Bodily Harm

by Arlene Stadd

A woman in jeopardy novel. After she's been raped and almost killed, Winifred Ashworth not only refuses to die, she seeks revenge on her perpetrators by first stalking and then destroying them.

ISBN 1-59431-116-1 Mystery, Thriller, Women's Fiction

Cover art by Maggie Dix Also available in RTF and HTML formats





Chapter One

Too hot for anything but salad.

The end of October already, who would believe it? Seven o'clock at night and still eighty-three degrees.

It never occurred to her to turn on the Honda's air. After all, it was October. In Vermont, trees would be turning color like decent trees should, they wouldn't hang around on the branches and sweat.

Back home they'd have fires in the fireplaces, oak cords stacked to the roof lines, kids intent on mischief scurrying through the crisp night, their noses running, their knuckles turning red.

It was not that many years since she had run with them. But it seemed like--years.

She drove home from work, putting up with the traffic, the searing heat of late October. She reminded herself that it was Friday, the end of the day, the end of the week.

She had beaten Daniel home to her apartment. They hadn't moved in together yet, he joked that maybe they'd get married first, then live together.

She was in the shower when she heard him let himself in.

"Hey, babe--" he called out.

"That better be you," she said.

Within seconds he was out of his clothes and crowding her against the tile. "Want me to wash your back?"

"That's not my back."

"I'll get around to it."

He gave her a serious kiss. When it ended, Daniel soaped his face and blew bubbles through the lather.

Winifred ran her hand over his sudsy chest. "No time to fool around if you want dinner."

"That's a choice?"

She laughed and ran the wash cloth over his freckled back. The freckles went with the pale skin, the sandy hair.

His blemishes, if you could call them that, didn't bother her. She accepted his softness around the middle along with his contradictory devotion to riding the waves. She found the pudginess an endearing defect. Human. He had never been married and remained untouched by ambition at thirty-six. He still didn't know what he wanted to be if and when he grew up--he liked his life the way it was.

Rather than resent the time he chose to spend away from her cavorting through the waves, Winifred wished she could be as laid back as Daniel.

She put on a sleeveless white blouse and dark green skirt. They were different, that's all. There was no way she could frolic with him in the shower, not when she had a list of things to shop for so they could eat. She was methodical, responsible, but untrue to type, didn't expect him to be.

"I'll feed Feldman," he said, rubbing Winifred's calico cat under the chin. By now the two of them were stretched out on her white sofa, their coloring remarkably similar.

"You don't have to," she said, "I'll do it when I get back."

She stepped into sandals, grabbed her shoulder bag, shoved her eye glasses in place. "You'll want more than just a salad. Is it too hot for pasta?"

"Never. That's why they eat it in Italy."

She bent and tousled his damp red hair. "Back soon."

By the time she'd walked two blocks, she could feel the perspiration on her forehead. October!

Then the vast supermarket, the huge refrigerated space. Within seconds, goose bumps rose on Winifred's bare arms. She debated whether to buy a bunch of flowers for the dinner table, then decided it would be cruel to take them from the chilly interior out to the heat.

She dodged a display of smoked turkey bits where an attendant demonstrated how the tasty morsels could be rushed to table after only seconds in an electric skillet.

She pushed a shopping cart past the hundreds of different bottled salad dressings. She didn't need it, she made her own.

Two aisles over--God, it was cold--she considered packaged tortellini. There were so many choices, some with garlic and walnuts, some with three different kinds of cheese.

She chose plain fettuccine. The sauce would make the difference. Pesto. Not as boring as marinara out of a can. However, she picked up a jar of tomato sauce to have on hand, she could always use it.

She headed for the refrigerated section for a little tub of frozen pesto sauce.

Daniel liked it. Actually, Daniel wouldn't care if she cloned the identical meal every Friday. He was the easiest man in the world to cook for.

Not like her first husband, Everett, who always compared her to his mother. (Why did she always think of him as her "first" husband when in fact he had been her only one?) A paragon, that one, the mother--a proud cook, an accomplished seamstress, an all around genius of the domestic arts. And truly, the senior Mrs. Ashworth's dumplings really floated, her pastry flaked deliciously against the tongue. Her house was routinely spotless. She could produce an heirloom quilt out of sewing scraps while Winifred could never pick up a needle without drawing blood.

Were some women instinctively in command of their skills at eighteen or could they possibly be as slow at developing as she obviously was when she had married Ev?

At least she had learned to cook in the years since. But she didn't think about her ex any more, so why did he pop into her head just now between the parsley and the lettuce--

Winifred reached for a perfect bunch of romaine just as a manicured hand darted toward it. A contest? A battlefield?

Winifred retreated. Her opponent in the unwrinkled business suit glared at her for withdrawing, bore away her triumphal perfect lettuce, then marched to the display of Shitake mushrooms.

In mental dialogue with her mother who lived in her head, Winifred answered the reproach: Why fight, Mama? It's not worth it.

At the checkout line, a hefty bulk pushed in front of her. "Sorry," he said, "I'm in a hurry. You mind?"

"No, go ahead." She stepped back.

Fifteen items out of his cart. Fifteen, Mama. And the sign says no more than twelve. Cash only.

She counted and re-counted her own purchases. Eleven.

When it was her turn, "Paper or plastic?"

"Uh--paper," she said, politically correct. At least stores were beginning to put handles on paper bags. Most people went for plastic because of the handles.

She paid with her ATM card, made a mental note to deposit her paycheck in her checking account the next morning so she could transmit her first of the month bill payments electronically from her home computer, and left the chilly store. It was still warm but starting to cool off. Until it did, the city would submit, like a tired horse with its head down.

She decided it wasn't true about no seasons. L.A. had plenty of seasons. There was the summer without rain so the mountains turned brown season, leading to the autumn fire season. When the rains finally drowned winter, the mudslide season was soon followed by the season of smog. That was the one that lasted.

It was better here in Santa Monica. The air, the breeze blowing off the Pacific. If you had to live in Southern California, and God knows too many people thought they did, the beaches were best. Santa Monica wasn't as trendy as Malibu, not as funky as Venice, not as dear as the Palisades, yet close enough to work in L.A. without having to spend hours shut up inside your car listening to Sig Alerts while you didn't move anywhere on the freeway.

She preferred it to the Vermonter's "I been here, man and boy, and I never--" Never what? Budged? On the other hand, Native Californians--were there any?--could be just as naïve. When they heard where she came from, they always asked, "How did you put up with the cold winters?"

"We switched the air conditioner to low," she'd say, and remembered Burlington, all the shades of green, the smell of cut grass, the breeze off the cool shores of Lake Champlain.

Home. The cousins giggling on her front porch. Dishing the history of everybody in town. Repeating all the delicious details to Mama. "Henry Leakman was so furious that Brenda wouldn't go out with him, he asked Emily Murdock to the picnic supper at the Grange."

How long since she'd even thought of Henry Leakman let alone her cousin, Brenda? Had she ever mentioned them to Daniel? Probably not. By the time she'd met Daniel, her marriage to Everett had been over for a year and a half and she'd sealed off a lot more than Vermont cousins. Better that way, insulating her from speculation about Ev and how much she, herself, was to blame. Ctrl X to delete.

Winifred turned the corner off Wilshire onto Euclid, her mind free to explore the evening ahead. Maybe they'd see a movie after dinner. They could look in the paper and see what was at the Aero. She had forgotten to look. But there was a newspaper vending machine on the next block, she'd pick up a paper. Only if Daniel wanted to go out. Sometimes he was happy to sit with the cat on his lap in front of her TV until it was time...

"Miss--" The Mustang inched to a stop. "S'cuse me."

Winifred glanced over at the car, shifted the grocery bag to her left side.

"Could'ja tell me--Which way's Idaho?"

She peered at the driver. Only one man in the car.

He smiled at her in a friendly way. "The street, not the state."

Winifred returned his grin, letting him know they shared the mild joke. She could be friendly, a mugger would hardly have a sense of humor. "Idaho?" She moved closer. "It's just--if you stay right on Euclid two more blocks, you'll run into California and then Washington--"

She felt rather than saw them come up behind her. Two of them. One about her height but heavy, with an acne-scarred face and a sullen expression Winifred caught in a blur of a first impression--the other taller, razor thin. It happened faster than she could absorb. One moment they weren't there, the next moment they filled the space around her, leaving no room for her to breathe.

The heavier man grabbed Winifred around the middle, pinning her arms to her side.

"Wait a minute," she began. She had to protest. It must be a mistake. They probably thought she was someone else. As soon as they knew she wasn't, as soon as they realized--

The sack of groceries plunked to the street. Winifred heard the jar of tomato sauce crack. Her shoulder bag pressed against her ribs.

She couldn't comprehend what was happening, couldn't get it together. The taller man clamped his hand over her mouth, reached over and yanked on the door handle.

Her legs were suddenly rubbery, buckling. She struggled, cried out against his hand which smelled like machine oil and fish. Both men easily overpowered her. They shoved her into the back seat between them, pressed tightly against her.

The second his hand slipped, Winifred jerked her head around. She screamed. The stocky man smacked her, knocked her glasses off but not before they cut into the side of her nose. She gasped. No one had ever hit her. Not her father, not Everett. Certainly not Daniel. Pain. Astonishment. Her eyes filled with tears. This couldn't be happening, not to her.

She screamed again, tried to reach the door handle.

The driver growled, "Shut 'er up."

Winifred twisted from side to side. "No. This is a mistake. Let me out."

The one sitting on her right unrolled a length of duct tape. "Just shut up ya know what's good for ya. Hear?"

Obviously, they meant to rob her. Okay, it was up to her to take charge, reason with them, offer them what they obviously wanted--"You want my money?" She shoved her bag toward him. Her glasses rolled to the floor. She could get them later, when they let her go.

She figured she had close to sixteen dollars. Plus a folded fifty, her hidden stash for emergencies. They could have that, too. Would that satisfy them? "I only have ..."

"We don't wancher money," the driver called. He sounded almost jovial, expectant. "We wancher ass."