She must feel so alone. And I’d promised her when I took her as my wife that I’d always stand by her side no matter what. Granted I never imagined something like this happening to us.
I felt like I was being pulled in two separate directions at once. There was the part of me that wanted to believe her.
The man who’d loved her, slept beside her every night made plans with her. He wanted badly to believe her. She’d never given me reason not to in the past.
And then there was the rational side of me that couldn’t wrap my mind around what she was asking me to believe. How could she not know anything?
“Can you tell us where you were for the past two years?” Anderson took over the questioning again and there was no mistaking the difference between the two men. If he even thinks about treating her the way he did me, it’d be the end of him.
“I don’t know where I was. All I remember is a cabin in the woods.” She started to shake and I kissed her temple. That always used to calm her down in the past.
I saw the look that passed between the two men and my anger grew. I realized in that moment that I had a tough decision to make. I had to decide once and for all if I was going to accept her story or let her hang in the wind for these fucks to pick over.
I thought of the woman I knew, the way we’d loved each other, the way I’d always trusted her. She’d never given me reason to doubt her, which was saying a lot for someone like me.
That battle raged on inside me until I felt I would go crazy. I wanted so badly to accept her word. But after two years of waiting, suffering. Of not knowing where she was or who she was with, I was finding it hard to accept her version of events.
They asked her pretty much the same questions I had with the same results until it was clear that they didn’t believe her. The more obvious their disbelief became the more agitated she got.
For some reason seeing their disbelief only made me want to protect her even more and I also realized in that moment as she clung to me for support that I was all she had in the world.
It had always been that way. One of the things I’d worked so hard to change for her. My poor little orphan, all alone in the world with no one to look out for her. I’d promised to be the one to stand between her and the rest of the world.
I made up my mind then and there that no matter how frustrated I became, I had to be there for her. I had to let her know that I believed her, that I accepted her word as truth; and I did.
It was as easy and as simple as that. I’m all she has, the husband who’d promised to love and protect. Now that she needed me more than ever, how can I betray that now?
I felt almost ashamed of myself as I kissed her temple and hugged her closer. Hoping that she knew from that small gesture that I was on her side.
“Okay so tell us, how did you escape this place that you don’t know where it was? Could you lead us back there? Did you walk, run, how did you get home?”
I glared at Anderson to let him know I didn’t appreciate the tone of his voice and the asshole had the good sense to back off a little.
“They were arguing, I heard arguing and then someone slammed a door. They’d forgotten to lock the box. For the first time since they took me when I pushed, the lid moved and I just pushed it all the way open. I was so scared.”
She broke off and looked at me with the saddest look in her eyes. Her words tore a new hole in my gut and that need to pound my fist into something came back full force.
“A box? They held you in a box for two years.” He said it sarcastically and I gave him a look that said bring it down a notch. “Yes.”
“Look, Mrs. McClintock, this is all very strange. Someone you don’t know took you and kept you in a box for two years and they just happened to forget to lock that box yesterday. Or whenever it was that you escaped?”
“It was…I don’t know how long ago it was. Cade didn’t get home when it got dark the first time and I can’t really tell what day it is anymore.”
“Okay let’s go back.” She was holding the side of her head like it was hurting her and I guess that’s why Anderson changed tack.