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  At that, Angus opened his mouth to protest, but Kano immediately shook his head. “No. No way. If that kid grows up and, as an adult, wants to have something to do with his abusive father, and Jeremy makes the choice, then fine. But right now you leave him the fuck alone, or I’ll come back here in the middle of the night, and I’ll tear you into tiny little pieces. Do you hear me?”

  As the man sobbed on the floor and whispered, “Yes, yes, I understand,” Kano released his wrists and stepped back slowly. Because you never could tell how much of a viper these guys were.

  When the man didn’t move but rolled over, bawling, Kano said, “I’ll come back tomorrow, and I want to see what kind of restitution you’re planning, and, if I’m not happy with what I see, I’ll give you another lesson, just for the fun of it. Got it?”

  “I won’t need another lesson. I won’t. I won’t,” he said.

  “And how will you support yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You took away my income.”

  “You pushed away your wife long before I appeared. And it’s your wife’s income, not yours,” Kano said patiently. But inside he was raging. “Your wife was supposed to be your partner. Somebody you looked after, somebody who did for you because she cared. You were supposed to be a team who worked together, taking care of your son. But somewhere along the line, you must have been somewhat of a decent man to have actually married her. But that’s over with, and you’ll leave her alone. Do you hear me?”

  “She’ll come back,” he said. “She’ll come back on her own.”

  “I hope not,” Kano said, “because, if she does, she’ll lose her son. We’ll have that put down legally, nice and tight.” Glancing in the direction of the car, he saw the woman sitting there, with her hands over her mouth, staring at what was going on. She must have heard them because, as he watched, she shook her head and called out, “I’m not coming back,” she said, “I’m so done.”

  “You should have been done before this,” Kano said, “but we’ll take this as a positive step right now.” Then he stepped back from the guy on the ground. “Let’s get his photo,” he said to Fallon. “Let’s make sure we have all we need, so, when we want to find this little piss-ass, we can locate him again.”

  At that, Fallon joined Kano, taking photos of the man’s face and copies of his ID pulled from his wallet, Kano asked the man, “Now, do you need another lesson?”

  “No,” he said instantly. “I’m good.” He was nursing both of his hands. “I’ll have to go to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, you probably should, but remember? You don’t have any money to pay for it,” Kano said, “so I really don’t give a shit. You let your boy suffer for something he didn’t even do and you won’t let your wife pay for Jeremy’s medical bills or follow the doctor’s directions so Jeremy can get in better shape.”

  “That’s all BS,” the guy whined.

  “Now your fingers are BS too,” he said smoothly. Then he turned and said, “It’s up to you how you go forward. You want to make it hard, then we’ll be back in no time. You want to make it easy, and you’ll never see us again,” he said. “But you still won’t see your wife or your son. Remember that. Rest assured that we will find out.”

  With complete disregard that the man might come after him, Kano stepped out of the small living room onto the little deck and into the nearby vehicle. He looked at her and asked, “Did you hear all that?”

  Her bottom lip trembled, but she nodded. “I should have done it a long time ago,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know how to get away from him.”

  “Now you’re away,” Kano said, “and I know the statistics say that too many women return to their abusive husbands. But I’m telling you, if you do, it’ll be the end of your life and Jeremy’s life, as you know it.”

  “I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not going back to him.”

  “Good, then let’s find a place for you for the night.”

  Chapter 5

  When she got home that night, several hours later, Catherine was tired and worn out. Dispirited. When she got a phone call from Jeremy’s mother, crying and bawling, yet apparently full of gratitude, Catherine was more than a little confused. “You want to explain that again?” Catherine asked, sitting down at her desk with a hard thump.

  “It’s because of you,” she said, “that I’m in Annabelle’s Home for Mothers right now,” she said. “I’ve left him.”

  “You’ve left your husband?” She brightened at that. Then she thought about the husband in question and winced.

  “I could never have done it without your friend,” she said. “He not only followed me home and stopped Angus from killing me,” she murmured, “but they put the fear of God into him and then brought me to this place.”

  By the time she understood all the details, Catherine was stunned and amazed, yet her heart was incredibly grateful. “Kano is a good man,” she said. “You should remember that good men are out there.”

  But Samantha was bawling. “I should have done it such a long time ago.”

  “Yes, you should have. But at least it’s done now,” she said. “So what we have to do now is get your son back on his feet and make sure you don’t ever fall back into this abusive scenario again.”

  “Yes,” Samantha said. “I know that. I just wanted to say thank you and knew I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it all. I just wanted to thank you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Catherine said, but, when she got off the phone, she sat here for a long time and realized she couldn’t leave it. She sent Kano a simple message. Thank you. When it came back with a question mark, she replied, I heard from Samantha, and she told me what you did about her husband.

  After that, there was no comment. She smiled because that was so very much like Kano. Somehow she hadn’t seen who he was before, not until she’d had a huge spat with him and had had her eyes opened about her mother. But, then again, Catherine had been a lot younger back then. Seven years younger. She had not only grown up but she had a whole new perspective to life now. It had been a very quick catch-up into the realities of life around her that she’d been happy to ignore back then.

  But now that she was here, she had seen such a different world. It wasn’t hard to understand what her mother was about. What was hard to understand was whether her mother was on the good side or the bad side. And it wasn’t so clear-cut, which is what her mother would say too. Sometimes you helped one side, thinking it was the right side, or then you helped another side, and it was the wrong side.

  Catherine wanted a life that would be clearly on the side of right.

  Still, the scenario played over and over in her head that night and into the next morning.

  She headed to work as usual. She had several clients this morning, and she planned to stop in at the hospital later to see how Jeremy was. If Samantha had herself set up in a new place to live and was willing to do weekly visits to check up on Jeremy’s progress, Catherine would be willing to give her a chance to resume her full parental rights.

  What Catherine wasn’t willing to do was to see that little boy end up in the hospital again.

  The morning passed by very quickly. When she finally saw her latest patient leaving, she knew it had to be quite a bit later than noon. She stood and headed out to the front office to see Savvy, her receptionist. “Is that the end of it for the day?”

  “It is,” she said. “You were a really long time with the last patient.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, some of them just take that much longer.”

  “You could always cut it off earlier,” Savvy said.

  “I could, but …”

  “One of these days you’ll come up against somebody who doesn’t appreciate you, and they’ll just take advantage.”

  “One of these days?” She laughed at that. “According to my mother, that’s every day. And, in some ways, sometimes I think that may be true. I’m off to the hospital now,” she said. “I want to chec
k in on Jeremy.”

  “Did you eat anything?”

  She stopped, looked at her in surprise. “I thought about it. Maybe I’ll pick up something on the way.”

  “As long as you do,” the receptionist said. “Are you coming back this afternoon?”

  She checked the clock and stared. “How did it get to be two o’clock?”

  “As I mentioned,” she said, “you ran a bit behind.”

  “That’s more than a bit.” She shook her head. “I guess we’ll have to set up an alert system, so you can contact me and let me know when I’m that far over.”

  “Good,” she said, “I have been urging you to do that for months now.”

  She sighed. “I just hate to shut down people if they need me.”

  “People will always need you,” she said, “but you can’t help everyone all the time. You have to look after yourself, or you’re not there for anyone.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  With a smile, Catherine picked up her purse and her sweater and walked out. She didn’t think she’d be back in the office today, but she wasn’t exactly sure at this point. She made the short walk to the hospital, and, by the time she entered, the place was chaotic with it being visiting hours, and it looked like the ER was overwhelmed with an accident. She made her way quietly upstairs to check on Jeremy, and, sure enough, Samantha was in the adjacent waiting area.

  Samantha jumped to her feet and met Catherine. “Hey,” she said. “A nurse had to take Jeremy’s vitals and asked that I wait here. If she’s done, can I take Jeremy home?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “I’ll have to check on him.”

  Samantha immediately nodded, her fingers interlinked across her belly.

  “Have you got a place to live?”

  “The center is helping me find an apartment with subsidized housing,” she said. “I didn’t even know it was possible to get a place that cheap.”

  “It is, if you’re in need,” she said. “What about the ex? Have you heard from him?”

  Immediately Samantha shook her head. “And I have to admit,” she said, “for the first time in a very long while, I actually slept last night.”

  “Good,” Catherine said, and she stepped inside the room to look at her patient. She found Jeremy sitting up and staring out the window.

  “Hey, Jeremy. How are you doing?” she asked, as she walked in.

  He looked up at her, his face still puffy and obviously tender. “Is my mommy here?”

  “She is,” she said, with a smile. “As soon as we’re done, I’ll let her in.”

  He took a long slow deep breath and said, “What about my father?”

  “Nope, no father.” She watched the relief wash over the little boy’s face. “Your dad’s a little rough to live with, huh?”

  “Very rough,” he said. “He hurts Mom and me all the time.”

  “I think that’s come to an end,” she said, with a gentle smile. “Let’s get you a quick check over and see how you’re doing.”

  She asked him a bunch of questions, checking on his mental state and his emotional stability, even though her heart cried at the words he’d already uttered. By the time she was done, she opened the door, looked around. “Samantha, you can come on in.”

  Immediately Samantha entered, took one look at her boy, opened her arms, and raced to his side. The two just clung to each other.

  When they calmed down a little bit, Catherine said, “You can stay here and visit. I’ll need an address for where you’re moving, and I need to know when you’ll be there. Preferably soonish.”

  “Hopefully in the next couple days. I, I, uh, I don’t have any furniture,” she confessed.

  “You don’t need much furniture, and, if you contact a local church or those organizations that cater to these issues regarding battered women and children, they may be able to provide you with some good secondhand pieces,” she said, with a smile. “Some table or surface to eat on and a couple beds or even just mattresses for now. As long as you have food, clothing, shelter, and each other in your lives, you are successful in life.”

  “No, you’re right,” she said. “I just want to get Jeremy and me into our new home.”

  “What about Daddy?” Jeremy asked.

  “Daddy is not coming with us,” Samantha said. “He’s gotten into trouble for hurting us.”

  “Good,” Jeremy said steadily. “He’s not supposed to do that, Mom.”

  “And he won’t do it anymore,” she promised. He looked much happier at that point.

  Catherine looked at Jeremy and said, “Okay, so you’ll be here one more day, but, if all goes well, I may release you tomorrow.”

  He just beamed.

  “Thank you,” Samantha said.

  “You’re welcome. You’ll also need to keep bringing him to me on a regular schedule for a bit,” she said. “I need to know that you’re following through.”

  “No problem,” she said in a hushed voice. “I promise. I only want what’s best for Jeremy.”

  Catherine nodded and stepped out. The problem with wanting to do what’s right for another person is that your version of what was right didn’t necessarily match everybody else’s. Catherine wanted to believe that, given a chance to proceed, hopefully without interference from her husband, Samantha would do everything she could for her son. Whether she would do that remained to be seen.

  Catherine had a little too much Doubting Thomas in her to offer Samantha carte blanche authority and release Jeremy into her care right now. It would take time to sort out the rest of this mess, but at least Samantha had a fair opportunity to prove herself, unconstrained by domestic violence.

  As Catherine left the hospital, she walked outside, and two men approached. She looked up at them, smiled, and asked, “Did you want something?”

  “Yes,” said one man, with a smile. “You.” He reached out to grab her, dragging her toward the vehicle parked right there, with the back door open. She struggled, but a hand clamped over her mouth. She lifted her leg and stomped her heel on the instep of the man holding her. Crying out, he lost his grip on her. Immediately she turned around, and, with her fist closed, as she’d been taught, punched him hard in the face and then raised her knee. She caught him in the groin. When he went down, she slammed the back of his head hard against the concrete. The other man jumped into the vehicle and took off.

  She stood here, gasping, as hospital security raced toward her. She could hardly even breathe. He grabbed the man on the ground and asked, “Are you okay, Doc?”

  “I’ve been better,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said, with a note of admiration in his voice. “That was awesome.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” She glared down at the man on the ground. “What the hell did you want with me anyway?”

  But he wouldn’t talk.

  “I’ll call the cops,” the security said.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll also phone a few people and see what this is all about.”

  With her hand shaky now from the shock, she quickly sent a text to both her mother and to Kano, asking which one of them had gotten her into trouble.

  Kano phoned immediately. “Are you all right?”

  “I would be, if I hadn’t just been attacked and almost shoved into the back of a black car,” she snapped, regaining some of her ire to put some steel into her spine that had suddenly felt a bit spongy.

  “Did you recognize the man?”

  “No, he’s here with the hospital security guard at my feet,” she said.

  “Send me a picture,” he ordered immediately and hung up. She bent over the guy lying on the ground, who still refused to move, and took a picture of his face. Then she sent it to both Kano and her mother, with a text caption. Do you know him?

  Kano called back. “I don’t recognize him, but we’re on the way, so sit tight.”

  “The cops are on the way too,” she said.

  “And
what about your mother?” he asked in a dry tone.

  Her voice was stiff, as she said, “Yes, I contacted her. Of all the reasons to contact her, this is the one that makes the most sense.”

  “Is it one of her men?”

  “It sure as hell better not be,” she said bitterly. “I don’t want any part of the games you two play.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  But obviously somebody else didn’t get it.

  *

  “I can’t believe they went after her,” Kano said for the umpteenth time.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Fallon said quietly, as he drove carefully but steadily to the hospital.

  “Too bad the cops will be there by the time we arrive,” Kano said. “I’d really like to have a talk with that guy.”

  “Yeah, it’s outside of our jurisdiction, so we aren’t allowed to have a talk with anybody.”

  “I know,” he said. He hopped out, as he saw the small crowd gathered on the side. And, sure enough, Catherine was in the middle of it. He walked over, his steps hurried and his boot heels clicking on the concrete as he approached. She looked up at him, and even he had no problem seeing the relief on her face. “Any word?”

  “No,” she said, “the cops are supposed to be here, but they haven’t arrived yet.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured, looking down at the guy. “We’re running him through a bunch of databases we can access but found nothing so far.”

  “Of course not,” she said, shaking her head. “It would never be that easy.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She called to ask if I was okay, but, other than that, she didn’t offer any information.”

  “Did you ask if it was one of hers?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she said.

  He nodded. “Presumably, if it is, whatever they had going on has just been canceled.”

  “Makes no sense that it would be one of hers,” she said, looking down at the man.

  “Nothing ever makes sense when it comes to this crap,” Kano said. “Not until we get to the end of the rainbow and finally hit the answers we were missing all along.”