Page 64 of Shelter from the Storm

“My family is texting Edith, letting her know you’re okay.”

“I can’t go back there.” Her voice was thick, raspy, further evidence that she’d been crying hard and for a long time. Before, everything she’d said had been spoken in soft whispers.

“Go back where?”

“To Edith’s. I don’t want him anywhere near her.”

“Then we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” Theo had zero information, but he managed to piece together enough to know this ex, whoever he was, truly terrified her. Theo couldn’t let himself linger too long on what the man had done to Gretchen to produce that kind of deep-seated fear.

Still tucked into a ball, she glanced away from him, her eyes locked on the wall beneath the window. “I was young when I met Briggs,” she started, in such a way Theo wasn’t even sure she was talking to him as much as to herself. “Only fifteen.”

Briggs. He finally had a name.

“Did he live in the residential home too?”

Gretchen laughed at that question, though there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “No. Briggs is a cop. He was thirty-five at the time we met.”

Anger flashed hot as Theo’s temper exploded. “He was a pedophile,” he said, his jaw clenched tight.

Gretchen kept staring at the wall, shaking her head. “No. He was a groomer. He never touched me until I was eighteen.”

That did not make it fucking better, but Theo didn’t say that aloud because there was no way he could temper the fury in his tone, and he didn’t want to frighten her more.

“Shaw had graduated and joined the Navy when we met. I hadn’t really felt lost or lonely until my brother wasn’t there anymore. Not that I blamed him for going. Shaw had his…his own things to deal with. Looking back now, I can see he was the smarter one, making his escape from that damn city the second he could. But after he was gone, I realized how alone I was. And then…there was Briggs. He gave a talk about drugs and gangs to all us kids at the home, and afterward, he chatted with me a little bit. I don’t even remember what he said, just that I’d been flattered that out of all the kids there, I was the one he wanted to talk to.

“He kept coming back to see me, visits where he’d ask me about school and my friends, innocent stuff like that. When he brought me a gift on my sixteenth birthday, I almost cried because I couldn’t believe anyone even remembered. I mean…the foster parents who ran the home remembered, but they were paid to, and I got the same birthday cake and gift card everyone did. Briggs had bought me the softest, prettiest blue sweater I’d ever seen. He said it reminded him of my eyes. After that, I was under his spell, so flattered to have caught the attention of an attractive police officer. I guzzled down his compliments and praise like a drunk falling off the wagon after years of sobriety.”

Theo growled. It was a low, guttural sound, and he hadn’t even meant to do it. It captured Gretchen’s attention, and for the first time since she’d started talking, she looked at him.

“Why were the foster parents letting this grown man in to see you?” He couldn’t fucking understand. He really couldn’t.

“I told you, Briggs was a police officer. He spent a lot of time at the home, serving as a mentor to the kids, sometimes returning them after they’d been arrested for doing stupid shit like vandalism or shoplifting. He was a regular face there, and the foster parents liked him. Everyone liked him. And I think they thought it was nice that someone held in such high regard in the community had taken an interest in me. He took me under his wing like a big brother, bringing me small gifts and offering advice as I maneuvered my way through high school. I was…what’s the word you keep using? A wallflower. Quiet, withdrawn. Briggs was one of the few people I talked to after Shaw left, so why wouldn’t they allow the visits? All we were doing was talking, and always in the common rooms. We were never alone together.”

That wasn’t all Briggs was doing, but he didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. Gretchen had already used the word. She’d figured out he’d been grooming her.

“When did that change?” he asked.

“The day I turned eighteen, he showed up with another gift—a suitcase. I thought it was the perfect present, because I was only a week away from graduation and when I left my mom’s, I’d been forced to pack my things in a trash bag. I told him that, and he remembered me saying how much it embarrassed me to show up at the group home like that. It highlighted to me that from that moment on, I was homeless. The suitcase felt like a new beginning.”

“Did you use it? Did you move out?”

Gretchen hesitated, and he could tell this was where the story got harder for her to tell. “He came to my high school graduation. He was the only one in the crowd who was there just for me. He took pictures and looked at me with so much pride. Then he told me he loved me, that he’d always loved me. He said he knew I didn’t have any plans for the future…so he invited me to come live with him.”

Theo closed his eyes, swallowing hard against the bile rising in his throat.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go. And here was this handsome older man, the one who remembered my birthday, who made me feel special, saying he wanted to be with me. It didn’t feel like a hard decision at the time.”

“You were eighteen.” It was the only thing Theo could focus on without completely losing it. If he considered all the other ways the asshole had preyed on her…

“It was okay at the beginning. I was happy with him. It was a little bit like playing house, you know? I cleaned and cooked and he went to work. We watched TV at night, and sometimes we’d go out with some of his cop buddies and their girlfriends. He was always…” She blew out a slow breath, searching for a word. “Strict. He liked things done a certain way, like the laundry and the way I dressed, styled my hair, the things we ate. He didn’t like when I danced or talked to other men. I tried really hard to do what he asked, because I wanted to make him happy.” She lowered her head to her knees again, her words muffled when she spoke. “I don’t think I… I don’t want to relive all of this again.”

Theo understood that. She’d been systematically taking him from point A to point B, probably in hopes that he would understand why she went with Briggs and why she stayed. He didn’t need to hear anything more than he already had.

“He started hitting you.” Theo didn’t form it as a question because it wasn’t one.

She nodded without looking up.

“How long were you with him?”

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