“God—how badly are you hurt? Did he touch the kids?” the young man asked, quietly, but urgently. Toni cast a quick glance at him through her tears, and to her amazement, saw that his expression was identical to Jennie’s. Shock, and outrage—and concern.

“N-n-no,” she replied, with surprise. Was Jennie right? Toni had thought all men must be like Rod, but— “I d-d-don’t think so, I th-think they’re still next door. I’ll be all right, I th-th-think—”

They traded a look, and Jennie nodded. “I’ll call the Women’s Shelter,” he said. “You take care of her.” Then he turned to Toni. “Mrs. Calligan,” he said, very gently, touching her hand as if it was something fragile and precious, “you stay here with Jennie. We’re going to get you some help, and we’re going to get you out of this place. And we won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

She stared after him, tears forgotten in pure shock, as Jennie led her to the kitchen table and sat her down, and began to talk to her in a voice of compassion and absolute authority.

By the time the caseworker from the Women’s Shelter arrived, Jennie had buried her own feelings of guilt under a powerful load of pure and unadulterated rage. Toni Calligan’s face was a mass of bruises and welts that no amount of pancake makeup could disguise. She had seen women beaten up worse than this—but they had not been friends.

David was just as outraged, and he was having as hard a time controlling it. “I want to go track that bastard down and beat him senseless,” he fumed under his breath as the caseworker spoke to Toni Calligan. “That—god, he’s not an animal; no animal would do something like that—”

“Stay cool,” Jennie advised him, although she was feeling anything but cool herself. “If you go after him, you’ll not only blow it for Toni, but you’ll blow our other case for us. Remember, this is Oklahoma; everything in a wife-beating case has to be perfect for it to go through.”

He nodded, jaw clenched. “I know that,” he admitted, “but I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” She listened with half an ear to what the caseworker was telling Toni; outlining her options, but warning her that they needed around forty-eight hours to get a space cleared for her and the kids at a safe house.