The Last Good Girl

by Allison Leotta

  In the corner was a liquor cart, covered in bottles and a crystal decanter. Wyatt felt like a thief as he looked through the bottles. He kept expecting someone to come in and bust him for snooping. Finally, he found the Chivas and carefully lifted it from the cart. God help him if he dropped this bottle. He’d have to choose between a semester of college and replacing the scotch.

  As he walked by the massive antique desk, he stopped to admire a picture of Dylan and his parents standing with George W. in the Oval Office. Dylan was a little kid then, smiling broadly with crooked teeth. Even as an eight-year-old, Dylan had a perfectly tailored blue blazer.

  Wyatt straightened to leave, when he noticed some paperwork on the desk. He paused and checked it out, thinking maybe he’d get a stock tip. There was nothing he could use in the S&P, but among correspondence, memos, and a sheet of paper summarizing campaign contributions, was a ticket issued from Delta Airlines to Dylan Highsmith. Round-trip to Caracas, Venezuela. Leaving tomorrow.

  Wyatt picked up the ticket and stared at it. He tried to think of a good reason for a college student to go to Venezuela now. Spring break wasn’t for another four weeks. The outbound flight was in the middle of a school week.

  There was only one reason why Dylan would head to South America now. Things were heating up in his case. The buzz had changed from if he would be arrested to when. You didn’t have to be a lawyer to know that Dylan was in deep shit, legally speaking. He was fleeing the country.

  Dylan’s father might not love him, he might not even like him, but he wasn’t going to let his only son go to jail.

  Wyatt’s pocket buzzed with an incoming e-mail. Distractedly, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “Step up,” the title read. He tapped it open. It was a public service message from Title IX activists, urging bystanders to take action when they saw something wrong going down. He almost laughed. He hadn’t done it last time. He didn’t see any reason to start now. Wyatt deleted the message. He left the ticket on the desk, picked up the bottle of Chivas, and went out to rejoin the party.

  He didn’t see Dylan in the dining room. In fact, he didn’t see any of the college kids. It was just the old-timers and their wives. Dylan held the Chivas bottle low by his side and slipped back into the foyer. He poked from vacant room to vacant room. Where had everyone gone?

  He heard muffled laughter from behind a door. Cautiously, he opened it, and the muffled noise resolved into the cacophony of a party. The door led downstairs to the basement. He went down.

  The Highsmith basement was done up as luxuriously as a basement could be. But with the boys gathered in a circle, holding red plastic Solo cups and shouting at something in the middle, it had the same feel as the cement basement of the Beta Psi house. Music pumped from an iPhone docking station. Wyatt shouldered his way into the circle so he could see what was inside. Three exotic dancers were taking one another’s clothes off. One stripper was unclasping the other’s front-clasp bra with her teeth. A few months ago, Wyatt would’ve gaped at the show, but by now he accepted it as standard fare.

  Wyatt walked over to Dylan and handed him the bottle. “Thanks, dude,” Dylan said. He poured a glass for Wyatt. They clinked and drank. “This is a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of scotch,” Dylan said. Wyatt almost choked on it. “Don’t worry, man. You deserve it. You’ve done great. Really manned up and showed us you’ve got the stuff.”

  Wyatt’s chest warmed with the alcohol and Dylan’s words. “Thanks, man. You’re an awesome pledge master.”

  “I’m not. But I do my best. It’ll all be over soon.” Dylan leaned in and said softly, “Two more days, and you’ll be a full brother. ’Course it’s confidential. I’m not supposed to tell anyone who’s in and who’s out. So keep it to yourself, Bolden. I know you can keep a secret. That’s the quality I like most about you.”

  Wyatt beamed. Dylan put a hand on Wyatt’s back and pushed him gently into the circle. “Your turn,” he said with a grin.

  A stripper with a small scar on an otherwise beautiful mouth smiled, put her arms around Wyatt’s neck, and began grinding against him. The other guys yelled their approval. A second stripper pressed up behind Wyatt and started rubbing his ass. He got hard, fast. It wasn’t just the naked bodies dancing against him. Being in the inner circle was a privilege usually reserved for the most important brothers. Wyatt was dizzy with scotch and the fact that he was here. The girls brought over a chair and had him sit. The stripper with the little scar on her mouth unzipped him and pulled his pants and boxers to his ankles. More hoots from the circle of boys. Wyatt was embarrassed and honored and hard as a rock. The dancer turned and danced so her ass was rubbing against him. He put his hands on her hips and let her grind.

  The stripper turned toward him and, like a magician, made a condom appear. She slipped it on him, then slipped herself on over it. Her breasts slapped his cheeks as she rode him. The guys’ shouts reached a frenzy. Dylan handed him another glass of Chivas. Wyatt drank it between thrusts, laughing and spilling it all over himself. After he came, he looked around the room in a dazed stupor. The guys were cheering; the other strippers were giving lap dances in other corners; Dylan was refilling his glass with Chivas. It was the best time Wyatt had had in college.

  The girl smiled at him and stroked his cheek; when she smiled, the scar on her upper lip disappeared. “You liked that, baby?”

  “That was awesome,” Wyatt breathed. “Thank you.”

  She kissed him and climbed off.

  Dylan walked into the circle and smiled. “My turn.”

  “Sure, baby,” said the girl.

  Wyatt zipped himself up just in time to take Dylan’s glass. Dylan started dancing with the stripper. Wyatt moved out to the circle, holding both glasses. He watched the action with the other guys. A few clapped him on the back. He was glowing; he could feel it.

  Dylan danced with the girl for a minute, then pulled himself out of his pants. He was ready to go. “Sure, baby,” she said. She produced a condom, but Dylan shook his head.

  “I don’t do condoms,” he said.

  “Well, then, I can’t do you,” she replied, pouting playfully. “Safe is sexy!”

  He put an elbow around her neck and pulled her to the ground. “This is sexy for me.”

  He climbed on top of her, pulled her G-string to the side, and pushed his way into her. The girl gasped and pushed his chest. “No! Get off me! I said no, not without a condom!”

  He clamped a hand on her throat. “Silent is sexy.”

  “Nn—” Her voice choked off as he pressed down. Her hands fluttered to her neck like little birds, desperately trying to claw his hand off her windpipe. Dylan squeezed her throat harder and pumped away. Her face went pink, then magenta.

  Wyatt stood among the other boys, a glass of precious Chivas in each hand. The room quieted. He waited for another boy to say something, to pull Dylan off this girl. He was sure someone would.

  The little scar on her beautiful mouth pulsed in a pink line as her face turned purple. The girl’s eyes bugged out; the whites were jagged with capillaries. She looked to Wyatt. Please, she mouthed. Please help me.

  Wyatt stood frozen in his spot.

  Dylan’s hand stayed on her neck; he kept driving into her. The girl stopped struggling. She closed her eyes and was still. The room was quiet as Dylan continued pumping. Wyatt looked around. All the boys in the circle were doing exactly the same thing, looking from Dylan to one another and then back down to Dylan. They shuffled nervously; they elbowed the person next to them. They didn’t move to stop it.

  The song ended, and the room was completely silent. Dylan grimaced, jerked, and shuddered. His hand relaxed its grip on the girl’s neck, and he collapsed on top of her. The girl sucked in a huge breath of air, then started coughing. She coughed and coughed, hacking and wheezing, right into Dylan’s ear. Dylan scowled at her, pushed her face to the side, then climbed off. She sat up and held a hand to her throat as she kept wheezing. Her face went from purple back down
to magenta and then to pink. Dylan fished in his pocket and threw several hundred-dollar bills at her. They landed on her bare thigh. He walked over to Wyatt and took back his drink.

  “Now we’re Eskimo brothers,” Dylan said. “Same girl in one night. Cheers to that.”

  He clinked his glass against Wyatt’s. They drank the scorching liquid.

  The girl with the scar across her beautiful mouth met Wyatt’s eyes. He’d never seen such disgust in a woman’s face. She turned away and walked to her bag, where she took several long sips of water from a bottle and stood massaging her neck. Then she stashed the hundreds, put on some more lipstick, and turned back to the circle with a determined smile. The other strippers welcomed her back with soothing words and light touches. Someone turned the music louder. The women started dancing with one another again.

  “These girls are pros,” Peter said approvingly. “They know how to take it.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “Good girls.”

  The party kept going. Wyatt felt sick. “I gotta take a leak,” he said. Dylan pointed up the stairs. Wyatt stumbled up them, out into the foyer, and back into the study. It was still empty.

  He collapsed into one of the leather chairs. He’d seen a lot during Hell Week, but this was the worst. Not only what Dylan did—but how Wyatt reacted to it. Was he that much of a pussy? He wouldn’t stop a rape? No, he thought, it wasn’t a rape, just a dispute over terms. The girl was willing to have sex as long as they used condoms. Afterward, she took the money Dylan gave her and kept dancing. So it was all fine.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. Dylan could’ve killed that girl. Wyatt would have stood there watching it happen.

  What was he becoming? What kind of man did he want to be?

  He took a sip of Chivas.

  He pulled his phone out and scrolled through his contacts. He stopped at Cooper. He stared at the picture of his brother, smiling in an apple orchard, the metal of his prosthetic leg reflecting the light of the sun. Wyatt took a deep breath, then tapped on his real brother’s phone number.

  33

  Anna stepped out of the shadow of the Central Station and looked for Cooper. She saw his black Harley, parked around the corner, but no sign of him. The station was surrounded by broken concrete and a chain-link fence topped with looping whorls of razor wire. Beyond were empty lots and a swath of patchy grass dotted with a few sad trees. A little sign announced it was Jefferson Park, though it didn’t seem like the sort of place that would have kids swinging from monkey bars any time soon.

  A solitary figure stood against a tree, head bowed. The rising sun lit the tall silhouette from behind. Anna slipped through a hole in the chain link and walked toward him. Her feet were nearly silent on the grass.

  When she got near, she said, “Coop.”

  He flinched and put his hand to his hip, where his gun was holstered.

  “It’s me,” she said softly. “Anna.”

  His eyes narrowed and he stared at her for a long moment, as if making sure he was seeing her and not a mirage. He let go of the gun, and his hand dropped to his side.

  She stood in front of him. Sweat beaded his forehead. His breath came fast and shallow.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” Cooper said. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  She slipped her arms around his waist and held him. His heart thudded rapidly under her cheek.

  “I haven’t seen a body since Afghanistan. And now I’m flashing to every dead person I’ve ever seen.” He whispered, “There were a lot.”

  Cooper sank down to crouching and held his head in his hands. She knelt down with him and held him quietly for a long time.

  He hadn’t had a panic attack in months. She thought that he was doing better, slowly readjusting to civilian life. But partly that was because there hadn’t been any triggers recently. By putting himself in charge of a cadaver search, Cooper had put himself directly in a PTSD-provoking situation. For her.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, then grew closer. An ambulance pulled up first, which was silly if you thought about it. There was nothing a doctor could do for the girl at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Sam’s unmarked sedan came next. Anna saw Sam get out of the car, approach the two young men, and talk to them. Lamar and De’Andre gestured excitedly toward the train station. A police cruiser came wailing up the road. It screeched to a stop in front of the station’s entrance. Two cops emerged and slammed their doors shut simultaneously, making a sound like gunshots. Cooper jumped.

  A phone buzzed under Anna’s hand, from within Cooper’s pocket. She expected him to let it go to voice mail, but he took it out and looked at the incoming number. “Wyatt,” he said. He never turned down a call from his baby brother.

  Cooper stood, took a deep breath, and went through a brief but intense moment of pulling himself together. Shaking a moment before, he pressed send and said calmly, “Hey, Wyatt.”

  She stepped a few feet away to give him some privacy as he spoke to his brother. Through the chain-link fence, she saw people in front of the train station donning yellow plastic jumpsuits. This was a special FBI team that would descend into the elevator shaft and excavate the body. It was delicate work; they wanted to extricate the corpse while preserving it, so that a medical examiner could be able to make determinations about time and manner of death.

  Sam motioned for Anna to come over. Anna and Cooper walked back to the station entrance, while Cooper continued talking to his brother. Anna only heard his end of the conversation. “Can you take a picture and send it to me? Yeah, I think she can keep it confidential. You might want to make yourself scarce, though. No, fuck those guys. You don’t need them. Okay, okay. I get it. Just be careful. Okay. Love you.”

  When they hung up, Anna put a hand on his arm.

  “What did Wyatt want?”

  Cooper held up his phone and forwarded something Wyatt had texted him.

  “He wanted to help.”

  Before Anna could ask any more questions, Sam asked Cooper to tell her how he and his interns had found the body. She took notes. Then she turned to Anna to discuss logistics. As they were talking, the team in the yellow plastic suits emerged from the station.

  They carried a stretcher with a heavy load covered in a black plastic tarp. Anna pictured the vibrant, hopeful college student Emily had been on the last night of her life, her hair curled into ringlets, lips covered in gloss, ready for a happy night out. Anna couldn’t quite grasp the difference between the night Emily expected and what had actually happened to her.

  “Do we have confirmation on the ID?” Anna asked Sam.

  “Too soon to tell by a visual exam. The body is damaged and bloated from the water and whatever happened before it went down the shaft. We’ll do DNA.”

  Anna watched the search team load the body into a white van.

  She had a vivid fantasy of going to Dylan’s house and shooting him between the eyes. She shook it off. Prosecuting pedophiles, rapists, and abusers, she often had these fantasies. The key was channeling that anger into a meticulous and legally acceptable method of kicking ass.

  Anna turned back to Cooper. But he was gone. “Cooper,” she called. A few of the officers looked up, but Cooper wasn’t among them. “Coop?”

  Sam said, “I saw his motorcycle heading away a second ago.”

  “Oh,” Anna said. That was odd, for him to leave without saying good-bye. She hoped he was okay.

  She looked at her phone to see what he’d texted her. Her heart started thudding. It was a photo that Wyatt had texted to Cooper, which Cooper had forwarded to her. It was the picture of an airline ticket for Dylan to fly to Venezuela. Tomorrow.

  34

  Dylan was fleeing the country. Anna had to stop him before he became this generation’s Roman Polanski, evading the American justice system forever. Venezuela had no extradition treaty with the United States. Once he got there, Dylan wasn’t coming back.

  She didn’t have
as much evidence as she would want, ideally, to make a homicide arrest. The victim’s body hadn’t yet been identified. But she had enough evidence to squeak by on an assault charge: the video of Dylan running after Emily, her blood on his car, her scarf in his room, her initials in his brag book, the history of their Disciplinary Committee proceedings. Homicide cases could be prosecuted without a body; certainly an arrest for assault could be made. Anna and Sam went back to the FBI command center, huddled over her laptop, and cranked out an arrest warrant and affidavit. The warrant was for the hate crime of assault, not homicide. That gave them less to prove but would allow them to arrest Dylan. When they identified the body, they’d change the charge to homicide.

  Anna listed all the evidence that proved Dylan’s actions against Emily stemmed from a hatred of women. That included the girls listed in his brag book, the “bitch” he called Emily, and the insults scribbled on the sorority’s composite hanging in his room. They attached the paperwork from Tower University listing the other three sex-assault charges brought against Dylan. They raced to the courthouse where Sam swore out the affidavit and Anna filed the papers. Magistrate Judge Schwalbe signed the warrant and his secretary stamped it.

  From the courthouse, Sam and Anna drove to Dylan’s father’s house in Grosse Pointe. In his text, Wyatt said Dylan was there for a Beta Psi alumni luncheon. Anna hoped he still was. As they drove, Anna tried to call Cooper. She got no answer. Where was he? Her discomfort about him driving away from the train station blossomed into full-fledged worry. She called Jody, who hadn’t seen him either.