Yet when she didn’t make a move to get out of bed, but instead stared at me like I’d committed the ultimate act of treason, I realized that she was with me.
“You sleepwalk.”
She blinked and then dropped her head.
“Yes, and no.”
“Yes and no?” I repeated.
She nodded.
I waited, wondering if I would need to go ahead and tell her that I didn’t understand her non-answers when she started to expound.
“A long time ago, right after I’d graduated high school and was knee-deep into furthering my education, I met a man.”
There were so many things I wanted to say about that statement. To ask. To have her clarify.
But instead, I let her talk, because she sounded like she was telling me something that was pulled straight out of the depths of hell—her hell.
My heart clenched.
“He was great. Funny, smart, sweet. The best of the best…and then he did a complete one-hundred and eighty degrees. He was never again the same man I’d fallen in love with.”
I waited, having a sinking feeling I knew where this discussion was going.
“The first time I realized he was abusive, he beat the shit out of my dog.”
I looked at Lou, who was laying at the foot of the bed next to Sister.
“Not him,” she whispered. “I have another dog. Had another dog. She lives with my best friend. Or my old best friend. When I realized that my puppy wasn’t safe, I begged my best friend to take her, and she did. That was the night that I said goodbye for the final time to the both of them.”
My head tilted.
“Was the dog okay?”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
Her feet were still caked in dirt, and the bed surrounding her was covered in the same brown dirt as well.
It was likely driving her crazy, but she continued to talk.
“I used to have these night terror/sleepwalking episodes when I was a child, but my dad realized early on that if I had a dog in there with me, my nightmares would be less traumatic, if I even had them at all. He bought me my own dog that stayed in my room with me and kept me from having the nightmares.”
“What causes these night terrors or sleepwalking episodes?”
“The first time I had an episode was two nights after my father brought his good buddy home, who accidentally shot my father when they were looking at his friend’s new gun.
“He recovered, and honestly it was only a flesh wound, but it still scared the shit out of me.” She shook her head. “Anyway, these attacks always happened after something traumatic happened to me. Or if something extremely emotional—good or bad—happened to me the previous day.”
“Let’s get back to this boyfriend of yours,” I suggested.
“He beat me. Religiously.” She didn’t beat around the bush, just let it all hang out there. “If I dropped a crumb and he saw it, he’d beat me. If I walked in front of the TV and he missed a play of the game he was watching, he’d throw the beer bottle at me. At first, it was only little stuff, but the longer it went on, the worse it became.”
“Until…”
“Until one night a detective that paid particular attention to me decided to drop by the house to ask if I was ready to report it yet—my dad worked with him, and he was the night guard at the hospital where I was getting clinical hours—and even though I said no, Jakobe beat the absolute crap out of me moments after he left. Broke my jaw, and femur. Ribs. I finally filed charges against him, but since he was a cop, he got off easy. Well, easier. My dad being who my dad was got him some jail time, but it wasn’t enough. The moment he was convicted to six years in prison with the possibility of parole in two, I left the courtroom, and didn’t look back.”
“And today you heard that he was being released,” I guessed.
I’d touch on the topic of her dad being who her dad was in a moment, because the few things that I’d caught her saying here and there, I had a feeling I knew him.
Kilgore was a small town, and I was a cop. I knew quite a few people.
I’d gone and investigated why Katy had been in the building in the first place after her complete meltdown in the station parking lot, and I’d been informed about the man getting out of prison. What I hadn’t realized was the significance of this man to Katy.
“Do you have any safeguards in place so you don’t wander out in the middle of the night?” I asked.
She nodded. “I had to tie myself to the bed when I was living with Jakobe. When I did it with him, he’d let me wander, and then beat the shit out of me when I was having an episode. I’d wake up and be battered and bruised, but have no recollection of it at all.”