“Tell me, honey,” he said, growing more and more certain that he wasn’t ready to hear what he suspected she would—eventually—tell him.
An agonizing couple of minutes passed while she cried, then took a deep breath, only to choke on another outburst of agony.
“You have to tell me what happened, Ellen.” David forced as much calm into the words as his thick throat allowed. “You need help.”
“I—” She broke off, tightening her grip on his shirt as she lifted her head enough to look up at him. “Only…you.” She stumbled over the words. “Only you.”
Because he knew he had no choice, David nodded. “I’m the only one here.”
He pushed her gently into the chair he’d pulled out for her, then sat in the adjoining chair and clasped her hands.
She hadn’t said a word, but David knew. And felt the acid burning of vomit rising to his throat.
Help me. The plea was a demand, issued as urgently as he’d ever spoken to whatever higher power was guiding his life.
I’m here.
Okay, then. He took a deep breath.
“Ellen?”
“I ran out of gas.”
He probably shouldn’t be holding her hands, shouldn’t touch her at all.
She needs you. Listen.
He did. To his heart. He released one of her hands and smoothed the hair back from Ellen’s swollen cheeks, brushed it off a forehead grimy with sweat and God knew what else.
He was going to see someone in hell for this.
Later.
“He…he…” She began to shake. Violently.
David couldn’t remember ever being more scared. And only once before in his life had he felt this sick.
Steady.
Yeah. Yeah. Steady. He knew what life was about. All of it. The happiness. And the suffering, too.
“Someone hurt you when you ran out of gas?” he asked, compelled to get this over with. To get to the healing part.
“I hitchhiked,” she said through chattering teeth.
“And someone picked you up.”
When she nodded, David’s heart sank.
“It was a man,” he said.
With a second, jerky nod, she confirmed his worst fears. But he continued, anyway, getting her to tell him where the man had taken her.
“He told me if I didn’t take my clothes off, he’d rip them.” She was shivering, huddled in her chair, but speaking clearly now, as though she was somehow detached from it all. “And when I didn’t, he started to—so I…” She faltered and started to cry again, more softly.
“So you did.”
“Yes.” The whisper was barely audible. And tore through David with such ferocity he didn’t know how he stayed seated.
I’m the wrong man for this one, he thought grimly.
Steady.
You be steady! The angry words were spoken only in his mind.
I am. Always.
Anguish ripped through him. Hers. His. Too much anguish.
Shut up!
“He…touched…me….”
No. I can’t stand this. Don’t go! he implored the voice.
I’m always here.
Ellen described the humiliation and horror of having a strange man touch her in places he should never have seen. Of having her body violated in ways that were unfathomable to her.
But if he’d only touched her? With his hands, as she was describing? Hadn’t…raped her?
“And then he made me watch him take off his clothes….”
She closed her eyes and David’s throat shut off all air. He desperately wanted to find someone else to help this poor child who was beyond anything he could do for her.
“He…raped me, Pastor Marks.” She cried aloud what his heart already knew—already felt. “He just kept doing it to me over and over…”
He could feel her agony. Her debasement. He also knew—in the midst of his almost uncontainable rage, unbearable anguish—that she needed him.
Because the biggest part of her suffering was yet to come. And David sensed that these next few days and weeks would determine her ability to recover, to live a normal life or ever love again. He knew far more than anyone realized he did.
This is why I’m here. He understood that now.
He just wasn’t sure he was ready for the journey ahead. Or the possible consequences.
He knew only that his fate had been determined that long-ago day when he’d asked for this spiritual path and promised to do all it required of him. He’d traded hell for peace, and if, now, that peace cost him some time in hell, he had no choice but to pay.
HEART FROZEN Martha sped toward Shelter Valley Community Church and the four-bedroom rectory immediately behind it. From the moment her first child had been born, she’d been dreading one of those calls. The kind that started with “I’m sorry…” insert “Martha, Mrs. Moore, Ms. Moore, Ma’am.” It had played itself out in all those ways and more over the years.
She’d just never imagined it coming from a preacher.
That had to be good news. If Ellen were dying, she’d be on her way to the hospital, not waiting in the big house behind the church. There’d be emergency personnel around, not a minister.
Of course, he’d said Ellen needed a doctor and refused to see one….
Panic made Martha’s movements jerky as she turned the last corner.
It had to be good news that her daughter had been capable of making that decision.
But why would she? Ellen didn’t have a fear of doctors. So why would her daughter suddenly be averse to…
There were no vehicles other than the pastor’s green Explorer at the house. No ambulance. No flashing lights.
That had to be good news. It had to be. Martha couldn’t face anything else.
And then David Marks opened his kitchen door and Martha had her first glimpse of her beautiful daughter, huddled there with a blanket around her shoulders, eyes filled with fear and incomprehension—and a desperate plea for her mother to make things better. And what little bit of faith Martha had been hoarding deep inside died right then and there.
MARTHA HELD ELLEN in her arms all the way to the hospital in Phoenix. The girl had tried to tell her mother what had happened, but David had done most of the talking. Enough for Martha to know Ellen needed immediate medical attention.
Talk could come later.
Ellen had refused to go to the clinic in Shelter Valley, and Martha hadn’t been able to ignore her battered daughter’s plea to keep her rape a secret. She didn’t want people’s pity or concern, didn’t want their questions or assessing looks. Martha had insisted on calling Greg Richards, though. The sheriff of Shelter Valley had a job to do. A crime to solve, the likes of which Shelter Valley had never known before.
One of their own had been violated. Right there in the town’s safe and protected limits.
Greg said he’d meet them at the hospital in Phoenix.
“Dr.