needed to be done to flee to safety. The fear lay beneath all the pain, but she had to ignore it, too, and keep her head.
Jenna made it to the bathroom in time to puke her guts out. She rinsed her sour mouth and throat and refused to look at herself in the mirror above the sink. Pulling her hacked hair back, twisting it on top of her head, she knocked over the toothbrush holder with her shaking hands, and found a clip to hold her hair away from her bruised face. Hopefully, no one would notice her chopped locks. Hastily, she scrubbed the blood from her hands and face before moving back to the bedroom to dress.
She pulled clean clothes out of the closet he’d thankfully missed during his rampage. She stripped off her bloody running shorts and tank top. Bending over to pull off her shoes and socks proved to be a challenge with her back in such terrible condition. Her muscles tightened. She wiped away the majority of blood with a slashed T-shirt she grabbed from the floor. The thick cotton staunched the flow of blood from the cut on her leg. She tied another piece of T-shirt around her thigh to keep it from bleeding, until she tended it better. She finally pulled on a loose floral skirt and burgundy tunic and slid her feet into a pair of sandals.
Dressed, breathless, scared and shaking, she searched the wreckage for the phone and found it amid a broken crystal vase.
“Stop right there.” Gun drawn, the officer blocked the open bedroom doorway.
Jenna froze, eyes wide, a new surge of adrenaline pumped through her veins. Telephone in hand, she’d barely had time to dial nine. “This is my place,” she rasped out, her voice raw from screaming.
Gun still pointed at her, the officer asked, “What’s your name?”
“Jenna Caldwell.” She left off the Merrick. If she gave that name, the press would be here in ten minutes, the story splashed all over the papers.
Thank God she’d had time to clean herself up and toss the bloody clothes in the corner of the closet before the cops saw the real damage.
“Do you have ID?”
“In my purse on the table by the front door.” She scanned her surroundings. “At least that’s where I left it.”
He exchanged a look with his partner, who withdrew to the other room to find her purse. “Who were you calling?”
“You. The police. Why are you here?”
“We received a report about a break-in.” His gaze went from the smeared blood on the floor to her bruised and swollen face. “You okay?”
She ignored his question and focused on the problem. How to get out of here without being dragged to the police station, or God help her, the hospital. “A break-in. So that’s why he trashed the place.” Her gaze fell on the bloody candlestick. Bastard probably thought he killed her and needed to cover it up.
“What happened here?”
For the next twenty minutes she answered their grueling round of questions. She kept to the point without embellishing or adding any unnecessary details. The police found her uncooperative and attributed it to what happened with many women caught in this cycle. They called for help, then changed their mind and refused to press charges. She wanted to press charges, but knew she didn’t have the evidence needed to bring him down. Right now, she had one goal, escape. As quick and as soon as possible.
“So, nothing’s been taken and you never saw his face?”
“Like I said, he wore a mask.”
“How can you be sure it was your ex-husband?”
“I know.”
“Do you want to press charges for the assault?”
“Against who? The masked man? Even I know the charges would never stick. He’ll have ten people lined up to provide an alibi and a dozen lawyers to drive a truck through my testimony. Sorry, been there, done that.” If she sounded bitter, she’d earned it after years on this merry-go-round.
“At least let us call an ambulance to take you to the hospital to get checked out.”
“Just some cuts and bruises,” she lied. Not convincingly, judging by the officer’s frown. “Nothing major. I don’t need an ambulance. Just fill out your report and dump it in the this-will-go-nowhere file.” She pressed her fingers to her temples in a futile attempt to stop the pounding.
“Do you have someone who can stay with you tonight?”
“I’m not staying here.” To prove it, she turned her back on them and called a cab, using one of the many