Page 41 of Detective for the Debutante (SAFE Haven Security #3)

MURPHY

I should have let someone else do this. Anyone else.

It’s not the day I need to be in the office—or at work.

But the day crept up on me before I knew it.

The twentieth anniversary of my father’s passing.

And instead of being at home, or with my mom and sisters—or even apologizing and groveling to Leigh for ignoring her for the better part of a week—my shoes echo along the linoleum lined beige-gray walls of Grand River Hospital.

Ironic, considering it was the same hospital I had brought Leigh to last week.

Two women sent to the same hospital by the same man. And it’s my fault.

If Ellis wouldn’t have seen Leigh with me, she wouldn’t have been attacked. If I hadn’t given my card to Sara, she wouldn’t have called me.

The universe has a fucking sick sense of what is right and wrong.

“Room 4312?” I ask the nurse at the station in the ward where I’d been sent to get Sara’s statement.

It should have happened earlier this week, but Sara’s doctors had asked us to wait until she was done with multiple surgeries.

“Can I help you?” he asks, standing taller and crossing his arms over his chest.

I have to admire the way he protects his patient.

Pulling my ID from my pocket, I show him my badge and his posture relaxes.

“Sorry. Not the first time we’ve had someone show up and try to finish the job,” he mutters and points in the direction.

None of the room numbers are labeled up here.

Is it sad there’s an entire floor for domestic violence and sexual assault victims?

Yes.

But I appreciated the added security to include the person I’d had to show my badge to downstairs when I first asked about Sara’s location.

Nodding, I head for the door, knocking several times before opening it slowly.

Sara is in the hospital bed, her eyes flying open at the sound of the click of the door as it opens. Brown eyes both black and blue, a white bandage on her cheek covers the gash I saw there on Monday.

Her cheeks and jawline are both swollen, and I second-guess whether she’s up to providing her statement. But the doctor who left me a voicemail stating that Sara was asking for me assured me that she was when I returned his call.

But this is not the welcome distraction I need. I step into the light slowly, trying to put her at ease.

“Sara, it’s Detective O’Connell. How are you feeling?”

“All things considered, I’m okay. Thanks to you.” Her words are slurred but I don’t know if it’s from the swelling, pain medication, or something else.

I want to correct her, to tell her she’s in here because I wasn’t able to stop Ellis, but guilt—and experience—keeps my mouth shut.

“I had a message from you about your statement,” I say instead.

Her nod is slight, like the movement is painful. It probably is given how bruised she is.

“I—my family is coming tomorrow from Virginia to take me home, and I wanted to get this done before they got here. To say they were surprised to hear from me—and where I was—is an understatement.” Her grimace is laced with pain.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” I ask.

She nods again, moving her bed into a different position.

“He broke my jaw. And my cheekbone.” She lifts her hand with an IV in it to the cheek covered by the bandage.

“I…I was convinced I was going to die. He was going to…” she trails off because she and I both know what he was going to do.

What I caught him in the act of doing. “I just remember wishing he would just kill me. That the pain would stop. Every time he said he was sorry. He promised it would never happen again. And I believed him. Every time.”

Tears overflow, dripping down her cheeks, and I reach for the tissues on the table by her bed and hold them out for her.

“Thank you.”

“I wish I could have done something sooner. Especially after the time before last when I gave you my card.” I take the seat next to her bed, trying to understand.

It’s not something I normally say, but this is not just another case.

She sighs.

“He made me believe I had nowhere to go. Isolated me from my family. Then my friends. He was all I had in Nashville. I…I left home and moved here when I was seventeen to try to make it as a country music singer. But he even took that from me. I couldn’t go out and gig.

I couldn’t perform, because it would make him jealous.

And he would get angry. At first it was words.

But when those lost power it was more. So much more.

” She shudders and pulls the blankets tighter around her.

“Was the other day the first time he tried to sexually assault you?” How I get the question out, I have no idea. But it sits in the air between us as a tangible thing in the room.

The way her tears flow harder is all the answer I need, but the report is going to require her verbal confirmation. So I wait, allowing her time to process everything she’s feeling.

“N-n-no.”

Fuck.

The rest of my time with Sara is the whole horrific five years she spent with Ellis. A man I was responsible for bringing into Leigh’s life.

This is why I am staying away.

This is why I need to continue to stay away, no matter how badly I want to call her when I slide into my driver’s seat an hour later. I need her light to dispel the darkness. But I can’t.

“It was my fault,” I whisper in the empty car.

But it’s a fight not to call her, not to drive to her house and drop to my knees on her front porch and ask her forgiveness. To explain everything I had seen. To tell her all the fucked-up emotions treating my body like their own personal amusement park.

Instead, I struggle through directions almost forgotten, pulling through the gates of the cemetery I haven’t visited in a few years.

More than a few .

I refuse to stop at the office, driving along the winding roads until it starts to look familiar. Pulling over, I park the car and walk through the stone monuments until I find the one I know is there.

Sean William O’Connell .

“Hey, Dad,” I whisper, staring at the dates on the headstone.

At the dash representing the words below the date.

Beloved husband and father .

The memory of my mom beside the casket at this site, hands gripping the hands of my two younger sisters while grief shook her shoulders swims to the surface, and I sit down quickly, tears burning the backs of my eyes.

I haven’t cried in a long time.

But fuck if they’re not there now.

I sit down, resting my arms on the tops of my knees and let them fall.

For women like Sara—the victim of a monster.

For Dad who was taken from us far too soon.

For Mom, Quinn, and Riley.

For Leigh.

And for me.

Even if I don’t deserve to feel them for myself. Because it’s my fault.

Sara.

Leigh.

Even falling in love.

Because I should have known better. I should have kept my promise.

“No woman ever deserves to feel pain because of me,” I murmur.

It’s poetic that the only thing to answer is the silent sentry of my father’s headstone.