Christmas in Dixie (Lone Wolf #5)
Prologue
PROLOGUE
the night of graduation, twenty-five years earlier…
Susan Holloway stumbled into her parents’ home, her dress torn, her lip split. Salty tears streamed down her cheeks, and she could smell the blood from where her nose had been busted during her attack. She never should have gone to the party. It was not like she was invited to parties on a regular basis, but it had been her senior class party, and she’d went to spend one last time with her classmates. How could this have happened to her? She had to get to her bedroom before anyone saw her.
“Suz?” Her younger brother Kevin called from the darkened house in front of her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I fell coming home. You know how clumsy I can be,” she whispered, praying her parents don’t hear them. “What are you still doing up?”
“Getting a drink of water.”
“Hurry back to bed, then,” she said. “See you in the morning.”
“Okay.”
She quietly climbed the stairs, slipped into her room and closed the door, locking it. Going to her desk, she turned on the lamp and then went to the bookcase across the room and removed the false book where she kept her diary hidden. Returning to the desk, she sat down, opened the diary and began to write. Unburdening her feelings of what had happened to her that evening when their group had wandered from the party and gone to the fishing lodge that was used by so many families in Dixie Bayou, even her own. And how betrayed she’d felt by the three boys and the two girls involved. The girls more than the boys because they had stood watch and did nothing to stop the violence while the boys had abused her body over and over. Why had they done that? Why hadn’t they come to her rescue when she’d be screaming for help? Did they secretly hate her or despise her for being the class valedictorian and being voted the most likely to succeed? Did they covet her scholarship to Tulane University where she was to start in the fall while they were to stay here in Dixie to follow in their parents’ footsteps?
She knew that it would be her word against the most popular kids at Dixie High. No one would believe her if she reported that she was raped. No one had seen the six of them go into the woods at the party to the fishing lodge where it had happened. She should never have taken that drink or gone with them. But she had been so flattered that they had wanted to spend time with her that evening. They’d complimented her on her speech, bragged about her accomplishments, and boasted about how she was going to go far in life while they were destined to stay right there in Dixie. They’d been so envious of her and for her life, she’d believed their sincerity as they taken that walk into the woods. But she’d not been prepared for what happened next. It was her own fault for wanting for once to be included.
Wet, hot tears, dropped on the page as she wrote each name of her offenders before she closed her diary and locked its clasp. Getting up, she carried it back over to her bookcase and pulled out the false book where she hid her diary inside from the prying eyes of her little brother lest he come in snooping. Then she walked slowly to her bathroom and turned on the tap to fill the bathtub with hot water.
While the tub filled, she rummaged through her vanity drawer and looked for the razor blade she used to scrape and clean the bathroom grout with. She poured alcohol from the bottle onto the blade to clean it and took it over to the tub and laid it on the edge before turning off the water. Then she stripped off her clothes, stuffed them in a garbage bag and put on her robe, to tiptoe down the stairs and out the back of the house to stuff the bag in the garbage bin out back before hurrying inside to her room once more.
Finally, she untied her robe and sank into the tub, scrubbing herself vigorously in the steamy water to remove all memories of what had happened, but she couldn’t get herself clean as tears once again streamed down her face. Sinking below the water, she contemplated drowning herself but came back up gasping for air, clearly drowning herself wasn’t going to work. Instead, she willed herself to reach for the blade, hating the possibility of having to tell her parents she was pregnant because not knowing which of the three was the father would be more humiliating than having them take turns forcing themselves on her. She’d been a virgin after all. She’d been a good Christian girl, saving herself for marriage. But did they care? If anyone found out what had happened, she’d be labeled a slut.
Without another thought, she opened one wrist, then the other, pressing hard to do it deeper, and then replaced her arms on the side of the tub. She closed her eyes while the blood seeped from her wrists, running down the side of the porcelain tub into the floor and into the water as she slipped into oblivion.