RESCUE ATTEMPT
Chapter One
The key scratched in the lock, and she was sure that everyone on the floor heard the lock tumble open. If they managed to sleep through the sounds of the key in the lock, they had to hear the door's creaking as it opened. She almost wished that someone would appear to ask her just what the hell she was doing. She had only the vaguest idea of what the hell she was doing. She didn't, couldn't, wouldn't believe that she was in any physical danger. In the time that she'd known him, he'd avoided the use of physical violence and seemed to hate it. It was a characteristic that made him very different from many of the men who came in and out of her life. There was a threat of violence about him, much of it coming from his size and his intensity, but some resulting from the sense that, for all of his hatred of it, he would use violence if he absolutely had to. And if he had to, the results would be devastating. Cringing at its sound, she shut the door behind her. Its closing thump echoed in the dark silence. The bright colors of his kitchen failed to break through the dark. She found the fifties look of the kitchen a sharp contrast to the rest of the apartment and asked him about it. He shrugged and said the décor had never bothered him. It showed few signs of recent use. Even the coffeemaker was dusty, and she wondered if the refrigerator held anything besides beer. The silence frightened her. It could mean that he wasn't here, and thinking about where he might be led to several disturbing possibilities. If he was in the apartment and was so quiet, the possibilities were equally terrifying.
She took a deep breath. "How did it get to this?" she thought. "It was so good…"
She remembered the early days, when his humor and brilliance and sweetness dazzled her. She frequently couldn't understand why such a brilliant man would have any interest in her. When she mustered up enough courage to ask him that question as they dined at a restaurant whose name she couldn't pronounce but whose food she loved, he stared at her.
"But you're smart," he said. "Really smart. I just read a lot and have a good memory. Most people don't listen. You…You listen…You know I'm not showing off…"
The spent the rest of the evening engaged in a mock argument over who was smarter, largely so that they could spend much of the night in bed making up.
She leaned against the wall as the memory of what he did to her body overwhelmed her. She physically ached for him. He was a wonderful lover, but beyond that she felt a connection to him. They'd been together only a couple of weeks when she told him about her parents and the circumstances of her conception. Instead of the fear, or worse, the creepy fascination she'd seen in other men's eyes, in his she saw compassion and understanding. As she spent more time with him, she learned where those qualities came from. It was hard for him to tell her about his family and past, and much of what she discovered was the result of something he had to tell rather than something he freely told. His nightmares, which often bore an unhappy similarity to her own, and some phone calls told her some things. His partner—who was rapidly becoming a close friend—offered as many details as she could without betraying confidences.
Their shared shadows seemed to connect them. Things were wonderful. They exchanged keys. His partner was thrilled with these developments, hers less so. It was events dealing with their partners that developed the first cracks. The discovery of that damnable transfer request from his—one that he seemed to have expected and tried to shrug off—left him more wounded than he wanted anyone to know. Her partner's protectiveness led to a crisis. His captain, a man she knew he'd come to regard as the big brother he didn't have, was forced out of the department. Her work situation grew worse, but she would never have considered leaving if he hadn't recognized her unhappiness and encouraged her to deal with it.
"Look," he said to her one night as she nested on him in bed. "I don't want you to go…but I don't want you to be unhappy. And you're really unhappy with work."
She struggled to concentrate on his words as his hands—those beautiful, elegant, graceful hands—did wonderful things to her back.
"You're like me," he continued. "Your work is pretty much your life…And if you're not happy with it, things are pretty awful."
She rested her arms on his chest and raised her body so that she could look in his eyes. "I don't want to leave you. I'm starting to think life is more than work."
He kissed her forehead. "I don't want you to leave," he said softly. "I'm starting to think there's more than work to life too. But you should be happy…And if taking some time away does that, it's good."
She knew he cared for her too much to force her to stay, and at the time she didn't realize she loved him enough to want him to beg her to stay. So she left, and when she returned his life was in chaos. His partner's kidnapping nearly destroyed him, his mother's fatal illness consumed him, and the job ate at his soul. He told her little or none of this. When he was with her, he was with her, comforting her, helping her deal with her troubles. He revealed details about his mother's illness only because it prevented him from being with her. She tried to help him, to let her visit his mother, but he gently but forcefully refused. "It would only upset her," he said at one of the many meals where he barely touched his food.
His partner revealed some of the details, including her kidnapping and how a murderous and suicidal small town cop nearly killed him, and how he was also drifting away from her. Then the brothers, his and hers, appeared, and neither brought any good into their lives. They began to drift away from each other. There were cancelled dinners, rushed phone calls, brief and disappointing conversations. There were fewer and fewer of these until they stopped, and when his mother died, it was his partner that called her.
She called him to leave messages of sympathy and offers of help, but he didn't respond. She went to the funeral and stood awkwardly at the graveside. He didn't reject her presence as much as he simply didn't acknowledge it, something that would have upset her if it hadn't been clear he wasn't acknowledging anyone's presence.
She hadn't seen him since the funeral, although he was often in her thoughts. She maintained contact with his partner, and she heard the rumors. When she learned of his suspension, she struggled over whether to call him. Two things finally brought him to his apartment. One was her partner's comment that the suspension was a long time coming, which led to her angry response that he certainly knew something about suspensions. The other, far more influential, was his partner's description of his state and plea for help.
"Maybe you can reach him," his partner said. "I can't. But I know he cares about you…He probably loves you…And I think you love him…And I love him enough that I hope that might save him."
All of this led to her standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room of his apartment. She took another deep breath, walked into the living room, and saw him.
He sat at the chair at his desk. He was hunched over and held a glass in his hand and stared out the sliding glass door that led to the tiny balcony. A bottle sat on the paper littered desk. The pale light painted him in grey. He was a lonely, isolated ghost, and she knew there was a third reason why she came. She loved him, and she had to try to save him.
"Bobby…"
END CHAPTER ONE