Shattered Shell Read Online Free PDF Page A

and then she stepped back, tears rolling down her face, her mouth curled back, and she said, "What did you just say?"
    "What?"
    "Did you just say everything's going to be all right?"
    I said, "No, no. I said go ahead, let it out, Diane."
    She drew a hand across her face and started crying again, and I pulled her close and she said, "If you had said that, I swear to God I would have hit you. Nothing's right, nothing at all, and it's never ever going to be right," and the sobs came back.
    "How's she doing?" I asked, and then quickly added, "I mean, I know ---"
    "Yeah, yeah," she said, her voice filled with anguish. "You mean besides the rape, how is she. Oh, Jesus." Diane took a deep, shuddering breath. "She's been beaten up some, around the face. Bruises and contusions, nothing that's going to last. Um, she's bruised elsewhere, too, the guy hurt her pretty bad down there... " Then she was back in my arms, keening, and I held her tight as the snow came down around the hospital.
     
     
    Within a few minutes we were on a couch inside the small waiting area, near a dirty coffee table that had magazines scattered around, most with their covers torn. The nurses' station was visible through the door and I could just barely make out the heads and shapes of the people there. Having spent some days in them on several occasions, I have mixed feelings about hospitals. On one hand, they have saved my life a couple of times, and the nurses and the doctors who took care of me during those occasions were straight professionals, compassionate and expert in what they were doing. On the other hand, I was in an unnamed hospital once in the Nevada desert, prevented from leaving by polite, bulky men wearing shoulder holsters. Not an occasion that left many happy memories.
    Diane rubbed at her face with a wet towel I had brought from the men's restroom. A television set bolted to a frame from the ceiling was tuned to an all-sports channel, and the sound was off. Some men on the screen were playing soccer. There were two couches and four chairs, and a woman sat on the other couch, her head propped up by a hand, fast asleep. A girl about three or four was stretched across the couch, dressed in a snowsuit, her head on the woman's lap.
    Diane sighed and held the towel in her fists. "I should have been there, goddamn it. We were supposed to have gone out tonight, but that damn fire came up." She turned to me, fresh tears welling up in her red-rimmed eyes. "I should have been there, damn it. I could have prevented it, honest to God, I could have..."
    I rubbed her shoulder. "Diane, it's not your fault. Don't torture yourself."
    She nodded, chin trembling. "That's what I feel, that I should have been there."
    "You were doing your job. It couldn't have been helped."
    "Still, it doesn't make it feel any better. Oh, God, what he did to her... "
    I spoke softly. "Do you want to tell me what happened? You don't have to, if you don't want to. It can wait."
    She twisted the towel, stared down at the floor. "No, it can't wait... This is what I know, and it isn't much. She wasn't too sure when I talked to her. Um, she said she was home in bed, sleeping, and then she heard a noise. A guy was in the bedroom door. She sat up and started to talk and then, um, the bastard was on top of her, said he would cut her if she made a noise. She started to struggle... "
    Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she looked back up at me. "Kara. My Kara, who doesn't even raise her voice at anything, who's too shy to send back a bad meal, she started to fight this bastard... I don't know if she's the stupidest broad alive or the bravest... He could have killed her, Lewis. He could have killed her."
    "Don't blame her for anything. She was just surviving."
    Diane nodded. "I know, I know. So that was it." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Um, he did... he did what he did, and then he left."
    "Did she get a good look at him?"
    A shake of the head. "No. It was dark. The whole apartment