The Babysitter Read online

  I hadn't, for some reason, wondered about a man in her life. Someone waiting for her to come home, worried about her. Or, possibly, being part of why she was in the shape she was in. Had she trusted the wrong guy? Had he taken advantage of her?

  "Are you going to press that?" Miller asked, ripping me out of my thoughts.

  I pressed the coffee, poured mugs, and we headed out.

  The chair was abandoned, her mug sitting on the ground.

  "She's right there," Miller said, snapping me out of the growing panic.

  My gaze followed Miller's, finding her standing at the fencing of the paddock, arms folded over the top wrung, seeming to be watching the goats.

  "What am I supposed to do here?" I heard myself asking as Miller dropped herself into the abandoned chair, leaving me to lean up against the house, wondering for the first time in all my years here if maybe I should invest in a second chair.

  "About her?" she clarified.

  "Yeah, about her."

  "I dunno. I think, maybe, she is processing still. And she feels safe here. You were who found her, saved her, patched her up."

  "You think she was trying to get back here when she wandered back into the woods?" I asked, brows lowering.

  "Probably not. I mean... she drove with you out of here. She had to know it would take hours. And even in daylight, it's hard to find. I can't imagine why she came back in here in the middle of the night. But now that she's here, I don't know... maybe she should stay until she's ready to leave."

  "I'm no shrink, Mills."

  "No," she agreed, watching the way Captain nuzzled his head into the woman's leg, making her reach down to pet him. "But who knows. Maybe it was someone in her life, you know? That hurt her?" I didn't mention that my mind had been wondering the same thing. "And the cops didn't seem to believe her. Probably dismissed as an addict. So, if she remembered something, and it was someone she knew, she wouldn't want to go back to that life..."

  "So, you think I should, what, here?"

  "I dunno, Babysitter, maybe babysit her for a while. Let her work through this."

  "You know me, Mills. I'm not good with soft."

  "I don't imagine she is expecting soft. She's just looking for safe. She couldn't be safer with anyone than she would be with you. And, apparently, Captain."

  "He's all about her," I agreed. "Must be a woman thing."

  To that, Miller snorted. "We're talking about the same dog, right? The one who once snarled at me for walking near him. It's not a woman thing. It's a her thing. Maybe he senses that she needs him. He's probably gonna want to go with her when she is finally ready to leave."

  I wasn't entirely sure if the punch to the gut sensation I felt at her words had more to do with her leaving... or Captain. And, quite frankly, I didn't want to try to unravel that one.

  "I don't have... girl shit," I mumbled, watching the way her wheat-colored hair kicked up in the wind, blowing around her head.

  "No. But you do have a female friend who knows that you don't have girl shit laying around. So while I waited for the scripts to be filled, I grabbed some girl shit. Just basic stuff. Deodorant, razors, shaving cream, a little lotion, tampons, a pack of those hideous panties they sell at places like a pharmacy. Oh, and lip balm. I don't know a single woman who doesn't have at least three different ones."

  "Why would you need three?"

  "A home one, a purse one, a car one..."

  "Women..." I said, shaking my head.

  "Not all of us can, I don't know, rip open an animal, and smear some organ oil on our lips."

  "Organ oil," I snorted, shaking my head.

  "I wish I could have gotten her some clothes and such. But I knew it would be a trek. I didn't want to carry a ton of weight. Maybe... if this goes on for a while, I can send someone in here with more supplies. You can give us a list after you get more of a feel for her."

  "Not fucking Bellamy," I demanded. One of the newest members of the team, he was known for his over the top antics that could often involve dosing his coworkers and taking them to new cities - or countries - without them knowing. Sure, he made it the time of their lives, but that didn't mean it was right. And I didn't want any of that bullshit in my woods. Or around her.

  "Maybe Finn. I don't think she's in any shape for handling Lincoln's charm. Finn will fit right in here. You might want to hide your bleach."

  "Don't have any."

  To that, she smiled. "Don't tell him that. You know, when I was in the United Arab Emirates last year for a couple months, he let himself into my place, and scrubbed it. I mean... he went into the air ducts then re-grouted my tub kind of clean. I had to air it out for an hour before the fumes didn't give me a headache, but it was nice to have it so clean. He'd have a field day with the dog hair in there. Don't worry," she said, seeming to misinterpret the look on my face. "I won't be sending him in here in the next few days or anything. But if this goes beyond a week or so, I think she might want some stuff. Might help her feel more like herself. We can even maybe get some stuff from her place."

  "Her place."

  "Yeah, Finn looked into her. She's got a place up in Sussex. Lived alone from what they could figure out without visiting. Worked at a bank as a teller. No tickets. Paid her taxes on time."

  "What's her name?"

  "What?" Miller asked, brows furrowed.

  Thinking she hadn't heard me, that I had been talking too lowly, I repeated myself.

  "You don't even know her name?" she asked, tone accusatory.

  "Didn't have a lot of time for pleasantries the first morning. And she's been like this since she came back," I defended myself, waving a hand to where she had yet to move, just stayed frozen there, gazing out at the goats fooling around.

  "Her name is Meadow. Meadow Holland."

  "Meadow," I said, trying out the sound on my tongue. "Suits her. What?" I asked, finding Miller watching me with unreadable eyes.

  "Nothing," she said, shaking her head.

  Now, Miller was an expert liar. It was how she managed to do her job so well, how she managed to deal with the kinds of people she dealt with without getting too hurt. "I'm gonna go give her a pastry," she declared suddenly, hopping out of the chair.

  I watched, breath caught in my chest, wondering if she was going to manage what I hadn't been able to pull off.

  To get her to talk.

  To get her to connect.

  Snap out of it.

  She took one of the danishes. Mostly because Miller pretty much forced it into her hand.

  Then Miller did what Miller did best. She talked. It was how she got the job she got. You didn't give someone the title of a Negotiator if they couldn't talk. She didn't even need any input either. Which made them perfectly suited.

  And as Miller prattled on, Meadow slowly but surely started to pick apart the pastry, chewing slowly, eyes on the animals the entire time.

  Dinner went much the same after Miller had coaxed Meadow inside, showing her all the things she had brought her while I cooked. Then she had sat beside her, urging her to eat, seeming satisfied when she'd eaten a third of her plate.

  It was shortly after that Meadow patted the couch, inviting Captain up, then passing out.

  "I can't claim to know much about trauma," Miller started a while later as we sipped coffee while the dogs ran out the last of their energy before bed. "That is more your expertise than mine. But I think she's going to snap back out of this. Maybe she remembered a little bit of what happened. And her system kinda shut down a little while her mind tried to process it. She's eating. She's interacting with Captain."

  "Let's hope."

  Miller left the next morning.

  Meadow and I had a day similar to the one before.

  But it was that night that the nightmares started.

  Or, at least, when they first started to make her toss, turn, whimper, cry out.

  When I tried to shake her out of them, she woke up shrieking, throwing herself away from me, running
and hiding in the bathroom.

  And she avoided me, refused to eat, stayed on the couch with her face buried in the cushions all day.

  I decided to let her subconscious work through them without interfering. And we went back to normal.

  It was the sixth day before I knew it. She'd been picking at food. Enough to keep her alive, but not enough to prevent her face from growing gaunt, her eyes sinking in, her cheekbones sharpening enough to cut glass. She drank coffee, but didn't seem to get any energy from it, barely moving from the couch to the paddocks most of the time. Her hair grew limp and greasy, seemingly having no motivation to bathe.

  I was worrying that Miller was wrong. That this was not the right place for her. That she needed more than I could offer. That she was never going to get any better.

  But, for reasons I was choosing not to think about, I didn't call her to tell her that.

  I sat on it.

  Stewed on it.

  And that night, that sixth night, I went to bed thinking about it.

  The slamming woke me up, knifing me up in bed before I was even fully awake, disoriented, stuck in my own mind for a second.

  Then it started again.

  A pounding at my door.

  Mixed with scratching.

  One of the dogs.

  I knew before my feet hit the ground that it was Captain, that something was wrong.

  I wasn't sure I had ever moved as fast as I did then, making it across my room in two strides, throwing open the door, finding Captain there, ears back, tail tucked, whining.

  I didn't have to look to know, but I looked.

  And she was gone.

  "Fuck," I hissed, grabbing my flashlight, throwing open the door.

  Captain was on my heels as, for the third time, I tore through the woods looking for her.

  But this time, she hadn't wandered far.

  My stomach dropped at seeing her in a small clearing in the trees, the moon shining down, bathing her light head in a gloomy glow.

  On her knees, back to me, chin tucked to chest.

  Breathing.

  The rush of relief was short-lived.

  Because Captain rushed forward in front of her, sniffing, whining.

  And when his head turned up, there was no mistaking the bright red blood on his all-white snout.

  Stomach dropping, heart seizing, I rushed forward.

  I wish I could claim it was a scene I had never seen before. But that would be a lie.

  A knife in the dominant hand.

  A bleeding cut across the wrist.

  I'd seen it.

  A few more times than I had cared to count. I'd seen men hanging. I'd seen pill bottles overturned next to cold bodies.

  But this was here.

  This was my knife.

  This was her.

  "Goddamnit," I growled, rushing forward, grabbing the knife, throwing it away from her. Reaching up, I peeled off my shirt, ripping the fabric to create a strip, tying it around her wrist, not sure how deep the cut was, how serious this was. It was too dark. We had to get back to the house.

  I was barely aware of the tears until they wet my chest.

  But I didn't have time to coddle, to comfort.

  I ran us back to the house, flicking on the lights, resting her down on the couch.

  "Hang on," I demanded, washing my hands, getting a kit that would need to be refilled soon with how much use she had put it too, and coming back, gut in tight circles as I unwound the bandage.

  Shallow.

  Deep enough to scar, to bleed like a mother, but not to damage the vein, not to risk her life.

  Ending your life with a knife was hard.

  It took work.

  Not the simple pull of a hair trigger.

  You had to watch it, knife going in, blood beading out, acutely aware of the pain.

  And no matter the trauma that led you there, it was hard to overcome the animalistic self-preservation that wanted you to live, that made it hard to press deeper, to guarantee an end.

  Taking a deep breath, I pretended my hands weren't shaking as I grabbed for the more unconventional thing in my kit - the superglue, popping off the cap.

  I cleared off the blood, then got back up, something within me telling me not to reach for the saline like I usually would.

  No.

  I grabbed the vodka out of the cabinet, came back, uncapping it, pouring.

  Her body jolted, a shriek coming from her lips.

  And, what I was hoping for, life came back into her eyes.

  "Good," I mumbled, wiping off the excess vodka, then swiping the superglue over the cut. "You're back. We need to talk."

  FOUR

  Meadow

  I remembered.

  In dreams, when it wasn't possible for me to hold it all at a distance, when I couldn't drift away, lose myself into better memories.

  It came back then, when my mind, my body so desperately needed rest.

  That was when it came back.

  In short snippets at first.

  Just the eyes.

  Just the fists to my face.

  No clear images, everything fuzzy and dark.

  But always repeats.

  Until, one night, it was something new.

  The euphoria swarmed my system, confidence the likes of which I had never known - didn't even know existed - flooded me.

  And I saw myself stripping out of my work blazer, pulling my hair down, and dancing.

  I was not, by any stretch of the definition, a dancer. I had the elegance of a newly born foal when I tried to imitate the moves that seemed to come so naturally to others.

  I had not attempted to dance since I made a fool of myself at an after-school dance in middle school. I didn't even try to shake it alone in my apartment where no one could see me.

  But there was no denying that was what I had been doing. Back when the drugs had been so readily flooding my system.

  And somewhere within that dance, a hand closed onto my shoulder, curled in, pushed until my knees slammed to the ground, cement biting through the knees of my pants, scratching the skin beneath.

  One hand curled into my hair.

  The other pried open my mouth.

  And from there, well, let's just say... I finally had the answer to my question.

  It was absolutely, one-hundred percent, no doubt about it, better not to know.

  The not-knowing was easy.

  The knowing... well.

  The knowing was impossible.

  Sickening.

  Incomprehensible.

  Too much.

  Way, way too much.

  I couldn't claim the thought itself crossed my mind.

  Not in the most technical way.

  I didn't recall thinking I want to kill myself.

  As far as I knew, those words never crossed my mind as I threw off the covers, as I pulled my aching - but healing - body up off the couch, padded barefoot toward the door, vaguely aware of the cold floor, the oily feel of my skin, the weakness I felt in my muscles from disuse.

  Instinctively, I reached into Ranger's jacket pocket, my fingers closing around something long and sleek.

  I'd never held one before, but I knew the feel of it as my fingers closed around it.

  A pocketknife.

  And it only took a second to figure out how to flick open the blade.

  But even as I stared at it, even as I had to forcefully push Captain back with my foot so I could go outside alone, even a I walked aimlessly in the dark woods, even as I sank down to my knees, the ache in my chest a cracking thing, even as the tears started, dripping like an endless river down my cheeks, off my chin.

  Even then as I noticed the way the moon's glow danced off the blade of the knife.

  Even then...

  Those words didn't cross my mind.

  I didn't feel suicidal. I didn't think about self-conclusion.

  I simply needed the pain to end.

  I needed it all to go away.

>   I needed not to ever have to think those thoughts, remember those memories, ever again.

  A press.

  A slice.

  A burning I hadn't anticipated.

  The rush of hot blood that went cold as soon as it kissed my skin.

  I didn't remember what happened then.

  My eyes closed, my body curling forward like I could crush out the pain if I folded tightly enough into myself.

  Then the knife went flying, my wrist was bound, and I found myself curled into arms that were becoming familiar, nestled against a chest whose scent I knew intimately.

  I drifted into myself then.

  I didn't remember getting back to the cabin, being laid out on the couch, being cleaned up.

  The next definite feeling I had was a searing pain exploding across my wrist, making my eyes fly open, my body shock back into the present moment.

  "Good," Ranger said, slamming the bottle of vodka down on the coffee table, dabbing at my wrist to wipe away more of the burning liquid. There was something in his eyes then, something I hadn't seen there before. I couldn't claim to be a Ranger expert. I'd only been around him for a few days. And only aware of him half of the time. But there was an evenness to him, like he didn't easily rile, like very little ever got a rise out of him. Every once in a while, I would catch him looking at me. Sometimes with curiosity or confusion. Other times, there seemed to maybe even be a twinge of worry. But this, this was something I had never seen there before. Something deep. Something determined. "You're back. We need to talk."

  There was a wobbling in my belly. Something within me knew that things were going to change.

  My throat constricted at the idea of him sending me away. Not that I could blame him. He'd been cooking for me, cleaning up after me, worrying about me, losing his dog's loyalty to me. It was a burden. One he didn't need to bear. One that infringed on the lifestyle he had built for himself.

  All I did was take.

  All I did was make him save me.

  Hell, I would have sent myself away.

  He had every right to be sick of me, to tell me he didn't sign up for this, that he was done with me, that he was driving me out of the woods, and didn't want to see me again.