“Do you know who did this to you?” he asked cautiously, and she didn't answer. She closed her eyes then, but he was persistent. “If you know, I'd like you to tell me. You don't want him to do this to someone else, do you? I'd like you to think about it.” He sat very quietly and she opened her eyes and looked at him, she seemed to be thinking about it. She had always protected them, all of them, but even in the dark recesses of where she had been, she knew that this was different. “Do you know who it was?” If it had been an intruder, she may not have known. But Peter suspected it wasn't. And she didn't answer his question. “We can talk about it later.” She blinked agreement, and then tried to speak again.

“Name…”

“The name of the person who beat you up?” He was confused now, but she frowned and looked annoyed that he hadn't understood her. She pointed a finger at him then, barely lifting it off the covers. She wanted to know who he was. “Peter… Peter Mason. I'm a doctor. And you're in the hospital. And we're going to get you all put back together and send you home, but we want you to be safe there. That's why we want to know who did it.” She only moaned again then, and closed her eyes, exhausted. She drifted off to sleep, and he watched her for a minute and then left her. She was definitely thinking clearly. She had responded to everything he said, and she wanted to know who he was. It was a great beginning, and he was encouraged.

He slept for a short time that night, and came back to see her in the morning. She was looking brighter than she had the night before, and she was able to speak more clearly in a whisper, and she remembered that his name was Peter. The EEG looked good and so did all the other monitors. She was definitely up and running, by his standards at least, which didn't take much. And he was still with her when the police came to see her. They were pleased to hear she was no longer in a coma, and what they wanted now was information.

Peter warned them, as they approached her bed, to go easy. She had only been conscious since the previous evening. They asked her the same questions he had, although less gently. They told her they wanted to do everything they could to help and protect her, but they couldn't do it unless she told them who had attacked her, and she looked very pensive when they said it. She seemed to be weighing it all out, thinking about it, and she almost looked as though she were listening to something.

“You can't let this happen to you again,” Peter said quietly, standing next to her bed, and looking down at her with compassion. “Next time you might not be as lucky. Whoever did this to you wanted to hurt you, Gabriella. He did everything he could to injure you and kill you.” He had kicked her, broken her, bruised her, tried to strangle her. This was not an accident, or even a crime of passion, in his mind. It was a vicious attempt to destroy her, and he had very nearly been successful and she knew it.

“He wanted to do this to you. Now you have to help us catch him, so it doesn't happen again. You won't be safe until he's put away in jail where he belongs. Think about it.” She was, obviously, and she looked up at them, moving her eyes from one to the other. Her whole life had been spent protecting other people, hiding their crimes, making excuses for them, telling herself she deserved it, but suddenly she no longer believed that. She didn't deserve this. He did. She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again, unsure of herself. And the suspense was killing them. And then finally, when Peter was certain she wouldn't tell them, she looked directly at him, and nodded. Something he had said had gotten to her, and opened the door for her, and he knew it.

“Come on, Gabriella… tell us… you've got to. You don't deserve this.” She didn't, and she knew it. Just as she had known when he did it to her that he had no right to do it, no right to do what her mother had done, any more than she had. And it was exactly what she had said to Steve. It was over. She was never going to let this happen again. No one would ever again touch her, not like this, not to hurt her. She wouldn't let them.

“Steve,” she whispered almost inaudibly at first, “Steve Porter.” But she knew she had to explain other things as well, and she barely had the strength to do it, but they were listening closely and one of the inspectors was scribbling. They knew Porter was her boyfriend and lived at the boardinghouse, from what the other boarders had told him. “Other names… letters in the professor's desk… different names… he's been in prison.” Both inspectors looked up simultaneously. This was going to be easy. Bingo.

“Do you remember what his aliases are, Miss Harrison?”

“Steve Johnson… John Stevens… Michael Houston.” She remembered them all with surprisingly little effort. And now she wanted to do this. She owed it to herself, after all these years, and she knew it. No one would ever hurt her again. Or break her. And Steve deserved everything that happened to him. “He's been in prison in Kentucky… Texas… California…”

“Do you know where he is now?” they asked her, and she told them she didn't. “He hasn't been here, has he?” They looked up at the doctor and he shook his head. That crazy he wasn't. “Do you know why he did this to you? Was he angry at you? Jealous? Were you trying to break off with him, or seeing another man?” Those were all the usual reasons.

“He wanted money from me… I've been giving him money for months,” she whispered, and he'd been taking it, but she didn't have the strength to say that. She could tell them the rest later. “And a friend just left me some money… He wanted me to give him all of it, or most of it… or he'd say I tried to have him kill the professor… He left me the money. Steve wanted it all… wanted to go to Europe… said he'd kill me if I didn't give it to him.” And he had very nearly delivered on the promise. And then she added the final blow to what she had told them. “I think he killed the professor… tried to… hurt him… then he had a stroke… he left me the money.” It was a little garbled, but they thought they could get the rest from the landlady and the other boarders at the boardinghouse, and there was plenty of time to ask Gabriella more questions later, when she felt better.

“Did he use any weapons on you?” they asked her then, and she was surprised by the question.

“Just hit me.”

“Nice guy.” They flipped their notebooks shut and thanked her and told her they'd come back when she felt better. They told her they hoped to have good news for her shortly, and she was surprised to realize as she lay back and closed her eyes that she wasn't sorry. She had done the right thing, and she knew it. It was time to stop the people who hurt her. Some of them couldn't help it, like Joe, and Mother Gregoria… but her mother… and maybe even her father… they didn't have to do it… and Steve… all she could do now was stop him. It was too late for the others.

She opened her eyes again after they left and was surprised to see Peter still standing there, watching her. He was trying to guess what she was thinking, if she had really loved the guy, and was heartbroken over what had happened. She didn't look it. She looked happy, relieved in a way. And he could almost guess that underneath all the wounds and bruises and bandages, she might be pretty. He would have liked her anyway, he realized. There was something incredibly powerful about her. She had come through hell, and she was smiling at him.

“Good work,” he said.

“Bad person… terrible… he killed my friend.”

“He nearly killed you,” which was more important to Peter. She was his patient. “I hope they catch him.”

“Me too.”

Both their wishes were granted. The police came back at six o'clock that night just before Peter finally went off duty.

They had found Steve at four o'clock that afternoon, gambling in Atlantic City. The FBI had a file on him, and Texas and California had been very helpful. He had denied everything, of course, told them they were crazy, said Gabbie was psychotic and had threatened him. But with the condition she was in, he didn't have a prayer of anyone believing his story. It was all over for him. He had violated parole in three states, and even if he'd never laid a hand on her, he was going to be serving time all around the country. It was only miraculous that they hadn't caught him sooner. And if they had, maybe he wouldn't have hurt her. But after what he had done to her, he was going to be put away for a long time. They read him his rights and arrested him on the spot. They were charging him with attempted murder, and they were going to see if they could make manslaughter charges stick in the death of the professor. Steve had been right in the end. This was the Big Time. Gabbie listened to them in amazement.

“Will he go to jail?” she asked, still whispering. She didn't have the strength, and it still hurt too much to speak louder. Her ribs shrieked every time she moved or spoke, or even whispered.

“For a long time,” they reassured her, and she nodded. She was sorry all of it had happened. It was all so ugly, and so terrible, and she was still sick about the professor. She would much rather have had him than his money. Before the police left, they told her the boardinghouse was in an uproar that night, and everyone sent her their best wishes. But so far, no one had been allowed to visit. They would come as soon as the doctors let them.

“That's me. I'm the bad guy. You need to rest,” Peter said to her after the police left. “How do you feel?” he asked her, looking concerned. She'd been through a lot of emotion since that morning. Deciding to turn the guy in couldn't have been easy for her, and now hearing the consequences of it. It was a hard thing knowing you had sent someone to prison, even if he deserved it. And for her, there had to be added conflict, since Peter assumed she had loved him. She had, in a way, but it had been more of an entanglement and an addiction. She hadn't known how to get out of it, how to stop giving money to him, particularly once he started pressing her for it. He had been a con man and he had manipulated her, and she had been easy prey for him. But she knew now that she had never really loved him,

“Are you okay?” Peter asked again, and she nodded.

“I think so.” She still wasn't sure what she felt, it was all so confusing.

“It must be difficult, thinking he was your friend.” He could only imagine that her sense of betrayal was beyond measure.

“I don't think I ever knew him. I don't know who he was,” she said quietly, and he saw something in her eyes that touched him. She looked up at him then with a question. “How long will I be here?” She reminded him suddenly of the old lady who had fallen down the marble staircase the night before, and wanted to get to the hairdresser in the morning.

“Do you have a hair appointment?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Not exactly.” Her hair was lost in the bandages somewhere. He could hardly guess what color it was, and hadn't really noticed. “I just wondered.” She spoke very softly.

“A few weeks. Long enough to get you tap-dancing again, or whatever it is you do. What do you do?” He knew from her chart that she was twenty-three years old, single, had no apparent family, lived in a boarding-house, and worked in a bookshop, and nothing much beyond that.

“I'm trying to be a writer,” she said shyly.

“Ever publish anything?” he asked with interest.

“Once. The New Yorker in March.” It was very prestigious and he was impressed to hear it.

“You must be pretty good.”

“Not yet,” she said modestly. “I'm working on it.”

“Well, don't write about this one yet. Let's get you healthy first before you go back to work. Where did you meet this guy anyway? At a convention for ex-convicts?”

She smiled at him, she liked him. He'd been good to her, and she could see that he cared about what had happened to her. Everyone had been nice to her here, even the nurses. “He lived in my boardinghouse.”

“Maybe you should think about getting an apartment. Speaking of which,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Try not to get into too much trouble. I'm off for two days.” And then he patted her leg gently under the covers. “Take care, Gabriella.”

“Gabbie,” she corrected him. She had meant to do it earlier, but she kept forgetting. Gabriella sounded so formal after all they'd been through together. She was sorry to see him go, he was her only friend here. He waved as he left the room.

And when he came back two days later, she was the first patient he saw on his rounds, and he was impressed by her progress. She spoke almost in a normal voice, but it still hurt to laugh, and she didn't attempt it often. They had sat her up on the edge of her bed twice each day, and she could manage it now without fainting, which she had done the first time. And they were promising to get her out of bed by the end of the week, which seemed like an impossible goal to Gabbie. Mrs. Rosenstein and Mrs. Boslicki had come to see her by then, and all the others had sent cards and little gifts, and the two ladies had brought her roses.