Chapter 24
“But it didn’t,” I say to Greene and Alderson at my kitchen table. “The cops told Sophie that it would be difficult to prosecute but that it was up to her whether she wanted to go ahead and press charges.”
This draws out a surprised eye lift from Greene. Nowadays, all cops should know better than to scare a victim off from pressing charges. Protocols have been put into place, and most agencies, even smaller ones, are aware of them.
“Yeah,” I say. “Things have changed since then.” Or are supposed to have changed, at least. “But Sophie—with some prodding from me—had decided to go ahead and press charges. And once it all came out, the backlash around town and the college was more overpowering than I anticipated. It was relentless. And we had to contend with the fact that Josh was an athlete, one of the university’s top golfers, there on a scholarship.
“Not only did we become these foolish, stupid girls—a couple of ditzy freshmen idiotic enough to go camping with a pack of boys and a ton of alcohol—we were also accused of making the whole thing up. They said we’d gotten lost in the woods and wanted to cover up our own stupidity for wandering off on our own. ”
I go over it all again with them, how Sophie was called a liar, a slut, a whore who’d gotten laid while on a frosh camping trip. The implication always circled back to our poor judgment.
When booze came up about Sophie and me, it was that we were stupid for drinking in that situation.
When it was mentioned in relation to Josh, it was framed as an excuse: Poor guy, he wasn’t in his right mind, since he was under the influence.
If he hadn’t drunk so much, he’d never have misread the signals, if there even were any in the first place.
And the question that got the most press: How could it have been rape if Sophie didn’t call for help?
All the other boys attested to that: She hadn’t yelled for anyone, so she must have wanted it.
Otherwise, it made no sense. For goodness’ sake, with all those guys around, why in the world wouldn’t she cry out if she didn’t like it, if she felt threatened and didn’t want it to happen?
“And,” I say. “Why wouldn’t she, at the very least, call out for her friend, asleep in her tent less than”—my voice falters, so I pause for a second, swallow hard—“fifty feet away?”
I shake my head like I’m just pissed and angry and try not to show the sadness welling and lodging in my throat.
Less than fifty feet? It’s still charged, visceral, for me to think about it. To say it out loud.
“But you know from your jobs,” I say, “like I do, that it’s common for rape victims to feel paralyzed, find themselves unable to scream, to feel like they’re in a nightmare in which they’re trying to run but cannot move. You know this?”
I look from Alderson’s dark-brown eyes to Greene’s sharp green ones. Neither one answers, but it’s not a question.
“Two years later, when we were juniors,” I say, “Sophie died by suicide before the whole thing even got to trial.”
I see no point in loitering on Memory Lane any longer, reliving all the mundane details about our existence as Sophie had grown ever more anxiety-ridden and depressed. How she overdosed on a high dose of fentanyl pills and half a bottle of tequila.
“But I don’t see how any of this history could possibly tie into what’s happening now,” I say.
Again, the words amorphous, nebulous pop into my mind.
Although this event helps form the triad—Sophie, Leon, Jess—of my weighted conscience, it was ten years ago and far from the line I crossed with Railes.
“The only thing I feel guilty for with Sophie is urging her to go camping in the first place.” And that her first sex was literally rape. That I urged her to not be so guarded. That I pushed her to press charges in a town known for putting their athletes first, for having a good ol’ boys culture.
I should have known better. And that’s why I didn’t press even harder with Jess, even though I knew some things had changed in the past ten years. That the local hospital in Kalispell had, at least, instituted a Sane Suite.
“You were young,” Alderson says.
I throw him a sharp look because what he says scratches at the underlying wounds.
Even though I just admitted feeling guilty for going camping with Sophie, it still makes me furious that we should have had to say no to an invitation to go with some guys out in the woods in the first place.
That we couldn’t go and enjoy ourselves because the danger of having one of them force themselves onto one of us might be too great.
How absurd and disgusting that we should have even had to “know better.”
But there’s no reason to go into that. Reality isn’t always fair, and as a police officer and a private detective, I’ve seen enough unfairness to fill up acres and acres of sewers.
“Still, like I said, I don’t see how any of it pertains to what’s happening now, unless you think Josh Lyster has a vendetta against me, which would make zero sense, all these years later. And unless he was tied into the other victims.”
“No, we’ve checked. He’s not. And Sophie’s family? Wallace? He was her brother?”
“Yes.”
“When did you begin dating him?”
“Not until years later, when he moved to the Flathead to play for the symphony.”
“And it didn’t work out?”
“We broke up this winter. As I told you.”
“And he knew you encouraged Sophie to go camping when she didn’t want to?”
I nod.
“And he knew she was inexperienced with guys and you encouraged to, as you said, to not be so guarded?”
“Yes, but have you spoken to him?”
“We have.”
“So you know there’s nothing to worry about with him?”
Alderson and Greene stare at me, expressionless. Too blank, like they’re trying hard not to show their hand.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Greene says. “You need to be careful around everyone right now. Understand?”
“Yeah, I do. But I need a favor.”
“What’s that?”
I tell them that I can’t be an effective PI if I show up out there as a detective with a caravan in my rearview mirror.
I instruct them to tell Deputy Zane to follow my lead. Keeping an eye on my house is one thing, but tailing me everywhere is another.
A bit reluctantly, they agree.
What I don’t tell them is I’m certain now, for sure, that I’m the one. I’m the target. It’s not only that they’re privy to someone locally who’s been aggressive and obsessive online, and that they want me in a safe house, too, it’s that I can’t be in denial anymore about these earrings.
Sure, a lot of tourists could have bought them. But the fact is, no one who also looks like the sketch who’s either confessed or contacted authorities has claimed to own a pair exactly like them, even with over a thousand of them out there.
I go cold all over.
I’ve been fighting it since the sketch came out. I haven’t wanted to voice it yet in my own head, but I no longer have a choice.
And that also means I’m certain as hell that I won’t be confined to quarters.