Chaos
I was furious. Bianca had lied to me. She said she had to work late, and I believed her. It wasn’t until I got a call from Shadow that I knew about it.
“Hey, Shadow, what’s up?” I asked.
I was working late at Heathen to kill time until Bianca got off work. It was a waste of time for me to go home and then go to Sparta. It was better to leave Eatonton, head toward home, and detour to Sparta.
“Are you with Bianca?” he asked. His tone was even, which told me something wasn’t right.
“No, she’s at the gym. She had a late session with a client. Why?”
“Chaos, she’s not at the gym. I got an alert on my computer.
It was a key-term search that I programmed into the tracker I installed on her laptop.
If certain words are searched for, I’m alerted.
When I went to check what triggered it, it showed Bianca was researching bars and public news reports on sexual assaults.
It indicated that she was at home. The cameras at her apartment showed her there.
I kept watching, and she eventually left her apartment, but she wasn’t headed to the compound or to the gym, according to the tracker on her car. ”
“Where did she go?”
She better not be going to a goddamn bar. If she were, I’d spank her ass.
“She went to a church. I have the address. I don’t know why she went there. Or why she’d lie about it.”
“Send me the address. Thanks, Shadow.”
“There could be a reasonable explanation, Chaos. Try not to borrow trouble until you see why she’s there,” he cautioned me.
Shadow, more than anyone, would caution me about that. He’d jumped to conclusions about Cambria and had almost exposed a secret that had nearly gotten her hurt, if not killed. But that wasn’t the case with Bianca.
Recalling that call, as I sat next to my woman in a room full of people, it kept my ire up.
As I half-listened to the people speaking around the room, I let it sink in.
They were talking about being assaulted.
They were all victims of rape. What the hell was Bianca doing here?
Did she think she’d find out anything about those women?
Or had she merely come to warn people? If it was the last one, there was no need to hide it from me.
Fifteen minutes after I sat down, the meeting ended. People took their time getting up. They milled around, talking to each other. I saw some eyeing Bianca. I took her by the arm. They’d have to forget about speaking to her.
“Come with me. We’re leaving.”
I expected her to argue, but she didn’t. When we reached where her car and my bike sat, I waited for her to unlock the door. As she got inside, I leaned down to speak to her.
“We’re going to your place. Don’t try to go anywhere else. Don’t make me chase after you. You won’t like it,” I snarled low.
“Chaos, I’ll go. But if you continue to speak to me in that tone and treat me as if I’m a wayward child, you can forget coming with me. You can ride your ass to your home and stay there,” she said calmly.
But the fire that was igniting in her eyes told me she meant it.
“I’m not in the mood right now for bullshit, Bianca,” I told her.
She said nothing, just lowered her chin once, then waited.
I wasn’t sure if she’d go home or make me chase her.
I reluctantly eased back and closed the car door.
I hurried to my bike. She started her car and pulled out of the spot.
She didn’t pause to wait for me to start my bike or catch up.
Shit! I jumped on and started my engine.
The cold air nipped at me as I raced after her.
I knew after a few miles that she wasn’t headed to her apartment, nor was she headed toward Lake Oconee.
I couldn’t force her to pull over, so I continued to follow her.
When she eventually turned in somewhere, I was confused.
Why the hell was she going into a cemetery?
I stuck with her as she wound her way through it.
Finally, she parked along one of the paved lanes that dissected the cemetery.
She got out and leaned against her car. I stopped, shut off my bike, then swung off it. I walked over to her.
“Is there a reason you came to a cemetery? Is this supposed to be a warning that you’re about to kill me?” I asked, trying to defuse the situation with humor. Her expression was blank. I didn’t like it.
“You wanted to talk. To know why I lied and what I’m doing at the church, right?”
“Yeah, I do.
“Then this is where we need to do it.”
Without another word, Bianca turned her back on me and walked off. She had a small flashlight in her hand I hadn’t noticed until she turned it on. She walked on the dead grass between headstones until she reached one. She crouched in front of it and ran her hand over the name.
Carved into the stone was the name Elodie Jane Ward. Based on the dates, she had been twenty when she died. She would’ve been the same age as Bianca. The other thing written on it was Beloved Daughter & Friend. Forever loved & missed.
“Bianca, what’re we doing here? Who is this? I don’t understand.”
“This, her, is the reason we’re here. She’s the reason I was in that room tonight. She’s the reason I lied about where I was. And she’s the reason why I can’t let go of finding the one or ones responsible for the women being assaulted.”
I sank to sit on the cold, hard ground next to her. Bianca remained crouched, staring at the headstone.
“Talk to me, Lioness. I’m listening.” I softened my voice.
I knew whatever she was about to say would be gut-wrenching. It took her a few moments to speak.
“I never told you that I’m not new to Sparta. I actually grew up not too far from here. It wasn’t until I graduated college that I moved away to Augusta. While I had Mishap here, it was too much to stay, or it was back then. The memories were too fresh.”
“What memories, baby?”
“The memories of Elodie…and what happened to her.”
Bianca paused for several beats. I thought she might not say more, but she did. I had to strain to hear her.
“Elodie was my best friend. We met on the first day of college. We were inseparable from day one. We were both studying nutrition and health. We took classes together. We became roommates because we didn’t live on campus.
Life was great, despite working and going to school.
Or it was until winter break of our sophomore year.
Elodie stayed here over the winter break.
I decided to go on a ski vacation with Mom and the rest of the family.
I invited Elodie, but she wanted to stay home with her family.
We hugged, promised to see each other in a week, and then I left.
“Three days before I was due to return, I got a call. It was from Elodie’s mom. She was crying. She said Elodie needed me and begged me to come home right away. I caught the first flight out. Mrs. Ward wouldn’t say what happened, only that my best friend needed me.
“I won’t bore you with all the details, but when I got back, I went to her family home, not our apartment. It was there that I found Elodie. She looked like a zombie. She scared me to death. It was her mom who told me what was wrong. Elodie stared off into space, not saying a word.
“She went out a few nights before with a group of other people we knew from college. They weren’t close friends, but we were friendly with them and hung out a few times.
There was a party at another college student’s house, an estate.
The guy throwing it was from a rich family, and he had the whole place to himself while his family was in Europe for the holidays.
“From what they pieced together then and later, Elodie had been roofied and then raped by someone attending the party. Everything was hazy, and she couldn’t remember who did it. Only that after she was back to herself, she knew she had been sexually assaulted.”
“Jesus Christ! Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I had no idea. Mishap never mentioned it.”
“He didn’t know about it. He met her a few times, but he didn’t know what happened to her. Back then, he wasn’t living here. He had gone off to live in another state.”
“Did they catch who did it? And how did she die? Was she hurt or something?” I asked.
“No, they never caught who did it. The cops claimed they had no leads and no DNA. Elodie couldn’t cope with what was done to her, Cash.
And the fact that her rapist was never found made her scared to leave the apartment.
She refused to go back to school and wouldn’t move back home with her family like they wanted. She stayed in our apartment.
“I tried to talk to her and help, but I had no idea how to help her. I suggested counseling, but she said no. I told her I had heard of support groups. Again, she refused. This behavior went on for five months. She was barely eating and not leaving the apartment. I was at my wits’ end about what to do, and so was her family.
“Then, one day I came home from classes. Elodie insisted I continue going. She wanted me to graduate. As soon as I unlocked the door of our place, I knew something was wrong. I ran inside and found her in her bedroom. She’d gotten her hands on painkillers.
I don’t know where. She’d overdosed. There was no bringing her back.
She’d been dead for hours. Elodie left a note explaining how she felt—shame, fear, dirty, and more.
She apologized that we wouldn’t grow old together and sit on a porch watching our grandkids one day the way we planned. ”
Tears streamed down Bianca’s face. I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t know if she’d let me.
It was so clear now why she was so determined to catch whoever was hurting women.
Hoping she wouldn’t push me away, I reached over and brought her onto my lap.
She curled up there, allowing me to hold and rock her.
I let her cry until she got it all out. When she did, she kept going.
“A week after we buried her, I began attending support groups for those assaulted and those impacted by those who have lost a loved one to suicide. The group tonight was one of the SA ones. Sometimes, I still go to the other ones.”
“May I ask why you lied to me about what you were doing tonight?” I asked cautiously.
“I wasn’t ready to talk about Elodie. It’s been ten years, Cash, and it still hurts. Lately, with what’s been happening, the wound seems to have reopened. I was trying to hold it closed. It was stupid, I know. But I wanted to let the scab reform a little.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all. I’m sorry that I was so demanding at the meeting and in the parking lot. I was upset that you lied. I couldn’t see what reason there would be to do that.”
“While I’m confessing, I might as well tell you the rest. I haven’t stopped looking for whoever is drugging and assaulting those women.
I promised I’d stay out of the bars, which I’ve done despite having a whole list of ones to check out.
But I met with the other three women who were raped out of the five I mentioned.
They got me thinking. All of them were members of various gyms. Because they weren’t all from the same ones, the cops didn’t think to check into those.
And after the way they ignored me before about bars, I wasn’t about to bring it up.
Another woman was raped at a party last weekend.
That makes six that I’ve heard of, plus the attempt on me.
Cash, I don’t want whoever is responsible found by the police.
” She was looking up at me when she said it.
“Then what do you want?” I asked.
“I want the club to find the culprit or culprits. And I want you to make him or them pay for what they did. Make them suffer. And when you’re done doing that, I want them to die.
No prison for a few years and then back out on the street to do it again.
I know you told me that the club doesn’t do that sort of thing, but I’m not stupid.
I know that you do, whether you’ll admit it or not.
I can’t sit back and let one of these women give in to despair and kill herself as Elodie did. I can’t.”
I sat there, rocking her as she cried again. I knew there would be more to discuss, and she might have questions for me, but those could wait.