Finding You

by Jenna Bennett

The courtroom was pretty full today, too. There were reporters with cameras along the back wall again. They’d been warned not to take pictures of Paula, since she was a rape victim and had a right to privacy, but I wasn’t, so every once in a while, I heard the click of a shutter or the whirring of a lens.

  The Fuenteses were absent today, of course. Their daughter wasn’t testifying. And Juan wasn’t here, either. I was a little bummed about that. It would have been nice to see a friendly face. Although the fact that Juan hadn’t bothered to show up was soon lost in the shock of the next realization: Ty wasn’t here, either. Nor, for that matter, was Enrique Fuentes, although I didn’t really care about that. I was a little surprised, granted. He was the arresting officer. He’d have to testify, although probably not today. But I’d have thought he’d want to attend the whole trial.

  But Ty...

  He’d been here for Carmen’s testimony yesterday. He’d touched her and encouraged her and told her what a good job she’d done when it was over.

  But when it was my turn, he couldn’t even bother to show up?

  “Ms. Wilder?” the prosecutor said.

  I came back to myself. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?”

  He had a little wrinkle between his brows. “We were talking about the first time you made Mr. Laszlo’s acquaintance. Can you remember?”

  “Of course.” I yanked my mind back on track. Ty could wait. What mattered now was making sure Stan Laszlo never saw daylight again. “The first time I saw Officer Laszlo was my second night here. He was standing on the corner down the street from Captain Crow’s Bar on Duval when Agent Connor was walking me home.”

  “And he saw you?”

  “Agent Connor said hello to him,” I said. “So yes, he did.”

  “He saw you together.”

  I nodded. “Yes, he did.”

  And it went on from there. How I’d found the first victim of last year’s Spring Break on the beach the next morning: a girl named Elizabeth, who’d been wearing a pink dress like the one I’d worn the night before, and who had long blond hair a lot like mine.

  The testimony seemed to go on forever. The prosecutor was very carefully building his case, from Stan to me to Ty. Or from me to Ty to Stan. Either way. The point being that Stan had targeted me specifically because of Ty. It was a damned shame that Ty wasn’t here, because the visual aid—for the jury, I mean—would have been helpful.

  We moved past Stan drugging me the first time on Tuesday night and losing me to Ty when the latter came across him ‘helping’ me down the street.

  “Tell us what happened the next day.”

  Sure. I talked about waking up and not remembering anything. About going to the hospital and being examined. About seeing Paula there, and the condition she’d been in. My voice started to shake, and Stan smirked again.

  “You don’t have to go into detail about Ms. Carlson’s condition,” the prosecutor told me. “We’ll be hearing from Dr. Johnson later this afternoon, and she will cover the medical evidence. Did you see the defendant on Wednesday?”

  I hadn’t. I’d spent the afternoon at the clinic, and the evening in the hotel, having dinner with Ty. That’s when he’d told me about being an FBI agent and why my crush on him wasn’t going to go anywhere.

  “Tell us what happened on Thursday,” Mr. DeWitt said.

  “I spent the day with Agent Connor. We went sightseeing.”

  “And in the evening?”

  “We went to Captain Crow’s,” I said, “and pretended to argue, so I could storm out of there alone and hopefully draw Mr. Laszlo’s attention.”

  “Objection,” Mr. Berryman said.

  “Sustained,” the judge agreed. “The jury will disregard the use of the defendant’s name. Ms. Wilder...”

  “Yes, Your Honor. I left the bar alone, hoping to draw the rapist’s attention, since we believed he’d come after me.”

  The judge nodded, pleased.

  “At that point,” Mr. DeWitt wanted to know, “did you suspect the defendant?”

  “I didn’t. And if Ty... Agent Connor did, he didn’t mention it.”

  Mr. DeWitt nodded. “What happened then?”

  What happened then was that I’d run into Stan, who was standing outside the Key West Cemetery. And since I’d had no idea he was the man I was looking for, I hadn’t realized that going into the cemetery with him was a bad idea.

  “He told me he just wanted to protect me,” I said. “Instead, he attacked me. I tried to fight him off, and eventually Detective Fuentes showed up and arrested him.”

  “And while you were talking, he confessed to you,” Mr. DeWitt said.

  I nodded. “Yes, he did. He told me all about what he’d done, and why, and how.”

  “Why would he do that, Ms. Wilder?”

  “I think he was planning to kill me,” I said.

  “Objection!” The defense attorney was on his feet. “Move to strike. My client is not charged with attempted murder!”

  The judge hesitated. “I’ll let it stand,” he said eventually. “But the jury is to keep in mind that the defendant is charged with assault, rape, and attempted rape, not murder.”

  The jury nodded.

  The judge turned to the prosecutor. “Anything further for this witness, Mr. DeWitt?”

  “No,” Mr. DeWitt said, with satisfaction, “I think that should do it.”

  “Cross, Mr. Berryman?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Berryman said, bounding to his feet. “Ms. Wilder.”

  I nodded.

  “What precisely is your relationship with Agent Connor?”

  “Objection,” Mr. DeWitt said, but without much enthusiasm.

  “I don’t mind,” I told him, and turned back to Mr. Berryman. “We don’t have a relationship.”

  “At the time, did you have a relationship?”

  I shook my head.

  “Out loud, for the record,” the judge reminded me.

  “No, we did not have a relationship. We were friendly. I liked him. But I knew he was working undercover and that getting romantically involved was not an option. So we had no relationship.”

  The defense attorney looked frustrated. “Did Agent Connor spend the night in your room on Tuesday, March 18th of last year?”

  “I believe he did,” I said. “He said he did. But since I was under the influence of your client’s drugs, I can’t really say for certain.”

  Berryman looked like he was thinking of objecting to my fingering his client, but he had bigger fish to fry. “So it’s possible Agent Connor spent the night in your room and you had sexual relations.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s not possible.”

  “But you just said you don’t remember what happened.”

  “I know what didn’t. I went to the hospital the next day to be examined. And I was still a virgin.”

  There was a titter throughout the room. Not quite a whisper, not quite a giggle. A few of the cameras clicked and whirred.

  “You were a virgin,” Mr. Berryman said blankly.

  I nodded, and then remembered the court reporter. “Yes. Both before and after Agent Connor spent the night in my room.” And both before and after my encounter with Stan in the cemetery.

  It was kind of funny, to be honest. Last year, the fact that I was a 21-year-old virgin hadn’t been information I wanted to spread around. It was embarrassing. I’d been certain I was the only 21-year-old virgin in Key West. But this year I had no problem admitting it.

  Maybe it was because I wasn’t a virgin anymore, so I didn’t feel quite so stigmatized. Or maybe I’d just gotten over thinking I was all that special. Either way, throwing last year’s status in Mr. Berryman’s face felt pretty good. Hi, I’m Cassie Wilder, and I was a virgin until I was twenty-one.

  “Anything further, Mr. Berryman?” the judge prompted when the public defender didn’t speak.

  Berryman shook his head. “But I reserve the right to recall this witness, Your Honor.

”

  “So noted,” the judge said and glanced at his watch. “Let’s adjourn for lunch. We’ll start again at two o’clock.”

  “All rise,” the bailiff said.

  We rose. The judge swept out in a swirl of black robes, the uniformed officers came to take Stan to his bread and water, and Mr. DeWitt turned to me. “Well done, Cassie. Let’s go celebrate.”

  TECHNICALLY, IT may have been a little early to celebrate. There were several witnesses yet to go for the prosecution, and then whatever case the defense had built. I couldn’t imagine that Stan wouldn’t be found guilty, though. There were enough of us who had seen him in the act that he shouldn’t be able to wiggle out of it.

  The prosecutor shook his head when I said so. “We’ll get him.”

  “You don’t think they’ll pull out some ridiculous defense at the last minute, that’ll sway the jury?”

  “I can’t imagine what,” Mr. DeWitt said. “He was methodical and controlled in what he did, so there’s no question of diminished capacity. And Detective Fuentes caught him red-handed.”

  “He can’t—I don’t know—call it entrapment, or anything?”

  Mr. DeWitt shook his head. “You didn’t force him to attack you. If I understand the situation right, you didn’t even suspect him.”

  “I didn’t. He was a cop. I assumed the cops were the good guys.”

  “As one should,” Mr. DeWitt said.

  And as one can’t always, unfortunately.

  “Will you be staying in Key West now that your testimony is done?” Mrs. Carlson asked me. She and Paula had come to lunch with us, too. Paula looked a little pale and tired, but also relieved that it was over. And unlike me, the public defender hadn’t reserved the right to recall her. Probably didn’t want to risk her saying anything else that would make his client look even more like a monster.

  I nodded. “He might call me back for another round. And I want to be here for the verdict, anyway. Besides, our Spring Break is next week. I’m meeting some friends.”

  “You said you were here with Mackenzie Forbes last year,” Paula said.

  I nodded.

  “I just love her!”

  You and most of the rest of the country. Mac wasn’t dubbed America’s Country Sweetheart for nothing. And it had been interesting to see America’s reaction to her tattooed and not-at-all-sweet boyfriend.

  “She’ll be here next week,” I said. “Her boyfriend’s from Key West. He was tending bar at Captain Crow’s last year. You probably met him.”

  “Austin?” Paula asked. I nodded. “Wow. And now he’s dating Mackenzie Forbes!”

  Yes, indeed.

  Paula turned to look at her mother. Mrs. Carlson sighed. “I guess we could stay a little longer. I thought you wanted to leave, though.”

  “That was before I knew Mackenzie Forbes was coming,” Paula said. “And I kind of want to be here for the verdict, too. I want to see him go to jail for a long time.”

  Mrs. Carlson hesitated. “I’ll call your father and talk to him,” she said eventually. I don’t think it was a firm yes, but Paula knew her mother better than I did, and Paula seemed pleased, so maybe it would work out. And anyway, after what she’d been through—both last year and on the witness stand today—she deserved a special treat. Something more than ice cream.

  “I’ll check with Mackenzie and find out when she’s getting here,” I said and pulled out my phone. “Maybe we can all go get a drink or something.”

  Paula looked like I had offered her rather more than a chance to watch Mackenzie Forbes suck down Sex on the Beach. “God, I’d love that!”

  “Give me your number. I’ll text you when I know something.”

  She rattled it off and I saved it in my contacts. I was putting the phone back in my bag when it rang.

  At first I thought I might have accidentally pushed a button and gotten my ringtone. But no, there was an actual number on my screen. Local, and not one I recognized.

  I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Cassandra Wilder?” a female voice said. “This is the Key West Police.”

  Uh-oh. “Something wrong?”

  “An accident,” the voice said. “Detective Fuentes told me to call you and ask you to come in to see him.”

  Accident?

  All the air left my body, and I had a hard time catching my breath. “Agent Connor?” I managed. “Is Agent Connor OK?”

  “Yes, miss,” the voice said. “He’s here, too.”

  Thank you, God.

  I told her I was on my way and turned to Mr. DeWitt. “The police want to see me. Do you have any idea what that might be about?”

  Mr. DeWitt shook his head. “If something was going on with the trial, they’d have called me, too. Must be something else.”

  Must be. “I’ll come to the Courthouse later,” I said. “After I’ve done whatever Ricky Fuentes wants. Maybe he just wants a rundown on what happened in court this morning. Or he wants to explain why he and Agent Connor couldn’t make it today.”

  Because frankly, I thought I deserved an explanation for that.

  Mr. DeWitt nodded. “We’ll see you this afternoon.”

  The three of them settled in to have dessert—ice cream—and I grabbed my purse and headed out.

  I’d been to the Key West police headquarters last year, of course. They were located about midway across the island, near the Palm Avenue Causeway: a mile, mile-and-a-half from the restaurant. I got there with no problems, and asked for Enrique Fuentes. After a couple of minutes, Ricky showed up to take me to his office.

  He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept much last night.

  “Goodness,” I said, “what happened to you?”

  He glanced down at me. He’s an older, grimmer, slightly taller and harder version of his brother, with the same curly black hair and brown eyes. But where Juan’s eyes are like melting chocolate, Enrique’s are more like stone. “Nothing happened to me.”

  I don’t think I imagined the emphasis on the pronoun. “Who, then?”

  “My brother,” Ricky said.

  “Juan?” I stopped dead in the middle of the Key West Police bullpen, with cops in cubicles all around me. “Something happened to Juan?”

  “We’ll talk in my office,” Ricky said and took my arm.

  I let him escort me into his office—roughly the size of one of the cubicles outside, just more private—and sat down in the chair he indicated. “What happened to Juan? I saw him just last night.”

  “I know,” Enrique said, walking around the desk to take a seat. “That’s why I want to talk to you.”

  The other visitor’s chair was occupied by my former boyfriend, and under the circumstances, my heart hardly skipped a beat at seeing him. He didn’t pay much attention to me, either, just looked up from his cell phone, where he was busy manipulating keys, and nodded before going back to what he was doing.

  I did my best to ignore him. “What happened to Juan?”

  “He’s in the hospital,” Ricky said. “In an induced coma. Someone attacked him last night. I need you to tell me everything that happened.”

  I could feel myself turn pale, and did my best to focus. “Nothing happened. I stopped by the Courthouse and caught the last hour or two of testimony yesterday. A little of Carmen’s, and then the video interviews. Juan told me you were all going to have dinner together and invited me to come along, but I had to introduce myself to Mr. DeWitt, and I had dinner with him. After that I went to Captain Crow’s, because Juan had said you’d be there. You weren’t—”

  Ricky Fuentes shook his head.

  “But Ty and Carmen were. And Juan. I sat at the bar and had a glass of Sprite, and then Juan walked me home.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  I told him I had booked a room at Richardson’s Motel. I sensed, or saw out of the corner of my eye, Ty looking up at me, but I didn’t turn my head.

  “Did he come in with you?” Ricky wanted to know.