Chapter 11
Eleven
Blaise
NOW
Iwait for a long time before Houston comes into the station, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt.
His hair is windblown and his cheeks red as if he’s been exerting himself.
He’s taller than I recall, with dark blond hair and blue-green eyes.
His brother, Dallas, the boy I used to have a big crush on until he lied about Neisy, is built like him but with darker hair and eyes.
I stand to greet him.
“I came as soon as I could, Blaise. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“It’s okay.”
“Come in.”
He leads me past the officer who helped me track him down to an office in the back of the building. After he gestures for me to go in ahead of him, he closes the door and takes a seat behind the desk.
My heart beats so fast and so hard I’m afraid I might pass out before I can say the words I’ve kept buried inside me for fourteen torturous years.
“What’s going on? I thought you lived in the city now.”
I’m shocked that he knows anything about me. I’m four years younger than him. He graduated before I ever stepped foot into high school, but he knew Teagan and Arlo. “I am. I mean, I do. I live there.”
“I give you credit. That place would drive me crazy. I can barely stand a weekend there.”
“When you’re used to LE, anything seems crazy in comparison.”
He grunts out a laugh. “That’s true. I was coaching my niece and nephew’s soccer team, or I would’ve been here sooner. They said you wanted to report a crime?”
“I do.”
“I guess I’m confused since you don’t live here anymore.”
“It happened fourteen years ago.”
“Oh. Okay…”
“It happened at the party you had.”
He sits up a little straighter, his eyes going wide. “Are you talking about Ryder and Neisy?”
This is it. My mouth is so dry I can barely swallow. All the moisture in my body has collected in the palms of my hands, which are pressed tightly together. “Yes.”
“What’re you saying, Blaise?”
“I…I saw him attack her.”
For a long moment, he’s still and silent, his stare unblinking. “You saw Ryder rape Neisy.”
“I did.”
“Blaise…” He says my name with an expression of disbelief. “Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”
I tip my head to give him a “come on, you know why” look. “It was wrong of me not to. I’ve always known that. I lacked the courage to upset my entire life then, and it’s haunted me ever since. I’m as sick over it today as I was the day it happened.”
“So why come forward now?”
“I heard he’s running for Congress, and I couldn’t sit on it for another second.”
“It can be a crime to conceal evidence of another crime.”
That hadn’t occurred to me, and for a second I’m not sure how to reply.
But then I know what I should say. “I’m willing to take whatever punishment comes my way to do what I should’ve done fourteen years ago.
” My voice wavers on “whatever punishment comes my way,” but my resolve is firm.
I simply cannot live with this any longer.
“Did anyone else witness this crime?”
“I’m speaking only for myself.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
He expels a deep breath and seems to become very interested in the far wall as he fiddles with a pen on his desk. “Do you understand what’ll happen when I notify the attorney general that a witness has come forward?”
“I think so.”
He leans forward, arms propped on the desk, gaze intense and fixed on me.
“It’ll be a nightmare, Blaise. People will attack you for not reporting it at the time.
They’ll question your motivation for coming forward now.
They’ll tear apart every aspect of your life.
Old crap from high school will be resurrected.
The Elliotts will fight back—hard. Are you sure you’re ready for that? ”
“In other words, the same thing that would’ve happened fourteen years ago will happen now, only worse because I’ll be vilified for waiting so long to report it. Do I understand you correctly?”
He never blinks when he says, “Yes.”
“I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure! Would you be if you were me?”
“I wouldn’t have sat on this for more than a decade.”
“Really? You’re so certain of that? You would’ve had the stomach to have an entire town of people you’ve known all your life turn on you for daring to accuse one of your own of such a thing?
You would’ve had the fortitude to have your only brother hate you because you were accusing one of his closest friends of a monstrous crime?
You would’ve been okay with being a social outcast, a pariah, a Facebook target, when you were seventeen? ”
“Maybe not,” he concedes, “but there’re a lot of years between seventeen and thirty-one.”
“I realize that, and it shouldn’t have taken this long. I don’t know what else I can say other than I was wrong. I knew it then, and I know it now. I want to fix it.”
“I’ll need to bring this new information to Neisy. We’d need her onboard to reopen the case.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t. I’ll have to find her. Her cousin still runs the restaurant where she and I worked together. I’ll start there.”
He takes down my phone number and promises to get in touch after he talks to her and the AG.
“Do you believe me, Houston?”
After a long pause, he says, “I believe you’d have no reason to make up something that’ll turn your life upside down as much as it will Neisy’s and Ryder’s.”
“Thank you.”
“I want you to be prepared, Blaise. If we go forward, it’ll be ugly.”
“I understand.”
“You need to find somewhere safe to stay.”
“I can go to my mother’s house.”
“No, you can’t.” He writes something down and then hands me a sticky note. “Go see my friend Jack Olsen and tell him I sent you. He’s got a couple of cottages for rent on his property. No one would think to look for you there. I want you to go there and stay there until you hear from me.”
“You really think that’s necessary?”
“I really do.”
Houston
NOW
After Blaise leaves, I sit for five full minutes, trying to wrap my head around what she told me.
Ryder Elliott did rape Neisy Sutton.
And he’s gotten away with it for fourteen years, during which he attended college, graduated with honors, served eight years in the navy before separating with multiple awards and other honors.
An engineer by trade, Ryder has worked for a top company in Providence since his separation from the military.
He’s married with three young children and has a house on the same street in Hope where he, Cam and their sisters grew up.
Dallas and I play poker with him and Cam as well as Blaise’s brother, Arlo, on the third Saturday night of every month.
I’m revolted to think I’ve considered him a friend.
All this time…
No one believed Neisy when the allegations first came to light.
Not one supporter stepped forward to say she’d never make up something like a rape charge, because no one knew her well enough to vouch for her.
Even I, who’d been one of her few friends in the area, had failed to step up, to say there’s no way she’d fabricate such a thing because I wasn’t entirely sure.
Even though he was three years younger than me, I knew Ryder and his family much better and for much longer than I’d known her.
I never came right out and said it to anyone, but I’d sided with him.
Everyone had sided with him, including the teammates who’d sworn that she’d slept with all of them. One of them was my own brother, a realization that makes me sick in light of what Blaise told me.
Neisy hadn’t stood a chance.
I go to filing cabinets in another room to find the original case file.
I take it with me to my office and close the door.
I pour my fourth cup of coffee of the day and open the file, which dates back to my father’s era, before the department was fully computerized.
My dad was meticulous. We’ve always said his handwriting could’ve been a font.
Responded to a phone call from Navy Captain Rick Sutton, who reported his daughter, Denise, was sexually assaulted by Ryder Elliott in the woods near my home three weeks ago.
The alleged assault took place at a party hosted by my son, Houston, while my wife and I were out of town.
Captain Sutton brought his daughter to the station the next day. She gave the following account:
I attended the party hosted by my friend Houston Rafferty, who I worked with at The Daily Catch the previous summer.
During the party, Ryder Elliott asked me if he could talk to me about his girlfriend, Louisa, and led me away from the group, down a pathway to an area with a lot of trees and brush.
I asked him what he wanted to tell me about Louisa, and he said I knew what he really wanted.
I didn’t know. I’d never spoken to him before, except to say hello a couple of times.
I knew he played several sports and about him and Louisa and that she’d been ill.
I was in a class with her and his brother Camden, but I’d never had any other interactions with either of the Elliott brothers.
I asked Ryder to explain what he meant, and he said I’d been driving him crazy with the way I looked at him at school.
When I asked him how I’d been looking at him, he said like I wanted to fuck him.
I said I didn’t, and we argued about that.
He insisted it was true and said the other guys call me a cock tease.
I told him I barely knew him so why would I want to fuck him.
Then he moved so quickly that he caught me by surprise, knocking me over.
He came down on top of me and pulled at my clothes.
I was wearing a dress. He tore at my underwear and pulled it down.
I screamed at him to stop and for help, but no one could hear me.
The music was loud and there were so many people that no one could hear.