Free Vanished (The Saved Series, A Military Romance) by Lorhainne Eckhart Page A

began. “She was here, terrified, freezing. She had no coat, and she made no sense at first. She kept saying someone was after her, that he was going to hurt her. I asked her if it was her husband, if he’d hurt her. She was so upset and freaked out that it took a while to calm her down. She said the father of her daughter owned her and said he’d never let her go.”
    “What the hell, Terri ?” Eric barked. “You told me you checked. Is Hossein in the country?” He touched his mouth, trying to contain the icy chill racing through him, the panic. He felt as if he had been blindsided.
    “He’s not . We know that for sure, so I don’t understand why she’d say that, unless it was someone else. Why wouldn’t she go to your friends next door? Why disappear? Your friends heard nothing. This makes no sense, Eric. Sister Carmen, where is she? We need to talk to her,” Terri added, standing her ground.
    “I took her to the women’s shelter. They patched her up, gave her a bed. She was safe there,” the nun said.
    “Patched her up —was she hurt?” Eric asked, trying not to panic. He stepped closer, feeling as if the floor were about to fall away under him.
    The nun pointed to her forehead. “A bruise and a small cut, but she was so upset that I couldn’t reason with her. We just thought you had done it. She needed rest. We didn’t know how long she’d been wandering in the cold. A month ago, being out as she was… the nights were chilly. She was cold and confused, panicked, just like a woman fleeing a bad scene. I’ve seen it a hundred times, maybe more.”
    “Why wouldn’t you call the police or take her to the ER ? Why?” Eric was furious. For twenty-nine days he’d worried, and this woman had known all along where Abby was.
    “ With a woman as traumatized as Abby, going to the police would be a mistake,” Sister Carmen replied. “She wouldn’t tell us more. We got her the help she needed. You have no idea the number of domestic abuse victims we see, and they need to hide, feel safe, get away, not to be reported so their abusers can find them. We had someone look at her at the shelter. She didn’t need the ER.” The nun stood her ground, and Eric was sure she would have barred any door and refused to budge an inch to protect what she believed in, helping those in need.
    Eric swiped across his face with his hand. “We should go there now. Where is this shelter? I still don’t understand why she wouldn’t have contacted me or, at the very least, Joe and Mary-Margaret.” There were a lot of holes in all of this, and he needed answers, a lot of answers.
    He watched both women exchange an odd look , and he didn’t understand why.
    “I see a lot of things here ,” Sister Carmen said. “People in a bad way. Lots of military, messed-up soldiers. Their families quite often pay the price. I don’t know what happened to your wife, but I can honestly tell you this woman, your Abby, was terrified of a man, a man we thought was you.”
    “Could you tell us where this shelter is?” Terri asked.
    “I can tell you,” Sister Carmen said to Terri, “but not you,” she added as she pointed at Eric.

Chapter 14
    “Look , Eric. Just hang tough. I could take you home first before I go,” Terri said as she lingered with Eric in the common area, which was becoming crowded with people wandering in from the streets. There were a few women with children. As he took in all the worn-out people, he recognized a look he’d seen many times before: a resignation, a loss of hope.
    “Terri, I’m coming . That’s my wife,” he growled. He’d be damned if he was going to let anyone else talk to Abby. She needed him. Of course she did.
    “I understand , Eric, but these shelters are here to protect women and children. They can’t make an exception. First things first, Sister Carmen is phoning over now, so just stop. You have to understand this shelter is about protecting women first.”
    Eric had hundreds of