In the midst of our talk, Josh called Erik, asking him what was taking us so long. He threatened that if we didn't get to the police station in the next ten minutes, he'd have the police come over. Minutes later, after Erik made sure everything in the house was locked, he led me out to the car, but not before grabbing the teddy bear sitting on the bay window that Rosie had given me two years ago. It was one of those nanny cams that I never bothered to set up.

"That doesn't work," I said as Erik got into the driver seat next to me and handed me the bear.

"It does now," he said, slipping the key into the ignition and starting the Land Rover. "I set it up two weeks ago. It's supposed to work remotely, set off by a motion detector chip in its eye."

"So you mean it caught everything?"

"It may have, or not," Erik said. "I never tested it because no one was ever in the house for the motion detector to pick up anything. I only really tidied up the yard, and picked the mail every time you were doing your OT. But Josh should know what to do with it."

The police station wasn't far, and we arrived in less than five minutes. We could have walked, but that would have been pointless, given my state. I was still shaken, though I was a lot calmer and the adrenaline had worn off. I was also more rational, though I was tired. All I really wanted to do now was close my eyes and sleep.

Josh was waiting for us at the police station entrance. He looked worried, the muscles along his square jaw tight and defined. Josh had a movie star look about him that reminded me of a cartoon Prince Charming brought to life. He gave us a tentative smile which faded when he saw the bruises on my face.

"Shit, Sam, I'm so sorry," he said, touching my arm tentatively as I shrugged.

Shit happens, I wanted to tell him, but Erik brought me next to him, his arms over my shoulder.

"I applied some Traumeel on her bruises before we left," Erik told him as he handed the teddy bear to Josh. "Let me if it picks up anything."

"I just got a call from Hawthorne PD," Josh said, tucking the bear under his arm. "They picked up David from his mother's house."

"What happened? Did someone call it in?" I asked, looking at Erik. Did he call in the assault before he arrived at my house? Or was it Anna?"

"His mother called the police," Josh said. "Hawthorne's handling it right now, but from what I gather from a buddy of mine who works there, she saw the blood on his knuckles when he got home. She overheard him tell his girlfriend that he needed to get out of L.A. for awhile, that he'd lost his temper with his ex. You."

"She reported her own son herself?" I asked, stunned. "Did anyone tell her I'm alright?"

"I'll have someone tell her. But from what I heard, she said she didn't raise her son to be a wife-beater, or something to that effect," Josh said, guiding us into the precinct. "C'mon, let's get that report filed and get you guys home. Both of you look terrible."

Inside the station, we learned that David was arrested and charged for violating the restraining order and battery. The battery case would hold firm, with the DA having enough to use against him from the video recording Josh was able to retrieve from the nanny cam teddy bear. In my confusion, I almost called Rosie on my phone, till I realized that she was dead. She'd given me that teddy bear almost two years ago now, and finally someone got it to work.

A look into David's record also revealed that before leaving the east coast, he had gone by the name David Jasper - Jasper being Lorena's maiden name. As David Jasper, he had a warrant for two counts of third-degree grand larceny, which involved the theft of paintings from a former client back in New York. Unfortunately, the warrant was almost ten years old, which meant that the charges fell outside the statute of limitations.

But while news of the grand larceny charges wasn't exactly a surprise to me, what was a surprise was learning that Michael wasn't David's only child. This time, Erik chose to let Josh tell me what they both discovered in Albuquerque.

Though he never married her, Claudio Blanco was the mother of his daughter, Camille, who was born a month before Claudia died of an overdose. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Camille now lived with her aunt and grandmother, supported by whatever David sent them from the sale of my paintings.

I realized then that Camille had been the reason why David always travelled. There had been no meetings with art gallery owners in New York or Las Vegas, like he used to tell me. Or maybe there were, but for the most part, the times he'd spent away from me when we were married was because of Camille. She lived in a house he owned in Albuquerque, cared for by her grandmother, Claudia's mother, and sister. While he lived primarily in L.A., David made as much money as he could - even if it meant stealing from me.

Was Camille the reason why David had flown into a rage when I mentioned Claudia's name? Was he ashamed of her? Did he feel guilty?

That evening, after Michael was asleep, and Anna retired into her room to watch her favorite TV shows, after Olivia and the in-laws were reassured that I was okay, Erik and I took a walk on the beach, spread a blanket on the sand and sat down to watch the waves. We didn't need to talk about anything, or argue whether what he did was right or wrong for we'd already settled that at my house. We only wanted to watch the reflection of the moon shimmering over the water and listen to the surf break softly against the shore.

The wisdom of Anna's words had taken root somewhere inside me. I was grateful that she had talked me out of yet another hole that I would have dug myself into, running away when a simple talk between Erik and I was the only thing we really needed, a re-evaluation of what we had, and of what lay before us. A recalibration of my own responses to life that somehow were set on auto-pilot to run away.

Life wasn't perfect, even I knew that. We were all losers, just as we were all winners as well. And sometimes, even heroes made mistakes - and heroines learned to forgive.

"Is Camille's condition really bad?" I asked, breaking the silence that hung between us, though it didn't feel strange, or strained at all. It was a comfortable silence between two people who had somehow reached an agreement, or were working towards it. "I don't know much about cerebral palsy."

It took Erik a few moments to reply, as if he were sifting through the many things he could say, but choosing only the most essential.

"She's eight years old, and she was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy when she was about 2 or 3. She needs 24-hour care, but she's such a happy little girl that you hardly notice anything else but her eyes which follow you everywhere, and her smile, her laughter," Erik said softly. "She and Michael have the same eyes. They have the same laugh."

"Is she well cared for?"

He nodded. "Mrs. Blanco told me that everything's in place as far as her therapies. They're surrounded by a really strong support group over there - neighbors, friends, distant family. She said that David really takes good care of her, gives her everything she needs, but that he's married with his own family in California. I don't think she knows that you and David are divorced."

I didn't know what to say. Learning about Camille had been one thing - there was no face attached to my knowledge of her, or any other information that would have personalized her to me. But listening to Erik speak about her told me that learning about her had changed something in him. There was something else.

"You told me that you thought David sold all your drawings and paintings of Michael," he said. "He didn't."

"You found them?"

"Camille knows about Michael, Sam," he said, taking my hand and squeezing it. I had gotten cold and he drew me closer, wrapping the other blanket that we brought over our shoulders. "All your paintings and sketches of Michael are on the walls of their living room, all framed along with pictures of her. You know, the ones you get from those department store photo galleries. She knows she has a brother, Sam."

"He kept them all then?"

"I recognized your work immediately," he said, shaking his head. "I just don't understand how he can be so loving to them and to Michael. But to you-"

Erik stopped himself from continuing, feeling my head rest on his shoulder as he pulled me closer.

"Sam, what can I do to make sure he doesn't hurt you again?" He asked, frustration making his voice crack. "I always thought I could take care of everything, but now I know I can't."

"You've done so much more than you realize. You've changed my life, you've made everything better just by being in my life - our lives, Michael's and Anna's," I said. "Just don't exclude me, Erik. That's all I ask. Whatever you do, we do together. Wasn't that what you said to me once? That whether I liked it or not, you were going to be my husband and it would be an honor for you to help me with my problems - with David?"

Erik nodded, not saying anything.

"Things will work out, Erik. I know they will. Just trust me, too," I whispered, feeling Erik nuzzle his face in my hair, inhaling deeply.

"You know I do," Erik said. "Or after today, I will. I promise."

I was tired, but I didn't want to tell him just yet. I liked the solitude of just the two of us on the wide lonely beach, listening to the surf before us, as if we were the only ones who existed in the world at that moment. It was a place where no one else mattered but us, where we found ourselves needing to recalibrate everything else we thought we knew in light of the new things we'd just learned.

As we made our way back to the house, I stopped just before stepping on the Strand. "What's going to happen now?" I asked.

Learning about Camille had changed everything for me, just as it did for Erik. I'd seen the turmoil on his face, his bafflement over David's actions - unconditional love over Camille and Michael, and then the total opposite with me. I wondered if he ever considered that David's reactions to me were my fault, that I somehow brought it out of him, been the cause of it all.

But I stopped myself from going down that road. It would only take me nowhere but darkness, and soon I'd be back to believing that I deserved whatever treatment David gave me, that I asked to be beaten and abused, and whenever the mood hit him, raped, too.

Erik squeezed my hand and pulled me close. "We keep going, Sam. We just keep on going, but this time we'll do it together. I know it sounds corny, but right now, I'll take it. How does that sound?"

Too good to be true, I wanted to say, but stopped myself again. That would have been the old Sam talking, the one who was too scared to admit that she really was in love with Erik, and that he actually did love her back, or that things were going to be alright, no matter how things looked at that moment, with my darkening cheek and my sore lip.

And just like Erik said, everything was going to work out. It had to.

Did you know that Fassy was my inspiration for Erik when I started writing Finding Sam?

And there's one more chapter to go (Epilogue)! Thank you so much for all your votes and comments.

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