Tymber Dalton - Pinch Me

Thomas said it was probably nothing. Then again, with her attacker still on the loose they couldn’t be sure. They had a standing order to trace all calls on her phone and would have to run it.

After the excitement died down, Laura wandered into her office and looked around before she sat at the desk. Rob followed her in.

“Want me to walk you through it?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Please.”

He reached around her and turned on the monitor and tower. “I just left everything the way it was. I didn’t delete your email or anything.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got to learn how to do this.”

He showed her as he logged into her email. There were over a thousand new messages for her to wade through.

It wasn’t until she had almost all the messages sorted that a new one arrived, with the subject line Congratulations.

She opened it.

You got lucky the last time. Don’t worry, I’ll be seeing you again. Soon.

Laura screamed.

Thomas personally responded to the call, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with his badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck. Rob finally got Laura calmed down and asleep in bed with the aid of the anti-anxiety medication Dr. Simpson had prescribed for her, and a dose of the painkillers, with Doogie protectively curled next to her.

He stood in the living room and talked with Thomas in low tones so as not to disturb her. “So we’re looking for someone who’s not only psychotic and vicious, but also a computer expert?” Rob felt disgusted by the lack of answers and compounding questions.

He also fought his own rising panic that he might not be able to protect Laura from her attacker. He couldn’t quit work to watch over her twenty-four-seven.

“Not necessarily,” Thomas said. “There’s readily available information out there about concealing your identity on the Internet. Whoever sent her that message knew how to mask his IP address, but it wasn’t foolproof. It came up as a computer in a public library in Vancouver, Washington.”

“You don’t look convinced.”

“I’m not. It’s going to take some digging to determine if we can locate his true location.”

“Aren’t there people who can track freaks like this?”

“We’ve forwarded the information to the FDLE and they’re working on it.”

“That’s not good enough. This guy’s still out there getting his jollies tormenting her. Who knows if he’s going to come back to finish the job?”

From the grim look on the detective’s face, Rob knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “You’re sure he’ll come back, aren’t you?”

“I’ve already spoken my piece that it might not be a bad idea to invest in an alarm system and get her a concealed carry permit as soon as possible.”

“This is an active threat. Can’t we get a deputy assigned to her again?”

“We don’t have concrete proof it was from her attacker, for starters, even though it certainly looks like it. Our department is overworked and understaffed. There’s no way they’ll approve someone sitting on her now that she’s home. Not unless you pay an off-duty officer. I had to pull strings as it was to keep an officer on her in the hospital.”

Rob ran a hand through his hair. “We can’t afford that.”

Thomas looked at the wall of pictures in the entry way. He pointed to the one of Laura and her brother. “Didn’t you say her brother lives out west? Send her out there for a while.”

“She’ll never go for it. And she just got out of the hospital. How am I supposed to help her get her memory back if she’s out there?”

“I don’t have any good answers for you. I’m sorry.”

Rob managed to fight the urge to punch his fist through the wall in frustration. Finally, he turned to Thomas. “You find that fucker,” he warned. “You find him before I do, because I’ll kill him if he comes near her. There won’t be a fucking trial, because I’ll put a bullet in his goddamned brain.”

The detective nodded. “I hear you. I also want to warn you that’s not something you should be saying to me. Don’t go off on a vigilante kick and hurt the wrong person.”

“The only person I’ll hurt is anyone who tries to hurt her.”

After seeing Thomas out, he locked the door behind him and went to check on Laura again.

Despite his love for her, he also felt the most un-Domly of his life, considering his helplessness to protect her.

* * *

Laura was still sound asleep when Bill called after midnight. He was in the car with Steve and heading back from the airport.

Rob closed the bedroom door so Laura couldn’t hear. “I’ll wait up for you.” After hanging up, Rob settled on the couch to watch TV and await their arrival. He didn’t dare leave the condo unlocked. That’d be stupid, considering what happened.

When Rob had finally talked to Bill, he’d broken down on the phone as he told Bill what happened. Both men agreed if they ever got their hands on the guy who did this to Laura, they’d take care of him themselves without help from law enforcement.

It was nearly one thirty in the morning when Rob heard a car pull up outside. He looked through the front window to see Steve parked there.

Stepping outside, Bill gave him a huge hug. “Sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” Bill said, his voice thick with emotion.

“It’s okay. You’re here now.”

Steve and Rob helped him get his bags inside to the guest room before Steve took off for home.

“How’s she doing?” Bill asked him.

Rob shook his head and filled him in on the evening’s events. “Thank god the meds knocked her out.”

“Jeez, they can’t track the fucker?”

“It’s complicated. And…don’t get upset when you see her in the morning. She still looks pretty bad.”

“How bad? Steve said he wanted me to talk to you about her condition.”

“Bad. Just don’t get all choked up or anything. I’m having a hard enough time keeping it together.” They said good-night and Rob gently closed the bedroom door behind him.

Laura lay curled on her left side, on the left side of the bed. Normally he slept there and she slept on the right, but he wasn’t about to disturb her.

Doogie, however, he had no qualms about evicting. He tapped the dog on the head and quietly snapped his fingers before pointing at the floor.

The Lab raised his head to look at him, thumped his tail, then plopped his head down again.

Suppressing the urge to make noise, Rob tapped him on the head again and pointed at the floor, more forcefully this time.

Doogie once again raised his head and must have realized Rob really meant it. With a disgusted sigh of his own, the dog slowly sat up and yawned before taking his sweet time jumping down onto the floor.

If it wasn’t for the other circumstances, Rob would have laughed over it. But he carefully slid under the covers next to her. He’d opted to sleep in shorts, considering she’d gone to bed in an oversized T-shirt and underwear.

If it took time for her to get back to where they used to be, he’d wait. He’d do anything she needed.

Anything to prove to her how much he loved her.

He reached out and touched a strand of her hair. I love you, baby girl. I love you so much it hurts. I just want you back, however I can get you.

* * *

The dream happened again, almost exactly as it’d started in the hospital. Sitting at the computer. The blinking skull.

The pounding on the door.

This time, she walked farther into the living room, knowing if she opened the door a large, black shadow would fill the doorway.

Fear filled her, along with anger. Whoever it was, they’d taken her life away from her. They hadn’t killed her, but worse, they’d stolen the very core of her personality.

She started to reach for the door when she started awake, gasping as her heart thundered in her chest.

Next to her, Rob soundly slept.

Reassured by his warm presence, she reached behind her and put a hand on his hip before crashing back into sleep.

* * *

When the alarm on his phone went off at five, Rob contemplated calling in for a moment. Laura slept through it, and he stared at her in the dim light cast by the nightlight in the master bathroom.

Doogie had crawled back up on the bed at some point and was curled at her feet.

The Lab looked at him but didn’t move, apparently hoping he was invisible.

Rob got up and pulled on a T-shirt before moving to the door. With another quiet snap of his fingers, he motioned to the dog to come.

Reluctantly, after giving Laura and the now-empty real estate on her other side a longing glance, he jumped from the bed and padded after Rob.

Rob waited until he had the bedroom door closed to look down at the dog. “You’re a mooch, you know that?”

Doogie wagged his tail.

He followed Rob into the kitchen and waited while he made the coffee before heading for the front door. Rob had just snapped the leash to the dog’s collar when the door to the guest bedroom opened and Bill emerged.

“Please tell me that’s coffee I smell,” he mumbled.

“Yeah. I’ll be right back.”

Bill waved at him and headed toward the guest bathroom while Rob took the dog out. When he returned, Bill was standing in the kitchen with an empty mug in front of him on the counter and waiting for enough coffee to brew that he could pour a mug.

“You didn’t have to get up this early,” Rob said.

Bill nodded. “Yeah, I did. I think it’ll be best if you wake her up before you leave.”