Page 52 of Mending Me
4 Come for me, baby.
29
HANK
Leaning back in my desk chair, I stared at the clock, wishing it would move faster so the work day would be over. My mind bounced from the work I should have been doing to the time I spent with Bailey yesterday.
For a girl who was once apprehensive in bed, I could tell her walls were coming down with me. After carrying her into her bedroom, she let me have my way with her in ways I’d only ever dreamed of. She was wild when she let go and I loved being on the receiving end of it. After having her in the kitchen, and again in her bed, we showered together and she let me wash her hair. I’ll never forget pulling her into me as the soap and warm water washed over us. With her in my arms, I could feel broken and scarred pieces of me starting to mend. Bailey was mending me each time she gave that big happy smile of hers or called me ‘soldier’. I just wish there was something I could do to help her in return.
During our hours-long discussion at her place Saturday night after I read to her in the bath, she confided in me how she sometimes has flashbacks of her attack.‘I feel like I’m hauntedby it. Knowing he’s still out there…it feels like I haven’t gotten closure yet. It’s like I can’t move on from it,’she shared. I admired her bravery when she told me she had gone to a support group for a few weeks after her attack and told her as much as I laid next to her under the covers. My heart ached knowing she hadn’t gotten the closure she needed to feel safe or like she could move on. Anger and rage boiled inside of me every time I thought about the piece of shit who hurt her walking freely down the street. I knew how often rape cases went unsolved, but knowing my girl was one of those cases didn’t sit well with me.
As I recalled how she told me that the police never found the man who attacked her because she had waited a few days to report it, an idea sprang to my mind and I stood from my chair. I moved across the hallway in a few swift strides and pushed open the two glass doors that led into Kolbi’s office.
“I need to talk to you about something.” Kolbi looked up at me from his desk as my voice echoed through the vast, high-ceilinged office.
“Woah, brother,” he started, giving me a concerned look as he sat back in his chair, “What’s wrong? What happened? Why do you look so pissed?”
“I look pissed?”
“You look more than pissed. You look like you’re ready to put someone’s head through a wall.” I felt like I was ready to put someone’s head through a wall. Thinking about her attacker and his lack of recourse for what he did turned me inside out in the worst way.
“It’s about Bailey,” I fumed.
He motioned towards one of the chairs on the other side of his desk for me to take. “Take a seat. What’s going on, did you two have a fight? Is she okay? Last time we talked things seemed good. You were both disgustingly adorable when she came to D and D on Wednesday. What?—”
“She was raped,” I blurted, unable to hold it in any longer. My eyes darted around the room and I tried to take a few breaths for fear that if I didn’t, my anger would explode out of me. Just saying it out loud made me sick.
“What?” he urged, standing from his chair. His fists clenched at his sides as if he was ready for a fight. “Where is she now? When did this happen?”
“A couple years ago,” I started, trying to calm him down. The last thing we needed was for both of us to get fired up in the middle of the work day. “It’s why she was hesitant the first time I stayed with her. She only just told me a week ago. Remember when I borrowed the car to take her on the picnic? She told me then.”
He stared at me with a stunned expression as he lowered himself back into his chair. I felt a strong sense of appreciation for my friend seeing how he was just as upset about this as I am. It meant a lot to me to see how much he cared about my girl. “I’m so sorry,” he said, blowing out a breath.
“She’s opening up to me Kolb, sharing things with me more freely. The more she does, the more I want to help her, to protect her. It kills me knowing that the son of a bitch who did this to her is still out there.”
“He’s still out there?” he bristled.
“Yeah, that’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” I explained before telling him my idea. I wanted nothing more than to be able to help her heal from this and I knew that a big part of that was finding the man who attacked her and giving him the justice he deserved.
“So do you think you can find it?” I pressed.
“I mean, I have some buddies who work down at the station and I have an in with the city. I might be able to see if we can find any security footage or something from a red light camera from that night. But if the police didn’t find anything then, I don’twant you to get your hopes up that I’ll be able to find anything now. I know you want to help your girl, but two years is a long time in terms of stored footage. There’s no telling if the city even still has backups from then.”
“Kolbi, you run a multi-million dollar private security firm. I find it very hard to believe you can’t dig something up or find anything. Even just a sliver from that night that might have the guy on camera would help.” I looked at my friend as he studied me intently.
“I’ll do my best, that’s all I can promise. I’ll call my guys down at the station and see if they can pull the file from that night. Maybe someone remembers her coming in to report it or has any leads they can share with me.”
“That’s all I can ask of you.” I sighed and stood from my chair. He stood with me and shook the hand I had extended to him. I had started to walk back to my desk to finish my workday when he called out to me.
“Hank,” I turned to face him once more, “does Bailey know you’re asking me to do this?”
His question hit me square in the chest because no, she didn’t. She had no idea that I was asking my friend to dig into her past and I wasn’t ready to think about how she’d take it if she found out I had shared her secret. She had entrusted me with it and I had blatantly broken that trust in an effort to help her.
“No, she doesn’t. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell her you knew. And the guys, they don’t need to know about this either,” I pressed.
“Of course, brother, whatever you want. But, if we find something, what are you going to do?”
I looked down at my shoes for a beat and thought about it. I would do what I thought was best for her and tell her what we found. She was strong and I knew she would be able to handle it if we found her attacker.
