Chapter Thirty-Three
Jules and Lucy sit cross-legged on the matching beds in the hotel room.
“I haven’t shared a room with anyone since college.” Lucy takes a swig from the bottle of bottom-shelf gin she pulled from her duffle bag, smacks her lips. “The FBI, you’d think they wouldn’t be so cheap.”
“Where’d you go to school?” Jules asks. She wonders if she’ll ever make it back to college herself. She’s made a lot of money modeling, probably enough to last her well into her thirties. Will she ever go back? It probably depends on when her modeling career fizzles out.
“I went to Dartmouth,” Lucy says.
“Dartmouth,” Jules replies, probably too surprised. She didn’t take Lucy for an Ivy Leaguer. She honestly didn’t take her for an any leaguer.
“Don’t be impressed. I dropped out after first quarter.” Lucy swallows.
“He took you while you were away at school?” Jules asks. She feels a chill down her back that May Day hunted outside of Nebraska.
“No, it was before I left. If you can believe it, he took me the day I got my acceptance letter from Dartmouth. I thought I could get past it.”
Jules imagines the scene. A young Lucy surrounded by her family as she opened the envelope from Dartmouth College. Then going out afterward with friends to celebrate. Then …
“We have something else in common, then,” Jules says. “I didn’t make it a full semester at school.”
“Oh, I know all about Stadium Girl.”
Jules is surprised again. She didn’t think Lucy paid attention to stuff like that. Lucy holds out the bottle and Jules reaches over and clasps it by the neck, takes a swig, winces since she’s never loved the pine taste of gin.
“That’s when I finally told my mom what happened,” Lucy says. “When I had my breakdown at college.”
Jules wonders if she’ll ever be able to tell her parents.
To tell anyone the details out loud. She decides maybe it’s time to share with someone who knows.
“He strangled me during … I thought he was killing me. When I woke up I was back in my car. He took my driver’s license, knew my address,” Jules says, defending her silence. “Said he’d come back if I told.”
“Same.”
Jules feels that wave of anxiety wash over her.
“Keeping the secret was poisoning me,” Lucy says. “I got angry with you and Carrie because you hold it together so well. I wasn’t that strong.”
“I’m not holding it together at all. And you’re the one who’s strong.”
“My dad, he—” Lucy’s voice breaks. “He cried so hard when I told him. I’d never seen him cry before.”
Jules is tearing up now.
Lucy says, “I still have nightmares about him. And I sometimes disassociate. Like I leave my own body and can’t remember hours. I got hypersexual, like I was trying to prove something to myself. I … ah, put myself in reckless situations with men.”
“Has anything made you feel better?” Jules asks.
“Serving as bait for the killer sure as shit isn’t helping,” Lucy says with a tiny laugh.
“We’re not bait. If we were, they wouldn’t have put us up here for the night.” Jules passes her the bottle.
Lucy shrugs.
“You don’t really think he’d come back for us, do you?” Jules says. She hasn’t let herself believe that’s possible.
“They didn’t have FBI agents following us all day for nothing.”
Jules swallows, and it hurts since her mouth and throat are so dry.
Perhaps sensing the fear, Lucy adds, “But if he’s as smart as they think he is, he saw them tailing us and it scared him off.”
Jules is quiet. She notices Lucy studying her now, like she’s deciding whether to tell her something. The tears are gone, the hard persona already back.
“You asked what helps me feel better?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy gets off the bed, chugs the rest of the gin.
“There’s one thing that’s helped.”
Jules stares at her. Waits.
Lucy shrugs on her leather jacket, laces on her Doc Martens.
Jules can’t wait any longer, she wants desperately to know. “What is it? What helps?”
“If you really want to know, you’ll have to come with me.”