Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

a man—a man who cared about her—instead of like a cop.
     
    “Would you feel better if Chief Hunter left the room?” the doctor asked.
     
    “I would feel better ”—Maggie bit the words out—“if I left.”
     
    So would Caleb. Unfortunately, even if Maggie refused the pelvic, they weren’t finished yet.
     
    He turned to Donna. “How much more do you need?”
     
    The doctor frowned. “We don’t have the equipment for a CT scan, but I should take X-rays. She needs stitches, of course. I have to draw a blood test for STDs and take more samples for the rape kit.”
     
    Maggie snarled. “I was not raped.”
     
    The possibility shook Caleb.
     
    He reminded himself she could still be in shock. Or in denial. But faced with her fierce certainty, he allowed himself to doubt. To hope. If she wasn’t raped . . .
     
    “What about her external injuries?” he asked Donna.
     
    “Aside from the head wound?” Donna pursed her lips.
     
    “Those abrasions on her wrists are certainly consistent with a struggle.”
     
    Caleb winced. Whatever she needed to hear to provide care, he reminded himself.
     
    “I had to restrain her,” he said.
     
    The doctor’s eyes cooled. “So you bruised her wrists?”
     
    “I bit him,” Maggie volunteered.
     
    The temperature in the room dropped another twenty degrees.
     
    72
    “I really think it would be best if I spoke to Miss—to Maggie alone,”
    Donna said.
     
    “Why?” Maggie demanded.
     
    “The doctor wants to be sure I’m not the one who hit you,” Caleb said in a carefully neutral voice.
     
    “That is stupid,” Maggie said.
     
    “No.” Caleb spoke slowly, his gaze never leaving the doctor’s. “It makes good sense. We’ve admitted to a relationship. I bring you in here injured, confused, with no recollection of your assailant. For all she knows, I raped you myself.”
     
    “Then she does not know you,” Maggie said.
     
    Her warm conviction filled a hole in Caleb’s chest he hadn’t realized was empty. Maybe he hadn’t imagined that moment of connection three weeks ago.
     
    He set his jaw. It couldn’t be allowed to matter. He had his job to do.
    They both had their jobs to do.
     
    “She’s trying to protect you,” he said.
     
    Donna thawed slightly. “For what it’s worth, there are no bruises or lacerations that would indicate rape. Of course, an internal exam might reveal more.”
     
    “But you don’t think so,” Caleb guessed.
     
    The doctor shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. We both know hunches don’t hold up in court.”
     
    Maggie folded her arms across her breasts. “What about what I think? Or is that also not allowed to matter?”
     
    Caleb and Donna exchanged glances over her head. “She has the right to revoke consent,” the doctor said.
     
    Hell, he knew that.
     
    73
    That didn’t mean he couldn’t intimidate her. Persuade her. He had enough experience as a cop and as a man to coax an unwilling woman.
    But to do so now, in the face of the doctor’s doubts and Maggie’s own fierce certainty, seemed itself a kind of rape, an incursion of her body and her self.
     
    And for what? What was he trying to prove? That even though he’d let the guy who did this get away, he could help her somehow after all?
     
    Frustration gnawed his gut.
     
    “Seal the rape kit and do—whatever you have to. Whatever’s medically necessary,” he clarified, unsure if his decision made him a good guy or just a bad cop. “Is there a lock on your refrigerator?”
     
    The doctor nodded.
     
    “Good. I’ll pick up the kit in the morning. I don’t want any questions about chain of evidence.” If they even had any evidence, which he was beginning to doubt.
     
    “Photos?” Donna asked.
     
    “I’ll take them before you stitch her up.”
     
    Donna pursed her lips. “Is that all right with you?” she asked Maggie.
     
    She held herself as still as a deer in the woods, frozen on the point of flight. “What if I said no?”
     
    Easy, Caleb told himself. She had been poked and prodded and pressured enough.
     
    He shrugged. “Then I’d skip the pictures, and you’d have a real interesting scar there on your forehead.”
     
    “Scars are a sign of strength. Of survival.”
     
    She wasn’t serious. Or maybe she was. Memory stirred in his mind and in his heart. She hadn’t freaked out at the sight of the purple waffle weave on his leg.
     
    74
    “Mostly scars are a sign you got caught in the