I'm Watching You Read Free

hospital intervention awareness
seminar....
    A therapist had once called Lindsay's jam-packed schedule an
avoidance device. He'd said it was easier for her to stay busy than to
think about her losses. Lindsay hadn't argued, because she knew he was
right. But she didn't know how to slow down and keep the dark thoughts at
bay.
    When she turned into the quiet residential neighborhood where Sanctuary
was located, she slowed to the twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. She was
so far behind schedule today that she'd be working late into the night
just to break even.
    She downshifted to first gear when she spotted the two police cars and
the unmarked Impala parked in front of the shelter.
    Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel and tension nearly choked
her breath away. "Oh, God, what's happened now?"
    The last time the cops had been to the shelter's secret location,
one of the residents, Pam Rogers, had broken strict protocol and called her
abusive husband. Pam had divulged the shelter's location and asked him to
come get her. He'd arrived fifteen minutes later. She'd run out to
him, begging him to take her back. Instead of welcoming her, he'd hit her
and then ordered her into his car. When the hysterical overnight volunteer had
called Lindsay at home, Lindsay had immediately contacted the one brother Pam
had mentioned. He didn't know where his sister was so Lindsay had called
in favors hoping to find Pam.
    The woman was found dead the next day behind a convenience store.
She'd been badly beaten and strangled. The cops had tracked down the
husband two weeks later and arrested him. Jack Rogers had shown no remorse but
had talked about his rights as a husband.
    His rights. What about his wife's right to live a
life free of fear?
    Lindsay pulled her Jeep into the paved driveway. She jerked the parking
brake up, grabbed her satchel purse, and hurried up the concrete sidewalk to
the glass front door.
    Sanctuary was on a corner lot and wasn't distinguished by signage
but by a wide front porch furnished with weathered white rockers. A collection
of planters that Lindsay had filled with red geraniums over the Fourth of July
weekend added a splash of color. The yard was neatly cut and edged and the beds
had been freshly mulched. It had been her experience that people in the
neighborhood didn't pay much attention to those who kept their yards in
good shape. And going unnoticed was vital to Sanctuary's success.
    The shelter's first floor had four main rooms that were divided by
a center hallway. The first room on the right didn't serve as a living
room but her office. It was closed off by French doors and filled with stacks
of files, manuals, and sacks of unsorted donations.
    A conference room, a dining room in a conventional home, adjoined her
office. In its core there was a circle of chairs that reminded her of the
counseling meeting she'd missed that morning. The walls were decorated
with posters that denounced domestic violence.
    Across the hallway was a den furnished with a large television, a couple
of secondhand couches covered with white sheets, and huge throw pillows on the
floor. At the back of the house was a kitchen she'd painted yellow last
month. Upstairs there were five rooms, each having two sets of twin beds. Often
women moved here with their children and she tried to put the entire family in
one room together. She even had a couple of cribs and a bassinet.
    The house was normally teeming with the women and their children who
made Sanctuary their temporary home. The chatter of women and children often
mingled with the TV and ringing phone.
    But now, the place was silent and it appeared deserted.
    Silver bracelets jangled on Lindsay's slim wrist as she pulled the
rubber band from her blond hair and released the too tight ponytail that was
already giving her a headache. Blunt, straight hair fell around her shoulders.
    Lindsay started toward the kitchen, unable to suppress the growing panic
as she searched for last night's