Chapter 12
Twelve
Blaise
NOW
Ifollow the directions to the place Houston told me about and drive down a long driveway lined by stone walls on both sides to a large Colonial-style house painted white with black shutters.
As I park the car, a man comes out of the house wearing faded jeans and a flannel shirt. I notice he’s barefooted.
“Help you with something?”
I get out of the car. “Houston Rafferty sent me. He said you have short-term rentals.”
“I do.” He extends a hand. “Jack Olsen.”
I shake his hand as I realize he’s handsome with golden brown eyes to match dark blond hair that needed to be cut weeks ago. “Blaise Merrick.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” He gestures for me to follow him around the house, which gives me pause until I remember that Houston sent me here. That hesitation comes straight from what I witnessed on that long-ago night. Trust issues have caused me no end of difficulty in my sporadic dealings with men.
“Are you coming?” Jack asks, glancing over his shoulder.
“I’m coming.”
He leads me to the back of the property where three shingled cottages are positioned in a row along yet another stone wall. “Each has a bed, sofa, kitchen and bathroom. Our season is over now, so you can have your pick.”
“How much?”
“A hundred a week?”
I do some quick math to determine if I can swing that and my rent in New York without working for a while. I’ve got some savings, but it won’t last long. Thank goodness for credit cards.
“That sounds great, thank you.”
“Any friend of Houston’s is a friend of mine,” he says with a warm smile. “Never hurts to have the police chief owe me a favor.”
And he’s a bit charming, too, not that I care about such things. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.”
He shrugs as he unlocks the door to the middle cabin. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have bookings until Thanksgiving, and it’s only for one of them. Take a look.”
As I cross the threshold, I’m greeted by the scent of lemons. “This is very cute.”
“My best friend from high school gets the credit for decorating. She’s a professional interior designer. Gave me a great deal.”
“She did a nice job.”
The navy-blue patterned quilt on the bed matches the navy sofa.
I turn back to him and startle when I realized he’s followed me into the small space.
“Easy.” He holds up his hands. “Nothing to worry about here.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. What do you think?”
“I’ll take it.”
Jack peels a key off his ring and hands it to me. “Make yourself at home. I’m right across the yard in the big house if you need anything. Do you know the area?”
“I’m from Hope but didn’t spend much time over here back in the day.”
He tells me where the grocery store is and mentions a fun, new coffee and garden shop at the Monroe four corners.
“Thank you very much. I’ll pay you in the morning for this week if that’s okay.”
“Sounds good. Let me give you my number in case you have questions.”
As he recites the number, I punch it into my phone.
“Text me so I have yours.”
After I send the text, he heads out through the door he left open when he followed me in.
Something about that feels reassuring, as if he knew I wouldn’t want to be enclosed in that small space with a man I only just met.
I’ve been called aloof, cold and distant by men who were offended by my need to feel safe. They say I take it too far.
I know better than most people that you can never take such things too far.
Jack has earned hard-to-get points with me for the small gesture of leaving a door open. “You can drive around the house if you take a right off the driveway,” he says over his shoulder.
“It’ll be a left on the way in.”
“Good to know. Thanks again.”
“No problem.”
I wonder if he lives alone or if there’s a Mrs. Jack.
What does it matter? I’m here only until Houston has a chance to figure out the next steps. I’ll be back in New York in a matter of days.
My phone rings with a call from Wendall that I take only because I need to tell him I’m taking some time off.
“Damn it, Blaise, where the hell are you?”
“Rhode Island.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since my mother called about a family emergency. I was going to text you later.”
It would be just like him to tell me that’s no excuse for missing work. Luckily for him, he doesn’t say that. “What am I supposed to do without you?” I can picture the pout that goes with the words.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine for a few days. I’ll send you the schedule for tomorrow shortly.”
“Fine.”
I wait a minute to give him a chance to add a thank you, but he doesn’t. Sometimes I wonder if those words exist in his vocabulary.
“I, uh, hope everything is okay with your family.”
I’m shocked he said that much. “Thank you.”
I end the call before he can say something that’ll ruin the goodwill he earned by showing the most basic kindness.
Returning to the driveway, I start the car and follow the directions Jack gave me to drive the car around to my cabin. After I unload my suitcase and computer bag, I send Wendall his schedule for tomorrow, so he won’t have a meltdown, and then contemplate what to have for dinner.
My phone rings with a call from my mother. “Hi, Mom.”
“I thought you were coming home?”
“I’m in Land’s End.”
“What’re you doing over there?”
“Taking care of some business.”
“What business, Blaise? What’s going on?”
I want so badly to tell her, but first I want to wait to find out what Houston plans to do with the information I gave him. There’s no point in exploding my life if Neisy or the AG decide not to pursue the matter.
“I’ll tell you when I can, Mom.”
“This is all very unsettling. First you stay away for years, then you come running back when you hear Ryder is running for Congress, and now you’re staying over there rather than here with me.”
“It’s for the best right now. I’ll come see you soon, okay?”
“And you’ll tell me what’s going on?”
“When I can.”
“Are you safe?”
“I am. Don’t worry.”
“That’s like telling me not to breathe.”
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I wish I could say more.”
“Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.”
“Love you, Blaise.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
I’m still holding the phone when I land on the sofa, exhausted from the turmoil of this day. But more than anything, I’m relieved. Someone else knows my terrible secret. It’s been released into the world, and no matter what happens next, that’s better than holding it inside me for all this time.
Or so I think.
Houston
NOW
My first call the next morning is to the longest standing assistant attorney general, the one most likely to remember the case from fourteen years ago. Neil DeGrasso retired five years ago.
“Vaguely,” Joshua Spurling says after I ask if he recalls the case brought against Ryder Elliott and dismissed at preliminary due to a lack of evidence.
“A witness has come forward.”
“A witness.”
“That’s right, someone who saw Ryder Elliott rape Denise Sutton.”
“And where has this witness been for the last fourteen years?”
“She was a teenager at the time, with deep ties to Elliott and his family after having grown up with him. She was scared to come forward then but is willing to do so now.”
“Why now?”
“After she heard he’s running for Congress, she couldn’t keep the secret any longer.”
“I don’t know about this, Houston. A defense attorney would shred her on the stand.”
“She understands that and had good reason for keeping quiet before. Or at least it made sense to her at the time, but to hear her tell it, she’s been sick over this incident since the day it happened.”
“Are you angling to reopen the case?”
“That depends on whether I’d have the support of your office.”
“I’ll talk to Roberts about it, but no promises.” The AG, Victor Roberts, has been in office just under three years, so he had nothing to do with the original case. “It might be too little too late at this point. Do we even know where the victim is?”
“No, but I could find out pretty easily.”
“Work on that while I pitch this to Roberts.”
“Will do.”
“I’ll be back to you with an answer as soon as I can.”
“Thanks, Josh.”
My next move is to find Neisy. After she left the area, we lost touch with each other.
I start with social media, combing through Facebook and Instagram but find no sign of her.
I move on to Google, which is just as frustrating.
There’s no mention of a Denise Sutton after her graduation from a Virginia high school one year after the alleged incident.
People are easy to find in this day and age, unless they choose not to be, which she probably has. I wouldn’t blame her after the way people savaged her when she accused Ryder.
I wanted so badly to believe her back then, because she wasn’t the kind of girl who’d make up something like that to get attention.
Her life at HHS had been rough, and I remember thinking at the time that there was no way she’d do anything to make it worse than it already was, but I couldn’t get past the feeling that Ryder wouldn’t do something like that. I told my father that, too.
One thing was for certain, she’d definitely lost her sparkle since we’d worked together the summer before she started school in Hope and had her whole life go to shit.
The restaurant is owned by her mother’s cousin, so I’ll stop in to see what he can tell me.
I grab my portable radio, tell the sergeant working the desk that I’m heading out for a bit and get into my SUV to drive to the seafood restaurant where Neisy and I worked together the summer before she started at HHS.
As I drive to the waterfront restaurant in Monroe, I remember the first time I ever saw her and how dazzled I’d been by her.
She was far too young for me at sixteen, but you’d have to have been blind not to notice how beautiful and sweet she was.
It was the first time in my life I’d yearned to be younger.
A twenty-year-old college junior didn’t ask out a high school junior, no matter how mature they were, especially when she was the boss’s cousin.