With Zod leading the way in his happy prance, she guided Traci to the front door, unlocked it, dealt with the alarm.

“That was quick.” Wearing only cotton pants and carrying a mug of coffee, Zane wandered out of the kitchen. “Christ, Traci.” He rushed forward, slowing when Traci cringed back against Darby’s supporting arm.

He gentled his voice. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Let’s get you back, get you some water. Maybe some coffee.”

He walked ahead of them. He’d not only survived physical abuse, but had prosecuted abusers, interviewed their victims. She might not want a man to touch her or come too close.

Relieved that Darby seemed to understand, he split off to get the water, to grab a T-shirt out of the mudroom while she guided Traci to the great room sofa.

Zod, eyes full of love, laid his head on the sofa next to Traci’s leg.

“He—he’s a nice dog.”

“He really is. Do you want some coffee?”

“Just the water please. Thank you. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’re going to figure that out,” Zane told her as he brought the water, offered it. Then offered an ice bag. “Where else are you hurt, Traci?”

“He hit me in the stomach a lot, and when I fell, I banged up my knee. It hurts, and my arm where he grabbed me. He got mad last night. He was drinking and he got really mad. He didn’t like what I made for dinner, and his mama said I only worked in the garden for an hour. They watch me.”

Even though she gripped the glass with both hands, it trembled as she brought it up, took slow sips.

“He said I was lazy and no good, and he started beating on me. And I thought this time he might just kill me. And he made me have sex with him and it hurt, everything hurt, and he hit me again because he said the sex was bad and how I was just a whore anyway.”

When fresh tears began to spill, Darby put an arm around her.

“I thought if I don’t just die I gotta get out.”

“Is he home now?”

Traci lifted her blackened eyes to Zane, shook her head.

“I couldn’t’ve gotten out if he’d been home. He left real early to go hunting with his brother and his daddy. If I’m not out in the garden working in an hour or so, or hanging out the wash, his mama or his sister-in-law will come over looking for me. They watch me from their houses, and they tell him if I don’t do what he says, or if I talk to anybody.

“They saw you come,” she told Zane as tears dripped again. “But he didn’t get too mad because I made you go pretty quick. He only slapped me a couple times for that.”

“I’m so sorry, Traci. I’m sorry for that. We’re going to help you. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t hurt you again, but there are a couple of things that have to be done. You need to file charges.”

Her head dropped, her shoulders bowed. “He said he’d kill me if I tried, and nobody believes a lying whore. If they did, he’d kill my mama, hurt my sister.”

“We’re not going to let that happen. You need a doctor to examine you, Traci.”

“I can’t. I can’t! He’ll go crazy like he did when I fell down the stairs and lost the baby. He hit me and I fell down the stairs and lost the baby. He went crazy ’cause I had to have a doctor.”

Darby and Zane exchanged a quick glance.

“How about if we have a doctor come here?” Darby kept that soothing arm around her. “A woman doctor. She’s a friend. And you know Chief Keller, Traci. He’s a good man. He wants to help you. He’ll help you if you tell him what happened last night, what happened when you lost the baby.”

“I lied to him before. I had to!”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Zane told her.

“I just need to get away. If I could get far enough away, he won’t find me.”

And go where? Darby thought. Do what?

“I was married to a man who hurt me like you’re hurt.” Darby paused as Traci turned her head to meet her eyes. “If I hadn’t gotten help, if people hadn’t helped me when I needed it, he’d have hurt me even more than he did. I was awfully scared. But people did help me. And the police locked him up so he couldn’t hurt me again.”

“What did you do that made him hurt you?”

“Nothing, and neither did you. People like that hurt you because it’s who they are, not because of anything you did.”

“Why did you come to me, Traci?”

At Zane’s question, she dropped her head again, and her nervous hands tugged and twisted in the long skirt of her cotton dress.

“Clint said it was all a lie how your daddy beat you so bad when you were a boy, but my mama said it was true. My mama doesn’t lie. Clint lies. You can help me get divorced maybe, but I’ve gotta get far away.”

“There are places that are safe that aren’t so far away. My sister works with people who need safe places. We can get you into a shelter. I can help you get a restraining order, and help you get into that safe place. I can help you get a divorce.”

“I don’t have the money to pay you. Maybe Mama—”

“You don’t need to pay. You need to talk to the chief, tell him what happened. Tell him what’s happened before. What happened when you were pregnant.”

“He said he’d kill me and my whole family if I did that.”

“That’s what you tell Chief Keller. You tell him everything, and I’ll be right with you, as your lawyer, okay? You let the doctor examine you, so she can tell the chief how he hurt you.”

“If I do, can you keep my family safe?”

“We’re going to make sure of it.”

“I can call the doctor, Traci, and your mother. They can both come here.”

She froze, her hands going limp on her skirt. “My mama can come here? Can she go with me to the safe place?”

“We’re going to work that out.” Zane rose. “I want you to tell me if it’s okay to call Chief Keller. You tell Darby if it’s all right to call the doctor, and your mama. We don’t do anything unless you say it’s all right.”

“I’m so scared. I’m so tired.” Putting her head back, she closed her eyes. “I half hoped he’d just kill me last night, so it’d be over with. I can’t live this way anymore. I don’t want to live if it’s this way. If you call them, it’ll change. I need it to change, so you can call them. But please call my mama. I just want my mama.”

Putting her face in her hands, she sobbed.

* * *

It shook Darby down to the bone, brought back with crystal clarity the fear, shock, utter helplessness of being beaten by a man who’d vowed to cherish her.

More than the attack by Graham Bigelow, she realized, witnessing Traci’s exhaustion, despair, and terror shot her back to her own.

And that need, that desperate, visceral need for a mother’s comfort.

Lee came first, so Darby busied herself making coffee while he spoke quietly with Traci and Zane in the great room. Gentle voices, she thought, a gentle way as she served the coffee, then went outside to wait for the others. To give Traci privacy.

And remembered her own interview with the police, how calm they’d been and, yes, gentle. Patient, she realized, guiding her back through the nightmare so she could document it for them.

All she’d wanted? Her mother.

She watched the car coming fast up the steep road, walked down to meet Traci’s mother, and, she noted, her sister as she got out of the car.

She saw that Traci’s mother still wore her house slippers. Tears burned at the back of Darby’s eyes—her own memories, her relief.

She fought them back, reached out a hand for Lucy Abbott’s.

“She’s inside, with Chief Keller and Zane. She doesn’t want to go to the clinic, but Dr. Ledbecker’s coming here.”

“How bad is—I need to—”

“He hurt her, Mrs. Abbott. It’s not the first time, but we can make sure it’s the last.”

“You go on in to her, Mama. I need a second here. Can she go right in?” Allie asked.

“Sure. Straight back. Mrs. Abbott…” Darby hesitated, then went with her gut. “She’s going to need you to just hold on to her for a while. That’s what she’ll need.”

With a nod, Lucy rushed to the house and inside.

“Okay.” Allie’s jaw set like iron. “Where is the son of a bitch?”

“Traci said he left early to go hunting. That’s when she got out.”

“About fucking time. Sorry—Mama hates that word, but it just keeps pushing out of me. How’d she get here?”

“I had a job I wanted to finish up out on Highpoint Road, and I saw her when I was driving out, saw she was hurt, talked her into getting in the truck. She wanted to come here. She had Zane’s card with her.”

“Good sense at last.” When tears swirled in Allie eyes, she blinked them away hard, then put her arms around Darby. “Bless you.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“Bless you,” Allie repeated. “Let me thank you. I’ve been sick with worry and mad as all hellfire with Traci for a long time, so let me thank you and pull myself together before I go in.”

“He threatened you and your mother.”

Allie jerked back.