Chapter 18 #2
She thought about her relationship with her father. How he controlled her. How he degraded her. How he hurt her. How he sometimes made it seem like he cared, then turned around and did something to hurt her. With his words. With his actions. With his knife.
They seemed so similar at times.
Tears filled her eyes as she stared at the floor, unable to look at Hawk any longer with the revelation filling her mind.
“I’m in an abusive relationship with Desiree.
She controls what we do and when we see each other.
She puts me down, making it seem like she’s just trying to “help” me.
She wants me to drop everything for her when she needs something, but she doesn’t reciprocate when it’s inconvenient for her.
” She finally met Hawk’s gaze. “She’s not a good friend at all.
You’ve treated me better in the little while we’ve been together than she has in years.
It’s all about her. I just go along because she’s all I have. Or had.”
Lucky sat with that for a second. “When she invites me over, she always asks me to help her clean up while I’m there and she spills her guts about whatever is bothering her.
She asks me to watch Krystal so she can run an errand, go on a date, or whatever.
I don’t mind watching Krystal. I love her. But now it all feels…calculated.”
Jase tapped the folder with his fingertip again. “I think Desiree likes having you around because you defend her. You make her look like someone who is helpful and nice. I think you want Desiree to be that kind friend. The one you’ve thought you had all these years.”
“She’s changed,” she admitted. “Back then, I really thought she wanted to help me.”
“When did she change?”
“After my family’s murders, Neil’s court hearings, then finding out she was pregnant.
It was a lot all at once. I understood why she was so out of sorts about it all.
I was a wreck, too, trying to figure out life without my parents and dealing with finishing school and settling their estate.
I was so lost in my grief and survival I wasn’t really there for her like she needed me.
I think it broke something between us that we haven’t been able to fully mend. ”
“When she talked about you being hurt and wanting to do something about it, did she say she wanted to do something, or you should do something?”
“Both, I guess. She wanted us to run away, hit the road and travel. Be wherever we wanted to be. Do whatever we wanted to do.”
“Did you want to do that?” Jase studied her.
“I wanted out, but I couldn’t just go. Sure, we could take her car, but I didn’t have any money. How would we get by? And I had to think about Danny. I couldn’t leave him behind. I couldn’t just leave him with a monster.”
“How did she take that?”
“She tried to tell me that we could find jobs and camp and live like gypsies. She didn’t want to think about practical things or the fact that we were minors who’d be missed and probably have an APB out on us by her father, especially if we took Danny with us.”
“Is there another reason you didn’t want to go with her?” Jase waited out her silence, until she broke and finally spoke.
“She talked about how things would be so much better if my parents were dead. Neil would agree with her and say something had to be done.” She thought about those conversations, how they confused her back then because while she wanted her father out of her life, she didn’t want any of them dead.
“After everything happened, Desiree said something to me that I can never get out of my head.”
“What?” Hawk asked, compassion and sympathy in his eyes.
“You should thank the person who did it. Now you’re free.” It wasn’t just what she said, it was the way she said it with a smile. It was disturbing.
She said “the person who did it.” Shouldn’t she have told me to thank Neil?
“You’re afraid of her,” Jase blurted out.
She tilted her head. “How do you know that?” It was true. Sometimes Desiree looked at her a certain way and it sent a chill up her spine.
Jase didn’t answer her, but asked, “Has she checked up on you since you got out of the hospital?”
“She stopped by a few days ago.”
Hawk rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and flirted with me when you left the room.”
Her head snapped around to him. “What? No.”
Hawk nodded. “Yes. I didn’t like it. Especially when she made it clear that she was far more…
adventurous, open, and appropriate to have on my arm than you.
” He brushed his hand over her head. “It’s bullshit.
You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
You’re everything I need and want. Especially since I’m pretty sure my wallet appealed to her a lot more than I did. ”
She brushed her fingers down his cheek. “Look in a mirror, honey. Every woman wants you.”
His grin lit up his whole face. “I am loving that honey.”
She’d have to call him that more often. “I’m sorry she acted that way.”
Hawk shook his head. “Don’t apologize for her. Not when she tried to steal your boyfriend away from you.”
Oh. I love that boyfriend. Even if it didn’t seem quite enough.
She was loving having him so close, so connected to her.
Jase shifted in his seat. “You two are so into each other. I’m happy for you. But can we get back to this case and Desiree’s contradictions?”
“What is it you’re trying to tell me?” Lucky asked, tired of doing this in some roundabout way.
“You were at the bar with Desiree. You somehow got drugged, even though it appears that the guys you were with never went near your glass.”
She sat up straighter. “Is that what the video showed? You’re sure?”
“Yes,” both men answered.
Jase went on. “After you came out of the bathroom together, she led you to the banquet room. You remember seeing Neil in there.”
“Yes.” They’d gone over this already.
“What was Desiree doing?”
She tried to picture it but couldn’t. “I don’t know. That part’s really fuzzy.”
“Now put Neil’s question into context,” Jase prompted.
It finally dawned on her. “He wasn’t talking about me.”
“You were right there. She must have contacted him and told him to meet her there. So why ask?”
She sagged in the chair. “I don’t understand. Who did he want to see?”
Hawk swore under his breath. “He was asking about the kid.”
Lucky gasped. “Why would he ask about Krystal?”
Jase’s eyes softened. “When I hit a dead end with the video, I went back to when I thought this all started. I asked some of the guys who have been here the longest about your family’s murders. I wanted to know what wasn’t in the reports.”
“What did you find out?” This time, she was the one leaning in to Jase.
“Did you know there was a rumor going around that Desiree and Neil were hooking up behind your back?”
“What?” She sprang up out of her chair, then fell back into it in shock.
Instead of answering her, he asked another question. “What were they like together?”
Lucky had to wrap her head around what that rumor meant if it was true.
“Um. They got along. We hung out, the three of us, a lot. It wasn’t unusual for me to see them walking together between classes or talking in the halls.
” She frowned, thinking about how often she spotted them together, Desiree’s hand on his arm.
She smiled at him all the time. She complimented him. She flirted.
Just like she did with Hawk apparently.
Lucky covered her face with both hands, then dragged them down until they fell back into her lap. “How could I be so stupid?”
Hawk took her hand and kissed her palm. “Hey. None of that. You’re not stupid. They were hiding it from you.”
“Not that well, now that I think about all the times I saw them together. They were so…chummy.” She stared at the floor, feeling sick and betrayed.
Jase nudged her knee with his. “Did you know Desiree had been…detained multiple times by us, since the time she was thirteen?”
“No.”
Jase nodded. “There’s nothing officially on record, but the guys I talked to said she’d been brought in for all kinds of things--shoplifting, drunk and disorderly, possession, joyriding, speeding tickets and a bunch of other petty stuff.
They’d catch her and haul her into her father’s office.
The last offense was just a couple of months ago.
Some guy pissed her off and she slashed his tires. ”
“Sounds familiar.” Hawk glared daggers at the room.
“And she gets away with all of it?” Lucky’s stomach soured.
Jase’s steady gaze dared her to think otherwise. “Let’s play this out with the added information that Desiree has a history of breaking the law and getting away with it, and she and Neil were…having an affair.”
She cringed. “If Desiree was hooking up with Neil behind my back, then I suppose they were also talking about me, too. Things were getting really bad at home. Both of them had talked to me about running away. I couldn’t.
Not yet. Not without Danny. Not until I graduated.
I’d need my diploma to have any kind of chance of getting a job. ”
Jase went back to the past. “Desiree probably met up with Neil at his house, so no one would see them and out them. Right?”
Her stomach tied into a knot. “That seems the most logical place. His parents worked, so the house was empty until six weeknights. I would tell my parents I was studying with a friend, but I’d go to his place for a couple hours.
I couldn’t take the chance of sneaking out at night, but Desiree did it all the time.
” She thought about all the trouble she’d gotten into while Lucky was at home fending off her father’s abuse.
“It would have been easy enough for her to meet up with him behind my back, maybe sneak into his room through his window. They had a lot more freedom than I did.” Her heart hurt just thinking about them talking about her, laughing that she didn’t know what was going on between them.