The Proviso (118 page)

At 12, Vanessa defied her family to save 17-year-old
bad boy Eric from wrongful imprisonment and, possibly, death. She’d
hoped for a “thank you” from him, a kiss on the cheek, but before
she could grow up and grow curves, he left town.

Fourteen years later, Vanessa is a celebrity chef at
the 5-star Ozarks resort she built. Eric is the new Chouteau County
prosecutor on his way to the White House.

Four hours apart and each tied to their own careers,
their worlds have no reason to intersect until a funeral brings
Vanessa back to Chouteau County, back to face the man for whom
she’d risked so much, the only man she ever wanted—

—the only man she can’t have.

* * * * *

“People versus Eric Niccolò Cipriani. Charges of
statutory rape, sexual assault in the first degree, and forcible
rape in the first degree.”

“Ms. Leventen, how does the defendant plead?”

“Not guilty.”

“Hilliard?”

“Remand, your honor. The victim is thirteen.”

“So ordered.”

* * * * *

* * * * *

He laughed at the college girl as she scrambled for
her clothes, half drunk and pissed. He tipped his head back and
swallowed a mouthful of warm, flat beer from the bottle he’d left
on the bedside table.

“You’re a prick, Eric,” the girl—he didn’t remember
her name—snarl-slurred as she misbuttoned her blouse.

“Yeah, you didn’t mind so much when I was fucking
you with it, did you? What, did you think I was going to tell you I
loved you?”

“No, but I didn’t expect to get insulted,
either.”

“Whatever. You’re twenty. I’m seventeen. You came to
a frat house looking for good college-boy sex and you got better
than you expected—from a high school kid. What’s the problem?” She
curled her lip at him. He adjusted his body so he sat more
comfortably in the bed, his back against the wall, and he gestured
at her midsection with the hand that held his bottle. “Didn’t you
learn how to dress yourself when you were five?”

She screeched and threw her shoe at his head. She
was too drunk to aim well enough to hit him, though, and he watched
it land three feet away. He laughed harder. She opened her mouth to
say something else equally scathing when the door burst open,
startling them both—badly.

“What the fuck—”

“Shut up,” snarled a Chouteau County deputy, who
hauled all six feet three inches of naked Eric out of the bed by
his hair and shoved him up against the wall, his arms yanked behind
his back.

He was too shocked, too suddenly terrified to make a
sound when he heard more than felt his rotator cuff pop out, just
drunk enough not to feel the pain of having his dick and face
slammed against plaster and woodwork, and not drunk enough to be
able to laugh it all off.

“You’re under arrest for statutory rape and sexual
assault . . .”

His mind shut down immediately, completely unable to
process the combined assaults on his body, his senses, or the
college girl’s sudden hoots of delighted laughter, her taunts.

Statutory rape and sexual assault? Of
whom
?

His mind then spun to life, turbocharged in spite of
the numbness he sought. How would he get out of this? He already
had a juvie record with nothing to offset it but a 4.5 GPA with his
Advanced Placement classes, and a job as a manager at a feed
store.

He had no money and he’d never had good luck with
the public defenders.

Statutory rape and sexual assault?! He couldn’t
possibly have fucked a girl that young . . . could he?
Whowho
who
?

Still naked except for a ratty blanket, he got
stuffed in the back of a squad car. Cold. So cold. The deep freeze
of a Missouri December at two a.m. was just another insult. He saw
the frat house from which he’d been dragged, alight but still and
quiet, all its occupants clustered together on the sidewalk at the
foot of the concrete stairs that led up to the house. Sober,
clustered together, shivering in various states of undress, they
tried to keep warm while they watched Eric get hauled away so
spectacularly. He blinked. Glanced away, unable to look back at the
people he had blithely called “friends” for the night.

None of them would bail him out. They barely knew
him, much less cared. He was just known to be a hard partier and a
good fuck.

He gulped.

No one to call. His mother, out of the question. She
would believe that he had fucked an underage girl and let him rot,
not that he could blame her. She’d bailed him out enough.

Couldn’t call old Jenkins. He’d told Eric that one
slip-up would get him the boot straight out of the feed store.

Statutory rape and sexual assault.

I didn’t do it!

Wouldn’t matter. No one would believe him
innocent.

They had no reason to.

The squad car finally began to move toward the
courthouse. He knew the routine; he’d been through it enough, but
not for a year and a half now. He’d tangled with almost every one
of the prosecutors in that office, Hicks more than most. He closed
his eyes and collapsed in on himself. Please, no. Not Hicks.

The man was vicious and, unlike most of the
attorneys in that office, was
not
on the take. Eric could
only hope to get the new prosecutor, that fucker straight out of
law school who’d offed the serial killer and skated. That was a man
who’d appreciate a bundle of cash to overlook whatever bullshit
Eric was said to have done.

Only . . . Eric had no money, so it didn’t matter
who ended up prosecuting him.

No money, no payoff.

And for this, he’d be tried as an adult.

* * * * *

He regretted his wish for the newest, youngest
prosecutor immediately upon staring into Knox Hilliard’s cold, hard
face—the face of a killer with nothing to lose and a raging thirst
for justice.

“Simone Whittaker?!”

Eric shot to his feet, jolted out of his shocked
numbness into his own rage when Hilliard told him his alleged
victim.

“Siddown,” Hilliard snarled, so Eric sat.

“It can’t be,” Eric said, desperate for him to
understand. “She came on to me and I told her to get lost. I don’t
do little girls at all ever. Never. Second, even if I did—which I
don’t
—I wouldn’t have touched
her
with a ten-foot
pole. She’s a disgusting, lying little bitch and who the hell knows
what diseases
she’s
got.”

That was the wrong thing to say. He knew it by the
chill in Hilliard’s ice blue eyes, knew it even before his
court-appointed attorney hissed, “Shut up, Eric.”

“I’m done with this asshole,” Hilliard murmured,
calm, cold, staring Eric down until Eric had to look away. Cold.
That was the only word Eric could apply to the man who’d murdered
another man in cold—well, not so cold—blood, who sat there on the
right side of the law like he had a right to be there.

Eric’s attorney did manage to get him seen for his
torn rotator cuff, but no one much cared beyond giving him a sling
to wear in jail while he waited for his trial. His life was over,
over before it had begun.

Simone Whittaker.

He knew at least two dudes in his class who’d fucked
her, but Eric? No way. He’d been creeped out enough to look at a
girl that young dressing, talking, acting like an oversexed college
girl.

He resigned himself to his fate, although his
attorney, a lady Hilliard’s age, also straight out of law school,
was actually doing a pretty decent job of defending him. He
wouldn’t get off, though, because he could clearly see Hilliard was
better—and motivated.

Thirteen-year-old girls.

Even ones who looked and acted twenty, who spread
her legs for any male who’d have her. No matter Eric was smarter
than his cohorts: valid picture ID and condoms. Always, every time,
without fail.

Shit, yeah, Hilliard had made his opinion known loud
and clear what he thought of that particular crime. The man had a
roar that could be heard all the way to St. Joe. A lion, his
attorney had called him; then, after Eric had caught her checking
out Hilliard’s ass, he wondered if she was fucking him on the
sly.

“Lord, no,” she breathed, aghast. “Knox doesn’t like
blondes and he doesn’t like women my age.”

“Are you telling me he’s a closet pedophile?” Eric
asked slowly.

“No, Eric,” she said dryly. “He’s not letting loose
any self-loathing on you. He likes women older than he is. And no,
I wouldn’t sleep with him while I’m defending you anyway. That’s
just a little too kinky for my taste. In any case, I doubt any
prosecutor anywhere would go any lighter on you. These crimes
are—”

Yes, he knew. Universally despised. “I didn’t do
it,” he protested. Weak. It was weak. Nobody ever believed a
defendant who said “I didn’t do it” because they all said that.

She patted his hand. “I know you didn’t. I’ll do the
best I can.”

Apathy: The only emotion Eric could muster.

Except when put in general population, at which
point, he didn’t hesitate to make his opinion known about some
other inmate’s assessment of him. For the first time, Eric cursed
his looks. The term “hottie,” applied by a male, didn’t seem like
such a compliment. It was a relief when he was thrown into solitary
confinement for damn near killing the fucker with his bare
hands.

“At this point, all I care about is managing to get
myself in solitary for the rest of my life,” he said to his
attorney the next time he saw her.

She pursed her lips in commiseration.

She knew she was losing. Eric wouldn’t live to see
his nineteenth birthday.

* * * * *

April 1995

Vanessa squeezed tight into herself, watching from
across the street, waiting for him. She sat on the sidewalk, her
back against the stone of the café and furniture store, a small
book hidden between her upraised knees and her chest.

There he was, striding purposefully into the
courthouse like he owned it: tall, blond, hard, and very cruel. She
could see it in his face. She knew what he’d done—the whole county
knew. And trembled. She didn’t know which was scarier: approaching
the man who’d gotten away with the murder of her mother’s boyfriend
or going home to her mother after having done so.

She
could
just forget the whole thing and go
back to school, but Laura would be disappointed in her if she left
now, so Vanessa tried to screw up her courage and go see the man
every person in the county feared.

“He could snap again,” went the whispers. “Who knows
what’ll set that crazy bastard off now.”

He had more than one reputation in town, for sure.
Whenever Vanessa and the rest of the sixth graders ate lunch in the
narrow quad between the elementary school and high school, she
would overhear the older girls talking about him as if he were a
rock star. Even a couple of teachers would whisper his name and
giggle. She supposed he was kinda sorta good looking, but he was
way old—like, twenty-five or something—and terrifying.

Her heart in her throat, she still couldn’t make
herself move.

What would Laura do?

Laura would march herself on in there and do the
right thing no matter what. “That boy didn’t rape Simone,” she’d
say, or so Vanessa imagined she might say. “You’re the only person
who knows that besides your mother and sister, so it’s your
responsibility, Vanessa.”

Vanessa knew what would happen to her when LaVon and
Simone found out she’d blown up their scheme—and they
would
find out.

Dirk, the only protector she had ever had, was gone
all the way around the world to New Zealand, to talk to people
about his church. She’d had no one to protect her for a year and
this would seal her fate. Perhaps it was time she packed her bags
and set out on her own, like Hermie and Rudolph.

The crowd of people going to work had thinned out
quite a while ago and then only the intermittent flow of deputies
coming and going kept her from entering. She supposed it was now or
never if she was going to do this because eventually someone would
approach her to find out why she wasn’t at school.

Reluctantly she stood and shoved the book up her
shirt, then hugged it to her tight. With leaden feet she crossed
the street and headed up the long walk to the courthouse doors.
Once inside, she didn’t know what to do. Everybody looked at her
strangely but no one asked her her business.

She looked up at the building directory and looked
for his name. There. Second floor. She stared up the very high,
wide staircase and took a deep breath. One step at a time, one step
at a time, one step at a time, and then she was in front of the
door she sought:

PROSECUTOR’S

OFFICE

Her hand reached out for the doorknob as if it were
on a string and she was a puppet—wait, no, a . . . She searched for
the right word. Marionette. That’s right. A marionette. And while
she’d been thinking of the right word, her feet had gone ahead and
taken her through the door and into the office.

Ancient wood and metal desks were crammed into an
open area any which way. Men stormed around the obstacles, cursing,
yelling, and generally filling the air with much anger and lots of
bad words. She swallowed. In front of her was another door:

CLAUDE NOCEK

PROSECUTOR

A young black man stopped short and looked down at
her. She stepped back, her eyes wide, because now she would
actually have to talk to one of those men who were cursing and
yelling and being angry.