Things Remembered (Accidentally On Purpose Companion Novel #3) (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What did I miss?” I whispered to Kyle as I passed him a hot black coffee.

“Larry is three sheets to the wind again,” he whispered back. “The new lady, Doris, cried through her whole story. I have no idea what she said through all her blubbering.”

“Big fat tears?”

“Huge. And snot. A lot of snot. If you listen closely, you can still hear her doing that hiccup thing.”

“I hate when I miss the theatrics.” I sighed.

“Well, tonight’s meeting is officially the last meeting you are mandated to attend,” he whispered. “Where will you get your Tuesday night entertainment?”

I waved a hand dismissively. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll be back next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that.”

His tone was dry. “Fantastic.”

“Oh, you love it. You can’t get enough of me. You think I’m hot and you want to take me to bed, but it’s your worst fear as well as your ultimate desire.”

He scowled, giving me his Bitch Face.

“Why are you so damn jaunty? Didn’t your boyfriend get shot only last week?”

“Yes,” I said cheerfully. I paused for effect, and then in my whispered voice announced, “I’m going to officially move in with him.”

Kyle’s eyebrows rose, and then fell as his eyes narrowed. “But you’re already practically living there.”

“Yes, but I still have my apartment and most of my belongings are there. I still sleep there once or twice a week. My lease will be up in a couple months, so after some consideration and talking, we’ve decided that I’ll move in with him.”

“That’s a colossal step for you,” he said. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

If it were anyone else, I would have assumed that they doubted me, but it was Kyle. He didn't doubt me; he really wanted to know if I thought I was ready.

“Trust me, I never thought I’d say that I’m moving in with anyone, let alone a guy with kids, but yes. I am ready. I am very nervous and scared that I’ll screw it up, but I am ready.”

He nodded. He understood, of course he did. There was a time when he had been afraid of screwing up with Lily, but he wanted to be with her as much as I wanted to be with Grant.

After the meeting, Kyle insisted on taking me to dinner to celebrate the end of my probation with Sterling Corp and my imminent immoral lifestyle of living with a man unwedded. We ate steak, drank champagne, ordered chocolate cake for dessert, and casually threw insults across the table at each other. It was a fun night with an unlikely, but truly good friend.

Kyle had taken the train into the city that day, and I had walked to work from my apartment that morning. We had taken a cab to the restaurant and we were in the backseat of another smelly cab heading toward my apartment, where we would part ways for the night. My plan was to grab a few things and then drive to Grant’s.

I was laughing—at Kyle’s expense—and feeling a lightness I couldn’t remember feeling in a long time. Maybe it was the champagne and cake, or maybe it was just that my life seemed to be pulling together at last. Maybe I was beginning to feel like I could have the happy ending that I never thought I deserved.

Then I turned my head and glanced out the window and saw him. Standing against a brick wall a few yards from that same coffee shop, smoking a cigarette, and looking right at me. He smiled and my stomach twisted. I suddenly felt so stupid for believing that I could ever have anything like a normal, happy life.

The cab had begun to move again as the light at the corner turned green, but I was already opening my door and tumbling out of the car.

“Mayson!” Kyle barked my name. “What the hell are you doing?”

The cab driver yelled something in his native language as he slammed on the brakes. Kyle was shouting my name behind me, but I was crossing the street, my eyes burning into the creepy man that brought on my nightmares.

As I neared the man, my dinner and dessert threatened to come up. My heart did a bruising cadence in my chest, and my knees grew weak with fear, but I didn’t stop, not until I reached him. I was sick with terror, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice shaking.

His eyebrows rose as he offered a smile that made my skin crawl. His eyes traveled up and down my body before he met my eyes again.

“You don’t know who I am?” he asked and took a drag of his cigarette.

“Mayson, what the hell…” Kyle started to say but halted. I didn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me, but I could sense Kyle stiffen as he took in the scene.

“If I knew who you were, I wouldn’t have asked,” I spat out. “But you know who I am, don’t you? You look at me like you know who I am, like you know things about me.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I know a few things about you...
Mayson
. You used to screw around with Randy, right? He’s an old friend of mine.”

It suddenly made sense why he had seemed so familiar. I had seen his face a few times when I was with Randy, but more importantly, the memory of his face inside Annie’s house slammed into my brain. Annie had been friends with Randy. Who was to say that she hadn’t been friends with the man in front of me as well?

“You got amnesia or something?” he asked, bemused.

“Or something,” I said bitterly. “Are you one of the assholes that raped me?”

Later, I would hardly be able to believe that I had asked that question to a stranger on a city street.

“You’re crazy,” he said. He laughed and shook his head as he tossed his finished cigarette onto the sidewalk. “My man,” he said to Kyle. “You better get your girl.”

“She’s not my girl,” Kyle said, in a dark voice I’d never heard him use.

The man laughed again. “That's a shame. She deep throats like a pro.”

I didn’t see Kyle move before his fist connected with the man’s mouth. He stumbled back into the alley, stunned. Kyle grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and slammed him back so hard his head bounced off of the brick. Blood oozed from his mouth. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

“How many of you were there?” I demanded, stepping into the alley with them. “How many of you violated me?”

“Answer her,” Kyle growled, slamming him into the wall again.

“It wasn’t a violation if she was into it,” he said, inviting another punch from Kyle.

It was like a kick to the face. A small part of me always worried that it wasn’t rape, that it was something I did willingly. I’ve remembered things wrong before, who was to say that I didn’t want it?

Then I remembered the bruises on my thighs, the finger marks on my neck, and the bite marks on my breasts. I wasn’t wrong.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Who are the rest of them?”

“Man, I’m going to call the fucking cops,” the man said, struggling with Kyle. “Lock your crazy ass up.”

“Go ahead,” Kyle said, releasing him. “Call the police. Then Mayson will tell them that you are one of her rapists. Then maybe, just maybe they will believe her and get a warrant for your DNA. Then, maybe it will be a match. You look like you would enjoy prison. Tell her what she wants to know.”

He spit blood on the sidewalk and glared at Kyle for a moment before looking to me.

“I’m not giving you my name,” he said, though it sounded rather garbled coming from his bloodied mouth. “I didn’t fucking rape you, you fucking cow.”

This time, I was the one that punched him. Twice.

“Fuck!” I shouted, shaking my hand as the idiot slumped to the ground.

“Time to go,” Kyle said, putting an arm around my waist.

He guided me out of the alley and we hurried down the street, away from one of the men who once broke my whole world.

I walked without being able to see my steps because I was in some kind of shock. I wasn’t even crying, even though there was a basketball size knot in my throat.

After about a block, Kyle hailed another cab and quickly ushered me inside. He gave the driver Grant’s address. I opened my mouth to tell him to take me home, but that
was
home. Soon, there would be no apartment to go to.

When we walked through the door, Grant wandered out of his office with a smile on his face. He always smiled whenever I came through the door, partly in relief that I came back, but mostly in happiness. However, his smile quickly went away when he saw our grim faces.

I didn’t trust myself to speak by then. How I had managed to hold back the tears so far, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to be a blubbering idiot again. For once, I wanted to at least have the appearance of being strong.

While I iced my throbbing hand, Kyle told Grant what had happened. Grant’s body grew more and more rigid with fury with each passing moment.

“What happened to her hand?” Grant demanded, looking at me from across the kitchen peninsula. He looked ready to explode if Kyle told him that guy had hurt me.

“Oh,” Kyle said. Then, despite the heavy weight of distress and anger between the three of us, he smiled just a little bit. “Manny Pacquiao here punched him twice. She knocked his ass out.”

Grant came to me and gingerly lifted my hand for inspection. I winced as he gently probed at it.

“I don’t think anything is broken,” he murmured. “But we should go get it checked out tomorrow just to be sure.”

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it softly. His hands touched me all over, searching for more injuries.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? He didn’t touch you, did he?”

I shook my head as Kyle said, “I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”

Without looking back at Kyle, Grant nodded like he understood. He wrapped both arms around me, even though I knew it hurt his injured arm for him to do so. He held me close and tight, and I could feel the anxious beats of his heart against me.

“Do we have his name?” he asked when he finally released me.

“No, but between the two of us and our resources, we can probably have a name relatively quickly.”

“That will be a good start,” Grant replied, nodding thoughtfully. “We can press the police into checking him out. They’ll have to get a warrant to get a DNA sample, though. That can be tricky, but if we get him, we might be able to get the rest of them over time. Surely he knows their names, who they are.”

“No warrant necessary,” Kyle said triumphantly as he pulled his coat off. He held up his right arm, showing us the traces of blood on his sleeve. “It’s probably on my coat, too. It’s just harder to see.”

With a trembling, quiet voice, I burst their little private detective bubble.

“He could have given you a vial of his blood, chock-full of DNA and it wouldn’t matter.”

They both looked at me, wearing matching pinched faces.

“His DNA isn’t in the system,” I continued. “Even if it was, it will be his word against mine. Since I was high at the time and can’t even remember how many there were or what they looked like, I will lose that battle.”

“But there’s other evidence,” Grant argued. “Your rape kit—”

“It’s been
eleven
years, and a
lot
of rape kits were destroyed.”

“They might still have it,” Kyle said, though I could see the doubt on his face.

I shook my head slowly. “It’s gone,” I whispered as my hold on my emotions began to slip. “It’s gone. It’s like it never happened.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

I knew without having to check, that my evidence was long gone. However, to appease Grant and Kyle, I took a flight to North Carolina the following night to confirm my suspicions. I could have called, but I wanted them to see my face, to see that I was a person and not just another faceless case.

The detective that got the bad luck to assist me the morning after my arrival left me alone for over a half hour in a small interview room while he retrieved, and most likely reviewed, my case file. When he returned, he sat down across from me in a crappy metal folding chair that protested under his weight.

He was relatively young for being a detective; at most he was in his mid-twenties. Eleven years ago, he would have still been in high school. His youth and inexperience rubbed me the wrong way, but when he looked up at me as if
I
was suspect for some crime, my hackles rose to their full height.

“Miss Grayne, thank you for waiting,” he said, needlessly straightening his tie. “Your file was in the basement under a pile of dust, as you can imagine after eleven plus years. I am sorry to report that your rape kit was indeed eliminated several years ago.”

He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, and I think I even understood why it was destroyed. The young detective, however, seemed eager to confirm that as well.

“The kits aren’t always destroyed after an indeterminable amount of time, but in your case, we didn’t have any leads. Not even one suspect. You couldn’t even give us any descriptions of the alleged rapists since you were under the influence of opiates and ketamine.”

I blinked. “Ketamine? There were traces of ketamine in my system?”

He looked at me without expression for a long moment. “Ketamine is often cut into heroin, as you probably know since you were involved with…” he looked down at my file as if he couldn’t remember the name on his tongue. “Randy Walsh, a known drug dealer who used ketamine to dilute the heroin he sold on the streets.”

As far as I knew, Randy had never lived in North Carolina, which meant that the officer had also taken the time to retrieve my arrest history.

“I know ketamine is often cut into heroin,” I snapped at him, ignoring his comment about Randy. “But how do you know someone didn’t slip it in a drink instead?”

He shrugged. “We don’t know. Nor do we know whether or not you took it deliberately.”

“I didn’t take it deliberately. Why would I do that?”

He shrugged again. “Why would anyone shoot poison into their veins? Besides, how can you remember whether or not you did it deliberately? Your memory of that day is extremely hazy and uncertain.”

I let out a small humorless laugh.

“So, basically, what you are saying, Officer…”

“Detective Caine,” he said, sitting up straight in his chair and trying to look important.

“So, what you’re saying…
Officer
Caine, is that you don’t believe that I was raped because I was on drugs.”

He didn’t like that I didn’t address him by his correct title, judging by the small line that appeared on his brow. He wasn’t experienced enough to keep his Cop Face on at all times.

He forced his expression back into neutrality. “I did not say that, Miss Grayne. Though, I do wonder how you were able to discern any definitive truths from that day, considering the drugs that were in your system that caused so much confusion.”

“I woke up naked covered in semen and urine,” I hissed.

“Your accused rapists could argue that you like to get kinky when you’re high,” Caine deadpanned. “We’ve seen stranger things in consenting relationships.”

“The doctors documented the bruises and other injuries consistent with rape!”

He nodded once. “There is that,” he conceded. “But without DNA evidence, and considering your state at that time, your case would have been very difficult, if not impossible to prove, even if it were true. Again, even your bruises and other injuries could have been consistent with sex games. It is for these reasons, in addition to the fact that we had to make room for other cases, that your kit was discarded.”

I got to my feet, so infuriated that I was only a breath away from jumping over the table to attack the officer. I had heard of police treating some rape victims like liars and criminals, but I hadn’t experienced it myself. The officers that spoke to me after the rape had been firm, but kind.

“Let’s stop the bullshit, Little Man Caine,” I said sharply. “You don’t believe me because I was a junkie and because of my record. You are probably one of those assholes that thinks a girl asks for it and gets what she deserves. For the record, I met one of my rapists two nights ago. Of course, he denied raping me, because he seems to think I asked for it, too, but I know in my heart of hearts what happened to me. I didn’t make it up and I didn’t hallucinate it.”

I slapped a yellow Post-It on the table with the creepy guy’s name, Emilio Salvador. Grant and Kyle got the guy’s name in less than an hour.

“That’s his name. Do your job and look into it.”

Caine stood up and leaned forward with his hands on the table until he was almost nose to nose with me.

“You do not tell me what to do, Miss Grayne. You especially do not tell me how to do my job. You are walking a fine line.”

“Fuck the line. You think because you have a gun and a badge that you intimidate me? Maybe, just maybe when your balls finally drop you can try it again.”

I turned away from him and started for the door, but I stopped just before stepping out of the room.

“By the way, you should start informing your victims before you destroy their evidence.”

“We did inform you,” he snapped. “Three years ago, a letter was sent to and received at 435 Hillside Drive, an address in New Jersey.”

I halted with one foot out the door. Looking over my shoulder with wide eyes, I said, “That’s not my address. I haven’t lived there since I was sixteen years old.”

He shrugged. “It was the address on your license, the only address we had for you.”

I didn’t know what to think. My mother usually gave me all my mail. She never opened it or snooped through it, as far as I knew. Why would that one piece of mail not get into my hands? It made my doubt for the police department deepen.

“We aren’t finished here, Miss Grayne,” he said, barely containing his anger.

“We were finished when I walked through the door,” I snarled, and walked out.

My mother’s car was in the driveway when I arrived the following morning. I had never stopped by uninvited, not even once in all the years that I had been living outside of her house. We didn’t have that kind of relationship; we didn’t drop in on each other for a cup of tea or because we were in the neighborhood. A few times I’d run into her and Taylor at the mall or at the grocery store, but it was always awkward, not at all a pleasant surprise.

I rang the doorbell instead of using the key that she had given me eight years ago—once she realized that I wasn’t going to rob her blind and sell whatever I stole for drugs.

A few moments later, I heard the soft sound of her body against the door as she peeked through the peephole. The lock disengaged and the door opened.

My mother appeared to be stunned as her wide eyes took me in. “Mayson.”

“Mom,” I said stiffly, in a greeting.

Her face smoothed over into stone. “Come in.”

I went inside and stood awkwardly by the door as I looked around. “Where’s Taylor?”

“Taylor is at school. Come into the kitchen. I’ll make you a cup of hot tea.”

I had forgotten that my sister started going to public school in the fall.

“Lucky Taylor,” I muttered, following my mom into the kitchen. “She gets to be with kids her own age.”

Mom glanced at me before averting her eyes and concentrating on the great task of hot tea-making. It had been so quick, but I almost thought I saw remorse in her eyes, but that wasn’t possible.

“What brings you here today?” she asked, turning around to look in a cabinet.

“I found out yesterday that I missed an important letter a few years ago because it was ‘accidentally’ sent here instead of to my P.O. Box. I know it’s been a few years, but do you think you may have put it aside somewhere and then forgot?”

I saw her back stiffen, but her voice remained calm and normal.

“I don’t think so. Where was the letter from?”

“Umm…” I hesitated. I didn’t want her to know what happened to me because I wouldn’t be able to stand the uncaring coldness I would get from her. Most likely, she would think the letter was regarding was some fine I didn’t pay from my junkie days. “It was from the police, or maybe the D.A. in North Carolina.”

She didn’t respond. She went on fixing damn tea as if she hadn’t heard me at all, but I knew she had to have heard me. She was just ignoring me.

My nerves were already rubbed thin and raw after my encounter with Emilio Salvador, and then my dealings with dumbass Officer Caine.

“Either you fucking saw it or you didn’t, Jasmine,” I said stormily.

She whirled around so fast that some hair came out of the neat bun at the back of her head. “I saw it!” she shouted.

Stupefied, I stared at her wild, tear-filled eyes. Her face was angry and anguished, and her chest heaved as if she had just run a mile to get there. I waited for the stoniness to return to her features, but I was further stunned when it did not. Instead, her face began to crumple in slow motion.

“How
dare
they send you a
letter
to tell you that your rape no longer mattered?” she said scathingly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I exclaimed. “How could you keep that from me?”

Fat tears rolled out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

“The letter came while we were down the shore. By the time we got back and I came across it, it was too late. I thought if you knew, it would only hurt you. You’d been through so much already, Mayson.”

“It would have hurt me, but I had the right to know!” I shouted at her. “And since when did you care about what hurts me?”

“I’ve always cared,” she said vehemently.

“Bullshit! You haven’t cared about me since I was a child—if you even cared about me then.”

“Of course I cared about you! You’re my daughter.”

“The only thing you cared about was making me into some fucking prodigy princess! The damn pageants, the piano lessons, and the dancing. You denied me the childhood I should have had to try to make up for the shit
you
wanted and didn’t have! I didn’t want to be a princess, Mom! I didn’t want to be a concert pianist or to be a part of some ballet company!”

“I just wanted you to have better opportunities than I did!” she shouted back.

“You should have wanted me to be
happy
!” I choked out my next words, as I began to cry. “Instead, you made me dance until my fucking toes bled!”

She stared at me for a few seconds before her face crumpled again. She covered it with her hands as she sobbed loudly.

“And you give Natalie ballet shoes? How did you expect me to react?” I demanded of her.

She dropped her hands after a minute and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.