And Able. Lucy Monroe

started to whimper, fear clawing through her insides like an angry cat. Something came flying over the seat and landed against her face. Her mom’s pillow? Why had she thrown it? Claire tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t budge.

      She struggled, desperation choking her.

      She came awake with a jolt. She couldn’t breathe. There was something against her face and she could still hear the siren’s wail from her dream.

      It was the alarm.

      Someone had broken in. Someone who was holding a pillow over her face.

      She opened her mouth to scream, but the pillow blocked it.

      She thrashed, but couldn’t get any leverage.

      The person was saying something. Counting. Her hands flailed and her right one hit a hard object. Then she remembered.

      Hotwire had made her put a can of mace at the head of her bed. Weak from lack of oxygen, she grappled for it. There…got it. She fumbled with the safety, terrified she wouldn’t get it undone in time. Then, she directed it above the pillow over her face and pressed the button. And kept pressing while she waved it back and forth.

      Vicious swearing. No more weight against the pillow. She pushed it up and sucked in air while terror-induced adrenaline caused her body to buck under her assailant. She managed to knock him sideways. She rolled off the other side of the bed and hit the hardwood floor with a thump.

      The phone was ringing, but she couldn’t move to answer it. She was too busy trying to breathe. She pushed up onto her knees and sucked in one shuddering, noisy breath and then another. Her lungs were still starving, but she had to get out of there.

      Her assailant lurched to his feet and lunged for her with a clumsy movement. She brought the mace up and sprayed again, this time aiming directly for the eye holes in his dark ski mask. He reared back, screaming. She ran for the door, but her oxygen-deprived body was clumsy.

      She made it to the hallway, the house alarm screaming around her. Disoriented, it took her a fraction of a second to decide which way to go. She rushed for the front door, but she was only halfway across the living room when something grabbed her hair and yanked. She went backward and landed with a painful jarring flat on her back.

      She saw the foot coming toward her head, but couldn’t do more than try to roll out of the way. She didn’t make it. Pain exploded in the back of her head and then everything went black.

      Her head hurt like someone had used it for hitting practice with a brick bat. She groaned.

      “Miss Sharp, can you hear me?”

      “Yes,” came out a husky slur.

      “Can you open your eyes?”

      “Can try…” She willed her eyelids to peel back and winced when they did. “Too bright.” She shut them again.

      “Please, Miss Sharp, I need you to open your eyes and keep them open.”

      “Hurts…”

      “I’m sorry.” The voice was kind.

      She would try to do what it wanted.

      She opened her eyes again, this time blinking at the brightness and trying to let her vision adjust. A light flicked in her left eye and then her right. She flinched from it. “No.”

      “I won’t do it again.”

      “Okay. Thank…you…” Her voice trailed off when she found it impossible to finish the thought.

      He touched her head all over and her neck, asking questions. She tried to answer, but she cried out in pain when he probed the back of her skull.

      “You’ve got a nasty bump here.”

      Memories were flooding back. “Kicked me.”

      The man made a disgusted sound and then asked, “You remember what happened?”

      “Yes.”

      “That’s good news.”

      “Really?” She didn’t particularly enjoy remembering those terrifying moments.

      “A concussion is usually accompanied by retrograde amnesia, the inability to remember what happened just prior to passing out.”

      “Don’t have a concussion?” she asked, confused.

      “I’m not sure, but your ability to remember is a good sign that if you do have one, it is not severe.”

      “Who did this to you?” Another voice. Male.

      She turned her head toward the voice and tears sprang into her eyes when excruciating pain shot through her head.

      The voice belonged to a uniformed policeman.

      Old conditioning died hard, and she cringed at the sight of the blue-clad officer standing so close. “Don’t know,” she croaked. “Wore a mask.”

      “I’d like to finish my examination before you interview her.” The first voice belonged to a white-coated doctor, she now realized.

      The policeman nodded.

      She looked around her without moving her head. She was in an emergency room cubicle. How long had she been out? She didn’t remember leaving her home.

      “How did I…”

      “How did you get here?”

      “Yes,” she sighed.

      “A neighbor came to check on your alarm. He saw you lying on the floor of your living room through the open drapes. He called 911.”

      “I know the neighbor…used to be a SEAL.”

      “Yes, I believe the older gentleman is former military,” the policeman said.

      “Not so bad…guess.”

      The officer laughed, but she didn’t know why.

      A nurse joined the doctor and they gently examined her, checking her reflexes and responses, asking lots of questions.

      Finally, the doctor sent the nurse out of the cubicle for a pain reliever and he straightened to stand beside her bed. “I’d like you to have an MRI, but from my initial examination, you appear to be a very lucky young woman. You appear to have no more than a mild concussion. It could have been a lot worse.”

      She blinked. “Yeah. I think he wanted to kill me.”

      “Why do you say that?” the policeman asked.

      That began the interrogation.

      Chapter 4

      It was hard to focus, and she just wanted to go to sleep, not to mention that talking to the authorities always made her tense. She had no good memories connected with the police. A state policeman had come to tell her and her mom that her dad was dead. After that, her encounters with the police had always been full of fear…both hers and her mother’s. Unless Mom had been too drunk to be afraid. Then she’d been belligerent and that had only increased Claire’s fear.

      It had been years since Claire had had a negative run-in with a cop, but old habits died hard. No matter how irrational they were. But she tried to answer the officer’s questions the best she could. Finally, when her words were slurring, the doctor shooed the officer out of her cubicle.

      “Can I go home now?” she asked the doctor.

      “I would still like to do an MRI.”

      She shuddered inwardly at what that kind of test would cost. “No.”

      “You need it.”

      “You said…concussion not so bad.” It was hard to concentrate after answering so many questions for the officer. She was so tired and her head still hurt.

      “I