Chapter Fourteen
Their witness was harder to track down than Janet had expected. The woman wasn’t answering her phone, wasn’t at her place of work, or at her apartment, and though, according to the nursing staff at the hospital, a young woman had been in to visit the patient, she wasn’t in the patient’s room or in the waiting area when they went to check on Kevin Barclay’s progress.
Janet wanted to scream. What was the point of dodging them unless the girlfriend was guilty of something?
Rick let out a sigh, “I’m hungry. Want to grab something from the cafeteria?”
Letting out a little huff, Janet shook her head. “You are ruled by your gut.”
Her partner shot her an unrepentant grin. “Guilty.”
As it turned out, Rick’s gut combined with Janet’s desire to take the stairs for the little bit of exercise it would offer, led them straight to their missing witness, hiding in the stairwell, just beyond the door of the ICU, obviously waiting for them to leave. Before the witness could rabbit, Janet had her backed into a corner. “Miss Nelson. I was beginning to think you were avoiding us.”
Sabrina Nelson was an attractive woman, young, only twenty according to what Janet had found when she’d run the witness through the system, with hair dyed a dark magenta, pale skin with a smattering of freckles she did her best to conceal with make-up, and blue eyes that were currently round with fear as she swallowed hard and looked from Janet to Rick and then back again.
God, the girl was literally shaking and Janet felt sympathy uncurl in her belly. “You’re not in trouble, Sabrina,” Janet assured holding her hands up in front of her. “May I call you Sabrina?”
Seeing the girl’s jerky nod, Janet continued, her tone soft and as soothing as she could make it. “We just want to ask you a few questions, that’s all. We want to figure out who hurt Kevin and make sure they never hurt anyone else again, okay?”
Sabrina audibly gulped, her “Okay” coming out in a nervous stutter.
“Good, that’s good. Do you want to go sit somewhere quiet so you can tell us what happened?”
The girl’s eyes skittered around the small stairwell and she licked her lips in indecision before she gave another nod.
Rick, to give him credit, remained quiet as he ushered them toward one of the empty waiting rooms on the floor. Janet suspected that if he had said a word, Sabrina Nelson would have bolted the first chance she could. Was it just fear? Shock from witnessing violence being done to her lover? Or was Sabrina, like so many of the women Janet had been meeting lately, another victim of abuse? It certainly wasn’t farfetched considering Gwendolyn Barclay had an active restraining order against the man who Sabrina was dating. A man being treated just a few rooms down after being beaten nearly to death by a woman.
Once they were all seated in surprisingly comfortable padded chairs, Janet leaned forward and attempted to catch Sabrina’s eye. The witness resisted however, and kept her head down as she picked at the already torn skin around her nails. “Can you tell us about the night Mr. Barclay was attacked?”
Tears immediately started to flow and drip freely off Sabrina’s cheeks to streak the front of her pale yellow top. She let out a loud sniff and Janet plucked a few tissues from the handy box on the table littered with magazines and handed them to the distraught woman. “Take your time. The more you remember, the better chance we have of catching the guy.”
“It wasn’t a guy.” Sabrina said in a near whisper, shaking her head as a choked sob broke free.
Janet nodded, though Sabrina still wouldn’t lift her head to see. “It was a woman?”
Their witness took a deep breath and then another. Finally the words began to pour out. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. Kevin had told me that we couldn’t be seen together since his divorce wasn’t final and he didn’t want to risk losing the kids. He’s not going to lose them because of this, is he?”
Janet frowned, the pieces clicking into place. “Is that why you hid from us?”
Another sob and a nod. “He’ll be so mad if I screw this up for him.”
Janet so wanted to pursue this line of questioning further, had to resist the urge to ask the woman just what Sabrina thought Kevin would do to her in his anger, but she forced herself to stay on track only by promising that she would look in on Sabrina Nelson when and if Kevin Barclay lived through his injuries. “You don’t have to worry about that, Sabrina. We just want to know who attacked Mr. Barclay.”
Sabrina nodded, seeming relieved by Janet’s assurance and she lifted her head. Wiping under her eyes with the tissue, she sniffed again. “We were in the living room when someone knocked on the door and Kevin told me to hide behind the couch.” She rubbed her elbow absently and Janet noticed a small bruise, not wanting to interrupt the narrative, she pinned it in her mind to ask about it later.
Sabrina shrugged, “Like I said, I wasn’t supposed to be there, so I hid.”
Janet nodded and gave the girl an encouraging smile. “Good. You’re doing great. What happened next?”
“The walls are pretty thin in that apartment, and I heard a woman say that she needed to talk to him about Gwen” Sabrina’s eyes shot from Janet, to a surprisingly still silent Rick, and then back to Janet, “That’s his wife. They said something had happened to her.”
Sabrina let out a sob. “When he opened the door, I heard him yell, and the sounds…” She broke off with a keening cry. “I called 911. And even though Kevin told me to hide, I stood up. I had to do something.”
Janet let out a murmur of support and took Sabrina’s hand. “Of course you did. You were so brave. It’s okay.” Patting the girl’s cold hand, she gave her a moment to collect herself.
“There was so much blood.” Sabrina whispered her eyes vacant as she relived the horrific memory, her fingers squeezing painfully around Janet’s own. “Kevin was on the floor but the woman just kept hitting him.”
Sabrina shook her head as if she was attempting to banish the memory and took a deep breath before letting it out on a shuddering exhale. “I think I screamed or maybe she heard me talking to the cops, I don’t know, but then she was looking at me and I thought for sure I was next,” Sabrina let out another sob, her fear palatable.
