First Instinct

by Suzie O'Connell

  “Please don’t do this, Officer Rogers,” she said quietly.

  “I have to. It’s my job.”

  The sudden touch of cold metal against Nick’s wrists as Rogers cuffed him made him shudder. It should be Trey being arrested, not him. Still, he held his tongue. It wasn’t his decision or his right to reveal the rape even though it appeared he would be taking the fall for it.

  “But it wasn’t assault. It was self-defense.”

  “This is none of your business, young lady,” Rogers retorted.

  “Yes, it is! He was protecting me!”

  “Protecting you from what?” Dean Harris asked.

  Beth opened her mouth and closed it as tears welled in her eyes. The terror inscribed on her face broke Nick’s heart, and he shook his head. He couldn’t watch her struggle with this again, not when she was finally opening up.

  “Well?” Rogers inquired impatiently.

  “Trey… he….” She turned her gaze back to Nick, and for a moment, he thought she might say it, but she faltered and finally said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t do it.”

  “It’s okay,” Nick told her. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Let’s go, Mr. Hammond.”

  “Aaron, Henry,” Nick said. His brothers immediately turned toward him. “Keep Trey away from her.”

  “Let’s go, Mr. Hammond,” Rogers repeated, tugging on the handcuffs.

  Nick straightened, and with one last glance at his companions, he went willingly with Rogers. Stupidly, he’d begun to think Beth was right for maintaining her silence. She was regaining her confidence, getting comfortable in her routine, and beginning to enjoy life again, and reporting the rape would throw everything out of balance again. Best to let it fade away into nothing more than a horrible memory.

  How wrong we were, he thought bitterly.

  Beth watched Officer Rogers lead Nick away in handcuffs, sickened by her inability to voice the words that would keep him out of jail. Every ounce of courage Nick had helped her find had evaporated, leaving her paralyzed by fear and self-loathing. Part of her wished he had said something in his own defense and would have been relieved if he had because then this whole ugly thing would be out in the open. The rest of her had been terrified that he might buckle under the pressure of possibly watching all his hard work toward his degree turn into three wasted years. But he hadn’t, and as relieved as she was, she now hated herself.

  Dean Harris turned to her and held her gaze for almost a minute, begging her to say something to help Nick. She tried again. And failed again. He shook his head sadly and walked away. She watched him wander down her hall, pause at her door to inspect the repairs, and disappear up the stairs at the far end.

  Nauseated and shaky, Beth turned to head back into the cafeteria but stopped dead in her tracks. Trey stood just a foot away from her, grinning maliciously. She shivered and took several steps back, but he advanced.

  “You’d better watch yourself, little girl,” he hissed. “Nick’s not here to protect you now.”

  “Hey, asshole!” Aaron barked, striding toward them. “Get the hell away from her!”

  “Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

  “Make what Nick did feel like a nice massage,” Henry answered.

  “And join your big brother in jail?” Trey taunted. “Go ahead and try me. Please.”

  “Gladly,” Aaron replied with a feral smile that chilled Beth. “Nick’s not here to stop us.”

  “Boys!” June snapped.

  At once, all three turned toward her, startled. Even Beth stared at her in surprise. She was normally so quiet and composed that the no-nonsense expression on her face was all the more powerful.

  “Technically, Trey, you could be arrested for assault, too,” she said quietly. “You shoved first last Wednesday, and there were plenty of witnesses to it. So unless you want me to bring that up to Officer Rogers, I suggest you leave Beth and Aaron and Henry alone.”

  Trey regarded her with cynicism twisting his lips, then glanced between the others gathered around, and realizing that he had no friends nearby, he decided against further antagonizing Henry and Aaron. Shrugging, he returned to the cafeteria.

  “Go ahead and run away like the coward you are,” Aaron muttered.

  “Aaron,” June said, turning her gaze on him. “Shut up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now that our meal is thoroughly ruined,” June remarked, “I’m heading back to my room. I have homework to do.”

  Henry and Michelle volunteered to clear their table, and Aelissm and June walked with Beth down the hall. Beth unlocked her door and pushed it open but hesitated to go inside, wondering what nightmares would plague her tonight.

  “Are you going to be all right?” June asked.

  “As long as Trey actually stays away, I should be.”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  Beth eyed her, a little unnerved by the way June seemed to be reading her thoughts. She shrugged, but when the younger woman’s brows quirked upward, she knew June didn’t buy her dismissal. She’d known June a little over a year now and had gotten to know her fairly well—was even beginning to consider her a pretty good friend—but she didn’t know if she’d ever get used to the younger woman’s uncanny insightfulness.

  “I don’t know,” Beth answered honestly. “I was starting to think I’d be okay, but now….”

  June glanced toward her room. “I have a paper to finish, but if you want, I can come by later. I’ll bring a pizza for dinner, and we can watch a movie or play cards or something.”

  “That’d be great. Thank you,” Beth replied. She pulled her door closed and locked it again. “In the meantime, I’m going to try to talk to Dean Harris. See if maybe there’s something I can do.”

  “All right. See you later.”

  Beth followed her to her room at the end of the hall, waved, and headed up the stairs and outside. She headed left toward JDC and spotted the dean striding up the ramp to the main door. She jogged to catch up with him, hoping she wouldn’t have to walk into the building alone because who knew where Trey was right now.

  “Rob!” she called just before he reached the door. He stopped and turned to wait for her to catch up. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Of course, Beth. Come on into my office.”

  She followed him down the long hall, feeling a little claustrophobic. With the close proximity of Trey’s room, the narrowness made her nervous, like she was walking into a mountain lion’s den. She wished she’d asked the dean to speak with her outside.

  His office was located behind the small Student Life Office, and after he closed the door, she felt marginally safer.

  “All right, Beth. What did you need to talk to me about?” Dean Harris asked.

  “Would it help Nick if I told you that, last Wednesday when he and I were out dancing at the Club Bar with some friends, Trey walked into the bar and started shoving him? That’s assault, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it most likely wouldn’t help him. Even if the two incidents are related—I don’t doubt that they are—last Wednesday’s occurred after the one for which Nick was arrested. If anything, it might hurt his case because the prosecutor could say it shows a pattern of aggression.”

  “Please, Rob. I have to help him. There has to be something I can do.”

  “You said Nick was defending you. Does that mean it was Trey who attacked you that night?”

  Beth met and held his gaze defiantly, unable to say the words. Unable or unwilling? she wondered. Why can’t I just say it?

  She neither nodded in confirmation nor shook her head in denial, and Dean Harris sighed.

  “Beth, if Trey attacked you and you can prove it, that makes Nick’s actions clearly self-defense, negating the accusation of assault. Aside from that, I need to do something about it, if only at this level. What really happened on the twenty-ninth?”

  This time, she shook her head, understanding that she was more unwilling than unable to tell
him what Trey did. Dean Harris was a fair man, and she respected him, but he wasn’t from Devyn, and he didn’t understand the pull Trey’s family had in the community. “I can’t. You don’t understand what will happen if I do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a small community, and if I report what happened that night, I will have to deal with the consequences for the rest of my life.” She paused for a moment, sensing the answer to her question before she even asked it. “Please. Isn’t there some other way to help Nick?”

  “I don’t think so. Granted, I haven’t had time yet to do much investigating, and from what I’ve seen and heard, there is very little evidence supporting the allegation of assault, but several students and professors have witnessed Nick threatening Trey.”

  “He’s never threatened Trey! Not once. At worst, he’s warned him to stay away from me, but he has not once threatened him.”

  “What’s the difference?” Rob said in a way that told her he was asking her to clarify rather than dismissing her statement.

  “If he had threatened Trey, he would have said something like stay away or I’ll punch you, right?”

  “And he’s never said anything like that?”

  “No. Not once. I swear.”

  “What about last Wednesday?”

  She shook her head. “He asked if they needed to take it outside, but he didn’t threaten.”

  “I believe you, Beth, I do. I’ve gotten to know Nick pretty well, and none of what the Holts are saying sounds like the kid I know. He is possibly the most levelheaded kid I’ve ever met, and I don’t believe he’d attack Trey without extreme provocation—I would’ve had to suspend him otherwise. If you truly want to help Nick, you need to find a way to speak up about what happened that night… to prove it was self-defense.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “I didn’t say it would be,” Dean Harris said. “Doing the right thing rarely is. I want to help you, Beth, but I can’t unless you talk to me.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said and abruptly turned to leave.

  “Beth, wait.”

  She turned on her heel to face him again.

  “If you choose to report whatever happened that night, go straight to the police. Like you said, the Holts are a powerful family in this community, and I doubt the university will want to take action against them for fear of them suing the school. And, Beth? If you need anything at all, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

  “Thank you, Rob.”

  After she left, she wondered if maybe Dean Harris had a better grasp of the situation than she had thought. He certainly seemed to. He understood why she couldn’t report the rape, and she believed he probably had a good idea of what had happened that night. He hadn’t earned top honors at his own college for no reason. She also suspected that—unlike the other deans—he would do everything he could to help her and Nick, but his hands were tied because he had no proof. She really was the only person who could keep Nick out of trouble, but she couldn’t do it. Even the thought of revealing that Trey had raped her—it was getting easier to use the term, she noted—paralyzed her with fear.

  Guilt gnawed at her all the way back to her room, and she almost didn’t see Trey watching her from one of the picnic tables on the lawn in front of Mathews Hall. As soon as she spotted him, she stopped in her tracks. That same smug gleam was back in his eyes, and she wondered why she’d never realized how deep his selfishness ran. Nick had seen it. He’d warned her about it just a handful of hours before Trey himself had violently revealed it. Anger flickered through her, chasing away the chill of fear. Dean Harris was right. There was only one way to resolve this god-awful mess, and it wasn’t going to be easy, but she had to find a way to do it.

  Impulsively, she flipped Trey off, and when he blew her a kiss and made a thrusting motion with his hips, she set her jaw and headed inside, thinking, You took it once, but you won’t get it again. Never again.

  Nine

  Nick glanced around at the sterile white walls of the room, then at the scarred table top between him and his lawyer, Hal McInerny. At a towering six-foot-three with a heavily muscled frame, dressed casually in Wranglers and a crisp, button-up Western shirt, and missing the stereotypical leather briefcase, Hal didn’t look much like a lawyer, but Nick knew he was in capable hands with this old friend of his family.

  Nick dropped his gaze to his wrists; he could still feel the hard edges of the handcuffs against his skin like the cold fingers of a phantom, and he absently reached to rub it away.

  “How are you holding up, kid?” Hal asked.

  “All right, I guess,” Nick replied. “I’m angry, obviously. Bored out of my mind. And I could take an hour-long shower and still not feel clean.”

  “Nothing too surprising about any of that. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting so long, but I wanted to do a little digging before I talked to you. I’m told Beth is saying it was self-defense, that you were protecting her. How so?”

  “The only person who can say that is Beth,” Nick said tiredly, wondering how many times he had said some variation of that statement in the last two weeks.

  “How can we convince her to—”

  “I don’t know, and even if I did, I wouldn’t ask her to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the consequences for her would be much worse than those for me. I will gladly go to jail if it means she doesn’t have to face more than she already has. What am I looking at?”

  “You’re looking at a misdemeanor, so at most, a five-hundred-dollar fine and six months in jail.”

  “That’s if the judge decides to throw that old book at me, which I doubt because I have no record. Hell, Hal, I’ve never even been pulled over.”

  Hal cracked a smile. “That will certainly help you, and it’ll make my job a little easier. Of course, handing me a provable self-defense claim would make it a cinch.”

  Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he thought about how to make Hal understand why he refused to breach Beth’s trust. He’d had several hours with little else to occupy his mind to consider the various consequences of the situation. The fact that Trey had accused him of assault assured Nick that his old teammate wanted a fight, undoubtedly because he couldn’t stand being beaten or intimidated. It was all too clear to Nick that, if Trey couldn’t take his aggression out on Nick through the courts should Beth report the rape and nullify the assault charge, he’d surely attack Beth. He recalled Dr. Phillips’s suggestion that reporting the rape would help Beth gain control over it, but Nick saw now that any good that might come of doing so would be annihilated by the legal battle that would ensue. “If Beth tells everyone what happened that night, pits herself against Trey…. You know the Holts. What do you think will happen to her?”

  “They’ll do everything they can to discredit her. Drag her through the damned mud.”

  “Exactly. I can’t let that happen.”

  “While I admire your loyalty to her, you can tell me. I’m your lawyer, and everything you reveal to me is strictly confidential. I promise you, if you don’t want me to use it in your defense, I won’t.”

  It was tempting, and Nick fully believed he could trust Hal to keep his confidence, but he shook his head. “You’re good at your job, Hal, and even if you didn’t use what happened directly, it might be disclosed inadvertently. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it.”

  Hal held his gaze for a long while, waiting and perhaps hoping he would falter, but Nick’s mind was made up. His hours of pondering had shown him that he had no other choice because he couldn’t let Beth be hurt again. He owed her nothing less.

  “All right,” Hal said at last, sighing heavily. “It’s your neck.”

  “Thank you for not trying to talk me out of it.”

  His lawyer only nodded in acknowledgement.

  Nick steepled his fingers for a moment with his elbows braced on the table, then leaned back in his chair. “What is Trey saying happe
ned?”

  “He’s claiming the fight was over Beth, that you were jealous and wanted her for yourself.”

  Nick snorted. “The fight was definitely over Beth, but that is not even close to the truth. I have a girlfriend who, until all this happened, I thought I might be serious enough about to marry.”

  “That’s Michelle, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Your mother told me about her. She sounds like a lovely girl.”

  “She is, but by the time this is all over, I’ll be amazed if she still wants anything to do with me.” His voice cracked as something akin to grief threatened to overwhelm him. He folded his arms on the table and pillowed his head on them for a moment, regretting the uncertainty he was putting Michelle through. She deserved better. Without lifting his head, he said, “It doesn’t matter right now, though.”

  “From what Tracie has told me, I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Let’s focus on one trauma at a time, all right? And when you’re out of here, then you can worry about Michelle. Sound like a plan?”

  Nick sat up again and nodded listlessly.

  “Now, Trey says you started the fight when you shoved him into a wall and that he punched you in self-defense—hit your shoulder because you ducked. After that, he says you picked him up and slammed him into the ground and that his head struck the floor, resulting in a minor concussion. He also claims he clipped your face after you took him down, which explains the cut on your cheek. How much of that is fact and how much is fiction?”

  “That much is true, but I doubt he had a concussion. He played in the game that weekend, and Coach Tanner wouldn’t have let him play so soon with even a minor concussion.”

  “I’ll check into that. How’d you take him down?”

  “A textbook double-leg take-down.” Nick laughed humorlessly. “My old wrestling coach would’ve been proud.”