Officer Bud White regarded the homicide suspect who had just been brought into the LAPD precinct. She was a Caucasian female, 5'6/5'7 in height, slim build, looked like she was in her early to mid-forties with faded blonde hair and dark hazel eyes.

Contemplating her, Bud could still see a faint glimmer of allurement in her appearance and how she carried herself. She must have been a real beauty in her younger days, he thought. However, life hadn't treated her well, and it showed in the lines around her eyes and the rest of her face. She appeared worn out and defeated.

Handcuffed, her head lowered, she was taken to an Interrogation Room. Lieutenant Johnson and the public defender entered with her, and the door shut firmly behind them. Bud following her with his eyes couldn't get the heinous crime that she had been accused of out of his head.

Allegedly, she had murdered her husband by stabbing him with a butcher's knife. More than a dozen separate puncture wounds had been tallied up, as if the killer had been in a wild frenzy. She had also bludgeoned him with a fireplace poker. And if that wasn't overkill, she finished the job by pouring gasoline on him and setting him afire.

She had fled the city. An extensive manhunt had followed, and she had been apprehended due to the quick thinking of a young male teenager. He had seen her picture flash across the TV and recognized her as the lady who always bought a newspaper from his stand every morning.

Bud wondered what could possibly have driven this woman to lose her sanity and in one horrendous moment, in one harrowing act, throw her life away. Maybe he was being too blinded by the fact that the murderer was female.  Perhaps the murder hadn't just been a sudden eruption of rage igniting. Maybe it had been pre-meditated and well-planned out.

She was a slight woman, yet she had managed to overpower a man who was six feet tall and close to 200 pounds. Rage could do all sorts of things. Bud knew that personally, and he had seen how it could send people over the precipice.

Memories of his father came back to him--striking his mother, striking him. In many ways, his abusive childhood had formed the man he now was. As Captain Dudley Smith would tell you if he were still alive, it was best not to tangle with Bud 'when his blood was up'.

In his day, Bud had bent, broken and made his own rules, thrashed confessions out of perps and planted evidence, all for his special brand of justice. But since the Nite Owl massacre and all that had happened with Lynn Bracken, Bud had done much soul searching and had changed his way of life and how he reacted to things.

He was studying for the Sergeant's exam, and all of the anger he had stored up inside himself was being slowly exorcised by a hard, honest day's work and many, many nights punching the shit out of the old bag down at the gym.

His relationship with Lynn hadn't lasted through his process of dealing with his inner demons. He could never forget nor forgive himself for the split second where he had lost control with her even though she had, and had repeatedly told him so.

He still remembered her words. "Bud, you have to let it go. I know the kind of man you are with me, and that's not the violent thug you imagine and dread. That's why I want you in my life." Despite her pleas, he just couldn't trust himself and his temper. So it had ended, leaving him feeling more alone than at any other time in his life.

His attention was drawn back to the present as Johnson and Slate came out of the room. Captain Slate looked like his day had suddenly gone from bad to fucking shot to hell. Johnson was shaking his head. Bud wondered what had gone down. Did she cough up all the spine-chilling details?

"She won't talk." Johnson announced.

"Is that on advice of counsel?" Bud asked.

They shrugged.

They had her dead to rights. All the forensic evidence pointed to her. Her fingerprints were on the murder weapons. The neighbors had seen her run out of the house covered in blood.

"Let me try," Bud volunteered.

Johnson rolled his eyes while Slate just looked at him uneasily. White had a fondness for hopeless cases, particularly if they involved women in distress.

Slate shrugged once more. "Okay White, but just remember what she's done. No bleeding heart tactics to downplay this to simple manslaughter. This is murder one. I want her confession, and I want it yesterday on my desk in triplicate."

Bud nodded briskly to his superior and accompanied by Johnson, they headed back to the room. They interrupted a heated conversation between her and her lawyer. The PD, whose name was Carrie, was advising her client to be careful of what she said, especially when she wasn't around to represent her.

Her client gave her a subdued look. "What's the difference? They're going to nail me anyways."

Johnson coughed loudly making their presence known.

The prisoner, Amanda Emerson, narrowed her eyes as she saw the newcomer. No doubt, he was just another cop sent to harass and bully her into talking.  She observed him boldly.  He was dressed in a brown tweed suit that seemed too small for his broad shoulders.  His hair was cut very short but his eyes were what drew her attention the most.  Were they blue or green?  She couldn't quite make that out.

"So what are you, the heavy artillery?" She poised her question challengingly to Bud.

Bud had noted her inspection of him.  He met her eyes in turn and answered officially. "No ma'am. I'm Officer White. I understand that you don't wish to make a statement at this time. Is that correct?"

Amanda still assessing the younger man was surprised to see something in his direct gaze that almost seemed like soft-hearted empathy. That was quite unusual considering the crime she was accused of. The other cop with him had been hard-nosed and predictably grim which is why she hadn't chosen to open up to him. She fully admitted her guilt to herself, but she would be damned if she would spill her guts and her secrets to men who could not comprehend her pain.

"My client has nothing further to say at this time."

Mrs. Emerson waved her hand slightly in Carrie's direction. "No, that's all right. Why postpone the inevitable?"

"Mrs. Emerson...Amanda," Carrie tried to intervene.

Trusting her instincts, she cut her off. "I want to make my confession."

The two policemen shared a look and sat quickly down opposite her. Johnson turned on a recorder. Her rights had already been read to her at the time of her arrest, so Johnson took out a notepad and pen and began. "Please state your name for the record?"

"Amanda Blake Emerson."

"Mrs. Emerson, can you tell us the events of March 23rd of this year that occurred in your home on Palmerston Avenue?"

Amanda stared unswervingly into Bud's eyes. "On March 23rd, 1956, I killed my husband."

Carrie had gone berserk at this point and tried to rein in her client.  Mrs. Emerson had then waived her right to counsel, and after a brief argument, Carrie had shut up but continued to sit there stoically listening.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Bud prompted gently.

"The facts speak for themselves, gentlemen.  You've got the general idea.  My husband, Stan, had just walked out of the kitchen when I took a knife out of the drawer and stabbed him in the back. He swung around and came after me. I ran into the living room and snatched up a poker from the fireplace. I hit him in the head, and he went down. After that, everything is a blur. I really don't remember what happened next."

Johnson peered at her closely. "You don't remember plunging the knife again and again into your husband's body until he died nor pouring gasoline on him and setting him alight?"  He made no attempt to cover up his sarcastic and snide tone.

Mrs. Emerson gave him a vacuous look. "No, I don't, Lieutenant."

Johnson threw a glance of disbelief over to Bud.

Bud continued calmly. "Mrs. Emerson, can you tell us why you attacked your husband?"

Amanda gave a little grimace. "Oh, that I can tell you. He was a mean SOB, and he deserved to die. My only regret was that it wasn't a slower, more painful death."

Bud, uncharacteristically, chose to halt the interview at this time. What was plainly obvious was that she felt no remorse, and what they had on tape was enough to send her to the big house for life. He called a guard to take her away to the holding cells.

After they left the room, Johnson made a circling motion around his head. "She's a fucking psycho."

Pivoting to face him, Bud quirked an eyebrow at him. "Don't you wonder what could have made her snap like that?"

ohnson barked back, "Who cares? She killed him in cold blood. She fried him to a crisp, and she just admitted it. She's a fucking goner."

While he went off to type up his report, Bud couldn't get the image of her eyes out of his head. They had been ice-cold, but something in her voice, a slight tremor, told him that she wasn't completely unaffected by her offence. He was certain that she had been abused by her husband, if not physically, then mentally and emotionally.  His radar for that sort of thing was too well-honed for him to be off-base.

It still made him incensed after all these years.  Men beating up on women who were no physical match for them. There was still that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. His hands got clammy, his pulse raced and his whole body clenched up tight.

He reviewed the file to find out more about what kind of a man Stan Emerson was. He had been fifty-six when he died, and the Emersons had been married twenty-seven years.

Jesus! She must have been merely a child when they wed. No children though. Interesting. Was that by mutual choice?

Stan was a business man working as a consultant for investment firms. According to recorded assets, he was extremely well-off financially. But his wife wore clothes that had seen better days, Bud recalled. She did not look like the polished wife of an executive. Her shoes had been scuffed, and her simple house dress had been shapeless and very plain. Bud wasn't too keen on fashion, but it looked dated in his layman's estimation.

Back to Stan. He donated substantially to several charities and was a member of his local neighborhood council. He was even a respected elder at his church.

"Regular fucking pillar of the community," Bud muttered.

He smelled a rat, and his instincts were usually dead on. This guy just looked way too good on paper. There was a story here, one that hadn't been told.

Amanda sat idly in the small cell on the hard mattress. It was cold and damp, but that made no impression. She had been an expert at withdrawing for years. Why should that change now?

She pulled up her knees tightly to her chest, brought her head down and started to rock back and forth gently. Memories of her past pulsed in front of her--her mother smiling down at her playing in her crib (She could remember all the way back to the age of two), her father lifting her high in the air over his head and laughing, her friend down the street, Nancy and her walking arm in arm to school, her fifth grade teacher, Miss Leeson, pinning a red ribbon on her blouse for winning the junior spelling bee.

As Amanda's mind flitted through her younger years, the recollections were good and pleasant to retain. Amanda stopped rocking. She didn't want to go past the age of thirteen.

She heard a heavy door scraping open and footsteps drawing near. A tray of food was slid in to her. She never looked up until she heard his voice.

"It's not that bad if you eat it while it's lukewarm."

It was the cop with the big build and the soulful eyes that had seen too much in his time.

"Thank you," she uttered in a scratchy whisper.

Bud turned to walk away, but his own intuition drew him back. He put a hand on the bars of her cell. "I want to understand," he simply declared.

He just had said that one sentence, and the softness of his tone and the sheer honesty of it tugged at her.

Amanda stood and approached gingerly to her cell door. "Would it make such a difference?"

"It would to me," he asserted.

Angling her head, she gave the cop a calculating glance. "It's a long, unpretty story with no happy ending to look forward to, not even at the beginning of it."

Reaching through the bars Bud touched her hand gently. 

She withdrew it, embarrassed as her skin was rough and calloused.

"You were very young when you married."

"I was seventeen," Amanda answered, "a very sheltered seventeen."

He looked upset at that. He raised his jaw slightly. "Did he take advantage of you? He was quite a bit older."

Amanda turned slightly away. "I wish I could say that he did, but that wouldn't be true. The moment I first saw Stan, I wanted him. He was handsome, smart and butter couldn't melt in his mouth. He was everything a small-town girl longed for--a ticket out. It also didn't hurt that I actually thought I was in love."

Her voice was muted.  It was barely audible.  Bud still intently searched her eyes...expecting, anticipating the part where it had gone bad.

"So, it started off good but somewhere down the road, things changed."

Amanda's eyes darkened and then blanked out.

"Mrs. Emerson..." Bud tried to regain her awareness.

She blinked and then retreated. "I'm tired, Officer. I want to sleep now." She went back to the bed in a daze.

Bud was feeling thwarted. He needed to know for his own satisfaction the reasons.

As she pulled the thin blanket over her body, he tried to reach out once more. "If you want to talk, just ask the guard for me, Officer White...Bud White."

He didn't get a response.

Bud tossed and turned all night alone in his apartment. Violent dreams planted seeds in his brain.  He woke early in a sweat with Amanda's face and eyes coming immediately to mind. He decided more research was necessary.

Officer White did his detective work well. When he came to Amanda's cell the next evening, he was well prepared.

"Mrs. Emerson, your parents died when you were thirteen."

It was a direct statement, not a question.

Something in her broke. He could see it as her head hit the back of the wall softly.  Her mouth opened but no sounds emerged.

"Mrs. Emerson...."

"Call me Mandy."  She gave a brusque laugh.  "It seems ludicrous to be called by my husband's name under the circumstances don't you think?"

He pressed on. "Mandy, who took care of you when your parents were killed in that car accident?"

Her eyes had that glazed far-away glance in them again.

"My grandmother until she died. And then, I went to live with my best friend Anne's family."

Bud waited for her to elaborate.

"I had to leave after three months."

"Why?"

"Anne's mother didn't like me. She had a vivid imagination where it concerned her husband."  Amanda's chin quivered but she managed to keep eye contact.

Bud was trying to put the pieces together. "Did he do something to you?"  He wanted to probe through her resistance but felt she would just retreat further unless he proceeded very cautiously.  He was rewarded with a candid response.

"He tried but I went out of my way to avoid him. It didn't matter in the end because I was accused of enticing him like a nubile Lolita and leading him astray. I not only lost a home but my friend as well."  A tinge of bitterness crept into her inflection.

"Is this where Stan comes in?"

Amanda now had reached the end of her comfort zone.  "Officer W..Bud, may I call you Bud?" she asked.

He inclined his head.  "Please do."

"Bud, why all these questions?  I see that you're trying to make sense of it, trying to find my motive, but that won't save me.  Don't waste your time and energy."  Mandy sat back down on the cot, crossing her legs like a child would.

The innocence of the gesture was not lost on Bud.  He pulled a chair close to her cell door and straddled the back of it. "You said he was a mean son of a bitch. You might be able to get your sentence reduced if there were mitigating circumstances."

She stared him down.  Her voice was steady.  "He didn't beat me if that's what you're looking for.  Stan actually never lifted a finger to me."  She hesitated for the briefest of moments.

Bud banged his hand hard down on the bars startling her which was the effect he was counting on.  His voice rose, "Then why? Damn it! Tell me why. I know he had to have hurt you or maybe it was someone close to you."

When her eyes shifted uneasily, Bud felt that was the first clue he'd been given.

She would tell him no more that night.

Bud went to Slate with his suspicions.

The captain was skeptical to say the least.  "Where's the evidence, White? What proof do you have that she's not snowing you? Show me medical records, bruises or broken bones.  The evidence doesn't jive with a claim of self-defense.  What about her overkill? Show me some facts I can take to the D.A. Everything that I have shows he was a model citizen, an upstanding leader in his community and an ethical and profitable business man. Don't get over your head here, or I'll take you off this case."

So publicly, Bud backed off, but privately, he was very much digging further.

In the interim, since Amanda had confessed to the crime, she was arraigned and awarded the maximum sentence--twenty-five years without parole and sent to the federal penitentiary.

Bud continued to see her even then. Along with bringing her small gifts like cigarettes and candy, he persisted in his investigation.  It had now become personal for him.

Mandy quickly got used to the attentiveness and looked forward to his visiting days. Even though they spoke through a cold, detached telephone, and she only saw him through a wall of glass she began to depend on him emotionally.

She remonstrated with herself sternly not to get her heart involved. After all, he was only pumping her for information to put a final touch on her case or to ease his own troubled mind. Nothing would come of it. They were on opposite sides of the fence. He was the law and free. She was a convicted felon and would forever be locked away.

It was more than his tenderness and concern for her that fed her attachment. He was good-looking in a completely different way than Stan had been. Bud did not have chiseled classic features or the manufactured body of an Adonis, but his eyes were kind and his rugged masculinity appealed to her more than Stan's dapper, dashing ways ever had.

Bud was everything Stan hadn't been where it mattered the most.  He was kind, sincere, and tender and he made her feel important, that she was worthwhile. It was too late, she confessed to herself. She was falling in love.

Like the efficient professional he was, Bud read between the lines of what Mandy had told him so far. She had been all on her own when she married Stan. There wasn't any family or friends to make sure she was well cared for.

It hadn't taken Stan long to exploit her situation and drop the nice guy routine. He had seen to it that her whole world revolved around him. While he was making big waves on the corporate scene, she had been kept at home and isolated. Stan had not permitted her to work. He wanted her right where he could manipulate her every move and mastermind her total subservience.

It made Bud furious that Mandy refused to fight for her life. She kept rejecting the services of a lawyer who could possibly have appealed her confession. Bud didn't know why he cared so much, and that bothered him. There was something about her that touched him so. Was it her frailty? No, 'cause sometimes he thought that was just a cover. Sometimes, he could see the inner strength in her shine through. He hadn't been this moved by a case in years.

Every time he thought he had moved closed to figuring her out, she pulled away. He was determined and stubborn enough though to stick it out. He wanted the mystery solved. So he kept coming and kept pushing until one day they had a breakthrough.

When Mandy came to pick up the phone, it became painfully obvious that she was having a very bad day. Her posture was listless, and her voice was barely above an undertone. He had to drag any sort of conversation out of her.

"What's wrong Mandy?" he queried soothingly.

"It's my anniversary today," she at last murmured. "I've just been thinking of all those years, so much wasted time and heartache."

"So what? " Bud deliberately baited her. "He was a fucking asshole. Don't even give him a second thought."  Then he shook his head as her words sunk in.  He couldn't believe what she was saying.  "Jesus Christ, what are you doing, Mandy?"  He gave her a moment to consider his words then he yelled through the phone line. "Do you like making yourself miserable? Does that make you more of a martyr? Are you through punishing yourself for what he did? 'Cause Sweetheart, believe me you are paying, and he's down there burning in Hell laughing his ass off, still sticking it to you."

Her face had gone crimson.  Mandy nearly slammed down the phone in her fury as she whirled on him.  "Don't you dare talk down to me, you bastard. Who do you think you are?  Don't presume to tell me what I'm feeling. You don't know shit about me, Mr. Super Cop, or what I went through. You don't know the half of it!"

Bud slapped the glass in his frustration. "Then tell me, for God's sakes, Mandy. Let it out! If you don't, then he wins. Can't you see that?"

She had started to cry then, something he had never seen her do.

"You want to see my whole world fall apart? Then watch out, Mister, because here it comes."

Bit by bit, piece by piece, he heard more of the oppression she had went through.

Not only had Stan completely controlled her, he also had refused to let her have the children she desperately wanted. He had forced her to have two back-alley abortions. One of them was botched and had left her scarred and permanently infertile. He kept her penniless, dishing out petty amounts of money for only her most base needs. He wouldn't let her have anyone in the house, unless he was home and he approved of the visitor.

The abuse went on and on in many different forms. He had many affairs and flaunted them in her face. He ridiculed her, told she was ugly and that no one would ever want her. He basically had brainwashed her into thinking that he was her great white hope. Only he kept her from being a laughing stock, a pauper and a total nobody.

Bud wanted to hold her in his arms as she poured out her soul to him rambling on almost incoherent. The best that he could do was hold up his hand to hers against the glass that kept them separated.  The meaningful glance they both shared seared each other.

Before they knew it, their time was up. He watched as she slouched dejectedly away, never looking back.

Knowing that something more had to have happened, Bud still wasn't satisfied. It was bad enough what that ratfuck had done to her. He felt it in his bones that something terrible had happened that day that propelled her over the edge.

Officer White had had dealings with some of the pen guards and had got to know a few of them over the years. One or two of them had even started out as cops, and he had worked with them. It was time to call in a favor or two.

Mandy was stunned when one day she was led to a private room where convicts and their lawyers usually met. The guard led her in, seated her and then left. Bud had then entered alone.

In a heartbeat, her feet carried her to him, but her hands were still cuffed. 

His strong arms enfolded her, and he hugged her close.

She inhaled the clean and masculine smell of his skin and wished he would never let her go. He released her all too quickly.

"Bud, how did you do this?" She gestured with her arms.

"Pulled a few strings," he simply mentioned and shrugged. "Sorry, they wouldn't budge on the cuffs."

They then had sat at the single table facing each other.

"Mandy, it's time to let me know exactly what happened that night. I want to be able to see you, hold you and comfort you while you tell me. C'mon Baby, after all this time, you're going to have to trust me."

He really didn't have a clue about her feelings for him, she thought.  "It's not a matter of trust, Bud. God, I trust you more than anyone. I have every faith in you. To be honest, I can only remember parts of that day. It's like I've blocked it from my mind."

He waited patiently.

Seeing he wouldn't let up, Mandy steeled herself.  "All right. I'll tell you what led up to it."

He nodded. It was a start.

She took a deep breath.  "We kept separate bedrooms after a few years. One night he came home after one of his flings. He was drunk. I could hear him stumbling around downstairs. I wasn't too afraid at first, because it had been years since he...since he came to me in that way.

I could hear him swearing, and his voice got louder and louder. I was worried the neighbors would hear him, so I opened my door to see if I could calm him down.

He came up the stairs with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a gun in the other."

Mandy halted abruptly.

Bud swore under his breath and reached across to grab her hands, a sign of encouragement.

"I ran back into my room and slammed the door. I was so frightened. I had never seen him with a gun. He started banging and pushing on the door. I tried to keep him out, but he was so much stronger. He busted his way in. I tried to run, but he grabbed me. He forced me to sit on a chair. It was the first time he had ever been violent with me."

Sensing something dire coming on, Bud eased around and sat by her side. He draped his arm around her shoulders.

Mandy inhaled, and her eyes filled with tears.

"I tried to get him to tell me what happened. Why was he so angry? Where did he get that gun? He told me to shut up. He started in on his usual spiel of how worthless I was. He told me I was a waste of space on this earth; that nobody would ever miss me if something were to happen to me.

He kept cocking and uncocking the gun while he spoke. I was shaking so badly that he physically had to hold me to stay upright in the chair. I don't know how, but I got up the nerve to ask him why he didn't just divorce me if I was so repulsive to him.

And then he laughed, this horrible maniacal laugh. He said why would he need to do that? He could have whatever women he wanted and still make my life a living hell.

He got real quiet then, and I was more scared than ever. He then said, and I'll never forget it, 'I should just send you straight there right now and be rid of your pathetic, grotesque sight.'"

Mandy burst out crying in big heaving sobs. 

Bud drew her to his chest. His lips were pressed to her cheek. "It's okay, Baby. I'm here; I'm not leaving."

She tried to go on, gasping for breath at times. "He forced my mouth open with his hands, and he put the gun in my mouth. He cocked it again...and he pulled the trigger."

"Shh, Baby," Bud hushed her. "You don't have to say any more." He held on to her trembling body with all his might. He kissed her cheek, and his lips slowly slid to the side of her mouth. He hadn't planned to do it. He only knew that it was meant more to soothe than start something that they wouldn't be able to finish

She was too distraught to react.

He pulled back, not wanting to confuse her.

"There's more," she rasped out.

"Only if you want to tell me," he murmured.

Mandy got herself under control. "When I closed my eyes and thought I was going to die, he drew the gun out and tossed it on the dresser. He yanked me up and threw me on the bed."

"That sick mother fucker," Bud cursed.

"He forced himself on me and fell asleep on top in a drunken stupor. I managed to get out from under him, and I was going to finally leave."  Mandy wanted Bud desperately to perceive the situation. "But before I had gone five steps, I thought where would I go? Who would take me in? I had no money; I had no friends.

And I realized that nobody would. So I went to the bathroom, opened up the medicine cabinet, took the nearest bottle and swallowed all of the pills.

But even then, I couldn't do anything right. All that happened was that I woke up on the bathroom floor in the morning in a pool of my own vomit."

"I think we should stop," Bud interjected not wanting to put her through any more.

Mandy agreeably lay back in his reliable arms.

There was a knock on the door. The guard came in. "That's all the time I can give you, White."

Bud nodded and helped Mandy to her feet.

As the guard led her back to her cell, he called out. "Mandy, I'm going to try my best to have a judge review your case."

She didn't react, just gave him a long look that had nothing to do with her case but everything to do with her heart.

Bud did indeed try his best with the judge. He talked himself hoarse. It was futile.

Again he was asked the same questions the Captain had.  Why hadn't Mrs. Emerson told this story as soon as she was arrested? He was told that the police should have been called immediately after the murder, and the perpetrator should not have fled the jurisdiction. She had just compounded her crime. Where was the proof? There was no way to back up the abuse. No one had come forward on her behalf, not her neighbors, not friends nor her husband's co-workers. Mrs. Emerson should have gone to a shelter. She should have told someone, anyone, about her ordeal. The judge simply didn't buy her story.

The system that Bud had once so fervently believed in when he first became a cop was failing Mandy.

It only took him two days to decide to take matters into his own hands. As he planned and plotted, he knew he was unleashing the old Bud White but never once felt the slightest twinge of guilt.

Bud inspected with a microscope the weak links in the security at Mandy's prison. He looked for anything he could find, payoffs, cover-ups, and other crimes. It started with the Warden and worked its way down the chain of command.

He resorted to playing hardball then. Blackmail was an ugly business, but Bud was way beyond self-recriminations by this stage of the game.

He called in more favors owing to him. He was merciless when the higher-ups balked. Bud knew exactly how to play the game and how to throw his weight around. It became second-nature to him again.

One day, he simply came to the jail; the guards looked the other way, and he smuggled Mandy out via one of the delivery trucks.

When they finally were together after all the chaos, they were still at cross purposes. 

Bud was thinking twenty steps ahead--how to cover his tracks, how to hustle Mandy out of the state, how to get her a new identity and how to ultimately protect her.

Mandy just wanted to make love to her savior and show him physically all her appreciation, gratitude and yes, love. 

Instead they talked about the escape plan. Mandy was fretful that Bud would ultimately get caught. He blustered and put on a big show of bravado before her, but she knew that he was worried about how this would all end for him.

She was terrified for herself and for her future. All her life, she had depended on others to make decisions for her, to guide her, and now she would be finally all on her own. God, how she wanted Bud to come with her. Was there a chance for them, or was she just living in a dream world? If it was the latter, then she would make the most of the time they had left.

So while she was held up in a safe house and Bud was busy running around town getting her a passport and other crucial documents, she came to the realization that she only had this one chance to let him know how she felt.

One night he came to her, and she softly dropped her robe in front of him.

Bud's eyes lowered and drank in all of her and then rose to meet hers.

What she saw in them make her rapidly cover up again and run out of the room.

"Mandy!" Bud strode after her as she tried to escape.

He slammed the apartment door shut before she could reach it, caught her in his arms and held on tight while she struggled to break free. "Mandy, it's not what you think." 

He pressed his head down to her shoulders and she could feel the weight of his lips just barely grazing her skin.

She lashed out in her pain.  "Bud, you have always been so honest. Don't start bullshitting me now. You're not attracted to me.  You never have been.  I'm just your frigging crusade. That's all I am to you."

He twisted her around to face him, and reached out to stroke her cheek.  "You're wrong.  Mandy, I find you very attractive.  Don't think for a second it's about that.   But I'm not able to give you what you need and should have."

She pounded her fists on his chest. "Why don't you let me decide what I need and what I want? I have a mind, and it's telling me that if I don't act on what I feel for you, I'm only going to regret it. I have a heart, and it's tired of being broken. It needs to be healed. I have a soul, and it's crying out for you."

Breaking away from him, she paced the floor.  She acted as if she hadn't even heard him.

"Stan was right after all. I'm so repugnant that not even you who knows me so well can find anything still alive inside of me. I'm just a hollow shell of a woman, a freak."

Bud couldn't bear her to think that she meant so little to him, so he decided that if words weren't going to work, he would show her how he felt.

He went to her and softly slid the robe from her shoulders.

She looked into his eyes and this time all she saw was genuine desire. She pressed back against him.

He bent down and kissed her long on her neck. He felt her submit the warmth and softness of her body to him. His arms swept down and he picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom.  Laying her on the bed, he leaned on his arms and just ran his eyes down the whole length of her body.

Mandy sat up and ran her fingers through his hair as she pulled him intimately to her. Her lips opened wide on his mouth, and her tongue caressed his.

She helped him undress. Their breathing became labored as their hands sought to explore more of each other's bodies.

Bud's hand trailed up and down the sweet side of her face lightly. He wanted to give this precious woman so much tenderness and pleasure that she so far had been denied. He knelt between her white thighs and felt the trembling weakness in her limbs as he touched her.

She let out a long sigh of released tension. Mandy suddenly glowed with the radiance of her love for him.

"Mandy, you are truly beautiful," Bud whispered. "Believe it.  Don't ever doubt it."

Time froze as they met in a pulsing rhythm that slowly quickened and became urgent. They made love as they both knew it would be their one and only time.

Mandy cried tears of happiness.

Bud let his defenses down and let her in.

They held each other through the night, and then Mandy fell asleep finally in the wee hours, her head on his chest.

Bud stayed awake knowing the time left to them was very short.

Mandy's escape had made headlines, and the pressure was now on Bud. Slate had deep misgivings about his officer and had temporarily suspended him pending an enquiry from Internal Affairs.

The day came when Bud had to bundle her into a car.

Hiding on the backseat floor, Mandy's heart was heavy as Bud floored it. As the miles steadily went by, she made a decision.

"Bud, I didn't tell you everything about that night."

He looked into his rear view mirror even though he couldn't see her.

"It doesn't matter," he said somewhat tersely.  The tension was getting to him.

"I want to tell you Bud." She paused and then stammered. "I lied to you about my friend Anne's father, the one I stayed with after my grandmother died."

Instinctively, Bud speedily veered off into a side lane, slammed on the brakes and waited.

"I had an affair with him. His wife's suspicions of me were correct. I needed comfort back then, and I took it in any form that I could get. When they kicked me out, I was pregnant. I met Stan, and he said he would raise the child as his own."

Bud was pissed. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me? That was kind of an important detail to leave out. Did it just slip your mind?"  His aggressive tone and posture didn't faze her.

She got up and sat on the seat and looked straight into his eyes. "I thought you would think less of me if you knew I wasn't as innocent as I made you think. I'm sorry."

"Go on," Bud demanded in a no-nonsense tone.

Mandy did.  "When my daughter Penny was born, her brain was not fully developed. I was told she was mentally retarded. Stan didn't want to have anything to do with her then. We put her in a state facility. That was when he told me there would be no children with him. He was convinced that my genes or my family's were defective. That was also when he started treating me like dirt.

I never visited my daughter though I thought about her every day. The day of Stan's death, I came home from grocery shopping, and I opened the mail. There was an envelope addressed to Stan from the institution where Penny lived. I looked it over and as I turned it around in my hands, I kept thinking to myself, why would they be writing after all these years and why to Stan.

Curiosity got the better of me so I steamed it open. It was a letter requesting follow-up on Penny's treatment and care so they could close their files. There was a stamp on it that said this was the final notice. I couldn't make sense of this. Did this mean he had received other letters from them?"

Bud had a bad feeling but couldn't prevent her from saying it.

Mandy went on. "What did they mean by follow up? Wasn't Penny still their patient? I had so many questions. So I finally decided to call them. When I identified myself as Penny's mother, the social worker seemed surprised that I didn't know.  My signature was on a form they had.

Mr. Emerson had taken Penny from the residence saying that he and his wife would care for her on their own. I asked if there was any forwarding address given for her. When she gave me it, it took me a minute or two but I finally recognized it. The address was for an apartment building where Stan frequently set up his mistresses in."

"Mandy," Bud tried to cut her off, anything to shut down the images in his head.

"No, I have to say it," she insisted.

The source of strength that Bud had only seen a tiny glimmer of before came out in full force as she gave all the grisly details.

"Stan came home later that afternoon, and I laid the letter out in front of him. He looked at it and then looked at me and just grinned.

He then said, 'She's quite a looker now. That must come from her father.' He got up to go to the kitchen as if nothing had happened, as if he had done nothing wrong. Then he turned back to me and sneered, 'She's all you need in a woman, big boobs, long legs and no brain."

And as he entered the kitchen, I felt something indescribable take over me. It wasn't anger. It wasn't rage. It was just a white hot sharp sensation.

I followed him in. He had just taken something out of the refrigerator, and he brushed past me nearly knocking me over."

Mandy stared deeply into Bud's eyes. "I felt my body move, but I wasn't the one in control of it.  Some stranger who I didn't even know was.  I took out the knife, and as I raised it in my hand, every bad thing that had ever happened to me flashed through my mind.

I don't remember stabbing him, but obviously I must have. He staggered and fell on the floor. He cried out, 'No!', but he couldn't get up or turn over.

All of the names and nasty things he ever said to me came back in an instant. I thought about my daughter, and I got the poker. As he was just trying to raise himself up, I hit him hard on the back of his skull. After that he didn't move any more.  I think he was already dead.

But I couldn't leave it there.  I couldn't stop thinking of what my life had become and the choices I had made."

Mandy reached for Bud's hand over the front seat, and he grasped hers firmly in response.

"That's when a heavy sea of redness consumed me. The knife had a life of its own. It still wasn't enough. So I went to the basement and brought up the gasoline.

As I poured it on him, I felt like I was cleansing myself of my sins of naivety, stupidity and helplessness. I lit the match, and it was all over. I watched him burn, and then put out the rest of the fire with an extinguisher."

Bud opened the back door and slid in beside her. "He got every bit of what he deserved." As the tears cascaded down her face, he put his finger under Mandy's chin and tilted it up to face him. "You're free now, Mandy. You are finally free."