No Regrets

She’d thought wrong.

“Even better.” As if to please himself, he hit her again. Harder. Her head was still spinning as she heard the sound of bone breaking and felt her cheekbone shatter beneath his fist.

A memory flashed through her mind, a memory of her father slapping her mother. Right before he’d put that gun to her head. Refusing to die as Karla McBride had, Molly managed to curl her fingers around a beer bottle and pushing herself up, slammed the bottle against the front of the mask.

“Bitch!” Her attacker roared like a wounded lion and swung his arm at her, sending her tumbling back into the boxes. She heard the beer bottle rattling as it rolled away.

He ripped off the mask and pressed the back of his gloved hand against his nostrils. When he took his hand away and viewed the black leather copiously stained with dark wine-colored blood, he screamed, “Fucking cunt!”

Molly felt him ripping away her clothes, exposing her to the chilly December air. But there was no longer anything she could do to stop him.

Through the swirling bloodred haze filling her head, she watched the heavily booted foot swing forward, then moaned as it landed with a bone-shuddering strength between her lax thighs.

His heavy demonic weight came crashing down on top of her, crushing her lungs, stealing her breath. Molly tried to scream as he battered his entry into her tight, dry virginal body, but the pained sound caught in her throat, choking her.

The back of her head kept banging against the asphalt as he pounded away violently at her defenseless body. Sometime during the seemingly endless assault, Molly vomited violently. Over herself and over the monster.

And then, as the crimson haze spread and she prayed silently to a God that seemed to have abandoned her, Molly finally surrendered to the enveloping darkness.

Chapter Three

Reece was almost home free. His grueling shift was over, he’d showered, shampooed the smell of disinfectant, disease and death out of his hair, shaved and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that didn’t have a single bloodstain on it. He took the poinsettia he’d remembered to buy for Lena, and was headed toward the door when he saw a ragged man arguing with the security guard.

He considered trying to sneak out another exit, but recognizing Thomas and knowing that Molly would never forgive him if he turned his back on whatever problem was plaguing the former priest this time, Reece cursed beneath his breath and waded into the breach.

“What’s wrong, Thomas?”

“It’s Molly.” The eyes beneath the filthy hair were wild with distress. “I tried carrying her here, but—”

“Where is she?” Reece interrupted, tossing the poinsettia toward the nearby counter. It missed and landed on the floor, spilling dirt and breaking stems, but no one noticed.

“Out there.” He pointed a filthy finger. “She’s in bad shape, Doc.”

That was, Reece discovered, an understatement. Her face was bruised and battered, her eyes were swollen shut, she was stripped nearly naked, allowing him to see the bite marks on her breasts and the vaginal bleeding. She was also unconscious.

“Jesus Christ.” He knelt down and felt her thready pulse.

“Christ has nothing to do with this, Doc. Whoever did this to Saint Molly was a devil.”

Reece couldn’t argue with that. As he scooped her from the pile of trash, he understood the impetus behind crimes of passion. He was not, by nature, a violent man. But he could easily kill with his bare hands whoever had done this to Molly.

Thomas followed him to the hospital door. “Is she going to die?”

Reece looked at the distress on the man’s haggard face, and for the first time since Molly had introduced them, felt a kinship with this man whose life had gone so tragically wrong.

“Not on my watch,” Reece promised. The doors hissed open and he carried her into the light. And to safety.

* * *

A few miles away, a young woman cursed beneath her breath as she viewed the flashing lights in her rearview mirror.

“Terrific,” Tessa Davis thought as she pulled her Mustang convertible over at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine.

The days when movie stars, bathed in the dazzling glow of klieg lights, arrived in limousines to attend premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre were long past. And the fabled glitter surrounding the walk of fame had given way to junky tourist traps. Even so, as she’d driven into the city last week, Tessa had gazed in awe at the Hollywood sign gleaming like a beacon in the rising sun and imagined she could breathe in the scent of glamour and success.

Unfortunately, she was finding out what generations of beautiful women before her had discovered the hard way: success was not instantaneous. As she watched the cop climb off his motorcycle and come walking toward her, Tessa could envision additional hard-earned savings flying away.

She rolled down her window and flashed her most dazzling smile. The one that never failed to bring boys to their knees.

“Is something wrong, Officer?” Her eyes were wide and innocent.

“I don’t suppose you happened to notice that red light you just went through.”

“Was it red?” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I was certain it was still yellow.”

“It was red.” He pulled off his black leather gloves. “May I see your driver’s license?”

Damn. He appeared immune to feminine charms. Sighing, Tessa took her billfold out of her purse and held it toward him.

“If you wouldn’t mind taking it out of the folder, ma’am,” he said politely.

Of all the cops in the city, she had to get Mr. Play-by-the-Book. Hadn’t anyone told him this was supposed to be the season of goodwill?

“I really am sorry.” She tried again as he perused the license.

“You’re from Oregon?” He looked up from the photo to her face.

“Portland.”

“And now you’ve come to Hollywood to be a movie star.”

He didn’t have to make it sound so impossible. When Tessa chose not to answer what she took to be a sarcastic question, he glanced across the street, where two women clad in fishnet stockings and short shorts leaned against a storefront.

“You know, this isn’t the safest neighborhood anymore,” he warned her. “Not even in the daytime.”

“Now you sound like my dad.”

“He didn’t want you to come to Lotusland,” the cop guessed.

“That’s putting it mildly.” Tessa sighed, thinking how General Marshall Patton Davis had her life all mapped out for her.

“Let me guess.” He folded his arms across the front of his leather jacket and rocked back on the heels of his boots. “You were supposed to get your teaching degree from the local college.”

“Actually, I was majoring in fine arts at the University of Portland.”

“Close enough.” His smile revealed appealing dimples. “Then, after graduation, you’d settle down with the boy next door—”

“The air force aviator next door.”