(Chapter 15. Malibu. November 21. 2 p.m.)
Olivia had wheeled Steve into the living room. She sat on the couch facing him and said, "I guess I should start by telling you why that one little kiss freaked me out so much a few weeks ago. It's not the beginning of my story, but it explains a lot."
"I was wondering about that. You don't seem the type to scare easy. I thought you were angry with me."
"Oh, Steve, I was terrified beyond belief." Looking off at nothing in particular, in a low, unwavering voice she began her story.
"This is about the cop that hurt me back home. I was only twenty-three. I'd graduated med-school, spent a year in Europe, and was starting my first real job at the county hospital. I was dating a sheriff's deputy named Keith Stephens. His buddy, Ted Baer, was a state trooper, and the three of us had been friends for as long as I could remember. They were both a little older than me, and they had helped me through some really rough times when my family couldn't be there for me."
"Where was your family?" Steve asked. "When you talk about them, it always seems like you're so close. Why couldn't they be there?"
"That's another story altogether, Steve. Please just let me get through this one."
Steve wheeled himself over to the couch, and with some effort, moved on to the couch and settled beside Olivia. He put an arm around her shoulder and said, "I'm listening."
She settled comfortably into his arm and continued. "Anyway, Ted, Keith and I were like the three Musketeers, inseparable, incorrigible, and irreverent. People started calling us TKO--Technical Knock Out. We were always into something, and always getting away with it. We never did anything really bad, mind you, just pranks."
She giggled a bit. "One time, we shorted out the entire science wing of the high school with three paperclips. And once, when they were renovating the school, we snuck in over the weekend and put drywall over the door to the drama teacher's room. After a new coat of paint, you never would have known it was there. Then we stood around and watched as he went down the hall to his classroom, got out his keys, and turned to find the door wasn't there any more. He went ballistic. It was too funny."
Steve laughed, "I never would have pegged you for a hellion, Liv."
Olivia's smile faded. "I was all that and a bag of chips, too, at one time. I almost ended up in a home for incorrigible girls."
She adjusted her position on the couch so that she could look at Steve again. He was surprised to see the tears streaming down her face. He thought she'd been sharing pleasant memories. Apparently, there was a lot she was holding back.
"Like I was saying, for years we just hung out together. I was sixteen years old when I graduated high school. I was a brainiac and skipped a couple grades. I went straight into the PROG program at Penn State. I still don't know what PROG means, but it's a six-year combined pre- med/medical program. Keith and Teddy went to PSU, too, in the Administration of Justice program. We even rented an apartment together for a year. It was so much fun."
Steve was getting impatient. Olivia was usually so direct; he knew this had to be hard for her. He bit his tongue and waited patiently for her to get the story out.
"In my third year, I went off to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Keith and Ted came to the Philadelphia Police Academy. They had transferred into the Saint Joseph's College program to be near me. We helped each other study for exams, they kept me out of trouble, and I nursed them through hangovers, colds, the flu, and a bout of chicken pox. When I had night classes, they'd drive me there and take me home. I was probably the safest woman in the city of Philadelphia."
"Sounds like they took good care of you."
Olivia smiled through her tears, "Yeah. They did. Well, one day, I stopped by their place, and Keith was out. I don't recall why I was there, and I don't know where Keith was. Ted made a pass at me. We were just talking and all of a sudden his mouth was all over me and he was fondling me. It was weird, not just because we had always been such good friends, but because it seemed almost desperate." Olivia shivered and Steve held her closer.
"That's why my kiss upset you, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah," she agreed, "but that's only the beginning. You know me, fix it with a joke. I made a crack about kissing my brother, and we laughed it off. Keith came home, and we ordered pizza. I figured Ted and I had agreed to forget the incident."
"But he didn't, did he?"
Olivia reached for a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
"Well, nothing more was ever said about it. The guys finished their degrees and their training and went back home. Keith joined the sheriff's department, and Teddy joined the State Police. The barracks was right in town, so he and Keith roomed together again. Meanwhile, I finished med- school, spent a year in Europe, and came back home to work at the county hospital. TKO was back in town. By this time, we had been best buds for about nine years."
"Then something went wrong, didn't it?"
Olivia nodded. "At first, something went really, really right. Then everything turned sideways."
Steve knew she was trying to hide from something painful. He prodded gently. "Liv, whatever it is you can tell me. I think you're making it harder on yourself by dragging it out."
She nodded again. "In May, just before my birthday, Keith stopped by the hospital for a break because his patrol route brought him right by my building. He invited me to dinner, to celebrate. It was the first time I could ever remember making plans that didn't include Ted. I felt a little guilty about it, but only a little. Everything was different after that. Keith and I became a serious item very quickly. We'd known each other for so long, it just felt natural. Within about two months, we started looking at houses, shopping for rings, and making plans. Ted became more and more distant. He wouldn't come along when we invited him. Even when we set him up for a double date, he wanted nothing to do with us.
"Keith and I tried to cut him some slack. We figured he was just really hurt. We'd changed the dynamics of our relationship, and he was having trouble adjusting. Then he started getting weird. He'd show up at my office in the hospital and just sit in my waiting room. He'd erase messages I'd left for Keith, and if he answered the phone when I called, he'd get really lewd and vulgar. Nights when Keith worked and he had off, Ted would call my place and describe sexual acts that this naive little country girl had never imagined. Keith finally asked him to move out, and he really raised a ruckus about that."
There was a tremor in Olivia's voice. Steve gave her a gentle hug and said, "I'm still here, Liv. If you need to take a break, I'll wait. We can come back to this another time."
She shook her head and said, "No, I have to get it out now."
She stood up and started pacing. "I changed my phone number and kept it unlisted, but being a cop, I'm sure you know how easy that information is to get. If anything, the calls got worse. I'd see him following me home from the hospital at night. Once he tried to pull me over, but I got on the CB with him, asking what he wanted, making it public so he couldn't do anything bad. He said he didn't recognize me and thought my jeep might have been stolen, and he told me to just go on my way. I put a trace on my phone, hired a P.I. to follow him while he was following me, and got a restraining order. For about five months, Ted dropped off the face of the earth.
"Keith and I put our official engagement announcement in the paper just before Thanksgiving. We were going to get married at the end of January. Out of nowhere, Ted called Keith. He was profoundly apologetic. He wanted to make things right. Deer season started right after Thanksgiving, and Ted had the keys to a friend's hunting cabin for the duration. The friend was out of town on business. Ted invited us to join him. We'd bring some board games, a deck of cards, soda, beer, chips, the whole bit. We'd hang out and try to patch things up, and maybe then we would even do a little hunting."
Olivia stopped pacing, ran her hands through her copper curls, folded her arms, looked at Steve and said, "I told Keith to accept the invitation. I don't know what planet I was on. I just wanted my boys back, y'know?"
Steve nodded. "It's common for people to try to salvage relationships like that, but it seldom works."
Olivia gave a bitter laugh. "Believe me, I know it. Keith tried to warn me, but I insisted. I even told him that if he didn't try to fix things I would call the wedding off. It was the worst mistake of my life."
Olivia sat cross-legged on the living room floor facing Steve with the box of tissues in her lap. "The week started really well. It was awkward for a few hours, but then it was just like old times. By Tuesday night, Keith was asking me what I thought of making Ted the best man. I said it was a great idea. Then Wednesday came and everything went bad.
"Wednesday dawned clear and crisp. There was a light coating of new snow and almost no wind. It was perfect for tracking deer. The guys were up early and went for a run. They'd run cross-country together in high school, and it was just the most natural thing in the world for them to go for a run together. While they were out, I built up the fire and started breakfast. I made sausage, pancakes, eggs, home fries, the works."
Steve let an involuntary sigh escape.
Olivia looked at him and said, "I know this is way too much information, but it's still so fresh in my memory. I'm sorry, Steve. If I don't let it out the way it comes back to me, I'll never be able to do this."
"It's ok, Liv," he assured her. "Tell it in your own time and in your own way. I have nothing more important to do right now than listen."
Olivia smiled. "Thanks, Steve. That means a lot more than you know."
She moved up on the couch beside him again, drew her knees against her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. "The guys had seen some tracks during their run, and we decided over breakfast to see if one of us could get a big buck."
Steve asked Olivia, "So you hunt?"
"Yeah, but I haven't gone in a long time. I still target shoot, though."
"I know. The day you moved in you told me you belonged to a gun club. That's how you knew my weapon was a 9mm that morning."
She smiled, but a sour look crossed her face, "Yep."
She ran her fingers through her hair, making the curls go wild. "After breakfast, we went out into the woods. Ted took me up over the hill behind the cabin to a deer stand where he said he'd had luck before. It looked like a good spot. You could see where a buck had broken down saplings spreading his scent and where the herd had rooted through the snow looking for dry grass to eat.
"We had decided that we would set up in a triangle, so if we couldn't get a clear shot, any two of us could drive the game to the other one. Ted was going to take Keith to a thicket at the edge of a nearby meadow, and then he was going to go to a spring not far from either of us. I settled in and waited for my chance as the guys headed back over the hill.
"I got my shot less than five minutes after Ted and Keith left. It was the biggest buck I had ever seen. I couldn't believe the guys hadn't seen it. Just as I was about to fire, I heard Keith shout, 'What the hell?' The buck bounded off, and I got mad. I headed over the hill to tell him off."
Olivia started rocking on the couch. Her face was buried in her knees, and her hands were clenched in her hair. Steve gently put a hand on her back intending to comfort her, but she sprang from the couch like a cat. "No! Not yet, Steve." She paced for several moments, and then turned to face him. Her hands were balled into small fists, knuckles white. For a moment, he was afraid she was going to hit him.
Trembling, with tears streaming down her face and dripping from her chin, she continued. "I cleared the trees in time to see Ted fire on Keith. They were less than fifteen feet apart. Keith's rifle was on the ground between them. Keith was running away, and Ted hit him in the back of the leg. The bullet went through, but it left a huge exit wound. I could see blood spurting from where I was, and I knew Ted had hit the femoral artery.
"I was rooted to the spot. I watched Ted advance as Keith tried to crawl away. Then I went on autopilot. I pulled up and drew a bead on Ted. I was going for a headshot. I knew I hit him because he dropped like a sack of stones, but not before he fired again. I ran to Keith first. He was white as a corpse already. The second bullet had entered his knee. He was bleeding to death. I had no choice. Keith begged me not to, but I had to use tourniquets on his legs. I knew if he lived, he would probably lose both legs.
"From the waist down, I stripped him to his long-johns, dressed the wounds as best I could with strips torn from my flannel shirt, packed his legs in snow and zipped my coat around his legs. I was hoping the cold would slow blood loss and reduce tissue degradation. If he lived long enough to make it to the hospital, maybe we could save his legs."
Olivia had her arms wrapped around herself. She looked completely wrung out, and she didn't even try to wipe the tears away. Steve thought to comfort her again. "My God, Liv..."
She would have none of it. "Let me finish!" she wailed. "Please."
Steve nodded and waited patiently for her to go on.
"I don't remember what happened next. I guess I blocked it out. Even under hypnosis, I refuse to remember it. The next thing I recall, I was laying in the bloody snow with my jeans undone. Keith was unconscious beside me, and Ted was out cold nearby. I did up my jeans, tied Ted's hands as tight as I could with his drag line, fashioned a harness from Keith's and my drag lines, put Keith on a ground cloth I carried with me, and when Ted came to, I hitched him to the ground cloth and made him drag Keith out of the woods at gunpoint.
"Ted drove an extended cab pickup with a cap. I made him load Keith into the bed, and I sat in the back of the cab with a gun on Ted while he drove us to the nearest phone. I called the county hospital and they sent a medivac chopper. Then I called the cops."
Olivia wasn't crying now. She was so calm it gave Steve a chill. He knew she was probably blocking out feelings that were too painful to experience, but it was still eerie to see her so calm as she finished the horrible story.
"Keith lived, but he lost both legs. Ted had a concussion from the gunshot, a broken collarbone, cracked ribs, a broken wrist, a dislocated thumb, multiple contusions, abrasions, and lacerations, several bites, and other injuries that I had clearly inflicted in fending him off. I must have gone completely nuts on him, but I don't recall. I remember nothing of the assault on me, but an examination revealed that I had not been raped. There were bruises and scratches where Ted had tried to get my underwear off. He'd grabbed my wrist so hard he left a hand-shaped bruise and fractured two bones. I had a huge hand print bruise on my face, three loose teeth, lacerations on the inside of my cheek, and a concussion.
"They found a journal Ted had kept. It was a clear document of a man losing his mind. He was obsessed with me. He had planned to torture and kill Keith, rape and kill me, and then commit suicide. While he was recovering from his injuries in the lock-up ward, he got out and came after me again. They stopped him at the door to my office. He had a scalpel and planned to slit my throat. He said later if he had known where to find Keith, he would have killed him before coming after me again.
"There was a trial. Ted was convicted of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, assault on and attempted murder of a police officer, attempted rape, aggravated assault, and God alone knows what else. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. He'll probably spend the rest of his life in a high security mental hospital or a facility for the criminally insane."
Olivia was crying again. She stood before Steve, swaying as if exhausted. "Keith…" her voice broke. She took a deep breath and started again. "Keith blamed me for everything, and rightly so. He called off the wedding, and I moved to Pittsburgh. I ran away, Steve, and I've been running ever since. When Keith's brother asked to visit me in Pittsburgh, I told him no and moved to New York a month later, leaving no forwarding address."
She began pacing as she described the events that had kept her on the run for the past twelve years.
"Ted's sister found me there. We used to be friends, and she wanted to…put it behind us. She asked me to come home, but I refused. Before I could pack and run, Ted broke out of prison and tracked me down. The cops found him in the lobby of my building, bleeding. He'd followed me into the elevator. I didn't know he was loose, but I always carried my .38 when I was out at night in the city. I wanted to kill him so bad, Steve, but I couldn't. I could only stop him."
She stopped to look at him again.
"That's a good thing, Liv. Killing him would have been easy for most people after what he did to you and Keith, but it was hard for you because it's such a terrible thing to do and you're such a good person."
"Yeah, whatever. Well, the gun was registered and I was licensed to carry, and I hadn't used deadly force, so I didn't have any trouble with the police. I moved to Chicago for a few months, but they don't issue carry permits, and I was too scared of Ted to be without my .38 for long. I made a few friends there, and lost one. He was gunned down waiting for the El. That's when I moved to Baltimore. That bad week I told you about, when I took route 66 all the way to Malibu?"
Steve nodded to indicate that he recalled their earlier conversation.
"It was because Keith's mom got my address in Baltimore and invited me to their Labor Day cookout. She was trying to mend fences. Her family had always been so good to me. They're good people, Steve. I never wrote back, I just packed up and moved 3,000 miles away. I haven't been home in twelve years. Sometimes I get so homesick, but I'm afraid to go back."
She stood before him for a long moment, trembling, weeping, and looking utterly pathetic. Steve didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure if she was done.
Finally, she spoke again. "When you tried to force that kiss on me, it was so much like that pass Ted made when we were still in college. That's when everything started, and I didn't see it at the time. I just panicked. I was ready to pack up and move away again, but...."
She started to sob. After she regained composure, she continued. "Steve, you're the first person I've been able to care about since all this happened. And your dad, Jesse, and Amanda, they make me feel like I have a family again. I feel like I belong somewhere again." Her words came out in sobbing hiccups. "I hope...you can forgive me...for not...telling you...sooner. I was afraid of losing you."
She stood there sniffling for the longest time. Steve couldn't figure out what she needed from him, but he knew that whatever it was, he was willing to give it to her. Finally, he decided to ask, "Do you want me to hold you now?"
She nodded.
"Well," he said, opening his arms, "Come here."
She stepped into his arms and he pulled her into his lap like a child. She curled up against him sobbing. Her back rested against the arm of the couch and her head on his shoulder. He held her close and stroked her hair murmuring sweet, nonsensical sounds of comfort, promising her that it wasn't her fault and swearing that he loved her no matter what. She was hurting and needed to heal. Steve didn't know how, but he was going to help her. For now, all he could do was love her and let her weep.
Olivia had wheeled Steve into the living room. She sat on the couch facing him and said, "I guess I should start by telling you why that one little kiss freaked me out so much a few weeks ago. It's not the beginning of my story, but it explains a lot."
"I was wondering about that. You don't seem the type to scare easy. I thought you were angry with me."
"Oh, Steve, I was terrified beyond belief." Looking off at nothing in particular, in a low, unwavering voice she began her story.
"This is about the cop that hurt me back home. I was only twenty-three. I'd graduated med-school, spent a year in Europe, and was starting my first real job at the county hospital. I was dating a sheriff's deputy named Keith Stephens. His buddy, Ted Baer, was a state trooper, and the three of us had been friends for as long as I could remember. They were both a little older than me, and they had helped me through some really rough times when my family couldn't be there for me."
"Where was your family?" Steve asked. "When you talk about them, it always seems like you're so close. Why couldn't they be there?"
"That's another story altogether, Steve. Please just let me get through this one."
Steve wheeled himself over to the couch, and with some effort, moved on to the couch and settled beside Olivia. He put an arm around her shoulder and said, "I'm listening."
She settled comfortably into his arm and continued. "Anyway, Ted, Keith and I were like the three Musketeers, inseparable, incorrigible, and irreverent. People started calling us TKO--Technical Knock Out. We were always into something, and always getting away with it. We never did anything really bad, mind you, just pranks."
She giggled a bit. "One time, we shorted out the entire science wing of the high school with three paperclips. And once, when they were renovating the school, we snuck in over the weekend and put drywall over the door to the drama teacher's room. After a new coat of paint, you never would have known it was there. Then we stood around and watched as he went down the hall to his classroom, got out his keys, and turned to find the door wasn't there any more. He went ballistic. It was too funny."
Steve laughed, "I never would have pegged you for a hellion, Liv."
Olivia's smile faded. "I was all that and a bag of chips, too, at one time. I almost ended up in a home for incorrigible girls."
She adjusted her position on the couch so that she could look at Steve again. He was surprised to see the tears streaming down her face. He thought she'd been sharing pleasant memories. Apparently, there was a lot she was holding back.
"Like I was saying, for years we just hung out together. I was sixteen years old when I graduated high school. I was a brainiac and skipped a couple grades. I went straight into the PROG program at Penn State. I still don't know what PROG means, but it's a six-year combined pre- med/medical program. Keith and Teddy went to PSU, too, in the Administration of Justice program. We even rented an apartment together for a year. It was so much fun."
Steve was getting impatient. Olivia was usually so direct; he knew this had to be hard for her. He bit his tongue and waited patiently for her to get the story out.
"In my third year, I went off to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Keith and Ted came to the Philadelphia Police Academy. They had transferred into the Saint Joseph's College program to be near me. We helped each other study for exams, they kept me out of trouble, and I nursed them through hangovers, colds, the flu, and a bout of chicken pox. When I had night classes, they'd drive me there and take me home. I was probably the safest woman in the city of Philadelphia."
"Sounds like they took good care of you."
Olivia smiled through her tears, "Yeah. They did. Well, one day, I stopped by their place, and Keith was out. I don't recall why I was there, and I don't know where Keith was. Ted made a pass at me. We were just talking and all of a sudden his mouth was all over me and he was fondling me. It was weird, not just because we had always been such good friends, but because it seemed almost desperate." Olivia shivered and Steve held her closer.
"That's why my kiss upset you, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah," she agreed, "but that's only the beginning. You know me, fix it with a joke. I made a crack about kissing my brother, and we laughed it off. Keith came home, and we ordered pizza. I figured Ted and I had agreed to forget the incident."
"But he didn't, did he?"
Olivia reached for a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
"Well, nothing more was ever said about it. The guys finished their degrees and their training and went back home. Keith joined the sheriff's department, and Teddy joined the State Police. The barracks was right in town, so he and Keith roomed together again. Meanwhile, I finished med- school, spent a year in Europe, and came back home to work at the county hospital. TKO was back in town. By this time, we had been best buds for about nine years."
"Then something went wrong, didn't it?"
Olivia nodded. "At first, something went really, really right. Then everything turned sideways."
Steve knew she was trying to hide from something painful. He prodded gently. "Liv, whatever it is you can tell me. I think you're making it harder on yourself by dragging it out."
She nodded again. "In May, just before my birthday, Keith stopped by the hospital for a break because his patrol route brought him right by my building. He invited me to dinner, to celebrate. It was the first time I could ever remember making plans that didn't include Ted. I felt a little guilty about it, but only a little. Everything was different after that. Keith and I became a serious item very quickly. We'd known each other for so long, it just felt natural. Within about two months, we started looking at houses, shopping for rings, and making plans. Ted became more and more distant. He wouldn't come along when we invited him. Even when we set him up for a double date, he wanted nothing to do with us.
"Keith and I tried to cut him some slack. We figured he was just really hurt. We'd changed the dynamics of our relationship, and he was having trouble adjusting. Then he started getting weird. He'd show up at my office in the hospital and just sit in my waiting room. He'd erase messages I'd left for Keith, and if he answered the phone when I called, he'd get really lewd and vulgar. Nights when Keith worked and he had off, Ted would call my place and describe sexual acts that this naive little country girl had never imagined. Keith finally asked him to move out, and he really raised a ruckus about that."
There was a tremor in Olivia's voice. Steve gave her a gentle hug and said, "I'm still here, Liv. If you need to take a break, I'll wait. We can come back to this another time."
She shook her head and said, "No, I have to get it out now."
She stood up and started pacing. "I changed my phone number and kept it unlisted, but being a cop, I'm sure you know how easy that information is to get. If anything, the calls got worse. I'd see him following me home from the hospital at night. Once he tried to pull me over, but I got on the CB with him, asking what he wanted, making it public so he couldn't do anything bad. He said he didn't recognize me and thought my jeep might have been stolen, and he told me to just go on my way. I put a trace on my phone, hired a P.I. to follow him while he was following me, and got a restraining order. For about five months, Ted dropped off the face of the earth.
"Keith and I put our official engagement announcement in the paper just before Thanksgiving. We were going to get married at the end of January. Out of nowhere, Ted called Keith. He was profoundly apologetic. He wanted to make things right. Deer season started right after Thanksgiving, and Ted had the keys to a friend's hunting cabin for the duration. The friend was out of town on business. Ted invited us to join him. We'd bring some board games, a deck of cards, soda, beer, chips, the whole bit. We'd hang out and try to patch things up, and maybe then we would even do a little hunting."
Olivia stopped pacing, ran her hands through her copper curls, folded her arms, looked at Steve and said, "I told Keith to accept the invitation. I don't know what planet I was on. I just wanted my boys back, y'know?"
Steve nodded. "It's common for people to try to salvage relationships like that, but it seldom works."
Olivia gave a bitter laugh. "Believe me, I know it. Keith tried to warn me, but I insisted. I even told him that if he didn't try to fix things I would call the wedding off. It was the worst mistake of my life."
Olivia sat cross-legged on the living room floor facing Steve with the box of tissues in her lap. "The week started really well. It was awkward for a few hours, but then it was just like old times. By Tuesday night, Keith was asking me what I thought of making Ted the best man. I said it was a great idea. Then Wednesday came and everything went bad.
"Wednesday dawned clear and crisp. There was a light coating of new snow and almost no wind. It was perfect for tracking deer. The guys were up early and went for a run. They'd run cross-country together in high school, and it was just the most natural thing in the world for them to go for a run together. While they were out, I built up the fire and started breakfast. I made sausage, pancakes, eggs, home fries, the works."
Steve let an involuntary sigh escape.
Olivia looked at him and said, "I know this is way too much information, but it's still so fresh in my memory. I'm sorry, Steve. If I don't let it out the way it comes back to me, I'll never be able to do this."
"It's ok, Liv," he assured her. "Tell it in your own time and in your own way. I have nothing more important to do right now than listen."
Olivia smiled. "Thanks, Steve. That means a lot more than you know."
She moved up on the couch beside him again, drew her knees against her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. "The guys had seen some tracks during their run, and we decided over breakfast to see if one of us could get a big buck."
Steve asked Olivia, "So you hunt?"
"Yeah, but I haven't gone in a long time. I still target shoot, though."
"I know. The day you moved in you told me you belonged to a gun club. That's how you knew my weapon was a 9mm that morning."
She smiled, but a sour look crossed her face, "Yep."
She ran her fingers through her hair, making the curls go wild. "After breakfast, we went out into the woods. Ted took me up over the hill behind the cabin to a deer stand where he said he'd had luck before. It looked like a good spot. You could see where a buck had broken down saplings spreading his scent and where the herd had rooted through the snow looking for dry grass to eat.
"We had decided that we would set up in a triangle, so if we couldn't get a clear shot, any two of us could drive the game to the other one. Ted was going to take Keith to a thicket at the edge of a nearby meadow, and then he was going to go to a spring not far from either of us. I settled in and waited for my chance as the guys headed back over the hill.
"I got my shot less than five minutes after Ted and Keith left. It was the biggest buck I had ever seen. I couldn't believe the guys hadn't seen it. Just as I was about to fire, I heard Keith shout, 'What the hell?' The buck bounded off, and I got mad. I headed over the hill to tell him off."
Olivia started rocking on the couch. Her face was buried in her knees, and her hands were clenched in her hair. Steve gently put a hand on her back intending to comfort her, but she sprang from the couch like a cat. "No! Not yet, Steve." She paced for several moments, and then turned to face him. Her hands were balled into small fists, knuckles white. For a moment, he was afraid she was going to hit him.
Trembling, with tears streaming down her face and dripping from her chin, she continued. "I cleared the trees in time to see Ted fire on Keith. They were less than fifteen feet apart. Keith's rifle was on the ground between them. Keith was running away, and Ted hit him in the back of the leg. The bullet went through, but it left a huge exit wound. I could see blood spurting from where I was, and I knew Ted had hit the femoral artery.
"I was rooted to the spot. I watched Ted advance as Keith tried to crawl away. Then I went on autopilot. I pulled up and drew a bead on Ted. I was going for a headshot. I knew I hit him because he dropped like a sack of stones, but not before he fired again. I ran to Keith first. He was white as a corpse already. The second bullet had entered his knee. He was bleeding to death. I had no choice. Keith begged me not to, but I had to use tourniquets on his legs. I knew if he lived, he would probably lose both legs.
"From the waist down, I stripped him to his long-johns, dressed the wounds as best I could with strips torn from my flannel shirt, packed his legs in snow and zipped my coat around his legs. I was hoping the cold would slow blood loss and reduce tissue degradation. If he lived long enough to make it to the hospital, maybe we could save his legs."
Olivia had her arms wrapped around herself. She looked completely wrung out, and she didn't even try to wipe the tears away. Steve thought to comfort her again. "My God, Liv..."
She would have none of it. "Let me finish!" she wailed. "Please."
Steve nodded and waited patiently for her to go on.
"I don't remember what happened next. I guess I blocked it out. Even under hypnosis, I refuse to remember it. The next thing I recall, I was laying in the bloody snow with my jeans undone. Keith was unconscious beside me, and Ted was out cold nearby. I did up my jeans, tied Ted's hands as tight as I could with his drag line, fashioned a harness from Keith's and my drag lines, put Keith on a ground cloth I carried with me, and when Ted came to, I hitched him to the ground cloth and made him drag Keith out of the woods at gunpoint.
"Ted drove an extended cab pickup with a cap. I made him load Keith into the bed, and I sat in the back of the cab with a gun on Ted while he drove us to the nearest phone. I called the county hospital and they sent a medivac chopper. Then I called the cops."
Olivia wasn't crying now. She was so calm it gave Steve a chill. He knew she was probably blocking out feelings that were too painful to experience, but it was still eerie to see her so calm as she finished the horrible story.
"Keith lived, but he lost both legs. Ted had a concussion from the gunshot, a broken collarbone, cracked ribs, a broken wrist, a dislocated thumb, multiple contusions, abrasions, and lacerations, several bites, and other injuries that I had clearly inflicted in fending him off. I must have gone completely nuts on him, but I don't recall. I remember nothing of the assault on me, but an examination revealed that I had not been raped. There were bruises and scratches where Ted had tried to get my underwear off. He'd grabbed my wrist so hard he left a hand-shaped bruise and fractured two bones. I had a huge hand print bruise on my face, three loose teeth, lacerations on the inside of my cheek, and a concussion.
"They found a journal Ted had kept. It was a clear document of a man losing his mind. He was obsessed with me. He had planned to torture and kill Keith, rape and kill me, and then commit suicide. While he was recovering from his injuries in the lock-up ward, he got out and came after me again. They stopped him at the door to my office. He had a scalpel and planned to slit my throat. He said later if he had known where to find Keith, he would have killed him before coming after me again.
"There was a trial. Ted was convicted of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, assault on and attempted murder of a police officer, attempted rape, aggravated assault, and God alone knows what else. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. He'll probably spend the rest of his life in a high security mental hospital or a facility for the criminally insane."
Olivia was crying again. She stood before Steve, swaying as if exhausted. "Keith…" her voice broke. She took a deep breath and started again. "Keith blamed me for everything, and rightly so. He called off the wedding, and I moved to Pittsburgh. I ran away, Steve, and I've been running ever since. When Keith's brother asked to visit me in Pittsburgh, I told him no and moved to New York a month later, leaving no forwarding address."
She began pacing as she described the events that had kept her on the run for the past twelve years.
"Ted's sister found me there. We used to be friends, and she wanted to…put it behind us. She asked me to come home, but I refused. Before I could pack and run, Ted broke out of prison and tracked me down. The cops found him in the lobby of my building, bleeding. He'd followed me into the elevator. I didn't know he was loose, but I always carried my .38 when I was out at night in the city. I wanted to kill him so bad, Steve, but I couldn't. I could only stop him."
She stopped to look at him again.
"That's a good thing, Liv. Killing him would have been easy for most people after what he did to you and Keith, but it was hard for you because it's such a terrible thing to do and you're such a good person."
"Yeah, whatever. Well, the gun was registered and I was licensed to carry, and I hadn't used deadly force, so I didn't have any trouble with the police. I moved to Chicago for a few months, but they don't issue carry permits, and I was too scared of Ted to be without my .38 for long. I made a few friends there, and lost one. He was gunned down waiting for the El. That's when I moved to Baltimore. That bad week I told you about, when I took route 66 all the way to Malibu?"
Steve nodded to indicate that he recalled their earlier conversation.
"It was because Keith's mom got my address in Baltimore and invited me to their Labor Day cookout. She was trying to mend fences. Her family had always been so good to me. They're good people, Steve. I never wrote back, I just packed up and moved 3,000 miles away. I haven't been home in twelve years. Sometimes I get so homesick, but I'm afraid to go back."
She stood before him for a long moment, trembling, weeping, and looking utterly pathetic. Steve didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure if she was done.
Finally, she spoke again. "When you tried to force that kiss on me, it was so much like that pass Ted made when we were still in college. That's when everything started, and I didn't see it at the time. I just panicked. I was ready to pack up and move away again, but...."
She started to sob. After she regained composure, she continued. "Steve, you're the first person I've been able to care about since all this happened. And your dad, Jesse, and Amanda, they make me feel like I have a family again. I feel like I belong somewhere again." Her words came out in sobbing hiccups. "I hope...you can forgive me...for not...telling you...sooner. I was afraid of losing you."
She stood there sniffling for the longest time. Steve couldn't figure out what she needed from him, but he knew that whatever it was, he was willing to give it to her. Finally, he decided to ask, "Do you want me to hold you now?"
She nodded.
"Well," he said, opening his arms, "Come here."
She stepped into his arms and he pulled her into his lap like a child. She curled up against him sobbing. Her back rested against the arm of the couch and her head on his shoulder. He held her close and stroked her hair murmuring sweet, nonsensical sounds of comfort, promising her that it wasn't her fault and swearing that he loved her no matter what. She was hurting and needed to heal. Steve didn't know how, but he was going to help her. For now, all he could do was love her and let her weep.