by Brenda Novak
Being pregnant and not using it to snag Logan was definitely a missed opportunity. She realized that now. But she’d been young and naive and so afraid of her mother finding out. She’d thought there’d be other opportunities, but she hadn’t gotten pregnant since her second abortion.
“Anyway, the number doesn’t matter,” she told her sister. “Just because I’ve had sex with a few guys doesn’t mean I wanted to have sex with this one.”
Tatiana had reseated herself in the corner. “But you told me yourself that he was handsome. You said if I saw him, I’d stand in line to be with him. What was it about him you didn’t like?”
Nothing. That was the problem. Luke Trussell was everything she’d ever wanted. Luke was Logan, only better. The way he’d made love to her had been different than all the others. He hadn’t been quick or rough or selfish. He’d treated her with respect, made her feel like he cared about her. And that was the worst cruelty of all because his gentleness made it so difficult to settle for less.
“I wasn’t in the mood for sex and he forced it, okay?”
“Fine,” Tati said with a sigh. “Forget I said anything. I—You’re my sister, and I love you regardless. So, come on. I have to prepare a lady who came in yesterday for her funeral on Monday.”
“I think I’m going to leave.” Kalyna fingered the frayed hole in her blue jeans. What kind of vacation was this? Taking shit from her parents again, helping her sister work. Besides, she really wanted to see Luke again, wanted to see how her actions were affecting him.
“Leave when?” Tati asked.
“Tonight.”
“No!” Her sister got up and came over to take her hands. “Not so soon, Kalyna. I’ll be sad if you go. Talk to me while I work. Then we’ll go out to dinner, my treat, and you can tell me what it’s like in California.”
“What about Mom and Dad? Will they let you out of their sight?” The Harters were so worried she’d somehow corrupt Tatiana that they wouldn’t be happy to see them go out alone. You’re nasty, her mother had once told her. Weird. Don’t you dare put evil thoughts in your sister’s head. She’s a sweet thing, got a chance of being normal.
“They can’t object if we invite them,” Tati said.
“I don’t want to invite them.” Kalyna wasn’t sure how much more of her parents she could tolerate. Do you know what a court-martial is?…Damn it, girl, we should’ve turned you over to the state when we had the chance…Oh, for crying out loud! You weren’t raped! You can’t rape the willing, Kalyna…How many abortions have you had, anyway?
“Give them another chance,” Tati coaxed. “They’ll be nicer. You’ve driven all this way.”
And she didn’t have the money yet to get herself home. Maybe she’d been wrong to let her parents upset her. Norma and Dewayne had never liked her, not from the beginning, so nothing had changed. She’d come mostly to see her sister.
So she should stay for the weekend, as originally planned.
“Okay,” she relented.
Tati smiled and clasped her in a quick embrace. “Let’s go,” she said, but Kalyna stayed behind long enough to slip Luke’s picture back into her purse.
10
When Kalyna’s phone rang, she was with her sister at their favorite Mexican restaurant on Main Street, enjoying an after-dinner margarita. Her parents hadn’t joined them because they’d bought some fast food when they dropped off the hearse, or so they said. Kalyna didn’t believe them. She knew they didn’t want to be around her. It was a miracle they’d agreed to let Tati have dinner with her at all. Chances were they wouldn’t have if Tati hadn’t pulled them aside for a whispered conference.
“Don’t you want to answer that?” Tatiana asked when Kalyna merely silenced the ringer.
“Not right now.” Caller ID showed a Sacramento area code, and Kalyna wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to anyone in California. Why deal with the backlash of leaving just when she was finally beginning to have some fun? But when the call came in again fifteen minutes later, she reconsidered. It didn’t matter who found out she was gone. Her disappearance from the base wouldn’t remain a secret for long. Major Ogitani had probably already been notified that she hadn’t reported for work today.
She pressed the Talk button. “Hello?”
“Kalyna? It’s Ava Bixby from The Last Stand.”
Kalyna had suspected it had to do with the case. She didn’t know very many people in Sacramento, other than a few guys she’d met at various dance places and bars.
Taking another sip of her margarita, she relaxed. There wasn’t as much at stake with Ava as Ogitani. “What can I do for you, Ava?” she said.
“Who is it?” Tati wanted to know.
Kalyna covered the mouthpiece. “My caseworker at the victim’s charity in California.”
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Ava asked.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Good, because I think we need to talk.”
Something was up. Kalyna could tell by Ava’s tone. In case this developed into a conversation she didn’t want Tatiana overhearing, she started to get out of the booth. “Hang on a sec.” She covered the mouthpiece again. “It’s about the rape,” she explained. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
She felt Tati’s gaze follow her as she walked through the restaurant. It wasn’t until she stepped outside and the door closed behind her that she had the privacy she needed. “I’m back.” She picked a spot at the corner of the building, under the eaves, where she had a clear view of the door and the walkway from the parking lot.
“I got off the phone with your mother a little while ago,” Ava announced.
A surge of anger made Kalyna grip her phone tighter. She hadn’t expected this. Not from Ava. “You called my mother? Why?”
“To be honest, I’m a little confused.”
“About what?”
“I’m getting conflicting stories, Kalyna.”
Kalyna’s stomach knotted painfully. “Then why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because I wanted her perspective.”
“Do you always investigate the victim instead of the perpetrator?”
“I investigate both. I can’t look at a crime separately from the people involved—on both sides. That’d be like taking a controversial comment out of context. And a man’s freedom could be at stake. We can’t get this wrong.”
Kalyna smashed a beetle scurrying across the concrete near her foot. “I still don’t understand why you had to talk to my mother. If you’d asked me, I could’ve told you she hates me.”
“So far, all I have is your account of what happened on June 6, Kalyna. What I need is another witness, some evidence, something to corroborate it. Can you help me out with that?”
“It’s not just my account,” Kalyna argued. “What about Luke’s semen? They swabbed my—”
“That proves you had sex,” she interrupted, “not that he forced you.”
“And the pictures? They prove force. You saw what he did to me.”
“Again, we have only your word that he’s the one who gave you those injuries.”
“There wasn’t time for anyone else to come in. You said so yourself.”
“Your mother suggested another scenario.”
Kalyna wrapped her free arm around her middle to control the nervous feeling in her stomach. Her mother had betrayed her once again. From the time Kalyna had moved in she could remember her mother pulling her father aside to complain about her. That child’s not right, Dewayne, she’d say, and he’d click his tongue against his teeth and shake his head as if he agreed. “My mother wasn’t there. How would she know what happened?”
“She raised you. She knows your history.”
“You can’t listen to her! Do you have any idea what it was like growing up with her as my mother?”
Ava’s slight hesitation encouraged her.
“She kept us locked up in that morgue, day and night. If we did anything wrong, left a smidgeon of food on our plates
or…or forgot to pick up a toy, she’d put us in the cooler with the dead bodies and turn off the lights.”
“Do you have any proof of that?” Ava’s voice was less strident. Kalyna had managed to evoke some doubt. But how could she prove her words? She couldn’t.
“No, of course not. We didn’t dare tell anyone or she’d do worse.”
“When you say we, you’re talking about your twin sister?”
“Yes, Tatiana.”
“Will she corroborate these events?”
Kalyna began to chew on the ends of her hair like she used to do as a child. She wasn’t completely certain of her sister anymore; maybe it hadn’t been smart to drag Tati into this. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “She might have blocked it all out. Besides, it wasn’t quite as bad for her.”
“Why not?” Ava sounded doubtful again.
“My parents liked her better. They still do.”
“Do you have any other siblings?”
The heat was causing her clothes to stick to her. It was nearly nine o’clock but it didn’t cool off in Arizona the way it did in California. “No. My adoptive parents had fertility problems. They did have one son, but he was only two when he drowned in a neighbor’s pool.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I didn’t know him. That was before my first set of American parents gave us up. But my mother never got over his death. I could never measure up to her own precious child.” She added some extra bitterness to her voice for good measure but secretly smiled at how she’d tormented her mother over Robert’s death. She used to get his little shoes out of the attic and place them on Norma’s bed, shove his blanket between the sheets, knock his picture from the wall.
“Why didn’t you go to school, Kalyna?” Ava asked.
“My mother wouldn’t let me or my sister. She home-schooled us. I told you that already.”
“Yes, you did. You said you followed the curriculum just enough to keep the state off your backs.”
“That’s true.”
There was another pause, then Ava said, “Your mother told me you sometimes used to hurt yourself.”
“You think that’s where I got those injuries?”
“I’m wondering.”
She wiped the sweat from her upper lip. It wasn’t only the heat; it was nerves. She felt like she was melting. “That’s ridiculous! How many people do you know who purposely cause their own injuries?”
“I don’t know any,” Ava conceded. “But I’ve heard it happens.”
“With psychos, maybe. But I’m not psycho. How could my own mother say such a terrible thing?” The tears that began to fall were real. Kalyna felt hemmed in on all sides. First her parents had let her know they weren’t happy to see her. Then Tatiana had played the intermediary, making it plain that she held far more sway with them. And now this. Kalyna couldn’t take much more. Everyone was turning against her. “She’s always lied about me. She wants to make sure I have no one I can talk to who’ll trust me. She enjoys hurting me, enjoys alienating me from any friends I might make.”
“Kalyna, calm down,” Ava said.
But Kalyna couldn’t calm down. If she allowed Ava to believe she was lying, Ava would feel obligated to tell Major Ogitani, and then Major Ogitani would very likely drop the case. After that, Kalyna would have no hope of ever speaking to Luke again. They’d assign her to a new flight squadron or possibly transfer her off the base. Or worse…bring her up on charges. Even if she stayed at Travis and managed to avert legal trouble, he’d go out of his way to avoid her. He’d get with another woman who was just as eager to be his lover, and she’d be left as she was before—with a craving only he could fulfill.
At that thought, she released a racking sob.
“Kalyna, stop,” Ava said, growing more insistent.
“I was raped! And because Luke has more friends and better parents, he’ll get away with it.” She hiccuped in her effort to draw enough breath to continue. “My own mother’s ruining my chances for justice!”
“Why would she do that?”
“I told you, she hates me. And she knows if this goes to court the truth’ll come out. Don’t you understand? Major Ogitani plans to establish what my childhood was like. My mother could go to prison herself for what she did to me!”
“Shutting you in the cooler was bad, but…are you talking about more than that?”
“Yes! She backhanded me at every opportunity, pinched me really hard, bent my fingers back, kicked me. Once she shoved me down the stairs and broke my arm!” Kalyna had told this story so many times she couldn’t remember what parts of it were true. Although her parents had used corporal punishment, she was pretty sure they’d never broken her arm. But it didn’t matter. Their cruelty went beyond spanking.
“Is there a record of that? Did she take you to a doctor or hospital?”
“No. It had to heal on its own. Luckily it was probably only a fracture.”
The gritty feel of the bricks behind her seeped into Kalyna’s consciousness, and the temptation to bang her head began to well up like bile. Sometimes the desire to destroy herself stole over her, a kind of madness so consuming that once it took root, she couldn’t overcome it. She wanted to knock herself senseless, claw at her arms and face, pull out her hair. I hate you. I hate you, she kept saying in her mind. But she wasn’t sure if she was addressing Ava Bixby, her adoptive mothers, her birth mother or herself.
“Kalyna, listen to me! Calm down so we can talk.”
“What?” She was already yanking on her hair, pulling out a fistful.
“Did anyone ever see the bruises your mother left?”
“Of course. But she’d tell them what she told you. That I hurt myself.”
Tatiana poked her head out of the restaurant. “Kalyna—” She fell silent when she saw Kalyna crying. “Are you okay?”
Her sister’s appearance made Kalyna let go of her hair. She couldn’t bang or scratch or pull, not in Tati’s presence. She’d promised her family she’d stopped all that, that it was a childish compulsion she’d outgrown. They wouldn’t believe she was what she said she was if they knew she was still injuring herself. “No, I’m not okay!” she told Tati. “I need you. I need you to come here.”
Tatiana rushed forward. “What is it?”
“They’re going to let him off. They’re going to let him go.”
“Who?”
Kalyna made no attempt to hide or wipe her tears. “The man who raped me!”
Her sister began to stutter. “They—they won’t do that if—if there’s enough evidence to convict him.”
“They won’t if you tell this lady the truth.”
“What?”
“My sister will tell you what it was like,” she said into the phone. “She saw it all—went through it, too.” She thrust her cell at Tati.
Tati tried to swat it away. “No! What are you doing?”
“You have to tell Ava what Mom did to us. You have to tell her about the beatings.”
Her eyes as round as silver dollars, Tati made a second attempt to refuse the phone, but Kalyna was having none of it. “Do it,” she whispered.
“But I don’t want to get involved!”
“Come on. You’re my sister!”
The misery that registered on Tati’s face revealed how torn she felt. What the hell was happening that even her twin sister would hesitate to help her? Was everyone in her life bound to disappoint her?
“If you won’t do this for me, I’ll leave, disappear, and you’ll never see me again!” Kalyna threatened.
“But, Kalyna—” Tati pleaded.
“Mom beat us!”
“No worse than most moms. And only when we acted up.”
“I don’t care. All I’m asking is that you say it.” She pressed the phone on her again. “Say it!”
Keeping her hand over the mouthpiece, Tati opened her mouth to argue some more, but the murderous look Kalyna gave her quelled further protest. She put the phone to he
r ear. “H-hello?…Who’s this?…I’m Tatiana…Yes…Kalyna’s sister.”
Kalyna held her breath.
“It was difficult at times…”
“Speak up,” Kalyna prompted, but Tatiana didn’t even glance at her.
“We—we sometimes struggled to get along with our new parents…What’d you say? Did Kalyna ever harm herself?” Tati’s eyes finally sought Kalyna, and Kalyna shook her head.
Tati licked her lips. “N-no. Of course Kalyna would never do that…My m-mother doesn’t like outsiders to know about our private lives…Yes…Yes, that’s true…Mmm-hmm…” She closed her eyes. “Of course…You’re welcome.”
By the time she finished the conversation, her voice was so small, Kalyna wondered if Ava could hear her, but she accepted the phone when Tati handed it back.
“What have I done?” she heard Tati mumble, but she ignored her.
“Hello,” she said to Ava.
There was no answer.
“Hello?”
“Oh—sorry, I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Your sister seems like a very nice person.”
Kalyna watched Tati slide down the wall and bury her face in her arms. “She is. We’ve always been as close as two sisters can be.” Or so she’d thought until recently….
“I’m sorry your original adoption didn’t turn out as you’d hoped—as anyone would hope. It’s a tragic story.”
“As long as you know my current mother’s lying about me,” Kalyna said.
“This isn’t an easy case,” Ava responded.
Sensing another chance to convince her, Kalyna spoke even more earnestly. “I know. But it’ll be fine if you’ll help. Stick by me, okay? I need you.”
There was another pause, then Kalyna heard Ava sigh. “I’ll do my best.”
At this, Kalyna pulled her sweat-dampened blouse away from her skin. “Does that mean you’re keeping the case?”
“I guess,” she said, but she sounded resigned rather than dedicated.
