by Ravenna Tate
“He placed it on Mike’s desk and patted the bed next to him. Why?”
“Just curious about what he was typing, that’s all.”
The look of defeat on her face nearly broke his heart, “Well, I wish I had been more curious. Things might have turned out differently.”
“What happened next, Rosanna?” asked Dr. Thompson.
“I sat next to Mike instead of Brian, but Mike made a big show out of asking me to sit between him and Brian. He kept asking me why I didn’t like Brian, and if I couldn’t try to be nicer to his best friend.”
Mike no longer sounded like the peachy keen guy she’d first made him out to be, but Houston kept his mouth shut about that. He didn’t want to derail this on purpose. The implications of doing so were too dire to consider. His career was on the line here as it was, and so was Rosanna’s mental health.
“They kept teasing me, running their hands up my arms and stroking my hair, telling me to relax and just have fun with it. I drank another beer while I was in there, but I shouldn’t have.” Another sob escaped her throat. “If I hadn’t done that…”
“Rosanna, this wasn’t your fault,” said Dr. Thompson. “None of this was your fault.”
“How can you say that? I drove up there after lying to my parents. I’m the one who drank that extra beer, after I was in the room with both of them. I didn’t want Mike upset with me, so I did what I could to keep the peace.”
“That doesn’t make you responsible for their behavior,” said Houston. It made him sick to realize she wasn’t placing the blame for this where it belonged—on Mike and Brian.
This time, the look Dr. Thompson shot him was one of gratitude. “I agree with Houston. You were not the cause of these events. Are you all right to continue?”
“Yes. I knew where this was heading, and I wanted no part of it. Mike kissed me a couple of times, but when Brian touched me while Mike was kissing me, I bolted. I was dizzy, though. Like I said, I had drunk one beer too many. I started to head for the stairs, but was afraid I’d fall, so I looked around for a place to hide.”
Houston’s pulse raced. The dream she’d described about running for the stairs and knowing they would be her salvation suddenly made a lot of sense. He couldn’t listen to this. He was sure he’d punch a hole in the wall or something equally destructive before Rosanna finished.
“Mike came after me, and started yelling at me, right there in the hallway with people around. I was so damn embarrassed, and so angry with him!”
“What was he yelling at you about?” asked Dr. Thompson.
“That I was a rotten girlfriend because I wouldn’t have sex with him and Brian. I told him to go to hell, and that he had changed since hanging out with Brian. He said Brian was a good person, and only wanted to win a bet. That all I had to do was play along, and everything would be okay.”
“What bet was that?”
“I don’t know. And not because I can’t remember. Because I didn’t ask. The whole thing was already so infuriating and ridiculous. I told Mike I was leaving. But I knew there was no way I was going to drive in that condition. I couldn’t even navigate stairs. Then he … I can’t believe he did this to me. He grabbed me and pulled me back into the room.”
Tears spilled over her lids. Dr. Thompson reached for a tissue, but Houston wiped them away with his fingers first. Rosanna gave him the sweetest, most grateful look he’d ever seen on another human being’s face. The urge to take her out of there right now, even before she finished the story, was strong. He wanted to protect her from everything and everyone for the rest of her life.
Dr. Thompson handed her the tissue. “Can you continue, Rosanna?”
“Yes. I need to get this out.” She dabbed at her eyes. “He pulled me into the room and … I can’t give you all the details. I’ll just summarize it. You can fill in the blanks. I was too drunk by then to fight one of them off, let alone both. They took turns. I was more frightened and angry than hurt. They were pretty drunk so…” She gripped his hand again. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what this must be doing to you.”
“Don’t worry about me. Get this out, like Dr. Thompson said.” And then I’m going to find Mike Rowland and kill him.
“They were pretty drunk, so it didn’t last long. I thought I’d be okay. I thought once they finished, I would find a place to hide for a while, and then drive home when I knew I could.”
Fresh tears spilled over her lashes. “I didn’t realize Brian was recording it. Not yet. And I didn’t know about the bet going on because I hadn’t asked what Mike meant when he’d mentioned it. But when other guys came into the room, I understood.”
Houston grabbed another tissue and wiped her tears. The helplessness was overwhelming, and it killed him to realize that he had led her to this. These memories should have stayed buried for the rest of her life. He’d never forgive himself for this. Never.
“I didn’t count how many there were. I was too afraid, and too heartbroken that Mike would let this happen to me. I’m not even sure how long it went on. Maybe an hour. Maybe a bit longer. They were all pretty drunk so some of them couldn’t do much, if you know what I mean. Mike and Brian held me down, and they were laughing and high-fiving their buddies. I tried to go someplace else in my head until finally they were done.”
Whether it fucked up Dr. Thompson’s process or not, Houston no longer gave a shit. He pulled Rosanna close and held her while she cried, loudly, with huge racking sobs he was certain would cause her to stop breathing. He stroked her hair and her back, whispering words he no longer believed.
She would not get past this. Who the fuck possibly could? This would not be okay. Not now, not ever. Because now Houston knew the truth of the night Brian Wayside was killed.
Chapter Eighteen
“What did you do once it was over?” asked Dr. Thompson, gently.
“Brian left, but he didn’t take his laptop. I remember that because of what happened the next morning. But once it was finally over, Mike fell asleep. The kind of sleep you have when you pass out drunk. I knew he wouldn’t wake up for hours.”
“Is that when you left?”
“No. Brian grabbed me and kissed me, right on the mouth. When I pulled away he laughed at me, and said I was a natural. I told him I was calling the cops, and he said his parents would never let anything happen to him. He finally left the room, saying something about finding a more willing girl.”
She pulled out of his embrace and wiped her eyes again. “I found a bathroom and cleaned myself up. There were still so many people there, but no one was paying attention to me. I was so confused. Everything was foggy. I should have told someone, but it was like I couldn’t even process my own thoughts. I remember thinking I needed to see a doctor, and that I really should call the police, but I had no idea where my phone was. I couldn’t think straight!”
“JoElle,” Rosanna asked, turning to glance toward Dr. Thompson, “do you think that’s when the memory loss began?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I can certainly understand why you weren’t sure what to do. You were likely in shock, Rosanna. What else do you remember about that night?”
“Only that I curled up in the chair in Mike’s room and fell asleep. I didn’t want to stay in there, but I knew I couldn’t drive home, and I wasn’t sure where else to go. I definitely didn’t want to run into Brian again. Not until I felt better. The next morning, Mike wasn’t in the room. I don’t know where he was. That’s when I saw Brian’s laptop, and the flash drive still in it.”
Rosanna sat up straighter. “I was only on his computer long enough to determine he hadn’t downloaded anything from the flash drive to the machine itself, and to realize he’d recorded everything he and Mike had done to me. I took the flash drive and put it in my bag.”
“Did anyone know you took it?”
“Not yet. My phone was still in my bag. I remember that because I checked it to see if my parents had tried to call me the night before. They ha
d not. After that, I went into the bathroom. I was in there a long time, crying, trying to get myself under control so I could drive home. That was the only thing I could seem to focus on. I just wanted to get out of there and go home.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“No. I know I should have, but all I wanted to do was put it behind me. I wanted to forget it. Did I make myself do this? Did I cause myself to push this away for so long?”
“I doubt it, Rosanna. It was a protective mechanism. You’d suffered a terrible betrayal, not to mention sexual abuse from multiple men. You weren’t able to handle it, so your conscious mind buried it for you.”
“But now it’s back…”
“And we will deal with it. I promise you that. What happened when you left the frat house?”
“Before I left, Brian was downstairs, looking for the flash drive. Another guy was there with him. I don’t remember his name, but he was telling Brian to chill. Brian looked at me, and I don’t know how he knew, but he did. He may have even said something about it. But I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I can’t believe I was so brave that morning. I ignored him and left.”
“Did he follow you?” asked Houston. He already knew the answer. What she’d just told them corroborated Gareth’s account of that morning. But Houston had to know what happened between the time she left the frat house, and when Brian fell and hit his head on that rock.
“Not right away. I was almost to my car when he caught up to me. I had parked in a public lot down the street because there was no room to park near the frat house. Brian grabbed my arm, and I swung my bag, catching him in the face with it. Then he started swearing at me and pulled me away from the parking lot, into the empty field next to it. I was swearing, too, and I called him a lot of really terrible names, not that he didn’t deserve all of them.”
That’s for sure.
“The flash drive fell out of my bag during my struggles to get away from him, and he bent down to get it. I hit him in the face again with the bag and he fell.”
The noise she made gave Houston nasty chills again. It was the sound a wounded animal makes, when it knows it’s going to die. She put a hand to her mouth. “He wasn’t moving, but I left him there. I just left him there and ran to my car.”
“How did you make it home like that?” asked Dr. Thompson, in a tone that suggested she was in awe instead of seeking information. Houston couldn’t help wondering the same thing.
“I don’t know. I just drove. I shut it out and kept telling myself it wasn’t real. That it had happened to someone else. That once I got home, it would all disappear and I’d be okay.”
“Do you remember what you did with the flash drive, babe?”
Confusion filled her face. “No. Why can’t I remember that? I remember everything else…”
At first, the look Rosanna gave him was guarded, but then her eyes widened. His heart nearly stopped as he watched the light bulb go off in her head. She had just put two and two together.
“Oh my God. Houston … no. Please tell me it’s not the same person.”
He had two clear choices. Lie to her and pretend he’d never heard any of this, or tell her the truth and ruin her life.
****
I killed him. I killed Brian Wayside.
“Houston … please. I have to know.” No, you don’t. “Is Brian the freshman you talked about in your old case?”
“You discussed a case with her?” asked JoElle, with unmistakable disapproval in her voice.
“Not the details. No names. That’s always been our rule.”
Until now.
Regardless, JoElle looked really uncomfortable, and Rosanna was certain she’d puke. She stared into Houston’s handsome face, willing it not to be true, but already knowing it was.
“He’s one and the same, babe. But I didn’t know that, of course, until now.”
“Oh my God. What do we do? You have to tell someone what I remember.”
“You weren’t here, listening to her recount the lost memories, as a detective.”
Houston gave JoElle a droll look. “I am aware of that. And I’m also aware that you are not obligated, by law, to divulge any of this.”
Why were they discussing the law right now? “Did I kill him or not?”
The look of pain Houston gave her nearly tore her heart in two. He would have to tell his Commander. He had no choice. She knew how things worked. “I don’t know the answer to that. Do you remember when you heard about his death?”
“No. I went home and pretended nothing had happened. My parents never knew I was gone that weekend. No one did. Every day, I would push it away if it tried to surface, until one day all of it was simply gone. But now I can recall the months afterward. My grades started to slip, so I forced myself to keep pushing it down even further. I knew without a doubt that if my father started grilling me about why my grades were falling, I wouldn’t be able to keep it from him. And he would have killed Mike. I’m certain of it.”
“When did you see Mike again?”
“Never. He texted me and called me for weeks afterward, but I blocked his number eventually. I never even read the text messages or listened to his voice mail messages…” Rosanna put a hand to her mouth as her voice trailed off. “If I had, I would have known Brian was dead.”
“Would that have changed anything?” asked Houston.
“Yes. I would have gone to the police.” Or you would have withdrawn even further.
“Not necessarily, babe. It’s pointless to speculate as to what you might or might not have done.”
“That’s easy to say now.”
“Rosanna,” asked JoElle, leaning forward, “How much time did you suppress?”
“I’m not even sure. At least a year, because most of the second half of my sophomore year was gone, through that summer, and into part of my junior year. Mike didn’t come home for the summer. I know that much because I remember being relieved. It meant I didn’t have to see him, or explain to my parents why I wanted nothing to do with him ever again.”
“Did they ask why you weren’t still seeing him?”
“I don’t recall. Since they didn’t approve of him, I think they were happy about it, so probably decided saying nothing was best.”
“But you recall all of the missing time now, is that correct?”
“Yes. It’s all there. Everything is back.” She glanced toward Houston. “What happens to me now?”
“We get you something to eat and I take you home.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re a detective. This is your case. You finally know what happened that night. You have to do something about that.”
“I can’t discuss it with you, Rosanna, or with Dr. Thompson. There are already so many complications with this…” He ran his hand through his hair, which scared her more than anything. “This is totally fucked up already. I need to think about the best way to handle it.”
The three of them glanced toward each other in turn. Rosanna didn’t have to be an attorney or a police officer to understand what Houston meant. She’d seen enough of their firm’s clients walk because of situations far less complex than this one.
If Houston didn’t go to his Commander and tell him everything he’d learned here this afternoon, they could bring him up on charges. Even if he did go to him, the DA might not be able to do anything about it because he hadn’t mirandized her beforehand. The fact that he hadn’t known she was about to confess to a crime was a sticky technicality that the attorneys she worked for had sometimes used to get their clients acquitted, or at least to have the charges reduced.
How was she supposed to reconcile this? She didn’t want to be let off on a technicality. She’d pushed Brian and he fell. He struck his head on a rock and bled into his brain, after dragging himself into that field. He’d lain there for four days, dying, and no one knew where he was. No matter what he’d done to her at the party, no one deserved to die in such a horrible and frightening way.
Yes, they had gang raped her, but no one got put to death for that crime. Why hadn’t she gone to the police? That had to be the single most idiotic thing she’d ever neglected to do. Aside from driving up to the campus that weekend, of course.
No wonder she’d buried the memories. They should have stayed there. She’d been a damn fool to think letting them loose was a good thing. If she’d had any clue this was what she had suppressed, she’d never have gone through with the hypnosis.
Now, her life was ruined, and so was Houston’s unless he went straight to his Commander and told him everything. He could lose his job otherwise. He could go to jail. And she was the root cause. This was her fault. She’d been a stupid sixteen-year-old girl who thought she was in love with a boy who turned out to be a rat bastard. And now, twelve years later, the only man she’d ever truly loved was screwed because of it.
Chapter Nineteen
Calling in sick at work the rest of the week unleashed a flurry of unwanted attention. In all the years she’d worked at the Graves Law Firm, she had taken fewer than ten sick days. Consequently, everyone was very worried. She had lied, saying she had the ‘flu. It had been easy to pull off because she looked and felt like hell.
She hadn’t even had to ask Houston to retrieve her car from the garage. Two of the other paralegals showed up at her apartment Tuesday afternoon, took her car keys, and brought the car back to her, along with homemade chicken soup.
Houston had stayed with her Monday night, but ended up heading into work at four in the morning because of a new case he and Annie had caught. Rosanna hadn’t slept more than ten minutes at a time anyway.
When he showed up after work on Tuesday, she asked him if he’d told Ty or Annie what he had learned. His answer was a noncommittal grunt, and she lost it. “If you don’t tell them by tomorrow, I’m driving to the station and doing it myself.”
