Tyler asked.

“I was just about to go around to check.”

“I'll go,” Tyler told him. “You stay here in case Gary needs you. Where's the bathroom located?”

Joe pointed to Tyler's right and he headed that way around the house. There were two identical windows on the side of the house and one smaller one. It was almost above his eye level, but he stood on tiptoes to see it was the bathroom window. At first, he didn't see Callie's stepmother. But then he saw her leg and realized she was sitting on the floor and leaning against the outside wall under the window.

“Go away and leave me alone,” Ellen yelled. “I don't need to be harassed by some stinkin' cops.”

Tyler couldn't hear what his officer said through the door except for Ellen's snicker. Then she began to talk to herself. He could barely understand her, but the phrases he heard in relation to Callie—like “lock her up in the basement” and “teach Callie a lesson”—were unnerving. Had Callie endured the same kind of treatment his daughters had? He pushed aside those thoughts. Right now he had to form a plan to subdue Ellen.

He went around to the front to talk to Joe and Gary. “I want one of you to pick the bathroom lock while I grab her attention at the window. When you have it unlocked, knock on the door three times and give her a chance to open it. If she doesn't, then I'll get her attention again and you come in and subdue her. Be sure to go after the knife first so no one gets hurt.”

Both officers reentered the house and Tyler grabbed a chair from the small, metal table-and-chair set on the neighbor's front porch. Then he ran around to the bathroom window and positioned the chair so he could stand on it to see into the bathroom. Callie's stepmother was still sitting on the floor under the window.

Tyler knocked on the closed window. “Mrs. James?” He yelled so she could hear him.

Her legs moved and now he couldn't see her. “What the hell do you want?” she yelled back.

“It's Tyler Garrett. You remember me, don't you?”

Mrs. James slowly stood and faced the window. She leaned on her cane and the knife was on the edge of the sink. He could have radioed his officers its location, but he had her attention and didn't want to break their contact.

“Tyler?” She squinted at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to help you, ma'am.”

“I don't need help.”

“You know this isn't your house?”

Her face scrunched and her lips pursed. “I know. This house belongs to that whore of a neighbor who's after my husband.” She switched the cane to her other hand and shifted her weight, looking as if she might topple over at any moment. “She's just like that stepdaughter of mine. Goin' after men that don't belong to her.” Her eyebrows rose. “You were supposed to be Wendy's boyfriend. That girl's been in love with you forever.”

News to Tyler. He'd never had any interest in Callie's stepsister.

“But Callie kept getting in her way.”

“Callie? How's that?” he asked, wondering how long it would take his officers to pick the bathroom lock.

“Wendy knew Callie had the hots for you, always distracting you with one thing or the other.”

In Tyler's mind, this was crazy talk. Yes, he'd had a crush on Callie when they were teenagers, but he'd never had any idea Callie had felt the same way. He also hadn't known about Wendy's feelings for him, but it did make Wendy's nasty comments to Callie and her hatred of Callie much easier to understand.

There was a loud knock on the door. This was it.

“Go away. I'm not coming out,” she yelled.

The plan turned back to Tyler then. “I don't blame you, Mrs. James. Why don't you open this window so we can continue to talk about Wendy?” She couldn't move quickly, so his officers would have the advantage if he timed this right.

She hesitated but he had her attention. She reached up and while she was fiddling with the window he said into his radio, “Now!”

His officers came rushing into the bathroom. Gary grabbed her around the waist and lifted her as she flailed her arms and legs and batted at him with her cane. Joe snatched the cane from her but not before being hit with it.

“The knife's on the sink,” Tyler yelled through the window. Joe procured it and the three of them moved out of the bathroom. Tyler met them as they came out of the house, Mrs. James still kicking and screaming.

“Put her in the backseat of your squad car until another ambulance gets here to secure her and take her to the hospital for an eval.”

The last thing he heard Mrs. James yell as she was put into the car was aimed at him. “You'll pay for this, Tyler Garrett, you son of a bitch!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

E
VEN
THOUGH
SHE
'
D
halfheartedly resisted, one of Tyler's officers drove Callie to the hospital. She remained silent during the ten-minute drive and the officer—Gary, she thought he said his name was—didn't push her to speak. She vaguely registered that she was probably in shock. She'd never been in the middle of anything as dangerous as what had transpired in her dad's house.

“I'm Bartholomew James's daughter,” she said to the young woman behind the desk in the emergency room. “He was just brought in by ambulance.”

“He's in Curtain 2,” she told Callie after checking the computer. “Have a seat in the waiting room and I'll have someone come out to update you.”

“Thank you.” Callie headed in the direction the woman had pointed. There was one other person in the seating area, a middle-aged woman concentrating on her cell phone while a television on the wall presented a twenty-four-hour news station. Callie took a seat off by herself. She wasn't in a talkative mood.

She'd only been sitting for a few minutes when she heard Ellen's distinct yelling and carrying on as the EMTs rolled her into the emergency room. Callie crossed her arms over her chest and hunched over. She'd thought being tormented by Ellen had ended years ago.

She'd been dead wrong.

“How are you doing?” Tyler appeared in front of her with no warning.

She must have been deep in her own nightmares to have missed him coming into the ER.

“I'm okay I guess.” She cleared her throat, embarrassed that her voice came out so weak. She was a capable woman, had made a career and a good life for herself. She needed to snap out of this weak persona.

“How's your dad?” Tyler settled into the seat next to her.

“They haven't told me anything yet. They're sending someone out to fill me in.”

Tyler took her hand. “I'm sure he'll be fine.”

Callie nodded then asked, “Where are your daughters? Shouldn't you be with them?”

“I was on my way home when I heard what was happening at your dad's house on the radio. I called Aunt Poppy and she had nowhere she needed to be tonight.”

“You can go home now if you want,” Callie told him.

He squeezed her hand. “I'm not going anywhere until you're ready to leave.”

That was exactly the answer she'd hoped for but never would have asked. “Thank you.”

He squeezed her hand again, just as a medical professional in scrubs came toward her.

“Ms. James?” he asked.

“Yes.” She and Tyler stood.

“I'm Dr. Martin.” He shook her hand. “The cuts on your father's head and arm have been cleaned and sutured, and I've sent him to have a CT scan since he lost consciousness. From his evaluation, I suspect he has a slight concussion, but the scan will tell us if there's hemorrhaging. Either way, because of his age, we'll keep him overnight for observation.” He paused. “Do you have any questions?”

“He'll be okay?”

“That would be my best guess. I'll have someone come get you when he returns.”

“Thank you.”

The doctor turned to go.

“Wait. What about my stepmother? She was brought in, too. What's going to happen to her?” Ellen's yelling from her bed somewhere down the corridor had finally stopped.

“I don't know anything about her case, but I can check for you.”

“She'll probably need a psych eval,” Tyler told the doctor. Then he turned to Callie. “She'll be facing charges if they find her competent to stand trial.”

The doctor left them and they sat back down.

“Sounds like good news about your dad,” Tyler said.

She nodded. “I was terrified,” she blurted out. “I thought she'd killed him.”

Tyler put his arm around her shoulders. She allowed him to comfort her. She'd always stood on her own, but right now it felt unbelievably good to lean on him.

Although it seemed like hours before she was able to see her dad, in reality it was much less than that.

“We're going to admit your father,” the doctor told her when he got her dad's test results. “Like I said earlier, he has a slight concussion, but the CT scan shows no bleeding. He'll be taken to the second floor when his room is ready. You can go in and talk to him for a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Where's Ellen?” was the first thing her dad asked when she reached his side. “What happened to her?”

Callie tried to not feel hurt that concerned questions about her stepmother were the first things out of his mouth.

“She's well cared for.” Callie didn't have much more information than that.

He seemed to accept that answer. “I'm sorry our dinner was ruined.” He was pale, lying in the bed, hooked to an IV. A machine next to his bed blinked numbers.

Her legs became shaky as she remembered how close he'd been to not making it to this hospital bed. “Don't worry about it, Dad. It's not your fault.”

“But I ought to have known it might happen again. You and I should have gone out for dinner, but I don't like leaving her alone for very long.” He ran a hand through his shaggy gray hair.

Callie honed in on the word
again
.

“So this has happened with her before?”

“A few times. Nothing quite this bad. I'm usually able to calm her down before she gets out of control.”

This was not the time or place to insist her dad get help for Ellen. Hopefully, Callie wouldn't have to get in the middle of this now that Ellen was being evaluated by professionals. But first she would speak to Ellen's doctor to relay the message that this was not the first time Ellen had been uncontrollable.

And that didn't even include the way Ellen had behaved while Callie was growing up.

* * *

S
HORTLY
AFTER
SPENDING
a few minutes with her father, Callie met Tyler in the waiting room. He'd planned to take her to get her car. She hadn't wanted him to, at first, preferring to make sure her dad was settled in his room, but Tyler had insisted. He was worried about her. “There's nothing more you can do for him. The staff will take good care of him.”

She nodded. “I know. I guess I feel guilty for not being able to prevent this.”

They were walking out the door to head to the parking lot where he'd left his truck. “How could you have prevented it?”

She shrugged. “I should have been prepared.”

“But how could you have known she'd become violent?” He thought back to earlier when Callie's stepmother was ranting about Callie.

She didn't answer right away. “I just know how she is.” Her words were barely audible.

They reached his truck and he turned the key in the ignition. “You can't blame yourself, Callie,” he said as he pulled out of the parking space. “You're not psychic.”

She didn't say anything more and he didn't push her on the drive to her dad's house to pick up her car.

“Thank you for the ride.” She exited his truck.

He expected her to get into her car and pull away, but instead she headed to her dad's front door. She must have grabbed a house key on her way out earlier because she unlocked the door and entered. Thinking she must have forgotten something, he waited for several minutes but she never exited the house.

He shut off his truck and went to make sure she was okay. “Callie?” he called as he entered the house. “Are you all right?”

There was no answer, so he walked around to investigate. He heard a noise in the kitchen and found her on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor with a brush. A bucket of soapy water was nearby.

“Let me do that,” he offered and then tried to help her to her feet.

“No, I need to do it.” She shouldered him away and continued to scrub at the darkened bloodstain on the yellowed vinyl flooring. “It's my job. I have to do it.”

“Your job?”

She nodded vigorously. “I'll pay for it later if this floor isn't clean.”

He was confused. “Why would you think that?”

She rubbed the brush furiously on the stain. “Because I know what happens when I don't do my chores the way she expects.”

“She?” As soon as he spoke, he knew the answer. “Are you talking about your stepmother?”

Callie nodded, intent on her job. “Of course. She demands perfection.”

He was beginning to think Callie was having a break from reality and wasn't sure what to do about it. She obviously wasn't going to snap out of it at least until after the house was back in order. So he went in search of a broom and trash bags to clean up the broken dishes and food.

When Callie deemed the house clean, he asked, “Are you ready to go?” He followed her around as she made sure everything was in order.

She finally said, “Yes, we can go now.”

“Not yet.” He needed to make sure she was okay before she drove herself to Poppy's, even if it was only a short trip. He guided her to the living room sofa. “Sit down a minute.” He sat across from her.

“I thought you wanted to go home,” she said.

“I do. But there are things we need to talk about first.”

She stared at him without speaking.

“Where were you when you were scrubbing that floor?”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean? I was in the kitchen. Where else would I be? That's where the mess was.”

“I mean where were you in your head? You talked about doing your chores correctly. Were you worried about getting in trouble with Ellen?”

Callie went pale, covering her mouth with a shaky hand. She nodded.

He reached out and put a hand on Callie's knee. He needed to know the whole story after he'd heard her stepmother's comments. “Did Ellen punish you when you were growing up here?”

Callie nodded, her eyes huge and glassy. “I—I don't want to talk about it.”

He debated not pushing further, but he couldn't help her if he didn't know what happened. He repeated what he heard Ellen say. “Did she lock you up?”

Callie gasped. “How...how did you know that?”

He took her question as an affirmative and moved to sit next to her on the sofa. He reached out and she willingly came into his embrace. “I heard Ellen talking to herself when she was locked up in the neighbor's house,” he said softly into her hair. “She talked about punishing you and locking you up.”

Callie's head moved in the affirmative.

“She threw the chair that night I overheard you two fighting when we were teenagers, didn't she?” The revelation nearly knocked him over. “She was blaming you for making her mad enough to throw the chair.”

Callie nodded. “Uh-huh.” She spoke quietly.

“I'd just walked you home. What was she upset about?”

Silence. He waited, not willing to push her this time.

Finally she said, “She was mad that you walked me home that night.”

Not the answer he expected. Not even close. “Why is that?” He listened closely to catch every word.

“Because I wasn't allowed to be around you.”

He was confused. “But she didn't even know me. What did I do that made me off-limits?”

“It wasn't what you did.” Callie paused. “Wendy had an enormous crush on you all through high school and she and Ellen warned me to stay away from you. Or bad things would happen to me.”

He put together everything he'd heard from people over the past few days. “So that's why you wouldn't go out with me?”

She nodded.

“But I never would have gone out with Wendy. She was just my sister's friend. I wasn't interested in her like that.”

“She and her mother didn't care. They thought you'd come around, and I was warned to stay out of the way.”

“You never told me this before. I could have straightened them out about my feelings.”

“They never would have listened to you. They always thought they knew best and no one was right except for them.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “Besides, if you had talked to them, then they would have known that I'd told you about Wendy's feelings and I would have been punished.”

He didn't like the sound of that. “You were punished a lot?”

She nodded.

“Physically?”

She nodded again.

“Would you call it abuse if it was done to one of my girls?”

She nodded vigorously. “Definitely,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

This time she shook her head. “No.”

He paused, considered her answer, but asked anyway. “One last question. Did your dad approve of the way she punished you?”

Callie straightened and pushed away from him. Her eyes were red when she said, “Not exactly.”

“What does that mean? Did he know how you were being treated?”

She laced her fingers, placed them on her lap, and became quiet.

He sensed she didn't want to talk anymore. “Let's get you home. If you're not okay to drive, we can leave your car here and pick it up tomorrow.”

Her head moved slightly. “I can drive.” She rose, grabbed her purse where she'd left it by the front door and exited the house. He followed her outside. She locked the front door with mechanical precision.

He waited for her to pull away in her car before following her to Aunt Poppy's. And he made a decision on the way. Tomorrow he would contact Callie's therapist. He was worried about Callie after what she'd been through today and the awful memories it had dredged up.

And, knowing Callie, he was pretty sure she wouldn't say a word to her therapist about tonight's events.

On second thought, he decided to stay out of it. He'd give her a chance to relate the entire story to her therapist. But he wouldn't hesitate to interfere if she didn't tell the therapist everything.