Chapter 16 #2
Sophie flashed again. Her rapist holding her down on those hard pebbles. She’d shown me the blood spots on her jeans that had transferred when she got them back on, told me that he’d ripped her pants down and jammed his fingers inside her.
And Jess? I couldn’t even let myself go to those details. I shut my eyes, working hard to stay in the moment, my pulse knocking in my neck.
“I had my keys.” Leon held them up. Showed me.
“I just . . . I remember squeezing them so tight when he was on me.” He moved the keys from one hand to the other and fanned his hand out for me like he was going to show me a jewel.
Red welts traversed the white, waxy flesh of his palm.
“Eventually I squirmed enough and got turned around. I scratched him. With these. And these.”
Leon held up his fingernails from his other hand.
“We were both screaming. I swore I was going to call you and he said if I did, he’d hurt me worse.
He couldn’t believe I’d scratch his face and arms like that.
He was calling me names. And I was lifting up the couch cushions, thinking my phone fell down between them, and as I was doing that, he called 9-1-1 and had someone on the line.
I tried to leave, but he blocked me, and we screamed at each other all over again.
When he arrived”—he pointed at the room where Railes was—“I was holding one of those glasses. I don’t know what I was thinking.
I was freaking out. I was scared. I guess I thought I’d throw it at him if I needed to.
“What’s going to happen?” Leon said. “I don’t want him to go to jail. I only want him to get some help or something.”
Jess’s voice echoed in my head. She’d said the very same thing.
“I mean,” Leon said. “We’ve been dating, so it’s not like it’s rape or anything.”
No! I wanted to scream as I snapped back to the situation at hand. Here we go again, the same old justifications. I was about to tell Leon to stay put so I could have a word with the other officer. Railes beat me to it, emerging from the bedroom with orders for me to cuff Leon.
“What?” Leon looked at me with terror in his eyes. “Me? Cuff me? I’m not the one . . .”
“You fucking are the one.” Coleman followed. “Look at these.” He held out his forearms, crisscrossed with angry, bloody scratches.
“You,” I ordered Coleman, grabbing my cuffs. “Don’t move.”
Railes grabbed Coleman before I could get to him and pushed him back. “Stay right here.”
“I was protecting myself,” Leon said. Tears sprang from his eyes.
“I’m not cuffing Leon,” I said. “He’s not the primary.”
Railes glowered at me with a seething hatred. He wasn’t used to disobedience, especially from a woman. “The fuck you doing?” he said. He didn’t care about making a scene. “You trying to undermine me?”
“Leon’s not the aggressor.”
I said it with all the calm I could muster. Even with my camera off, I had a feeling that my feet were on eggshells.
“Coleman doesn’t have a record,” Railes said. “He’s all scratched up. Gouged.”
“Defensive wounds. That guy right there,” I said as quietly as I could, but my rage surged. The words came out louder than I wanted. “Is a rapist. We need to get Leon to the Sane Suite up at the hospital.”
The Sexual Assault Response Team had trained forensic interviewers and nurses to get the specifics and administer a rape kit. The Sane Suite is where I should have forced Jess to go, even though she didn’t tell me about her assault until two weeks afterward.
Railes looked confused, but not convinced.
“There are other things you don’t know about this guy.”
“What kind of things?”
“I’ve heard stuff.” There was no way in hell I was telling Railes about my sister. Jess had been adamant about keeping it a secret. And Railes was not someone I would trust with my sister’s personal trauma even if the monster was in the same room.
I glared at Coleman. The heat in my stare could have left a contrail through the room.
“Heard things?” Railes tsk’d. “We’re going off crap you’ve heard?”
Coleman looked at me arrogantly, like he had the situation under control. It took every ounce of my strength to not bolt over and start swinging.
“Either you cuff him or I do,” I said.
Railes shrugged. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less which one of these faggots you want to take in.”
I shook my head at Railes’s vileness.
“Fine,” I said again through clenched teeth. I started toward Coleman with sweaty palms, my heart beating furiously.
Coleman yelled, “No fucking way. None of this is my fault. I’m the one who needs a fucking tetanus shot.”
“You,” I roared. “On the floor. Hands behind your head.”
He changed tack and went toward Leon.
“On the floor,” I shouted again at Coleman.
My hand went to my Sig, not because I thought I needed it, but because I wanted it. My hands needed it. My fingers itched to put it up to Coleman’s face. At the last second, some modicum of sensibility kicked in. I left it alone.
But then Railes pulled his.
He pointed it at Coleman, then Leon, back to Coleman.
“On the floor, Coleman,” I screamed. “And Railes. Jesus. Put that down.”
Railes ignored me, which meant my words aimed at Coleman meant nothing. Coleman was oblivious to Railes’s gun and hurled abuses at Leon.
Railes shouted for Coleman to back away from Leon and get on the floor. But Coleman, like a hawk trained on a vole, stared at Leon.
“You’ve ruined everything,” Coleman said. “You fucking piece of shit.”
“Stop.” Leon put his hands over his ears. “Just stop.”
“I mean it,” I hollered, fumbling for my Taser. “On the floor, Coleman. Hands behind your head.”
Coleman stood next to the coffee table. Tequila, bottle, shot glasses, cutting board. Knife.
He faced Leon, swearing.
“Stand down,” Railes yelled. “Stand down and drop it. Drop the knife.”
What in the hell was he talking about? Coleman wasn’t holding a knife. The knife was on the coffee table.
“Coleman,” I shouted again. “On the floor. Hands behind your head.” I wanted to tase him, watch him go stiff, fall to the floor, and shudder with pain. I wanted to trade my Taser for my gun. Why not? Railes had his out, and the bastard deserved every barrel pointed right at him.
Coleman stayed by the coffee table, five feet away from Leon. Leon wailed like a wounded child.
“Railes, dammit, put your weapon away.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Railes start to lower his gun. Thank God.
I went to grab Coleman, to cuff him. But before my second step, Coleman turned back toward us, sheer anger etched deeply in his face.
That’s when the shot rang out.
Coleman reeled back as the bullet ripped through his chest.
Time swallowed itself. My gut sloshed. My ears screamed in pain. The smell of nitro and graphite hung in the air. Leon bellowed in pain.
Coleman crumpled, smashing the coffee table on his way down, tequila and lime slices jackknifed into the air. The knife skidded across the carpet.
“What the fuck did you do?” Leon shrieked.
“He wouldn’t drop the knife.” Railes said it calmly.
“He didn’t have a knife,” Leon said.
Leon’s shocked eyes went from Railes to me, boring into me, searching for support, looking for answers I didn’t have.
And still don’t.
I called for emergency assistance. But even as I did, I knew in that moment, even if I was shocked by what Railes had done, I wasn’t sure if I cared if Coleman bled to death on his own tequila-soaked carpet.