Sophia perked up. “I’ve never had nachos.”
Emily, Alyx and Aiyana stared at her. “Girl,” Emily said, “you are in for a treat. I’ll go throw some together.”
“Can I watch?” Sophia asked.
Emily shot her a puzzled smile and said, “Sure.”
“Sophia likes to cook,” Aiyana explained.
Emily put Aiyana to work putting away groceries while she grated a hunk of Monterey Jack.
“Sophia’s family owns Tonio’s.”
Sophia picked up the bag of tortilla chips. “Can I help?”
“This is dead simple. Three ingredients. Chips, salsa and cheese.” Emily told Sophia to sit at the table. “I love your family’s store. So, do you get to use whatever ingredients you want? Can you just go pick up a chunk of aged parmigiana reggiano whenever you want to?”
Sophia laughed. “Yes.”
“You’re so lucky.”
“My dad doesn’t let us take the really expensive stuff, though.”
“What’s more expensive than imported Parmesan?”
“Caviar.”
“Ah. You have a point.”
Ten minutes later, when Sophia tried the nachos, she closed her eyes while she chewed. “Oh, wow, that is soooo good.”
Emily, Alyx and Aiyana laughed. Aiyana sobered quickly. “Sophia and Alyx came over because I was feeling bad about Dad.”
“No wonder.” Emily wiped her fingers on her napkin, appetite gone. “I wish there was more we could do. Sheriff White is going after your dad just because of the way he confronted Justin. He’s being a real jerk.”
“I feel funny sitting here eating with my friends while my dad sits in that jail cell.” Aiyana wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
Emily got a tissue for her from a box on the counter. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m very angry, too.” That put it mildly. “We need to do something, convince the sheriff your dad had every right to be mad at his son.”
Aiyana snuck a glance at Sophia and said, “Can I share your experience with her?”
Sophia nodded.
“Justin gave Sophia trouble, too.”
“He put a lot of pressure on me to have sex with him,” Sophia said, “telling me he loved me, that I was special and if I really loved him back, I’d show him how much.”
She put the nacho chip she was nibbling back onto her plate. “I wasn’t as smart as Aiyana. I thought he really cared about me and I gave in. The second I did, he lost interest and moved on to another girl.”
Aiyana picked up the tale. “It really devastated her. Cody helped her through it.”
“Yeah? I’m beginning to think my brother’s a saint.”
Sophia giggled. “No. Trust me, he’s a teenage boy. He thinks it’s hilarious to burp the alphabet. He’s nicer than most boys, though. And smart. He’s a good guy.”
A seed of an idea began to form. “Sophia, do you mind if I ask how long ago your relationship with Justin was?”
“Two years ago. I was fifteen.”
“Same age as Aiyana was. He likes them young.”
“He wasn’t yet sixteen at the time, so I guess it was reasonable that he was dating me. The problem is, he’s still dating girls that age even though he’s older now. Mainly, though, he’s really good at ferreting out a girl’s vulnerabilities. He looks for weakness.”
She put another nacho onto her plate. “If he’d had sex with Aiyana, would that have been statutory rape? He’s nearly eighteen now.”
“I think so. I’m not sure,” Emily mused, still thinking hard. She turned to Alyx.
“Did he ever come on to you?”
“Nope. I’m not pretty enough.”
Aiyana swatted her arm. “You are too pretty.”
“Thanks, Aiyana, but Justin wants real eye candy on his arm.”
“Okay, listen,” Emily said. “Here’s what I’m hearing about this guy. He’s got an ego. He likes girls young. He doesn’t like to take no for an answer. He jumps from girl to girl. Am I right so far?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like Justin exactly.”
“So, if he jumps from girl to girl so easily, and he pressures them, is it possible he’s gone too far and has maybe, if not forced some, at least pressed too hard? How many girls do you think this guy has hurt?”
Sophia nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. The problem with Sheriff White is that he thinks the sun rises and sets on Justin. Maybe he needs a reality check.”
“Exactly. What if the sheriff found out what kind of bully his son is and how many girls he’s hurt, and how close the kid comes to breaking the law? Maybe if he realizes that Salem had a right to defend his daughter, White will back off on his persecuting him.”
“I totally get it.” Aiyana refilled their glasses of ginger ale. “I’m in. I’ll talk to girls at school to find out if he did this to anyone else.”
“I can guarantee you there’s no if about it, but how many.”
“We need a plan,” Sophia said. “Aiyana, you talk to some of the younger kids at school and I’ll talk to the older girls. I can almost guess some of the names now.”
“He shouldn’t have been allowed to get away with it for so long. How did he?” Aiyana asked.
“Shame.” Sophia and Emily said it at the same time.
“Girls feel ashamed that they let him use them,” Emily said gently.
Aiyana nodded. “And they feel ashamed when he verbally beats up on them if they don’t.”
“This guy’s gotta be stopped.” She raised her ginger ale. “Ladies, let’s bring this boy down.”
They clinked glasses, then dug into the nachos again. Now that they had a clear plan, hope swelled and a solution seemed possible.
Emily had an idea she knew where to find one of Justin’s victims. Following a hunch, she got Iris’s phone number through directory assistance. “Iris? This is Emily Jordan. I’m over at Aiyana Pearce’s house with Alyx and Sophia Colantonio. Do you know Sophia?”
“I’ve never spoken to her, but I’ve seen her around school. What is this call about, Emily?”
How in character that Iris would come straight to the point.
“We need to talk to you. Would it be possible for you to come here and join us? I can pick you up.”
Iris was quiet for so long, Emily was sure her answer would be no. “Yes, I’ll come over. Dad says I spend too much time alone.”
“Give me your address.”
“No. My dad likes to drive me everywhere. Tell me Aiyana’s address and I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes later on the dot, Iris arrived.
Emily liked Iris. She was prickly and hurting, but underneath the cactus exterior was a lively mind.
Iris nodded to Aiyana, Alyx and Sophia when she entered the living room. Warily, she sat across from Emily on a love seat.
“Iris, I know you’re using the music as therapy, and that’s great. I have many times, too.” She chose her words carefully, scared to death of spooking the girl and sending her running off. “I know something happened to you.”
Iris stood, knocking against the coffee table in her haste. “Why are you saying that?”
“I don’t want details.” She kept her tone soothing. “I just need to know whether it had anything to do with Justin White.”
Iris bolted. Bingo. Emily chased her to the front door.
From behind her, Aiyana said, “We need to get that dirtbag Justin put out of commission so he can’t keep hurting girls.”
“Hear us out, please, Iris. There’s a reason we’re asking.”
Iris faced the door, back rigid.
Aiyana said, “You’re not alone.”
Iris turned. Her eyes b
lazed. Her cheeks burned. “What do you mean?”
“He’s hurt other girls, too.”
“Who?”
“Come back and sit down,” Emily said. “We’ll explain.”
Once they were seated again, Emily asked, “You know that Salem Pearce, Aiyana’s dad, has been arrested for the murder of Caleb Brown? Did you hear that Salem went to the school and confronted Justin about trying to force his daughter to have sex with him?”
Iris’s eyes widened. “Aiyana?”
“Yes.” Aiyana answered before Emily could. “You didn’t hear about it?”
“Nobody at school talks to me. I’m not exactly popular.”
“Because I wouldn’t give in, Justin put ugly messages about me all over Facebook and Twitter saying that I had gone all the way with him and with other boys, too, and that I was a slut.”
Iris’s lips turned white. “That sounds like Justin.”
Emily took over. “The upshot of Salem giving Justin a piece of his mind is that Justin’s dad, the sheriff, is pursuing Salem as a suspect aggressively and refuses to look elsewhere.”
She outlined the plan that she, Aiyana and Sophia had come up with—to pull together as many of the girls as possible who Justin had hurt, and confront Sheriff White with the truth about his son.
“He hurt you, too?” Iris asked Sophia.
“Yes. He talked me into having sex with him by telling me he loved me and then dropped me like a hot potato the next day.”
“And you?” Iris asked Alyx.
She shook her head.
“Of course not,” Iris said. “You’re too strong. It would be hard for Justin to find your vulnerabilities.”
She looked at all of them.
“Aiyana’s right.” Iris worried the sleeves of her shirt with restless fingers. “Justin is a dirtbag, and he thinks he can get away with it because his father is sheriff.”
“That’s right,” Emily said. “I don’t know how it will change things, but Sheriff White needs to know what his son is really like. At the very least, maybe it will keep Justin from taking advantage of other girls.”
She leaned forward and covered Iris’s hand with her own. “Did Justin hurt you?”
The tears that welled in Iris’s eyes turned them into huge gray prisms in her petite face. She nodded.
“Can you share your story with us, or would you rather not?”
“I’ve never told anyone, not even my mom. My dad knows something happened. That’s why he drives me everywhere. He doesn’t want anything else to happen. I can tell he’s angry. He wants to know who hurt me.”
“What happened?”
“Justin—” She stared down at her hands, where she’d cupped one inside the other, the knuckles white as though the skin had disappeared, and Emily saw through to the bone, as she had the first time Emily had seen her in the classroom. “He raped me.”
Emily went cold.
CHAPTER TEN
RAPE. NOT HE SEDUCED ME, or he tried to have sex with me, or he persuaded me. But rape.
“He actually forced himself on you?”
She closed her eyes and nodded while tears leaked down her cheeks. Aiyana moved from the sofa to sit beside her on the love seat.
“Yes. I said no, but he wouldn’t listen. Then he put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.”
“How old are you?”
“I just turned sixteen. This was two years ago, though.”
“You were only fourteen and he forced you?”
“Yes.”
Emily covered her mouth because she felt a little sick. Mika was just shy of fourteen, barely more than a child. She imagined a boy like Justin forcing himself onto a girl that young. It would ruin her.
Poor Iris. No surprise that she needed music for healing. Fourteen was far, far too young to be forced to grow up in that way, to face some of the cruelty of humanity. The wonder was that she hadn’t hurt herself, and that she’d recognized what she needed, music, and had started to take steps in her own healing.
A huge rage cleaved Emily with the force of an ax. “This boy is dangerous. He won’t get better, only worse. We need to get him off the streets. Do you want to bring Justin to justice? To make him pay for his crime?”
“How?” Iris asked. “His dad’s the sheriff. My dad is one of the sheriff’s friends.”
Oh, so tricky.
“If you told your parents about this, what do you think they would say?”
“Dad might hurt Justin, even though he and the sheriff are friends. Dad would get into trouble and I don’t want that.”
Emily couldn’t help but compare his response with Salem’s. Yes, these men loved their daughters.
“What would your mother say?”
“She would comfort me.”
“For what it’s worth, here’s my opinion. You’ve been through a terrible, harrowing experience, and you have a right to your feelings.”
Iris’s mouth got tight. “Even anger?”
“Especially anger.”
She smiled grimly. “Good, because I’m so mad I could scream. I want to murder Justin, but first I want him to suffer like I did. Like I do every single day.”
And with no one to turn to, where would these feelings go? She was carrying too heavy a burden for someone so young.
“Iris, you have a right to everything you feel. You also have the right to deal with this in your own way. If you want to help us, good. If you can’t, I understand.” She snagged a handful of tissues from a box on the coffee table and handed them to Iris. “You need to take care of yourself. Be kind. Be forgiving of yourself. You did nothing wrong. It was all Justin. First and foremost at this time, think about yourself and what you need. Okay?”
Iris thought about it. Emily could almost see the wheels turning beneath her alabaster brow.
“Okay, I’ll help. What do I have to do?”
“We’re going to confront Sheriff White, the sooner the better, but we need to be strong. Strength in numbers. We’re going to try to find as many girls as possible who Justin might have hurt.”
“Start by asking Madison Williams.”
“Madison?” Aiyana sounded shocked.
Emily remembered their discussion about how the blonde Madisons of the world didn’t get hurt by boys. She raised her eyebrow as if to say, See, I told you so.
Aiyana got the message, but frowned. “She’s one of Justin’s friends. She helped to spread the rumors about me.”
“Because she has a terrible crush on him. She still wants him for her boyfriend.”
Emily’s heart sank. “She might not speak against him.”
“Madison might be dumb in love at the moment, but she’s not completely stupid.” Iris seemed to have gained strength since her arrival. Maybe she didn’t feel so alone anymore. “Once she hears about our experiences with Justin and that we’re telling the truth, she’ll see it’s time to cut the ties.”
Emily’s hope for Salem grew. This just might work.
That night, she slept in Salem’s bed. Funny how she had spent so much time abroad, traveling all over the world, and yet she missed Salem more here when he was only a few blocks away. She wanted him out of jail so badly. She wanted him in her arms. In this bed. She wasn’t letting anything separate them ever again.
Aiyana had got her fresh sheets from the linen cupboard, but Emily didn’t use them. She needed to feel close to Salem, and the sheets on the bed held his scent of soap and the forest. She imagined herself surrounded by his arms and his love.
* * *
ON MONDAY MORNING, Emily managed to catch five minutes in the sheriff’s office alone with Salem. This morning, Brent Hammond seemed to be more sympathetic.
“Hurry,” he said. “I
can give you five minutes, and then I have to call Roger to warn him you’re here. If anyone saw you come in, he’d find out at some point. I’m supposed to let him know if anyone visits. I need this job.”
Emily raced to the back and ran through the details of their plan with Salem. “That’s good, Emily.” He sounded low, almost as though he didn’t care.
But she did. “Don’t give up on me, Salem,” she ordered. “You’re innocent. We’re going to win this. All they have is circumstantial evidence.”
“Emily, that kind of thing can stick in court.”
“Dad’s hired you a private investigator.”
“Why?”
“To do the job White’s supposed to be doing. To find out who really killed Caleb.”
Salem finally showed signs of life. “No, Emily. Don’t. Cancel the investigator.”
“Are you crazy? Of course we won’t cancel. We’re getting to the bottom of this.”
Salem paced the length of the cell, all twelve feet and back, then approached and grasped her wrist through the bars. “Stop him. Please, Emily,” he begged. “Do this for me.”
His desperation worried her. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, and why Salem wouldn’t take all the help he could get. “Don’t you care that you could spend the rest of your life in jail?”
Salem returned to the cot and slumped onto it. He buried his fingers in his hair. Greasy, it hung to his shoulders instead of in the tight braid he usually wore.
“Don’t even think about falling apart on me, Salem. I’m getting you out of here.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, “but tread carefully.”
She had no idea what he meant by that. “Aiyana, Sophia and I are mounting a campaign to get the sheriff to see who his son really is. We’re going to beat this.”
Salem didn’t respond, and she felt the frustration that had been building since he’d been unceremoniously tossed into jail. Why wasn’t he fighting back? Why wasn’t he as spitting mad as she was?
She opened her mouth to ask, but Sheriff White walked in. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m planning a jailbreak.” The man brought out the worst in her.
With White’s big body blocking the hallway into the office, she couldn’t breathe. How could Salem stand the stale air back here?
Always Emily Page 21
