Nothing Sacred

“I’m going to kill him,” Martha whispered fiercely.

“No, you aren’t.” David pulled her hand, drawing her closer, until he could wrap an arm around her shoulders. Holding her against him, giving her strength. Keeping her in the car. “We’re going to wait for Greg and let him handle this. Ellen needs you at home, not in jail.”

“I have to do something….” Her voice shook with emotion.

“Hold on to me,” David said, suspecting that human contact was the only thing that would get through to her in that moment. She was cold. Shivering. But he could see sweat on her upper lip.

That was the moment David knew he loved this woman. Wholeheartedly. As a man loves a woman.

Not as a preacher loves a parishioner.

That was when he knew that as soon as this was over, he was going to leave Shelter Valley. And never, ever come back.

“THEY SAID THEY WERE from Phoenix,” Greg reported forty-five minutes later, standing in the parking lot with David and Martha. “Here for a midweek getaway. Apparently the man had just finished working around the clock on an important business deal and needed a couple of nights away.”

“They were planning to stay a couple of nights?”

“So they said.”

“Here?”

Greg shrugged. “They said they had no idea how bad the place was. They’d booked the room through a travel agent in Phoenix, although when I asked for paperwork, the woman said she’d done it on the Internet and left the confirmation at home. She picked up the key from the travel agent. They claimed they were already in the process of leaving when I got here.”

Greg’s deputy had arrived and was inside the room, dusting for fingerprints, just in case there was something on either of the two people who’d just left for Phoenix.

“I can’t believe you let them go.” Martha’s disappointment was obvious. “We had him, Greg, and you just let him go!” Her voice got louder with every word.

With a hand on the small of her back, David rubbed gently. “He had no reason to hold them,” he reminded her. He understood her frustration. He had a pretty good idea that Greg did, too.

Martha was just the only one expressing it.

“So, just like that, a rapist is allowed to drive away?!”

“No,” Greg said calmly. “I’m going to call the travel agent—”

“You got a name?”

“Of course. They both had ID.” He handed her the pad on which he’d written some notes. “And I got the license number, too.” He frowned. “It was a dealer plate.”

“What’s that mean?” Martha was on edge, ready to pounce. But she’d leaned into the hand David still had at her back.

“It means the car’s owned by a dealership, not an individual. That man was either an employee of the dealership, or out on a test-drive, or he’s about to be charged with misuse of a dealer plate. In the state of Arizona, that’s a felony.”

“Assuming you find him.”

Greg held up a small white piece of paper. “He gave me his business card.”

David’s heart sank.

“It wasn’t him,” Martha said. “Rapists don’t hand over business cards.”

“Not usually. Not a card that matches the name on his driver’s license, anyway,” Greg told her. “Besides, other than his age and hairstyle, I don’t think he resembled the composite drawing at all, do you?”

Martha’s whole demeanor changed in that second. She seemed to shrink, closing in on herself, and without taking time to rationalize or plan, David pulled her into his arms. She needed emotional sustenance, human contact.

He didn’t think anything could surprise him anymore, yet he was shocked when she cuddled against him. And even more when she started to cry.

Greg walked away, joining his deputy inside.