Chapter 16 #2
She would have been screaming, the prosecutor told us.
But no one heard her because her mouth was covered.
Then the attacker would have undone his pants, and ripped Alexandria’s shorts off her body.
She struggled, kicking and attempting to scratch at the intruder, but he forced himself into her, moving his hand to her throat to pin her down.
He did not loosen his grip until he had finished, and by then, she was dead by asphyxiation.
The perpetrator then left her in the woods, like unwanted trash.
It was a crime of passion that could have only been committed by someone stronger than her, with enough hatred in their heart to make sure they got what they wanted.
This was one of the pieces of evidence I could never explain, though. Because if Alex had been raped by someone, why was there no forensic evidence of it, no further traces on her body or clothes besides the semen?
The Hopelys had cried at the prosecutor’s words. Will had sobbed. My family sat in silence.
I looked at my mother as the prosecutor pulled out images of the autopsy. The DNA samples and the vaginal trauma they claimed they found. It was written all over my mother’s face. She thought Will did it.
She confirmed it later, sobbing in the kitchen, drunk for the first time in years. “Keith,” my mom sobbed. “There is no other explanation. She was raped, and his was the only DNA found.” My father just nodded, wrapping her up in a hug.
It was the moment I decided to hate her.
A week later, Will was given a life sentence.
My mother cried in the courtroom. Later that same day, she removed every picture of him from the house and proceeded to act like Will didn’t exist. Whenever I defended him, she ignored me.
And six months later, she moved to Tampa and started over.
Completely fresh. As if it all never happened.
Me writing the book was the final nail in the coffin for our dying relationship.
I tried to reconcile all of this with the woman who now sat sobbing in front of me in Denny’s.
“I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” I said blankly. “Now you think Will is innocent?”
Her mouth hung open slightly as she nodded her head. “When I was in the room with Detective Pullman, he asked me about your father,” she said, making direct eye contact with me now. “He asked me about his relationship with Hazel.”
I could see where this was going. I watched her face scrunch up to stop the tears falling down her cheeks. “He asked me if I thought their relationship was ever inappropriate.”
“And what did you say?” I pressed.
“I said no,” she whimpered. “Obviously. But he kept going on about how the two of them lived alone down here, and how unlikely it was that some stranger had come in off the street and snatched her.” Her entire body shuddered.
“And so, naturally, I’m sitting there wondering where the hell my daughter is and what happened to her, and whether or not my ex-husband had something to do with it. ”
My hands shook as I clutched my coffee cup tighter.
“He had so much to say, Rose. About why your father never moved out of Loxahatchee, even though the rest of us did. Why he spent so much time alone. How Hazel did make it home that day. And then I started thinking about back then, and how quickly he agreed with me when I told him I thought Will might have done it. He never argued with me.” She paused to hiccup.
She was speaking fast now. “Maybe he was so quick to condemn him because … maybe he did it, Rose. Maybe it was him.”
She was still crying and people from halfway across the restaurant were turning around to look.
I didn’t have the words. I was having trouble forming thoughts.
“You think Dad killed Alex?” I hissed, unable to keep the venom from my tone.
“I … don’t … know,” she wailed. “I was sure back then that it had been Will. I’d made my peace with it.
Even though I ruined my relationship with you over it.
And now my other daughter is missing. That’s a hell of a coincidence.
” She wiped her eyes. “All those things the detective was saying … What am I supposed to think?”
“Not that my father is a killer!” I tried to catch my breath. “First Will, now Dad. Who’s next, Mom? Tommy? Me? Exactly how many of us are you going to accuse of murder?”
She looked like I’d slapped her. Her body pressed backward against the booth, moving as far away from me as she could. “I was trying to ask your opinion,” she said softly. “I was trying to see if I’d failed to protect you. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“This is ridiculous, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “Dad didn’t kill Alex, and he did not hurt Hazel. I don’t care what Pullman said. They have it out for us. They are jumping through hoops to try and find a way to make us involved in this, when everything points to someone else!”
My mother stared at me, her eyes wide and wet. “I heard the door open the night Alex died,” she whispered. “You remember that beeping the door made?”
I remembered the door alarm. It was an irritating little squeak that most of us had learned to tune out, but Mom was the lightest sleeper. She was hypersensitive to it, always making sure no one had accidentally let out Davis.
I was unsure where she was going with this. She continued, “Dad was in the computer room that night.”
It wasn’t uncommon for them to sleep apart. Dad snored and Mom couldn’t sleep through it.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it woke me up, and I was a little annoyed because it was after midnight.”
Midnight. Right in the window of Alex’s estimated time of death. No, there had to be an explanation for this.
“Mom, that door would open a thousand times a night,” I reminded her. “Davis was old. He scratched constantly to be let out. We all did it all the time on autopilot. Plus, it was finnicky. Are you forgetting that it chirped even when the door wasn’t open?”
“But that night? Of all nights.” She shook her head. “I told your father about it, and he told me to keep it to myself. So I did.”
This was the first time I was hearing about this, which meant I was likely the only person to now know aside from my parents. She’d probably never said because she knew it would look bad, even if it was just a coincidence. It would look bad for Will.
“What if your father said to keep quiet about it because it was him?” my mother asked, interrupting my line of thinking.
She was fucking delusional, and I’d had enough. I got up from the booth, rifling around in my bag and grabbing my wallet. I found my emergency twenty and tossed it on the counter.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Leaving.”
“Rose.” Her voice was steely. “We need to talk about this. I am your mother.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a shitty mother,” I said firmly, watching the insult stick. “And apparently a shitty wife. No wonder your daughter is missing. The only reason she was in this godforsaken town was because she couldn’t stand living with you.”
It was a low blow and I knew it. I watched her face recoil.
I grabbed my keys from the table and turned so I didn’t have to look my mother in the eye.
The house was quiet when I got back. I’d been added to an emergency family group chat in which my mother had told everyone she and Steve would be at the hotel for the rest of the evening.
Suzannah had written back that she was going to pick up the kids from her parents’.
My dad, meanwhile, was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring blankly at the closed curtains.
“Dad?” I called out hesitantly. He was sitting so completely still that if I didn’t see that his eyes were open, I would have thought he was sleeping.
His gaze drifted slowly to mine. “Hey, Rosie.”
I dropped my bag on the kitchen counter, watching him.
I didn’t know what Detective Newbury had asked him at the station, but from the look on his face, I could guess he had been grilled, presumably about the very same things Mom, Tommy, and I had been.
I couldn’t imagine what that felt like. The feeling of being accused of something so horrible as hurting your own daughter.
But Pullman was right. It was exactly the same thing I had done to Gary Hopely. I put the thought away as I went to walk into the living room and almost bumped straight into my brother.
“Jesus, Tommy,” I said, clutching at my chest as he appeared suddenly from the hallway.
“Sorry.” He held up his hands defensively. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I didn’t know you were here.” I held up my phone. “I saw Suzannah’s message in the grim family chat and assumed you were with her.”
Tommy shrugged. “Well, I’m not.”
“Why aren’t you with Suzannah?” I pressed, leaning against the fridge. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you.”
Tommy sighed and nodded toward our father in the other room.
“You weren’t home yet, and I didn’t want to leave Dad alone.” Tommy dropped his voice. “I don’t know about you, but they said some pretty nasty things to us back at the station. Dad didn’t take it well.”
I pursed my lips. “I got the same.”
“Never thought we’d be the ones taking care of them like this,” Tommy said wistfully.
“The cycle of life comes for us all,” I said, reaching into the fridge and pulling out three bottles of beer, which now felt like our routine. I opened them and handed one to Tommy. He took it and followed me into the living room.
Our dad barely looked at me as I sat down beside him on the stiff couch and pressed one into his hands.
“Thanks,” Dad said softly, looking down at the beer. I took a hearty sip from my open bottle as I tried to figure out what to say. How did you even begin to have this conversation? Tommy lingered beside us, leaning against the wall, taking small sips.
“I know you didn’t hurt Hazel,” I said, avoiding looking at our dad directly. I didn’t want to see the look on his face. “I don’t care what those inept fucking detectives said.”
My father sighed loudly, his shoulders sagging.
“They told you that too, huh?” he finally said.
“I don’t believe it, Dad.” I stressed. “Not even for a second.”
The corner of his mouth twitched into the smallest smile, and he patted my knee comfortingly. It lasted for only a second before the dread seemed to return to him.
“They asked me if I killed her, Rosie,” he said, his bottom lip trembling as he turned to look at me. “Right after they asked if I’d also killed Alex.”
His eyes brimmed with tears, and he brought the beer bottle to his mouth, downing half of it in one gulp. I tried to not look too surprised. Clearly Detectives Newbury and Pullman were thinking different things. Pullman didn’t seem to suspect Dad of killing Alexandria.
“They’re just speculating,” Tommy assured him.
“And you have an alibi, right?” I asked, changing gears. “Weren’t you working?”
Dad gave me a look. “It’s flimsy. Or so I’m told.” He brought a hand up to wipe his mouth, and I clutched my beer bottle tighter.
“How flimsy?” I knew enough about this from Will’s case to be a little helpful.
“I stayed at the office until seven thirty doing paperwork, but I was alone. Jessie at the front desk left at five,” he said. Tommy sighed, knowing just like I did that this wasn’t a good thing.
“Do you have security cameras at the office?” I asked. Please god, say yes, I thought, curling my legs underneath me.
Dad shook his head. “They already looked at the footage. It only tracks a small section of the parking lot. So they kept saying I could have left right after Jessie and had plenty of time to come home and …” He trailed off, not wanting to finish the implication.
I sank into the couch. None of this was comforting.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“Fuck’s right,” my father said, and we all sat in silence.