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conceal.  Thick, bluish-purple bruises marred her other temple and eye.  Her lips, swollen, had dried out and chapped from the cold night air she’d been left in.  Falling in disheveled tangles around her face, her hair, dull and dirty, slipped into her eyes.  With a trembling hand, she tried to push it behind her ears.  Huge bruises clustered at her neck, and she closed her eyes, remembering the feel of his hands trying to strangle the life out of her.  She touched the purple flesh, knowing he’d come damned close.   What had stopped him?  She couldn’t remember.   More tears spilled down her face as she saw herself akin to a wounded animal, not a person.
    Her body trembled and she covered her mouth as breathy sobs wracked her body, almost forcing her to her knees.  She closed her eyes and clutched her side, stealing she headed back to her bed, dragging the IV post beside her.  Her body, her face, her neck—all  bore signs of his rage, and she tried to forget but could not.  Even the blankets couldn’t ward away the chilling her bones.
    She saw his face, heard his laughter at her pain.  But this time, she saw him lean in close, and she remembered the smell of booze on his breath.  “If you tell on me, I’ll come back and kill you, Slut.”
    She blinked, driving him away, knowing just as surely as dawn followed night he would do just that–kill her.  That was why she had nothing to say to the police or her therapist.  Whatever she remembered had no place to go except deeper into the cold, empty cavern her heart had become.
      
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
    Although Gabriel had planned to spend the morning sleeping in, the ringing telephone jarred him awake.  He could count on one hand who the likely culprit was, and as he mumbled a cursory greeting into the receiver, he wasn’t surprised at who was on the other end.
    “How’s your Saturday?” Ramsey asked in an overly cheerful voice.
    “It was better when I was still sleeping,” Gabriel muttered.
    “We just got a call about a burning car.”
    Gabriel sat up in bed and peered at the clock.  7:05.  “You’re calling me why?  I’m not even on duty with you jokers.”
    “It’s probably the doctor’s car, Gabriel, and I figured you  might want to know.”
    Groaning, Gabriel patted his head to convince himself his hair didn’t poke out everywhere; he didn’t have time to mess with it.  “Yeah, I do.  Where is it?”
    “Kelly Road, a half a mile off highway 49.  It’s off the road down a ravine, which is probably why nobody has seen it before now.  We’re enroute.”
    “I’ll be right there.”  He hung up the phone, and as he stood, the bones in his ankles popped.  Since he still wore the jeans from the previous evening, all he needed was a clean shirt, socks, and boots.  Rifling through one dresser drawer, he found a navy blue t-shirt and jerked it over his head, and then he put on white socks and boots.  Rushing through the house, he grabbed his keys from the table and his coat from the sofa.  “So much for a day of relaxation,” he muttered.
    Although snow still covered the landscape, the road was clear.  It hadn’t been warm enough to melt anything and re-freeze it.  As he started the engine, he thought about turning on the heater but knew it was pointless unless he wanted cold air on his feet.  Each breath fogged outwards and then dissipated.  He drew the coat collar higher on his neck and backed out of the driveway.  As he headed toward the site, he thought about Maddie, about the expression she’d worn as he’d left– forced composure meant to cover the pain in her face.  There was no way to express sympathy without destroying, at least in part, the defenses she was working so hard to maintain.  He had a feeling those defenses were pretty much all she had left.
    He gritted his teeth and flipped on the wipers to clear away new snow.  Although the wipers brushed it back and