Bianca Chapter 6
The start of another workweek. The weekend had flown by.
I spent a chunk of it going over my notes on everything I knew about the rapes and what the two women I knew had told me.
I drew up a list of bars within thirty miles of Sparta.
I knew I might have to go further out, but I had to start somewhere, and it made sense to do it this way.
I knew I had to stay away from bars until Mishap was lulled into believing I wouldn’t do it anymore. It didn’t mean I couldn’t do whatever research I could on my own. And one of those ways was happening today, after I got off work.
I was meeting with one of the other women who had been attacked, whom I didn’t know.
Through a friend of an acquaintance, I messaged her.
I was afraid she wouldn’t respond to my request, but she did.
When my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize, I hoped it was her.
It had been. We agreed yesterday to meet tonight at seven at a café she chose.
I was an impatient person all day. I wanted to snap at clients and tell them to hurry up. I hadn’t done it, but I bit my tongue a time or two to stop myself. It wasn’t fair to take my impatience out on them.
I finished at the gym at six. I brought clean clothes to change into and some toiletries to freshen up.
As a nutritionist, I would not only discuss which foods to eat and avoid but also demonstrate to clients how to perform various exercises.
And while I was at the gym, I would get my workouts in.
That required me to freshen up. Then it was a mad drive to the café. I made it with three minutes to spare.
I rushed inside to find the place was rather packed.
I knew the woman I was here to meet would be wearing a dark navy-blue blouse, and sunglasses pushed up on her head.
It took several seconds to scan and find her.
When I did, I saw she was seated in the back corner.
There was no one else close to her. She watched me approach. I stopped across the table from her.
“Are you Lily?” I asked.
“Yes, and you must be Bianca. Please have a seat,” she replied.
I sat on the bench across from her in the booth.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet and speak to me, Lily. I know my request probably sounded odd, and you have no reason to trust me.”
“I admit, I wasn’t expecting it. But after speaking to you on the phone, I knew I had to meet you in person. Have you had dinner?” Lily asked.
“No, I got off work and came straight here.”
“Then we should eat. I can vouch that while the food isn’t fancy, it’s good.”
We spent the next several minutes reviewing the menu and placing drink and food orders with our waitress. As soon as that was out of the way, silence descended.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Lily.
I know speaking to a stranger is hard, and talking about what happened to you is even harder.
Sometimes, though, having someone without a personal connection to you is helpful.
I’m not here to pry. I’m trying to prevent what happened to you and the other four women from happening to anyone else.
And for whoever is responsible to be punished. ” I broke the silence.
“I’d love to be able to help, but I honestly can’t remember much. All I recall is what I told the police. They haven’t found any suspects yet. I checked with them yesterday,” Lily told me.
“That’s alright. Only tell me what you do recall, and I may have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind,” I informed her.
“I can do that.”
“Start whenever you’re ready. If you need to stop or take a break, it’s all good,” I reassured her.
It took her about a minute to gain enough courage to speak.
“I went out on the town with a group of friends. They had been bugging me for weeks to go out with them. I told them no, but they said it had been ages since we had fun together. They were right. It had been months. I’d been so busy at work that anytime I wasn’t working, I was at home, trying to relax.
It was my friend Eva’s birthday. Nyla, Luisa, Eva, and I went to dinner, then out to a nightclub in Macon.
They had been there before. I hadn’t. They raved about how much fun it was.
“At first, everything was great. The meal was delicious, and we had a small birthday cake at the restaurant. When we got to the nightclub, we found a place to sit, which was a miracle given how full it was. We started by having a celebratory drink.
“And before you ask, no, we never let our drinks out of our sight. I’m paranoid about that.
I’m a paralegal. I see all kinds of depositions at work.
My friends make fun of me for it. I insisted on watching the bartender pour our drinks.
And to make it even less likely that they had been messed with, the bartender was a woman.
Yes, I know women can do it, too, but the chances are far slimmer.
“After the first drink, we got up on the dance floor where we stayed until a slow song played, then we took a break. On and off, men approached to ask if we’d dance or wanted to join us.
We politely sent them away. We weren’t there to pick anyone up.
And we weren’t getting drunk. I knew exactly what I was doing, where I was, and who I was with. Or I did.” She grimaced.
“About two hours after we got there, we split up. Nyla saw a couple of her other friends, and she went to speak to them. Eva and Luisa accepted slow dance requests from two guys. They weren’t going to do it, but I knew they wanted to, so I encouraged them to go. I told them I was fine at the table.
“It wasn’t long after they all scattered that I began to feel hot and sick to my stomach.
I thought if I went to the restroom and put cold water on my wrists and face, it would go away.
I figured it might be something that I ate for dinner.
The room was whirling around me by the time I got there.
I ran the water, splashed my face, and rested.
When it didn’t improve and only got worse, I knew I had to find my friends and go home.
That was the last thing I remembered until I woke up the next morning. ”
Lily paused. I let her. She resumed speaking, though her voice was lower and sounded more strained.
“I woke up behind a building, in an alley, two blocks over from the club.
I was alone. But I knew, based on how I felt, that something was wrong.
I felt wrong…down there. I hurt. Fortunately, my purse was next to me, and it contained my phone.
It had dozens of texts and missed calls from my friends. I called Eva.
“She was crying when she answered and told me they had been searching for me and that they called the cops. The police took a report and told them to go home and, if I reappeared, to call them. It was crazy after that. The cops came and took me to the hospital. My friends met me there. The doctors checked me out, conducting a sexual assault exam. There were signs that I had sex, so they ran a rape kit. They found sperm.”
Lily halted, and I knew she couldn’t continue. The timing was perfect. Here came the waitress with our food. We spent the next fifteen minutes eating and talking about everything other than her ordeal. After the meal, over coffee, I got back to the discussion.
“I assume if they got sperm, then the DNA wasn’t in any system or hasn’t flagged yet.”
“They did get DNA, and no, no hits yet. Unless whoever it was is on the sex offender registry, has a history of being arrested, or is in the military, we probably won’t. And I can’t recall anything after deciding to go find the girls.” Lily admitted.
“Clearly, you were removed from the club. And those places should have cameras. Tell me the police asked to see them,” I said.
“They do have them, and yes, the police asked to see the video. They did catch a glimpse of me being led out a back door that should’ve alarmed whenever it was opened.
However, during their investigation, the cops discovered that the staff likes to step out and sneak unauthorized smoke breaks.
They had disabled the alarm. The person I was with had his head down, hunched over, wearing an oversized hoodie with the hood up.
They got no picture of his face, not even when they went back through the security tape searching for that particular hoodie earlier in the night. ”
Frustration filled me, but I knew if I felt it, Lily had to really feel it. I reached over and held out my hand. She took it and squeezed.
“You are doing wonderfully. How long ago did this happen to you?” I asked.
“Two and a half months. It seems like yesterday. I’m scared to go outside the house, but I force myself. It’s better when it’s still daylight,” Lily confessed.
“I get it. I want to ask you a couple of questions. They might sound weird.” I waited for her to nod, which she did.
“That night at the club before you began to feel sick, do you recall anyone touching you? As in they brushed their bare hand or skin against yours, or touched your skin and held on?”
Lily frowned, thought about it, then sighed.
“No one deliberately held onto me. As for brushing up against me, it was crowded in there. Between walking through crowds to and from the bar and dance floor and dancing on the crowded floor, I was bumped into and touched multiple times, but never in a way that made me feel unsafe. Why?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. My other questions are these. Are you a member of a gym? If yes, which one and where?”
“Yes, I do belong to a gym. It’s the one on Main Street in Milledgeville. That’s where I live and work. I’ve been a member there for three years. Again, why?”