Before You

by Jenna Bennett

  “Cassie doesn’t know how to dress.” Not to attract the attention of someone like him. He probably wouldn’t have looked at me twice if it hadn’t been for Mackenzie’s hot pink, short, tight dress.

  “Don’t try to be somebody you’re not. Who you are is fine.” He stopped in front of the entrance to the hotel. “We’re here.”

  We were, and sooner than I wanted to be. I glanced over my shoulder at the lighted lobby, and back at him. “You... um... you wanna come upstairs?”

  Part of me hoped he’d say yes. The other part was terrified that he would.

  He smiled. “I don’t think I’d better.”

  “We wouldn’t have to... I mean... we could just...”

  The smile broadened. “Thanks, but I’d better get back. It was nice to meet you, Cassie.”

  “You too,” I said.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around. Tomorrow.”

  “I’d like that.”

  I waited, but when he didn’t make any kind of move, either toward me or away, I took a step closer and went up on my toes to kiss his cheek.

  “Thank you for walking me home.” Or not exactly home, but— “Here,” I amended. “Thanks for walking me here.”

  He smelled good, like soap and fresh air. “You’re welcome. I was happy to do it.”

  “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” I nodded to the door.

  “Maybe some other time. When you’re sober.”

  “I’m not drunk.” A little tipsy, maybe. But just a little.

  He smiled. “I didn’t say you were. But when I take a girl to bed, I like her to remember me the next morning.”

  “I’d remember you,” I said.

  “Good. Then I’ll see you later.” He winked, and this time he did walk away.

  I stood there for a second and watched, just in case he changed his mind. But although he did look over his shoulder once, it was only to point to the door to the hotel. I sighed and went inside.

  Foiled again.

  SINCE I’D gone to bed early and alone, I had no problem waking up with the sun the next morning. Or if not exactly with the sun, it was fairly early by the time I made my way out of the hotel for a walk on the beach.

  I’d snagged a croissant from the continental breakfast bar on my way past, and was munching as I walked. Where the beach met the street, I stopped to kick off my shoes and walk barefoot in the sand.

  I’d told Ty the truth about where I’d grown up. A small town in the middle of Ohio, surrounded by cornfields and cows. Dirt, earth, and grass. As landlocked as it’s possible to get.

  Now that I lived in Chicago, I couldn’t get enough of the lake. It was gorgeous, and looked sort of like the ocean.

  Until I came to Key West. The knowledge that this really was the ocean, that if I started swimming, the next thing I’d reach was Cuba, was mind-blowing.

  You’re not in Kansas anymore, Cassie.

  Or Ohio. Or even Chicago.

  It was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Breathtaking. The beach was white, the water a clear azure blue. The lake was pretty, but not pretty like this.

  And I had it almost to myself. The streets had been deserted when I walked through town. Key West was definitely a vacation-town: people stayed up half the night and slept in. Most of the businesses were still closed—with the exception of the hotels and coffee shops—and the few people I’d seen had been dragging themselves home, still thinking it was yesterday. Today wouldn’t be starting for them until they’d had some sleep.

  The beach had only a few people on it. An older couple strolled hand in hand in the surf. A woman jogged with a small dog on a leash. What looked like a homeless man was curled up in sleep, bearded and scruffy. This was probably paradise for people like him. It never got cold and rarely got uncomfortable here.

  There were no homeless in Braxton. Everyone in town knows everyone else, and no one would let that happen to any of us.

  There were a lot of homeless in Chicago, and I always felt bad when I saw them huddled on the corners in the snow.

  I gave the man a wide berth and kept going. Next up were a couple of college kids, probably not homeless, but also sleeping on the beach. Wrapped in each other’s arms, like Romeo and Juliet. The girl had her head on the guy’s shoulder, and his arm lay across her waist. She had long, shiny, dark hair that spread across his chest and her face, and for a second I thought it was Quinn, but it wasn’t.

  Of course not. Quinn had spent the night in the hotel.

  There were footsteps behind me, and then a voice. “Everything OK?”

  I turned and smiled at Ty. “Seems to be.”

  “Someone you know?” He was hardly breathless at all, even though his chest was glistening with sweat. His very, very bare chest.

  Whoa. Nice six-pack under that fake FBI shirt he wasn’t wearing.

  “Um...” I said, scrambling to remember what it was he’d asked before I got bowled over by the visuals. Oh, right. “No. At first it looked a little like Quinn. Same hair. But it isn’t.”

  He peered past me. “They look all right. We should probably just let ‘em sleep.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t thought to do anything different.

  Now that we’d established that everything was fine, I figured he’d probably take off running again, but when I started walking, he fell into step beside me. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Headache?”

  I shook my head. “I told you. I wasn’t drunk.”

  He nodded. “You’re up early.”

  “So are you.”

  He grinned. “I wasn’t drunk either.”

  I hadn’t thought he was.

  We walked a few steps in silence. Until he glanced at me. “So tell me, what’s a nice girl—a preacher’s kid, no less—doing in Key West for spring break?”

  “Whatever she wants,” I said, and got a smile for my trouble.

  I basked in it for a moment before I continued. “I told you. Mackenzie wanted to come. Spring break is kind of part of the whole college experience.”

  He didn’t say anything, and I added, “It’s like she’s two different people, you know? America’s Sweetheart—the one everybody knows about, and when she goes out with a new guy, his face is all over the internet the next day. But the rest of the time she’s just plain Mackenzie Forbes. The one who wants a normal life without everyone watching her every move.”

  He nodded. “But that’s Mackenzie. What made Cassie decide to come to Key West?”

  “Other than that Mackenzie asked me and Quinn to go with her? I guess it’s the same reason, really. Just different.”

  He looked confused, and I tried to explain. “I grew up in a small town. The kind where everybody knows everybody else. You couldn’t step a toe over the line without somebody noticing.”

  Mackenzie has the whole world watching her. I only had all of Braxton. But it was still frustrating.

  “Yeah,” Ty said, “but you’re in Chicago now. And probably have been for a couple of years, right?”

  Right. But campus was really just like a small town, and somehow I seemed to have taken my reputation with me. Somehow, word had gotten around.

  Stay away from Cassie Wilder, her dad’s a preacher.

  Stay away from Cassie Wilder, she’s still a virgin.

  The word might as well be tattooed across my forehead in big, red letters, the way all the guys I’d met in Chicago had steered clear of me. You’d think someone might be interested in being a girl’s first, but no. At the rate I was going, I’d graduate a virgin.

  Hell, at the rate I was going, I’d probably die one.

  But of course I couldn’t tell Ty any of that. If he knew, he wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore, either.

  So I settled for a slightly more general version of the truth.

  “I guess I thought Key West might be somewhere where I could be someone else for a while.” Someone more exciting and less virginal. Less ‘nice.’ Hence the sho
rt and tight dress he’d commented on yesterday. And hence the glass of Sex on the Beach I’d managed to choke down before I gave up and ordered Sprite instead.

  With a wedge of lime, so I wouldn’t look like the loser I was.

  “I think you’re probably fine the way you are,” Ty said.

  “Thank you.” Although I obviously wasn’t fine enough for him to want anything to do with.

  By now we were nearing the end of the beach, marked by a big pile of stones reaching out into the ocean. I had my mouth open to suggest that maybe we needed to turn back, when Ty stopped. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  He glanced at me. “Stay here.”

  “What? Why?”

  But by then I’d seen what he’d seen. “Oh, my God. Is she alive?”

  He didn’t tell me again to stay where I was. And when I followed him up the beach to the girl sprawled there, he didn’t tell me not to.

  She was my age, or maybe a year or two younger. A freshman or sophomore? So pale her skin was almost the same color as the sand, and with light hair, as well. If it hadn’t been for the splotch of pink fabric a few feet away, I’m not sure we would have noticed her.

  She was naked except for a pair of hoop earrings. A bra lay a few feet away, virginal white, and farther on, what looked like a dress, similar to the one I’d worn last night. Bright and tight. That’s what I’d noticed, and probably Ty too. A pair of flip-flops was scattered, one in one direction, one in the other.

  There were bruises on her thighs, I saw, and a trickle of something dark—maybe blood? And that’s as much as I had time for, because Ty turned to me, his voice tight. “Got your phone on you?”

  I blinked at him, stupidly, before the words registered. “Yes.”

  “Call 9-1-1. Tell them we need an ambulance and the cops.”

  He turned back to the girl without waiting for my answer.

  I fumbled my phone out of the pocket of my shorts, my hands shaking. “Is she alive?” She must be, right? If he thought an ambulance could do her any good?

  He nodded, on his knees next to her. “Just unconscious.”

  “Oh. Good.” I managed to punch in the right numbers and hold the phone to my ear. When the dispatcher came on, I even managed to relay the information, though my teeth were chattering. “They’ll be here in ten minutes,” I told Ty when I’d hung up, my voice shaking.

  His brows lowered. “They didn’t tell you to stay on the phone?”

  I shook my head.

  “They’re supposed to do that.”

  “Maybe they only have one phone line. Maybe she needed it to call the ambulance and the police.”

  He shrugged and turned back to the girl on the sand. I took a careful step closer—but not too close. I felt guilty, like I should be doing something, but I didn’t know what, and besides, she was so very... naked. It seemed wrong to be staring at her, but at the same time, it was impossible not to.

  I looked out toward the ocean and then back. “Shouldn’t we... do something?”

  “We are doing something,” Ty said. “We’ve called the cops.”

  “I mean for her. CPR or something?”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t need help breathing. She’s alive. She’s just not waking up.” There was a trace of something, almost like anger, in his voice. Or maybe it was frustration. That made more sense.

  I twined my fingers together. “What do you think happened?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He glanced up at me, his eyes as hard and cold as emeralds. “She went out drinking, picked up the wrong guy, and got raped.”

  Oh, God. What little color was left in my cheeks drained out. I’d suspected it, of course—like he said, it was obvious—but it was different to hear him say it. I swallowed. “Are you sure?”

  My voice came out in a whisper.

  He looked at me, probably about to say something scathing—but then he didn’t. Instead he closed his eyes for a second and took a breath. And another. When he opened them again, they were back to normal. So was his voice. “No. I’m not sure. I’m guessing. She’s naked, on the beach, and she looks like she’s had rough sex. Somebody was with her last night. Somebody who left her here. But I don’t know that she was raped.”

  I nodded. That was a slight improvement, even if he’d only said it to make me feel better.

  IT FELT like an eternity before the ambulance and police cars arrived, but in reality, it wasn’t even ten minutes. More like seven or eight.

  They drove right up on the beach, and over to where we were. Two police cars and one ambulance. The police cars had suns peeping out from behind the P in Police, and their slogan was Protecting and Serving Paradise.

  A couple of officers in uniform began stringing crime scene tape around the area with the body. Another guy in regular clothes came out of the second car, while two paramedics hopped down from the ambulance and dragged a gurney out of the back.

  Ty got to his feet and stepped up next to me.

  The plain-clothes cop stalked up to us. “You the ones who called it in?”

  Ty glanced at me. I nodded.

  “Ricky Fuentes, Key West PD.” He flashed a badge. Unnecessary, when I’d just seen him come out of a police car, but maybe he had to. Procedure. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

  His voice had just a trace of a Spanish accent, and he had big, dark eyes, and golden skin. He was no taller than Ty, but somehow he seemed to tower over both of us. I swallowed.

  “I was running,” Ty said evenly. “Cassie was walking. We got down here and saw her.”

  Fuentes looked at me. “Name?”

  I cleared my throat. “Cassandra Wilder.”

  “How long are you in town for, Cassandra?”

  “We came on Saturday,” I said, wishing my voice was as even as Ty’s. It wasn’t. I sounded like a thirteen-year-old boy. Squeaky. “We’re leaving again next Saturday. Spring break.”

  “Going back to?”

  “University of Chicago.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m Ty McKenna,” Ty added. “Washington, D.C. Georgetown University.”

  Fuentes looked momentarily taken aback at the unsolicited introduction, but then he rallied. “Either of you know this girl?”

  All three of us turned to look at her, but in my case at least, it wasn’t because I needed to see her again. I knew very well that I didn’t know her. “I’ve never seen her before.”

  “You?” Fuentes asked Ty.

  He shrugged. “I think I may have seen her yesterday.”

  I turned to him. “Really?”

  “In the bar. There was a girl there with blond hair and a pink dress.”

  “I was wearing a pink dress,” I pointed out, although I doubted he needed the refresher.

  He glanced at me. “Not you. Another girl.”

  “Are you sure it’s her?”

  “No,” Ty said. “She was conscious and dressed then. Walking and talking. It’s a little hard to tell. But it could have been.”

  “Which bar was this?” Fuentes had a little notebook out, with a pencil stub ready to go.

  “Captain Crow’s,” Ty said, “on Duval.”

  Fuentes jotted it down. “That where you two met?”

  I glanced at Ty. He glanced back. “Yes. Last night.”

  Fuentes smirked. “And then you got up this morning and decided to take a walk on the beach?”

  I flushed at the implication. Ty didn’t react, of course. “We didn’t spend the night together.”

  Fuentes’s eyebrows moved. “That so?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He walked me to my hotel and left.”

  “Where are you staying, Ms. Wilder?”

  I told him the name of the hotel, and he wrote it down. “So you decided on your own to take a walk on the beach.”

  It sounded like an accusation. I flushed. “The weather was pretty. I was awake.”

  “The weather’s always pretty,” Fuentes said. “Did you see anyone w
hile you were walking?”

  “Lots of people. Ty.” I glanced at him. “A lady with a dog. An old couple walking. A young couple sleeping. And a homeless guy, also sleeping.”

  He turned to Ty, who added a few more sightings to the list. He must have run farther than I had walked, and seen more people.

  “I don’t suppose...”

  The both turned to look at me, and I dug my teeth into my bottom lip.

  “What?” Ty said.

  “The homeless guy. You don’t think he...?”

  “We’ll find out.” Fuentes’s voice had a distinct note of don’t-tell-me-how-to-do-my-job. “What did you do after you dropped her off last night?” he asked Ty.

  If Ty was bothered by the question, or the tone of voice, he didn’t show it. “Went back to Captain Crow’s for another beer. Then home.”

  “To your hotel?”

  Ty nodded.

  “And where’s that?”

  Ty rattled off the information, while I was hung up on that ‘other’ beer.

  If he’d had a first beer, I hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t had anything in his hand when I saw him. Although he might have been between drinks right then, I suppose.

  “Can anyone verify when you came in?” Fuentes asked, shocking me off my train of thought.

  “Why does he need someone to verify it?”

  They both turned to me. “Someone did something to this girl,” Ty said after a beat, when it became obvious that Fuentes wasn’t going to speak first. “The detective is making sure I have an alibi.”

  “If you did this, why would you come back here this morning? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay away?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to make sure any DNA they find can be explained away.”

  Fuentes arched his brows.

  “His dad’s a cop,” I said.

  Fuentes glanced at Ty. “Is that so?”

  Ty shrugged. “I don’t know if anyone saw me come in last night. It isn’t the kind of place where you have to go through the lobby to the rooms. I guess you’ll have to check.”

  “Don’t worry,” Fuentes said, closing his notebook with a little flap of pages, and shoving it in his pocket, “we’ll do that.”

  There was a pause. While we’d been talking, the paramedics had lifted the girl onto the gurney and covered her with a sheet up to her chin. One of the cops was watching, while the other was walking around the crime scene dropping little markers here and there on the sand where he’d found something of interest. One by the bra, one by each shoe, one by the dress.