14. You Are Not Alone #2
The jury is still out on Keene, but I’m glad we have Luke’s blessing. I know how much Bex values her twin brother’s opinion.
After speaking to Ares Hunter, the ride back to campus has us all in a much more somber mood.
We need to keep Bex safe, and we need a good plan.
We’re all still wrapped up in our own thoughts as we enter our condo.
The living room is deserted, but a loud noise makes us run outside to the deck.
My heart is in my throat as I panic that whatever that noise is, Bex could be hurt.
Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the scene we witnessed outside.
Bham!
That deafening noise is easily explained when we see the cause.
Bex and Keene are wielding a sledgehammer, smashing something small. I think the object they’re destroying used to be a phone at some point in time; now it resembles a pancake.
Keene is clearly helping Bex lift a sledgehammer that probably weighs more than her soaking wet.
He has his arms around her; he’s practically hugging her from behind.
Had I seen my ex in the same situation, I would have beaten the crap out of the other guy.
But the jealousy I was expecting to feel at the way Keene and Bex are looking at each other, when they separate to check their handiwork, doesn’t come.
If that were anyone else, I have no doubt I would have lost my shit. Keene is one of my best friends in the world, though. I consider him a brother, the same way I do Jamie and Luke.
I know how heartbroken the end of his marriage left him, because I was in a similar situation; confiding in each other cemented our friendship beyond the obvious chemistry we have on the ice.
So, I just take in stride the fact that Jamie and I are right and Keene has just been in denial about his real feelings for Bex.
“Bexie-Boo, here you are. Hey bro.” Luke greets them.
She launches herself into her brother’s arms. “Hey sweetie.”
They hug each other tightly. “Happy to see me?”
“Always.” She beams.
Looking at the love between them warms my heart. I’m an only child, and I’ve always wanted a sibling. I had to come here to Star Cove to find that kind of love with Keene, Jamie, and Luke.
“I have some news. You need to sit down.” He says to her.
Bex’s smile fades away. “Oh? Is everything ok?”
“Let’s sit.” Luke keeps his arm wrapped around his sister’s shoulders, guiding her toward the table and chairs on the deck. “We were just at the sheriff’s station. Ares had some news for us.”
There are just four chairs at the table and five of us.
“Let me go get one of the chairs from the kitchen.” Keene offers, but I have a better idea.
“No need. Bex can sit with me.”
I take Bex’s hand and guide her onto my lap. “Hey beautiful.”
The smile she offers me is like a ray of sunshine, and I can’t resist the urge to brush my lips against hers. “I missed you.” I murmur.
“I missed you, too.”
Keene clears his throat, his jaw tight as he glares at us. “If you two would pay attention, I’d like to know what Ares had to say.”
He’s jealous.
On one hand, that could be a problem. But on the other hand, that’s all the confirmation we needed that Keene has been antagonizing Bex this whole time because he hates that he likes her.
“Yeah. What did Ares say?” Bex turns her attention back to her brother.
“I guess you two will tell us later what you were hammering at.” Luke’s gaze dances behind us, at what looks like a metal safe. “But yeah, Ares had some updates about the breaking in.”
“Luke.” Bex and Keene snap in unison. “Today, please.”
It’s hard to suppress a bout of laughter as I meet Jamie’s gaze. His lips are curling too, and his shoulders are shaking as he struggles to contain himself.
“Guys,” Luke scolds us. “I know these too are hilarious, but this is important. So, obviously, Ares confirmed one hundred percent that Keene and Connor’s alibis checked out and there’s no way they could have been your attacker.”
Bex nods. “I had no doubt about that.”
I didn’t blame her for thinking it could have been one of us straight after it happened. She was in shock, and Keene and I hadn’t exactly welcomed Bex into our midst by rolling a red carpet for her.
“The thing that Ares wasn’t able to confirm with total certainty is Priestly’s whereabouts on that night. After scouring his and his teammates’ social media, he couldn’t confirm that he was in Bridgeport on that night. No one posted any pictures of him or tagged him.”
Bex frowns, concern written all over her face. “What about Aisha? They just announced their engagement. Maybe they were together? She posts everything she does, literally.”
“Ares included anyone who lives in the Pure Shine house in his investigation.”
“Great. So all he could confirm is that I wasn’t attacked by Keene or Connor? I’m grateful to him for looking into it, but that is hardly any progress. What about some of the other people? The ones who attacked me in the comments?”
Luke shrugs. “There were so many of them, Bexie-Boo. A lot of people are very good at covering their tracks online, too. There are VPNs and other ways to conceal your identity and location. Ares doesn’t have the resources to do that kind of work on his own.”
“Ok.” Bex sighs. “So my masked stalker might have been Kurt, or it might have been anyone who follows Aisha’s account? She has three million followers. My attacker was definitely a man; so if we want to exclude all the women who follow her, that leaves us with more or less one million men?”
I lace my fingers through hers to comfort her, but let Luke deliver the next bit of news.
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Ares was frustrated by how difficult it was to pin anyone down. He’s convinced the masked stalker is your ex.
He said something about statistics and how in the majority of violent crimes against women, their current or former romantic partners are often the culprits. So he did a little more digging.”
Bex tenses up, and I do too, even though I already know what Luke is going to say next.
“Priestly has a black EV SUV. A luxury model. The interesting thing is that a similar vehicle was caught on many security cameras all over campus on the night of your attack. There was one in the parking lot of the hockey arena that arrived shortly after we ended our practice and left fifteen minutes after you were attacked.”
Luke takes the A4 envelope he got from Ares and takes out a couple of grainy photos.
Bex examines them carefully. “This is his car.”
I hate the fear in her voice.
“This is the thing,” Luke sighs. “The images are too grainy to see the number plate. And the bad news is that there are two dozen of that make, model, and color in Star Cove. The mayor owns one, too. There are five on campus alone.”
Bex catches up fast. “So it could have been Kurt. Or it could have been someone on campus?”
“Two of the ones on campus are owned by women. That leaves three possibilities that wouldn’t be Kurt.
Ares wants to see if he can rule out the ones on campus by speaking to all five people who own one.
Even the one with a female owner could have been borrowed by a boyfriend or a male roommate on that night. ”
Keene rolls his eyes. “Shows you that this campus is full of spoiled rich brats whose parents spend six figures to give them a pretentious car.”
She keeps staring at the images in her hands, as if the number plates could be conjured by sheer willpower.
“Ares asked me to tell you something else. He’s willing to look into it more and to talk to those five people.
But he isn’t comfortable doing that unless you come to the station to make an official complaint.
Then he could have access to a little more resources and manpower.
Maybe even see if he can get a warrant to search the five SUVs on campus. ”
“But unless one of the five people on campus confesses or has one of those masks in the trunk,” Bex argues. “All we can do is exclude those five people. We wouldn’t know much more about the identity of my attacker.”
We debated this at length on the way back from the police station.
“The only way to know for sure if we can exclude Priestly is to get a DNA sample to compare to the one on the fabric we got from Poonani. And do you think your ex would offer us one without a warrant?”
Bex looks troubled, and I hate that.
I already don’t know how I’ll play against Bridgeport in two weeks without maiming him for hurting Bex once. But if, God forbid, we can prove that her ex attacked her a second time, I’m going to fucking kill him.
“The sheriff is aware of what happened, but he won’t be able to do much without an official complaint, since no one witnessed the attack but you, and we tidied up our condo like a bunch of dumb asses before calling the cops.
The truth is, Bexie-Boo, that unless we get the police involved, we’re out of our depth. ”
Bex sighs, looking at those prints in her hands one more time before handing them back to her brother.
“Ok. I don’t know if they’ll ever find the creep who attacked me, but if it’s Kurt, I want to know.
And I want to make sure he’ll never be able to hurt someone else.
Especially Aisha. We were best friends, and she doesn’t deserve to go through what I did.
Even if Dad is forcing her to act like she hates me.
I know deep down she doesn’t mean it. Living in that house is…
you get brainwashed. You don’t see any reality but the one Dad wants you to see. ”
She gets up from my lap, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders.
I’m going to protect her, no matter what.
“Let’s go. I wish Aisha had let me warn her about Kurt. Now I can’t reach her, and she’s going to be married to a violent creep, even if my attacker was someone else.”
“You can keep trying, Bex. Maybe your friend will listen.”
Bex shakes her head. “After I messaged her, she blocked me. And two seconds later, Dad shut down all my social media. When you got here, Keene and I were destroying my phone. We just realized that he was probably tracking me the entire time.”
Luke snorts. “Seeing you and Keene hitting with that sledgehammer is definitely something I’m never going to forget.
You know that there might still be a way for him to track it?
You should have gone to the marina, and tossed it on one of those mega yachts instead of destroying it.
Then Dad would have thought you were partying in Hawaii or something. ”
“I wish.” Bex sighs. “Come on, let’s go to the police and get this over with. I’m not looking forward to reliving the scariest moments of my life.”
I’m about to reassure her that we’ll be there for her every step of the way but, to my surprise, Keene beats me to it.
“Don’t worry, Bex. You’re not alone. You have us.”