Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
They decided to start with Caroline Russo.
Jules had given a great deal of thought as to what he was going to say to her, because “Hi, I’m Jules, do you have a sec to answer some invasive questions about the trauma of your alleged rape?” probably wasn’t gonna get him very far.
He and Sadie stood on the brick landing outside of Caroline’s parents’ front door, and she took his hand and squeezed it. “You got this,” she said.
He’d been practicing—literally. Belle and her gang took the idea of a dress rehearsal very seriously.
They were taking this entire investigation seriously, working together to compile a list of girls who might’ve suffered the same fate as Shelly, which according to their working theory was: attend a local party, have someone—Suspect X—spike their drink, somehow carry them out of there without being noticed, transport them to the woods, again carrying them quite some distance, since Shel had awoken rather far from the road.
Their working theory was that since Suspect X was strong enough to lift and carry an unconscious girl, Suspect X also most likely had a penis.
Although they didn’t know that for absolutely sure.
Plus, Jules had spent a great deal of time thinking about all of this, and had had to suggest that it was possible that Shelly’d been Weekend-at-Bernie-ed.
“We’re assuming there’s only one rapist,” he’d pointed out. “If there’re more than one, or even an accessory, they could’ve easily carried her out between them.”
His new friends had fallen silent then, all clearly thinking of the ramifications of that. One boy raping local girls was bad enough. But another, helping him do it...?
Clem load your shotgun, indeed.
But rage wouldn’t help them find any answers, so they’d focused on ways to get more info.
Belle and the others who lived here for longer than a month had created a short list of girls they believed were Suspect X’s previous victims. In addition to Caroline Russo who’d publicly claimed to have been raped, they’d penciled in three more girls: Krista, Rachel, and Diana.
Krista was a junior whose parents had organized a search party on a night that she hadn’t come home, last June, a few months after Caroline’s assault. She was found early the next morning—wait for it—in the woods. She’d gone to a party, had too much to drink and passed out.
At least that was the official story.
Rachel and Diana were both also juniors at the time, who’d suddenly broken down crying in the middle of their English class.
Apparently they were working on some project together, but they just lost it in the middle of a discussion of As You Like It, and then both were out of school for about a week after.
Belle had witnessed the entire incident and she now believed that one or both of them had been assaulted by Suspect X.
It was Belle who pushed to start their series of interviews with Caroline.
But, “We can’t all just show up, knocking on Caroline’s door,” she had proclaimed.
“Way to get her to scream and run away.” She’d looked at Jules then.
“I think it should be you, asking the questions, but you should have a girl with you, make you even less... scary.”
“I’m okay to do it if you don’t want to,” Tom told Jules.
“No,” Belle said. “Tommy. That’s so great that you’d be willing to, but... See, Jules is a better choice. He’s gay, plus he just moved to town. Anyone with a penis who was here back when Caroline was attacked is a potential suspect in her book. At least they would be if it was my book.”
That made sense.
“Plus, I really want to do it,” Jules said. “I have so many questions. But you’re right, I shouldn’t go see her alone, and taking a girl with me absolutely makes me less threatening.”
“I’d volunteer, but... Caroline never really liked me,” Belle said.
“Well, yeah,” Sadie said. “You got the lead in the musical when you were only a sophomore. She felt robbed.”
“She can sing pretty well,” Belle told Jules, “but her acting’s for shit. She’s a total wooden spoon. It’s called Annie Get Your Gun, not Annie Get Your Gun and Shoot Us to Put Us Out of Our Misery.”
Jules laughed despite himself. “Okay, so it shouldn’t be Belle.”
“I’ll do it,” Sadie said. And really, it had to be her. Shelly wasn’t ready to do much of anything. Not yet, anyway.
Shel was listless and subdued and clearly just counting the days until the appointment Belle had made for her in Hartford, to get tested for potential STDs. At least she knew she wasn’t pregnant—the blood on her legs had been from her period, not something worse, thank God.
Jules wished she had someone to talk to, but she’d been right to not take him up on his offer to go see his mother.
He’d approached his mom with a hypothetical.
If you found out that a girl from the high school had been assaulted at a party, would you feel obliged to tell her parents?
His mother had looked at him hard and said, “What don’t I know? ”
He’d correctly guessed, “You would, wouldn’t you?”
Honestly? Yes. Jules, sweetie, I’d have to.
He loved that she was honest with him, but that didn’t help Shelly.
But just maybe, finding Suspect X would.
Out of all of Belle’s posse, Jules knew Sadie the least—although that was changing fast.
“Deep breath,” she told him now, still holding his hand. “And exhale... Now shake it out...”
She released his fingers and shook her own hands out in front of her, loosening up her neck and shoulders, too. And yes, Jules did the same because it sure as hell couldn’t hurt at least to try not to look like a ball of tension.
With her curious mix of Meg Ryan messy blonde curls and her no-nonsense, best-friend-of-the-rom-com-heroine face and manner, Sadie was the perfect sidekick for this terrifying encounter.
Terrifying, because if Caroline Russo had truly been a victim of the same boy or boys who’d targeted Shelly, she had every right to be freaking furious. And irreparably damaged, and still desperately hurting.
Jules hated the idea that he might, simply by asking her to talk about it, make her feel worse.
But maybe, just maybe, knowing that someone believed her and wanted to fight for justice would make her feel better instead.
Jules met Sadie’s eyes and nodded. He was ready. She nodded back. So he rang the bell.
They already knew Caroline’s mother was out. They’d watched her pull out of her garage and down the driveway, alone in her car. Which meant Caroline was home.
There was movement from inside of the house—Jules sensed it more than heard it and he smiled up at the peephole, trying his best to look harmless and, yes, as Belle said, not-scary.
The door opened.
Caroline was a year older than he was, but she hadn’t gone to college. As far as anyone knew, she rarely left her house. She was thin—almost painfully so. Like, eating disorder skinny. Jesus.
Jules took another deep breath. “Hi, Caroline. My name’s Jules Cassidy, and this is my friend Sadie Thompson.
We’ve never met—I just moved to town a few weeks ago—and, well, it’s come to my attention that there’s a serial rapist targeting the girls here, and I’m part of a group who’s trying to find him, because this has to stop.
Just a few days ago, another girl woke up in the woods with no memory of what happened the night before and—”
She closed the door in their faces.
Shit! Jules leaned in and called through the door. “Caroline, is that what happened to you? Please talk to us! I know this must be hard, but any information you can give us would help, because right now all we know are the rumors and—”
The door opened, and the look on Caroline’s face was one that would haunt Jules’s dreams.
“Where were you a year ago?” she asked, and he was about to repeat the fact he’d just moved to town when he realized she was looking daggers at Sadie.
Who had tears in her eyes as she shook her head. “I didn’t know,” she admitted. “But now I do and... we want to put this fucker in the ground.”
“In jail,” Jules corrected her. “We want him arrested and put in jail.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sadie said, still holding Caroline’s gaze. “I personally want this fucker dead, or at least beaten within an inch of his life. But first we need to find him. And talking to you just might help.”
Caroline pushed open the screen door and let them in.
Hobbit made an evidence board.
Without Jules even asking, he knew not to use any of the girls’ real names, instead using only their first initials.
Jules stood in his bedroom—it was unanimously agreed that storing the board in the summer house was a no-go, plus he knew that his mother would respect his privacy—and stared at Hobbit’s artistry.
“Damn,” Belle said. “That’s spooky.”
Hob had listened carefully, taking extensive notes, at Jules’s and Sadie’s account of their conversation with Caroline. He knew the facts surrounding Shelly’s assault, too, and the similarities, particularly when color coded as he’d done it, were striking.
He’d used three giant pieces of white foamcore, taped together in a way that allowed it to stand on its own as well as be folded for storage.
The pertinent facts for C-for-Caroline were listed in blue and he’d used red for S-for-Shelly.
He’d chosen a thick black marker for the main list, using words and language from Jules’s and Sadie’s debrief.
Like Shelly, Caroline had recently broken up with her boyfriend. Jules had remarked that both girls were vulnerable and Hobbit had bullet-pointed the word on his overview list, with both a blue and a red check beside it.
Like Shelly, Caroline had gone to this party alone, hoping to connect with friends. Like Shelly, her tried-and-true friends were AWOL, so she’d drifted a bit, had a beer or two. Alone. Red check, blue check.