Hand of Fate (25 page)

"Nic," Leif protested softly.

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I remember having one drink. I remember ordering a second drink. After that, I don't really know what happened. Somehow I must have gotten home and made it into my bed. I woke up the next morning wearing all my clothes, but my panties were on inside out. I should have realized what that meant, but at the time I thought it was just one more weird thing I had managed while I was drunk, like getting home and not remembering it. Like getting bruises on my wrist but not remembering what happened.

"The next day I had a terrible headache, but I just assumed it was a hangover. But that night, the nightmares started. I woke up screaming, sweating. And it was the same thing the next night. And the next. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes Mama woke me up because I had woken her and Daddy up. The only thing about the dreams that I remembered was that I felt like I was trapped. Like something was on top of me. Crushing me."

Leif was completely still. His face could have been carved from stone. His eyes looked directly into hers.

"I thought it was the stress of trying to decide what to do with my life. My period was late, but I hadn't had sex in over a year. Finally I bought a test, even though I knew it couldn't be true. I just didn't want to believe I was that kind of girl. Some drunk slut."

Wincing, Leif shook his head, but Nic was caught up in her memories.

The grocery store had been full of pregnant women. Som
e l
umbered, while others sported cute little bumps. One woman, belly jutting alarmingly ahead of her, sauntered along on four-inch heels Nic could never have worn, pregnant or not. She bought the cheapest pregnancy test, so generic it didn't even have a name.

At home, she made sure the bathroom door was locked before she peed on the white stick. A moment later, she watched the first pink line form. According to the instructions, that meant the test was working. When the second line began to appear, at first Nic told herself that she was imagining it. It wasn't that dark. It must be a false positive. She couldn't be pregnant. Not really.

Nic looked at the instructions again. Any line, no matter how faint, meant it was positive.

She called the advice nurse. "Is it possible it's a false positive?" "Bless your heart," the nurse said.

Something inside Nic died.

Then the nurse added, "May I ask you something? Are you married?"

Instead of answering, Nic had hung up.

Now she told Leif, "I was going to have an abortion. I felt like garbage. Like a whore. I felt like everyone could tell, just by looking at me, what I had done."

Leif looked at her, bit his lip, looked away. Was he ashamed of her, embarrassed by her?

"Then my mama found me throwing up in the bathroom and figured out what was going on. You have to understand, my family is religious."

"And you're not?" Leif asked gently.

She thought of how she had begged God to make it not so, to take it away so that she could go back to her old life. "Not anymore, no. I don't want any part of a God that would let things like wha
t h
appened, happen. If that's a problem for you"--her eyes flashed up to his--"then it's good you know it now."

"I'm listening," he said softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"So my mama quoted some psalm to me, about how God knits babies together in their mothers' wombs. I tried to tell her it was just a blob of tissue. See, at that point, we both thought the same thing. That I had gotten drunk and made a mistake. We didn't know the rest. My mama and my daddy and my pastor--they all said people would help with the baby, that I could go back to school later, that God had given me this baby for a reason. And I listened to them. And then--and then the other shoe dropped when I was five months along and it was too late to do anything."

"What was the other shoe?'

"These two guys--Roy Kirk and Donny Miller--were arrested after a housekeeper found a videotape, still in the player, of them having sex with a passed-out woman. Roy had stacks of tapes like that, but only two of them had Miller too. When I saw their photos in the paper, I came forward. I wanted to see my tape." She took a deep, shaky breath. "But there wasn't one."

He put his hand over his eyes and asked, "What did they use, do you think?"

"At the trial, they said GHB."

Leif sucked air through his teeth and dropped his hand to the table. Colorless and odorless, GHB, or gamma-hydroxybutyrate, had a slightly salty taste that was easily disguised. A few drops could render a person close to unconscious for four hours or more, leaving them with little or no memory of events. And GHB exited the body within twelve hours, so victims were often tested too late. Five months after the fact, any proof would have been long gone.

Leif's low voice was edged with bitterness. "Yeah, why bother t
o u
se a gun or a knife when you can slip something into the drink of the girl of your choice? Not only will she not fight back; she won't even remember being attacked."

"You say that, but inside, even when everyone else started calling it a rape, I knew it was my fault. I had flirted and laughed with them. I had gone to the bar with them when they suggested it."

He groaned. "Nic, no."

"And now I was going to have a baby whose father was a monster. In an odd way, I felt sorry for it. For the baby. No one cared about it. I was its mother, and I didn't want it. I told Mama I was going to give it up for adoption. I couldn't raise it."

She remembered Berenice's reaction.

"Nicole, no," Mama had protested, dropping the wooden spoon she had been stirring a pot of soup with. "Have you prayed about it?"

Nic had straightened up. Anger shot through her, from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers. She felt more alive than she had since the night it had happened.

"Prayed about it? What kind of God would let two animals rape me in the first place? They drugged me and they used me like a piece of Kleenex. I don't care what God thinks. He didn't protect me. It's up to me to make decisions now."

"Oh, Nicole, don't say that!" Mama put her hand to her chest. Her eyes were bright with tears."Look, when our people were slaves, many, many children were conceived in rape or from forced breeding. But those mothers still loved those children."

"Mama, I'm not a slave. And I can't do it. If I keep it, what kind of life will I give it? What will I tell people who want to know who the father is?"

"You just hold your head up high and say you are the mother and the father."

"And when the child asks me who the father is? What then? A child can't live with that burden. A child can't live knowing that their father is the devil."

Mama reached up and put her hand on Nic's shoulder. "You just keep it simple. You just say that their father made a mistake and hurt you. But that you love them, no matter what."

Nic twisted until her mama's hand fell away. "I can't. It's not this child's fault, but it needs to be where it will be wanted and loved."

"And that's why you should keep the baby," Berenice had said. "You're the mother."

Now Leif said, "But you did keep her."

Nic sighed. "When my daughter was born, I was afraid if I held her it would make things worse, since I was giving her up. But then my mother held her, and the baby cried. The nurse held her, and she just squalled. Then finally the nurse brought the baby to me. She had just come on her shift, and I don't think anyone had told her I was giving the baby up. I reached out"--she demonstrated, holding up her empty arms--"and touched Makayla lightly on the forehead. She stopped crying right away and looked--I don't know--interested. She seemed to know me and be secure with me. And suddenly I was filled with love for this beautiful, innocent little creature. And maybe it wasn't fair to the parents who were going to adopt her, and maybe it wasn't fair to my daughter, but I decided to keep her. And she is the light of my life. She's one of two good things that came out of that horrible day."

"So what happened to those two guys?" Leif asked, looking grim.

"Kirk and Miller? Kirk got twenty:five years. Miller got thirteen." She had wanted to kick their teeth down their throats for ruining the lives of so many women. Instead, the resolution had hardened in her that no one would ever take advantage of her again.

"Did you testify?" The pain in Leif's eyes somehow made it easier for her to go on.

"In the end, they decided my case wasn't strong enough without video evidence. They had those other women on tape, and they testified. Before that, they had done a DNA test while I was still pregnant and determined paternity. It showed it was Miller's baby. But of course, he's not really Makayla's father. Not in the real sense of the word."

"Does she know?"

Nic shrugged and made a sound that was something like a laugh. "Actually, she's never asked me. I keep rehearsing what I'm going to say when she does. Sometimes I wonder if she knows I don't want her to."

Leif's expression softened. "What's your daughter like?"

"She's smart. Straight A's. Spunky. A little sassy. She's tall. Last summer, I had a couple of people from modeling agencies ask me to give them a call:'

"Did you do it?"

"No way. I don't want her to end up with a job where sooner or later people tell you that you're not thin enough, not pretty enough." Her stomach clenched. "She got the height from Miller. He's tall, like you.

Leif winced. "Does he know that she's his child?"

"He might. Even though my case was considered non-prosecutable, my name and the information about the pregnancy were in the pretrial discovery that Miller's attorney got. But he's never tried to contact me.

Leif's eye's narrowed. "You said he got thirteen years. How old is your daughter?"

"Ten. The thing is, Miller got paroled two weeks ago and put on electronic monitoring. They didn't even notify me until yesterday." "Wait--he's here?"

"In Medford. It's where his mom lives." Medford was five hours to the south.

"Do you think he'll try to come up here?" Leif's hands tightened into fists.

"I don't think so. He's wearing a GPS monitor. Even if he wants to get revenge, I'm not one of the women who put him in prison."

"You said two good things came out of what happened!' Leif touched the back of her hand with the tip of his finger, and Nic felt it all the way down to her bones. And she didn't shatter. Instead, it felt like something inside her began to knit together. "What was the other?"

"During the course of the investigation, I was interviewed by a special agent, because Roy had raped girls in three states. That agent made a big impression on me. And when Makayla was two, I applied to join the Bureau. But I never talk about her father. To anyone. People have no right to know. And if someone asks, I just give them this look I have, and they don't ask again."

"You know what we call that look?" Leif's voice broke with relieved laughter. "The death stare."

Chapter
35

Channel 4 TV

Monday, February 13

Quentin Glover's called a press conference at 12:15 to, quote, provide an update on the situation, end quote," Eric said at Channel 4's morning staff meeting.

"He's going to resign," Brad said with certainty. "That search warrant must have turned up something."

When Cassidy saw how adoringly Jenna regarded him, it was hard to keep from gagging.

"It's possible," Eric agreed."Cassidy, I'm sending you and Andy over to cover it. We'll run it live on the noon news. Glover was already looking at jail time for his financial shenanigans, but there are rumors this is connected to Jim Fate's murder."

Cassidy felt a grim satisfaction. She had never liked Glover. Cassidy hated politics. Show her a politician, and as far as she was concerned, show her a liar. And now, it seemed, quite likely a murderer as well. If so, she couldn't wait to cover his trial and sentencing. It wouldn't bring Jim back, of course, but it might restore some balance to the universe.

An idea nagged at her, but when she tried to pin it down, it flew away. Something about Jim. Something she had seen recently that didn't seem quite right. But what was it?

The press conference was packed, but Cassidy judiciously use
d h
er elbows and high heels to maneuver her way to the front. Glover looked bad, sweaty and pale, his eyes wide as he faced two dozen microphones.

Looking at him, Cassidy felt zero sympathy. Let him suffer. Whatever anguish he was experiencing was nothing compared to what he had put Jim through.

"Some of you are probably here today expecting to see me slink away in defeat. But I won't."

Glover shook his head so hard that Cassidy saw a drop of sweat fly off his face.

"I want to repeat that I am innocent of these accusations. I will not resign from the post that Oregonians have entrusted me with. I have been granted fifty-two years of exciting challenges and stimulating experiences and, most of all, the finest wife and children any man could ever desire. Now my life has changed because of a politically driven vendetta. That hack, Jim Fate, would not let up despite the lack of evidence. He did his best to destroy me and my family."