Timing (237 page)

I didn’t say anything; I just got up and went to the door.

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“And Rand.”

My head swiveled back to her.

“I want Rand to know.”

“Why?”

“Because he should,” she said, her tone telling me that she was

resigned to the idea.

Halfway down the stairs, I remembered to breathe.

Maybe it was my face, or the way I couldn’t bring myself to

speak, but when Rand saw me, he got up from where he was sitting

apart from the others. Instead of sharing space on the couch, he was

alone in the wingback chair.

“Stef,” he said softly, moving quickly to step in front of me. His

hand slipped around my neck, his thumb sliding down my throat. I

doubted that he even realized he was touching me, wearing his

affection and possessiveness for anyone to see. It was fortunate for him

that everyone was drunk. They didn’t even spare us a glance.

“Can you and Ben come upstairs with me?”

“’Course,” he said, turning only his head to look over his shoulder

at Ben. “C’mon.”

“Stef, what––”

“Now.” Rand’s voice dropped into his chest, and I heard Ben’s

quick intake of breath before he was up and standing beside me. “We’ll

follow you.”

When I opened the door of the bedroom minutes later, I found

Charlotte standing at the window. Her face, when she turned, was

panicked.

“Shit,” I muttered, crossing the room to her, taking the trembling

hand she reached out to me. She was already a mess.

“Char?” Ben asked, and I heard the click of the door closing

behind him.

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She took a breath, forcing a smile. “Okay, so the other day I

blurted out about the worst day of my life, and you said you really

wanted to know.”

He was stunned; it was all over his face. The man had been

laughing and having a good time earlier, and now, suddenly, he was

stone cold sober. “Charlotte––”

“And I know it wasn’t just that, because you’ve known from other

things I’ve said, how weird I get sometimes in the dark or when we

went to that swingers’––”

“Charlotte!” he raised his voice, glancing at me and Rand. “I

don’t think––”

“I was excited to go.” She smiled, even though her eyes were

starting to moisten, redden. “I told Stef all about the retreat.”

His eyes snapped over to me. “She told you about that?”

But before I could answer, as she did in most situations, she

answered for me. “Seriously, Ben there’s nothing––and I mean really,

nothing—I don’t tell Stef.”

He opened his mouth to speak.

“Like remember the time you shot your wad so hard you hit the

cat?”

“Charlotte!” he coughed.

I smiled at him, giving him the big thumbs-up. “Nice distance, by

the way.”

His eyes were huge as he turned to look at Rand.

Charlotte’s brother clapped him on the back. “Not bad, but I don’t

have a cat. If you can hit one of my hunting dogs, I’ll be impressed.”

I could tell from his expression that of all the revelations of the

past few minutes, Rand joking around with him was the biggest. Ben

was looking at him like he’d grown another head. When his eyes hit

me, I just shrugged. I’d had no idea the man could laugh or tease or be

funny either. I had been just as surprised.

“So anyway,” Charlotte cleared her throat, “the point is I really

wanted to go. I mean, I’m as twisted and kinky as the next girl, but

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when we got there, it was just… I wasn’t expecting the bondage part of

it, and even that would have been okay, but––”

“You freaked when those two guys grabbed your arms.”

She nodded fast. “Yeah, I mean if the girls had strapped me in I

probably would have been all right, because the straps themselves, the

harness… that wasn’t like what happened, so it wouldn’t have

reminded me.”

“Char,” Ben began softly, taking a step toward her, “I don’t think

you really want Rand and Stef here when you––”

“Oh no,” she cut him off, lifting a hand to stop his progress. “I

have to have Stef here, and Rand… I mean, I should feel weird telling

him that his baby sister is willing to take part in a ménage or even an

orgy, but even though I talk a lot of trash about my brother… he’s still

my brother, and c’mon, I tell my family everything. Even my Mom

knows about the weekend with the swingers.”

“She does?” Ben gasped.

“Oh sure,” she nodded. “My family is not emotionally stunted

like yours is, Benjamin. We all talk about things.”

“Char––”

“But the only thing I’ve never told my mother or my brother or

you is about the worst day of my life,” she cut him off, squeezing my

hand, shifting on her feet so she was pressing against me. “And you

should know… I mean, I was telling Stef that I should’ve just told you

before, but I just––I never––”

“You were raped, weren’t you?” Ben swallowed hard, the

muscles in his jaw working.

I saw Rand’s brows furrow as he crossed his arms, waiting.

“Honey.” Ben’s voice was soft, caressing. “I don’t––”

“No,” she said, her voice small, nasally, as tears filled it, welling

up in her eyes. “I wasn’t raped. My friend Mandy was.”

No one moved or made a sound, and Charlotte took a breath.

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“See, I had this great idea in junior year that for me to really date

and meet lots of guys that I would move in with another girl and have

the cool bachelorette pad.” She nodded, taking another breath,

swallowing before she found her voice again. “And so I moved in with

my friend, Mandy Woods.”

“I don’t remember you living with anyone but Stef,” Rand said,

letting her focus on the most mundane part of the story for a moment so

she could get herself under control.

“I know.” She smiled through her tears. “Because it was so short.

I think it was like two months, and then I was back home… with Stef.”

She wiped quickly at her eyes, taking another quick breath.

“Love….” Ben moved closer, and when her hand didn’t stop him,

she retreated just a little behind me. It was enough to stop him.

“I can’t confess if I can’t get it out,” she told him.

He stopped, and his eyes flicked to mine. “I hate that you know

whatever this is and I don’t. It’s killin’ me.”

It had nearly killed me at the time.

“Okay,” she growled, shaking it off. “Sorry, I’m stronger than this

shit. Here’s what happened. I woke up because I heard screaming and

there was a man in my bed choking me.”

“Ohmigod, Char––”

“Shut up,” Rand said, his eyes never leaving Charlotte.

She gave a quick smile. “He told me that he’d kill me if I made

any noise, so of course the second he let me go, I screamed my head

off.”

No one made a sound.

“When he came at me again, I made it off the bed and out of the

room, and I would have made it out of the apartment, but I tripped over

Mandy,” she managed to get out before the sob took her voice.

My arm went around her, and she turned into me, face in my

shoulder, hands digging into my back as she clutched at me.

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“I thought… maybe I’ll write it down,” she cried and then

suddenly laughed, looking up at me. “Fuck, it’s like a goddamn oral

book report.”

I grunted out my agreement.

“Did you have to do those?”

“’Course. Your teacher gives you a choice. You can either stand

up in front of the class for three minutes or write a six page report.” I

smiled down at her, wiping away her tears. Her eyes were already

getting puffy. “I always stood up.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” she sighed. “I always wrote the six

pages.”

“Well,” I shrugged, “I am fantastic at oral.”

She coughed before snorting out a laugh. “God, leave it to you to

tarnish my memories of elementary school.”

“It’s a gift,” I assured her, wiping away more of her tears with my

hands. “Don’t cry anymore. You’re gonna look like shit for pictures

tomorrow.”

She giggled. “I know, right? I mean, you with your black eye and

me looking like ass, what’re people gonna think?”

“Who knows,” I grunted before blowing cold breath on her face.

“There, now finish. It was your brilliant idea to do this tonight.”

“Could… maybe you….” She shook her head, waving her hand at

me. That was it; her voice was gone.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. Somehow I had always

known that the explanation would fall to me. Looking over at Rand and

Ben, I realized how hurt Charlotte’s fiancé looked, and saw plainly the

fury stamped on her brother. Quick was better, the Band-Aid theory,

and so I took my own breath to settle the butterflies in my stomach.

“There were two men in the apartment. The police agreed that the

screaming Char heard was Mandy. She made it out of her bed after

being raped, but she didn’t make it out of the apartment. They caught

her and hit her, and she was just a little tiny thing, and….” How could I

explain all the blood? How broken she had looked with her throat cut?

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“So Charlotte fell down, but she got up fast.” I smiled down at my

friend for a moment. “And when she got up, she ran into the kitchen

and grabbed a knife.”

“You fought,” Rand said flatly, and Charlotte turned to look at

him and nodded.

“She did,” I told him. “And when Kevin Kramer went after her

and tried to grab her, he ended up dead.” I looked back down at her.

“Like he deserved, too, in that apartment with the girl he raped and

murdered.”

Charlotte nodded.

“Mandy’s parents think you’re a fuckin’ superhero.”

Another quick nod.

“But what about––”

“Stef came,” Charlotte gasped like she was surfacing from deep

underwater. “I turned around after I stabbed”—gulp of air—“Kevin in

the throat, and the other guy grabbed me and punched me, and he was

kicking me when the door opened and there was Stef.”

Two sets of eyes on me.

“I had a key,” I told them. “I called earlier, and she told me to

come and sleep over after I went out ’cause we were supposed to do

something the next day. So I got to the apartment and opened the door

and….” I shrugged.

It was hard, even after so long, even being so far removed from it,

to put everything into words. The blood, the man beating the shit out of

my friend, Charlotte’s face, the weight of knowing that in that instant, I

was all she had.

“Oh,” she sighed, easing away from me, and I saw her smile. I

opened my mouth to stop her. “No—no, you know I’m good during

this part. I can tell it from here, it’s just before, when I was scared and

alone… but then you came,” she said, turning to look at the two men

she had trusted with this story. “Stef just ran in, and the guy, Jared

Kenny, he tried to stab me, but Stef was there before he could.”

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Adrenaline was a scary thing. I had seen pieces. The guy, Jared,

had lunged at me, and before I even registered my action, my fist had

connected with his jaw. He fell hard and fast, and the second he hit the

ground, I kicked him. My motorcycle boot made mush of his face, but I

wanted to make sure he stayed down.

“When the police got there, it was all over.”

“Did Jared go to jail?”

She nodded. “He did.”

“And is he still there?”

“No, he died three weeks into his sentence.”

“Do you know––”

“Yes,” she cut Ben off. “The detective who took care of my case

told me. Another prisoner killed him.”

“Why?”

“The detective didn’t say.”

“How did the men get in the apartment?”

“Through Mandy’s window. She was forever leaving it open. I

told her all the time to… Stef even put a lock on it so all she had to do

was shut it, and it would… but she forgot.”

“Char––”

“When the police interviewed Jared, he told them that he and

Kevin were out shooting pool when they saw Mandy and decided to

follow her home.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged. “They got in through her window and raped her,

and when she got away and went to call the police, Jared stopped her.

He beat her up pretty bad before he slit her throat.”

There was a long silence.

“Is it okay,” Ben finally whispered, looking at Charlotte. “Could I

maybe hold you now?”

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She lifted her arms for him, and he lunged forward, grabbing her

tightly, crushing her against him.

“Oh baby,” he breathed into her shoulder, shivering hard. “I’m so