Chapter 31
thirty-one
. . .
SUTTON
“Rausch!” someone called as I walked back into the firehouse after a call, and I spun on my heel to find Crew walking toward me.
“Captain.”
He chuckled, then held his hand out, extending a large manila envelope. “This came for you with the mail.”
I studied the front surface, noting it only contained my name in a large, bold font.
Nothing else. Not even a stamp.
“You sure?” I asked skeptically.
“Yep. Chief just handed it over.”
Strange.
Slapping it against my hand, I backed away from Crew, curiosity rising. “Thanks,” I said, then turned around to head for my bunk.
Getting mail at the station wasn’t out of the norm, but it was rarely addressed directly to me. Typically, we received updated reports and procedures from our governing body in Boise. Chief Madden would then distribute them to his paramedics.
Sitting on my bed in the empty bunkroom, I folded my legs beneath me and ripped into the envelope. I dumped the contents on the bed, and paper fluttered everywhere. A few scraps slipped off the sides of the narrow mattress and onto the floor.
I blinked slowly, taking a beat to absorb what I was seeing.
Newspaper articles.
Curious, I lifted one up, then instantly dropped it like I’d been burned as the headline blazed and seared itself into my retinas.
UNIVERSITY STUDENT ACCUSED OF RAPE
“What the fuck…”
With shaky hands, I sifted through more articles. There had to be at least thirty of them from various publications, both print and digital. A few more jumped out at me.
BOISE STATE RAPE CASE SETTLED
HUMAN REMAINS FOUND
BELIEVED TO BE THOSE OF RYAN BOYD
DNA CONFIRMS REMAINS AS RYAN BOYD
Abstractly, I knew he was dead because Lane had said so, but to see it splashed so plainly across these headlines had the knowledge truly sinking in for the first time.
Ryan Boyd was dead.
My tormenter, my rapist, the man who had taken something from me that had taken over a decade and a half to recover, was dead.
So why was someone sending me these articles now? My name had never been released to the public. I’d been very firm about that.
A lot of that time was hazy, but I’d never forget the day when a detective and Ryan’s lawyer had shown up, unannounced, I might add, at my off-campus apartment to speak with me about the case.
They’d been frank about the reason for their visit, which I’d weirdly appreciated even if it pissed me the fuck off. There’d been no shady backroom dealings—other than approaching me without my own attorney present.
“You’re going to let this go,” Ruiz, the Boyds’ lawyer, said.
“And why would I do that?” I asked, adopting confidence and bluster I definitely didn’t feel.
Internally, I was freaking the fuck out.
I knew I should’ve called my attorney immediately, should’ve demanded these asshats leave, should’ve done something.
But I was frozen. Exactly as frozen as I had been since that night three months ago.
I wondered if I’d ever return to normal—or whatever normal looked like after going through what I had.
Chadwick gave me a pitying smile that had me wanting to claw his eyes out. “Come on, Miss Rausch. We all know these kinds of things don’t stick. They’re impossible to prove, and they never go the way you’ll hope. Save yourself further trauma and take the deal.”
I wanted to laugh. What the hell did he know about trauma? Did he not understand his very presence was furthering my trauma?
“What deal?”
As pissed off as I was, he did have a point. Walking this road, intent on persecuting the disgusting boy who’d violated me, would likely not pan out the way I hoped, no matter the assurances my attorney made me.
Ruiz dug into his briefcase and withdrew a sheaf of papers, sliding the stack across the table between us until it rested in front of me.
The document title screamed at me in large, bold Times New Roman font.
SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
“You want me to settle,” I said dumbly.
“We believe this is the best course of action for both parties,” said Ruiz.
I snorted. “No, the best course of action would be for your client”—I jabbed my finger in the direction of the attorney—“to spend a significant amount of time behind bars for what he did to me.”
The men shared a look and a light chuckle. “That will never happen,” Chadwick said.
That’s what I’d been afraid of. And since this prick was the lead detective on the case, it seemed he was willing to do whatever it took to keep my abuser out of jail.
Ryan’s family was rich, so this didn’t shock me. Obviously, Chadwick was in the families’ pocket, and he’d do what was needed to make this all go away and spare their boy’s precious reputation.
“This needs to go through my attorney,” I said at last.
My attorney didn’t work for some highly sought after firm, nor had she represented any high-profile clients. But she’d believed me when I shared my story, and had taken care with my feelings and opinions, always giving me the choice before we made any moves, never pressuring me into anything.
That had been enough for me.
“Of course,” Ruiz said.
I nodded, then stood, wiping my clammy palms on my sweats; they’d arrived unexpectedly, catching me at a disadvantage in so many aspects, least of all being my comfy clothes while they both wore suits.
“Now get out of my house.”
They were gone within moments. I collapsed on the couch, dropped my head into my hands, and sobbed.
Though I’d wound up telling my attorney about Chadwick and Ruiz’s visit, we’d ultimately decided, after a long talk, not to pursue any action against them.
The settlement agreement was good considering what it was: an escape hatch for Ryan, an easy way to make the problem (me) go away without dragging his name through the mud.
Which, in my opinion, was the least he’d deserved.
But based on these articles, he’d died not long after I’d signed the agreement and that news had been made public.
What I couldn’t figure out now was how whoever had sent this figured out I’d been the Jane Doe named in the initial legal proceedings.
I continued flipping through the articles. Back then, I hadn’t paid any attention to the media coverage, too focused on holding myself together to care about anything outside of the bubble I’d formed around myself. I’d never seen any of this.
Finally, I reached the bottom of the stack, unearthing a plain white index card with five words written on it in thick, black marker, matching the handwriting from the front of the envelope.
ASK HIM WHAT HE DID.
Ask who?
I flipped it over, but the lined side was blank. So I began sifting through the articles again, searching for any indication of who this mysterious he could be.
Whoever sent this did so operating under the assumption that I would know exactly who they meant. Reclining back against the short, cinder block wall that separated my row of bunks from the one over, I closed my eyes, doing that thing where I could think better when I couldn’t see.
Ask him.
Ask him what he did.
Wait.
Is this person, with this stack of articles and ominous index card, suggesting Ryan’s death hadn’t been as accidental as the papers suggested?
And in that case, who would have a grudge against him big enough to do something as insane as kill him?
“No,” I said out loud in a whisper. “No no no no no.”
He didn’t. It simply wasn’t possible. There was no way in hell he would take a life.
For you, he absolutely would, my subconscious unhelpfully supplied.
Gathering the articles and index card, I returned them to the envelope and headed for the locker room, shoving the entire thing in my backpack. I didn’t want anyone to see it and ask questions—least of all Crew.
Checking my watch, I mentally calculated how many hours until my shift was over and I could go home.
My roommate—boyfriend?—and I needed to have a serious conversation.
“Chief?” I called when I walked in the door the next morning. When he didn’t answer, I tried again, using his real one instead of his nickname. “Lane!”
His footfalls approached from down the hall to his room, and a moment later, he met me in the living room. His face split into a grin at the sight of me.
“Hey, sunny,” he said as he approached, intent on giving me a kiss, but I held up my hands.
Those blue eyes darted around my face, and his grin slowly fell, quickly morphing into a frown as he gauged my serious expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can we sit?”
“Sure…” he said, moving to the couch and taking the spot along one arm, patting the cushion next to him.
I took a step in his direction, then realized I couldn’t sit.
I needed to pace, to use the movement to set free some of the nervous energy coursing through me.
“Sunny, you’re freaking me the fuck out. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Did you kill Ryan Boyd?” I blurted.
Lane’s expression blanked, all the blood drained from his face, and his mouth slackened.
Despite his immediate physical reaction to my question, his voice was steady as he asked, “Who told you that?”
Dropping my backpack onto the coffee table, I dug out the envelope and passed it to him. He dipped his hand inside, coming out with the articles. The index card boldly displayed its message from right on top.
He didn’t bother to look through the articles, simply set them aside and fingered the index card, flipping it over and over in his fingers.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“Someone sent it to me at the firehouse.”
“I got one too,” he admitted. “My first day back to work.”
“What did you do, Lane? And don’t fucking lie to me.”
His broad palm scraped down his face, that damn nervous tic the only outward sign he was distressed by this conversation.
And then he spoke, and my entire world changed in an instant.
“Yeah, Sutton. I killed him.”
I gasped—I couldn’t help it. My hands flew to my mouth, and my legs gave out from under me. I managed to stumble to one of the chairs before falling over.