Swept Away (22 page)

“You saw Hetty on the news?”

“Yeah, God bless her. She said I wandered to their place scared and alone. Kind of like a lost puppy.”

Josie flashed him a small smile. He bumped her forehead gently with his own, allowing it to rest there. “I almost forgot. I have something for you. Murray found it.” He placed the necklace in her hand.

She gasped. “Thank you.” She held it to her heart. “Thank you, thank you. Poor, sweet Maddy. He had to kill her to get this. She’d not have taken it off. She always wore it. Always.” She clutched the necklace to her heart. “It hurts, you know… knowing they just…just treated her like a piece of meat.”

“She’s happy now, I swear. I don’t know how the hell I know that, but I do. I have the strongest feeling that she is in a good place. That she wants you to be happy.” Tucker had no clue why he felt so sure about a girl he’d never met, but he did. Maybe there was some sort of sibling bond between them. He took the necklace from her and placed it around her neck. “There. You have to remember Maddy as the happy girl she was, and is. The end of her life wasn’t the sum of her, you understand? Don’t let that moment be all that defines her.”

Josie nodded. “You’re right. I know you are. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get to say good-bye; or that I don’t honestly know what happened to her…but I can’t let her go. Logically, I say she’s gone. She’s dead. But in my heart, I fully expect to be walking down a street and see her. She feels that close.”

“I don’t know…” Brushing a curl back, he kissed her forehead. “Maybe one day you’ll get your answers.”

“I hope. I don’t know if it’s that I need to know to prove I’m not insane, or so I can stop searching crowds for her face.”

“One day we’ll look for her again. But right now, we’ve got to get going. The attorney said she’d meet with us as soon as we could get there.”

They dressed and headed out. Mainland North Carolina was more similar to the lakeside community he called home than Ocracoke was. Soft green grass-covered yards, and trees which actually grew to full height, as opposed to their salt and wind stunted island counterparts.

Josie was quiet as they drove. Tucker reached over, took her hand, and held it. She gave him a squeeze.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“I don’t want it to overwhelm you.”

“It won’t.” Placing a hand on her belly, she smiled at him. “You’re right. All of this insanity will pass. This is what’s real. This is what I have to concentrate on.”

He gave her hand a kiss. “Boy or girl?”

“I don’t know. Some days I think boy, then I think girl. I simply have no idea. Isn’t that crazy? I mean there is a human life inside me. You can’t get any closer than that, yet I have no idea. What do you think?”

Shaking his head, he shrugged. “I don’t see a boy or a girl. I see a peanut.”

“A peanut?” She laughed.

“Yeah, when I imagine a baby in there, I picture a little peanut-looking thing. I mean a really cute, really special little peanut.”

“Peanut Boone. That has a ring to it.”

“Only if you want it to hate us from the get-go. I always thought my mom was pushing it with Tucker.”

“I like Tucker. Maybe a junior Tucker?”

“Veto. No junior. Maybe it will be a girl, and we could name her Madison?”

“Ahh, that’s the best idea.” She teared up. “You really are the best, you know?”

Tucker laughed as he pulled the car into a lot. “I can’t argue with that. Looks like we’re here. You ready?”

“I am.”

Shae Harper’s office was situated in a renovated bungalow on a quiet side street off a busy freeway. Shae met them at the front door. She was a tall, thin woman with thick, dark hair that fell in waves over her shoulders. She looked more like a supermodel than an attorney.

“Hi. Shae Harper,” she said, extending a manicured hand to them. “The rest of the attorneys and staff have gone for the day, which is good. Your story is lighting up everyone’s imagination, and I’m not going to pretend this office doesn’t have its tabloid feeders.”

“I watched some of it,” Josie admitted. “It’s humiliating.”

“Shut it off. Don’t watch it. Don’t read about it. They’re out to sell stories, not do good reporting. It’s not worth the stress. Ella said you’re expecting?”

“Yes,” Josie said as they followed Shae to her office, which was a small, windowless room with little decoration.

“Don’t mind the lack of ambience. I just joined the firm. My husband, er, ex-husband, and I used to share an office, but that didn’t work out any better than the marriage, so my tenure with Philips and Marr is new. Makes me the longest practicing junior attorney. I took this case to secure my associate status, so when I said I’d do it pro-bono, it wasn’t completely out of good will. I clerked for my cheating husband for years, ignoring my own career. That’s not me bitching, that’s me being straight…I’ve been practicing law for years, but never fought a case as the lead attorney.”

“That’s fine. It’s good to know you’re motivated,” Josie said.

“So, tell me your story,” Shae said once everyone was seated.

Josie told her everything. When she finished, Shae Harper looked up and asked sharply, “Did you intentionally fake your death to get even with your stepfather?”

Josie glanced at Tucker. She had the wide-eyed stare of a frightened animal caught in a trap. Then she turned back to Shae and said, “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“I didn’t fake my death. My mother tried to kill me, and I ran away. I didn’t ask her to shoot me.”

“Good.” Shae nodded her head. “Then change your answer to a simple no. You cannot appear to be equivocating, lest it be construed as guilt when asked that question.”

“Uh, I’m sorry?” Josie’s voice was squeaky.

“Don’t be sorry. Be firm. You ran away. You feared he was coming for you. That’s why you changed your name.”

“That is why I changed it.”

“How in this day and age, could you not know he’d been charged with your murder? That’s what they’ll ask you.”

“I did know. I just didn’t care. He could rot in jail for the rest of his life, and it’d still be too easy for him for all he did.”

Shae paused and looked Josie over. “That’s the wrong answer. I looked through your police report from last night, and you told the police officer that you had no access to the internet.”

“And that’s true. Sort of. I had no internet where I lived.”

“Stick with that answer. Never admit you knew he was in jail. It…complicates things.”

“So, it’s all right for me to lie?”

Shae leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers. “I’m not counseling you to lie. I’m telling you to pick a story and stick with it. The less legally complicated story is that you were ignorant to what was happening with Jeb. Disgusting as it is, he comes across as likable. His sociopathic smile wins hearts. Don’t make him more tragic by admitting you knew an innocent man was thrown in jail.”

“Do you believe him? That he’s innocent?” Josie asked the attorney.

Shae arched an eyebrow and frowned. “Not at all. I have an intimate understanding of charming psychos. I believed one enough to follow him down the aisle. I won’t fall for another. Besides, even if you were a willing participant in his sex-capades, you were a child. The son of a bitch gets no sympathy from me.”

Josie’s lips folded together, and she sat silent. Tucker took her hand.

“Look,” Shae said with a sigh. “I don’t believe the lying bastard for a second. I’m just saying, it is what it is. Right now, the media is making him their darling. We will prepare ourselves for as many different scenarios as we can imagine.”

Josie nodded.

“And we are starting with your reaction to the question: Did you know? And when you answer, you may look pissed, shocked, and even hurt, but never, ever guilty. And the only correct answer is a resounding no- you did not know he was in jail.”

“Yes ma’am,” Josie said, her hands twisting in her lap.

“’It’s not all bad. I’m giving you the rough stuff first. I do have good news. I hear from a friend of mine in the police department that Officer Greg Walker is scared shitless and begging to make a deal. Maybe he knows something useful.”

Tucker leaned forward. “On the news, they keep talking about charging Josie with conspiracy. Can she get in trouble for faking her death?”

Shae shook her head. “It’s not against the law to fake your death. Where you get in trouble is the fraud that usually goes along with it. Did you collect insurance money?”

Josie shook her head no. 

“And I’m assuming since you were sixteen, you hadn’t accumulated debt that your
demise
stopped you from paying, right?”

“No, no debt.”

“So, the only way you’re on shaky ground is if you’re accused of faking your murder to get Stone locked up. But even that has no precedent. It’s just TV chatter. It may hurt us in the civil suit. But we’ll worry about that later.”

Josie looked scared. Tucker gave her hand a squeeze. “It’ll be all right.”

“They hurt me, and I feel like I’m the one being punished.”

“I’m sorry. It does feel that way, I’m sure. But we’re going to get through this together. Did you ever tell anyone about the abuse?” Shae asked.

Josie crossed her leg over the other. The top leg bounced nervously. “Yes. I told a teacher in my junior high. She called my mom and Jeb in for a meeting. It ended with the school getting a new wing and me getting counseling. At that point, he was only doing weird things. Like saying sexual things: asking me to look at porn, touching me, but always with my clothes on.” Josie shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it made my skin crawl.”

“And it escalated?”

Josie swallowed and nodded. “I went out on a date with Troy Miller for my sixteenth birthday. When I got home, Jeb was furious. He accused me of having sex. I told him that was crazy, but he insisted…said he could tell.” Josie turned red and had to take a deep breath. “That was the first time…he…you know.”

“No, I don’t know. I have a good guess, but I don’t know what he did.”

“You’re kidding me, right? Do I have to say it?”

“I’m sorry, but yes. Eventually, you will have to say what he did to you. Possibly on a witness stand with strangers staring at you.”

Josie started to cry.

Shae lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Listen, he has the right to face his accuser. He’s innocent until proven guilty, and the burden of proof is on us. You were a young girl, living under his roof.  He was your parent—“

“He was never my parent,” Josie said, reaching for a tissue from the box on Shae’s desk.

Shae wobbled her head between a nod and a shake. “Let’s say he was a caregiver. Someone entrusted to protect you. He violated that trust in the worst way. You have to understand, in your heart and in your soul, this was not your fault. What he did is a shame on him, not you.”

Josie looked to Tucker. He gave her a nod. She took a deep breath and said, “I fought with Jeb about Troy. Then Mike, our neighbor stopped by to return a tool or something. While Jeb talked to Mike, I ran to my room and locked the door, but the next thing I know, he’s opening it. I think he used a screw driver on the lock, I’m not sure, but it opened. Then he…raped me.”

Josie choked on the words, but once they were out of her mouth, her shoulders relaxed and she seemed more at ease. She looked Shae in the eye and said, “When he was done, he made me shower in front of him. He told me he loved me, and then he tucked me into my bed like I was still six. I couldn’t sleep, so he got a bottle of sleeping pills and gave me a couple of them.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

Josie nodded. “I told my pediatrician when I went for my check-up. I’d had the same doctor since I was four. I thought she’d believe me, but she didn’t. She told me I should be ashamed of myself for lying. I knew then that running away was my only option. When that failed, I found the pills and took them all. The whole time I was in the hospital, everyone told me I was making it up to get even. I’d ask them,
to get even for what?
I had everything. Clothes, car, a house with a pool…I had everything. Everything but a goddamned door that I could keep locked.” Josie words bounced off the walls of the small room. She took a deep breath as silence fell over them all. Her face was pale, all but two blood-red splotches on her cheeks. Josie squared her shoulders and looked directly at Shae. “Is that all you need to know? Or do you need details?”

Shae picked up her pen and shook her head. “You did great, Josie. You keep reminding yourself who the bastard is. He had no right. You wouldn’t feel ashamed to tell the story if he walked up to you and punched you in the face, so do not ever feel like you’re to blame for this abuse. Do you understand me?”

Josie dried her eyes and nodded. 

“Tell you what,” Shae said. “Let’s get the paperwork rolling, so I can get to work.” Shae rummaged through the file folders in her desk drawer. “Did you have anything you wanted to ask me?”

“Yes. I want to change my name. I don’t want to be Ariel Stone.”