What the cat dragged in.

14 Not easily broken

Creed stood in front of a wall of framed photos in Joe's den and worked on his third beer. The frail and her grandmother were on some kind of tour of the house. The old lady had looked at him like he was shit stuck to the bottom of her shoe. He was used to that, he could see the hurt and anger flicker across the frail's face. He couldn't say he understood that, but it had pissed him off to see her so upset. In that moment he had been tempted to take her back out to the car and head out to Washington State without another word to either one of them. 

"They were always like that." Joe was standing behind him. 

"What're you talking about?" He was studying the pictures of the frail. Her hair was redder, but he couldn't mistake those eyes. 

"Anna and Kelly. It's never been easy between them. She's too much like her father." Creed heard him sit down.

"What the fuck does the mean?" Creed scanned the images on the wall. The frail and a man who looked like a younger version of Joe were in most of them. The grandmother was in some. There were a few pictures of a baby dressed in blue. The mother was conspicuously absent.

"Means Carl and Kelly prefer the ugly truth to a pretty fairy tale. Anna only knows how to function in the fairy tale."

Creed turned and studied the old man for a minute. A slow smile spread across his lips. "You never told her what you did."

Joe wouldn't meet his eyes. "Have you told Kelly?"

"Didn't tell her anything specific. She guessed at the big picture."

The old man gave a short laugh. "Shouldn't be surprised by that." 

Creed watched the old man pick at the label on the beer bottle. "What?" 

"What really happened when you found her?"

Creed sat down and studied the wrinkled face. "What'd she say?"

"Which time? First she said you found her wandering, then she said you found her unconscious. Both times she said she ran away, but I know there was more to it than that."

Creed smiled a little. "She's a shitty liar. I don't know much about what happened before I found her. She figures Stan gave her to Dawes-"

"Gave her to him?"

"That ain't part of what I know, just what she told me. Stan gave her to Dawes because he figured Dawes would kill her or break her. Didn't come close to breaking her, but he goddamn near succeeded in killing her. I guess neither of them planned on her being the tough little thing that she is. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to see her running and him chasing after her with a gun. She fell, hit her head on a rock and knocked herself out. He took a shot at me; I killed him, and brought her back to my place." He swallowed the last of his beer.

"But she was alright?" He was grasping at straws.

"Fuck no. She was filthy, bruised everywhere, cut up, bloody. So emaciated I could count her bones. 'F I'd left her there, Stan would've got his wish." It made him sick to remember it. Joe turned away and looked at the wall. He could smell the anger rolling off the old man.

"He rape her?" He asked finally.

"No."

"Not that she told you, or-"

"Just trust me on that one." He got up and walked back to the wall of birthday parties, holidays and ordinary pleasures on beaches and in parks. He had to look at something while he waited for the question to come. Finally, he couldn't stand the waiting. "You gonna ask if I did?"