Chapter Two—Lorna #2
The office is six feet away. I take my laptop and phone with me, lock the door, and sit on the floor behind the desk because I don’t trust my legs.
The dispatcher stays on the line. Every noise makes me flinch. I grip my phone harder and breathe deeper though it doesn’t really help.
A car door slams far below. My head turns toward the window even though the curtains are closed. There’s pounding on the front door a few moments later. “Charleston Police!”
The dispatcher confirms officers have arrived. I give her the code so they can enter but stay locked in the office until they clear the penthouse and come for me.
The first officer is a woman with dark hair secured at the back of her neck. Her partner is a broad man around Chris’s age who checks the service entrance after searching every room.
The woman guides me toward the living room. “I need you sitting down until EMS gets here.”
“I’m okay.”
She looks at the mark above my temple. “You’re not.”
I almost laugh. For once, someone isn’t asking me to minimize it.
I sit.
She starts with my name, then walks through the attack from the beginning. I answer everything twice when she needs clarification. “Who has access to the residence?”
“Chris and me. Fenton Grey, Chris’s assistant. Our housekeeper has a restricted code. Building maintenance can access the unit for emergencies.”
Her pen pauses. “Your husband’s assistant has access?”
“He coordinates vendors and household services.”
“Does he have the alarm code?”
My head hurts when I try to focus. “I don’t know.”
She writes it down as her partner returns from the kitchen. “No damage on the service entrance. Main lock looks clean too.”
“The alarm was armed,” I say.
The woman walks toward the foyer panel. “Before the attack?”
“Yes.”
“And after?”
“It showed armed when I woke up.”
She calls the alarm company using the number printed near the panel. I can hear only her side of the conversation.
“Yes. Aldren residence.” She pauses. “Current status only is fine for now.” There’s another pause. “Okay. We’ll need the detailed activity history as part of the report.”
She ends the call. “The system is armed right now and isn’t reporting a current breach or equipment fault.”
I blink. “Then how did someone get in?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Her partner speaks from the hall. “Authorized access is one possibility.”
I look at him.
He shrugs slightly. “It’s what we’ll check.”
The female officer photographs the bruise near my temple and the marks along my neck, then my wrists. She asks me to turn both arms over.
Her partner steps closer. “Same pattern on each wrist.”
I nod. “I don’t remember both being grabbed.”
“You may not remember everything if you lost consciousness.”
The words make my stomach knot.
He studies the marks another second. “Could also be pressure from your own hands during the struggle.”
I look up sharply. “I didn’t do this to myself.”
His eyebrows lift. “I didn’t say you did.”
“You just said the bruises could be from me.”
“I’m saying there are several explanations until we have more evidence.”
The female officer gives him a look I can’t interpret before turning back to me. “We’re documenting what we see, Ms. Aldren.”
I stare at my wrists with symmetrical bruises and no forced entry. An alarm currently showing armed. I can already hear how this sounds once it becomes a report.
Willa arrives before EMS. She comes through the door in jeans, boots, and a dark jacket, credentials already in her hand. She speaks briefly to the officer near the entry, then spots me. She crosses the room quickly and stops in front of the sofa. “Let me see.”
I hold up my wrists.
She examines them, then the side of my head and the marks near my throat. “Did you lose consciousness from the neck restraint?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“EMS needs to evaluate you.”
I wave. “They’re coming.”
Willa lowers herself onto the chair opposite me. She doesn’t tell me I’m safe or make promises she can’t keep. “You did the right thing calling.”
My throat feels thick with tears again. “I almost didn’t call the police.”
“Why?”
I glance toward the officers near the hallway. “Because I’ve spent eighteen months being told every individual thing has another explanation.”
Willa’s mouth thins.
The female officer joins us. “We’ve requested the detailed alarm activity. There isn’t visible forced entry.”
“Then I’d start with authorized access,” Willa says.
The officer nods. “We’re checking it.”
They rehash what the police have already covered.
My eyes sting from crying, and my head hurts, so I don’t try to follow it again.
Paramedics arrive soon after. One shines a light into my eyes while the other checks my blood pressure, oxygen, neck, and the bruise on my temple.
They strongly recommend the emergency room because I lost consciousness after pressure to my neck and hit my head.
I refuse.
Willa waits until they finish explaining the risks. When they’re packing up, she asks, “Why won’t you go?”
I stare at the carpet.
“Lorna?”
“I don’t want to spend the rest of the night explaining to strangers that I know somebody attacked me.”
Her face hardens.
“The officer said I could’ve gripped my own wrists.”
“He offered one possible source for the bruising.”
I shake my head. “I know what he meant.”
Willa sits back. “Look at me.”
I do.
“You told me somebody attacked you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m working from that.”
I swallow, glad to have someone on my side, even if she’s being paid to care. That’s cynical though. She cares even though she also works for me.
“No forced entry doesn’t mean no attacker,” she continues. “An armed panel now doesn’t tell us what happened earlier. Your injuries don’t require me to invent a story where you harmed yourself.”
My eyes fill, and I turn my face away to blink hard. Willa gives me the dignity of pretending not to notice.
The police remain another forty minutes.
They photograph the rose, bag it, document the hallway, and take information about every person with access to the penthouse.
Before leaving, the female officer hands me a card with the case number.
“We’ll follow up after the alarm company and building provide their records. ”
“Thank you.”
When the door closes, Willa locks it. Then she turns to me. “Pack.”
I stare at her.
“You’re not sleeping here.”
The bedroom is the last place I want to enter again, so I don’t argue. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Hotel. I’ll arrange it.”
I frown. “Chris should call.”
“He can call you at a hotel on your cell.”
I hesitate.
Willa pulls out her phone. “I’m booking it under my information. Nothing goes through your household office, the concierge, Chris’s travel account, or anyone else who doesn’t need to know.”
That gets my attention. “Why?”
“Because somebody entered a secure penthouse without breaking a door or leaving a trace.”
I blink, my injured brain struggling to process.
“I’m narrowing access until we know more,” she adds.
That makes sense and also scares me more than anything else she’s said. I pack quickly, taking the essentials, and the paper folder with copies of the stalking records. It has the photos of every “gift” too.
I stop beside the bed. The rose is gone, sealed inside an evidence bag now somewhere downtown, but I can still see exactly where it was. On the center of my pillow.
Not Chris’s.
Mine.
I tremble before rushing from the room.
Gerald is still downstairs when we pass through the lobby. His eyes go straight to the bruise near my temple. “Ms. Aldren?”
“I’m okay.”
His expression says he doesn’t believe me.
Neither do I.
Willa guides me outside and unlocks a black SUV.
I frown. “This isn’t your car.”
“Rental.”
“For me?”
“For tonight.” She puts my bag behind the passenger seat.
Once we’re moving, I watch Charleston pass outside the window. Saturday-night traffic has thinned. My wrists look darker beneath the streetlights, so I tug my sleeves over them.