Free Truth & Lies: A Queen City Justice Novel by Elizabeth Bemis Page B

she’d proven him “wrong” about her travel, she still didn’t think he trusted her.
    “Sometimes it’s just easier not to let anyone in, you know?”
    Despite suspecting that he was directing this conversation for less than altruistic purposes, Dana’s heart ached for him. How many people had removed themselves—or been removed—from his life? His phone hadn’t rung once in the two days she’d been here. Was he truly all alone?
    Unfortunately, she could all too easily imagine it. She had the people she worked with, but she’d only been here for several months. And there wasn’t anyone left from her days in D.C.
    He looked over at Dana. “I guess one of the benefits to you not speaking much is that you can’t lie, eh?”
    Dana’s stomach pitched wildly.
    If only he knew.
    
    Date unknown, early evening.
    Somewhere in Southwestern, Ohio
    The blood started dark red and diluted quickly to a pale pink as it swirled down the drain of the shower.
    Anka Pierovich knew the cuts on the inside of her left thigh were infected. And now that she had scrubbed it out, the top one was bleeding again. She had no idea how much blood she had lost or even how much more blood she could lose. Already the edges of her vision were starting to fade.
    It seemed stupid now, that she refused to let the man who stitched up the long shallow slices on her arm and across her abdomen to treat the even deeper slices high on her leg.
    It had not mattered that he said he was a doctor and had surely seen many versions of the parts of her body she wished to hide. However, he had not seen hers .
    From within the limited privacy of the even more limited bathroom, Anka inspected the inflamed lines in her skin. Bright pink lightning-bolt-shaped marks streaked away from the wound.
    That could not be good.
    Maybe she would die. That thought was almost comforting until she remembered the sweet, sweet face of Katja, her baby girl. She would be two years old in January.
    Anka would do almost anything in the world for just one of her soft, baby-powder hugs.
    Regret sliced through her. How could she have ever traded months of her daughter’s life on the hope for more financial stability?
    She had to hang on. Eventually, the wound would heal. It had to. She could not die. Not like this. She just could not.
    Carefully, she began scrubbing the second cut, trying to clean out the infection. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with the spray of the shower.
    It hurt so badly, for a moment she thought she might be sick. She allowed herself to slide down the shower wall until she sat in the small tub.
    It all seemed so hopeless.
    She could not live through another episode like she had just endured.
    Each one was getting worse.
    After the first time, his use of her body was not as emotionally invasive. She could cut her brain off when it happened. It was just physical pain. Not as sharp as the knife slices. Not as heartbreaking as the first time. All he wanted was her fear, and she gave that to him. She could not have helped it if she had tried.
    But Anka could be brave for only so long. She was not a brave person to begin with. If she were brave, she would not have fled Croatia for the United States. She would have stayed and made a life for herself and her daughter there in spite of the rocky economy and the mistakes of her past.
    Or she could have worked harder with her very ill-suited near-groom. They had had nothing in common. He had been humorless and already had two children. He had not been interested in another. But maybe, if he had not sent her back, she might have been able to change his mind.
    She had not yet given up hoping that she would be able to escape this place. The only window was glass block. In front of the window were five steel bars, the ends of which were buried in the concrete wall both above and below the inset window. She was trapped in a small room with a tiny, horrible bathroom and a small bedroom with a cot—not even a real