24. The Plaintiff
TWENTY-FOUR
The Plaintiff
SHANNON
Aside from three words whispered in court shortly before Christmas, Shannon Van Pelt and Delilah Pope had never spoken.
“I was buckled.”
Delilah grabbed her hand as Shannon walked by her at Hayden’s side. Shannon didn’t have time to respond as his grip on her elbow tightened. He was fuming at her obvious agitation when he expected her—more or less ordered her—to be calm, supportive, and silent. But even he knew better than to act when Delilah reached blindly over her shoulder for a stranger she hoped would listen.
“That girl seems a little off the rails, sweetie,” Shannon said as they got in the car, pulling a disgusted face to look sympathetic in hopes of learning more. “No wonder you want this whole mess over with.”
“What did she say to you?” Hayden asked.
“I could hardly hear her. And she just yanked my arm.” She rubbed her left elbow and frowned until Hayden placed his hand on hers .
“I’m really sorry you have to deal with her now, too. Thank you for being here today.” His voice was stiff, although his touch was gentle. “It means so much to me. I know this can’t be easy for you.”
“None of this is about me, though. I was only here for you.”
“You seemed a little nervous.” He squeezed her hand tight, and Shannon recognized the tension gathering in his neck and jaw.
“That whole scene made me nervous,” she said, pulling back her hand to push her hair off her face. “Like you said yesterday, you’ve done everything right, and people are just dragging it on like they’re trying to make something go wrong.”
“Yeah,” he said, breathing easier. He squeezed her knee with a gentler touch than the momentary vise-grip on her hand, then stroked her hair.
She didn’t like the set of his jaw, so she massaged his shoulder to calm him. “I love you. This has been such a stressful day. Let’s go home and wind down a bit.”
Hayden remained silent, and his color returned as he maneuvered out of the parking lot and waited at a stoplight. “I love you too, Shan,” he said finally. “I don’t know how I got so lucky, but from the minute we met, I knew you were special. Not a lot of girls would walk into something like this for a man, especially not after only a few months.”
“It’s just because you’re a pretty sweet talker, you know that?” She pinched his cheek since she couldn’t reach to kiss it, and he smiled.
“Come here, gorgeous.” He unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her close, twisting his hands tight in her hair as they kissed before the light turned green. “I couldn’t have made it through all that without you.”
The question of whether Delilah’s seatbelt had been buckled was the point on which the civil suit pivoted, and Hayden’s miserable, apologetic demeanor emphasized his ex-girlfriend’s fault in the seriousness of her injuries. After all, he told Shannon, he’d been injured too, and why would he risk that on purpose? At worst, he was a careless driver, and he was sorry for that. The criminal charges had been dropped long ago. It had come down to dissecting character, his word against hers.
His word stood against his victim’s in every delay and motion for continuance, but he hadn’t counted on Shannon, who would dive into research if one question remained unanswered. Delilah’s high, bell-like voice shattered the last fragile faith Shannon had in her boyfriend, and unleashed a torrent of questions that all circled back to malicious intent and the criminal charges that were never pursued. She wondered if they hadn’t looked hard enough.
Now, home again on the first day of spring break, she dialed, waited, and left a brief voicemail.
Continuance or not, Delilah might wish to be done with the entire thing, and Shannon wouldn’t blame her. Her parents had been in court that day, her father red-faced and furious in every glance Hayden’s way, her mother pale, head held high like her daughter’s. She couldn’t derive from the public records who was driving the continued legal action: Delilah, a minor when the so-called accident happened, her parents, or the Pope family’s attorneys.
As she expected, the phone rang.
“Is this really Shannon Van Pelt?” a female voice said.
“It is.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. When was that?”
“December tenth last year.” She understood Delilah was up against a powerful family and had cause to be suspicious of anyone reaching out. “You wore a pink sweater, and I wore a gray dress. We didn’t have much time to speak.”
The call switched to video, and a familiar face filled the screen.
“I like what you’ve done with your hair,” Delilah said, wrapping a lock of her straight blonde hair around her fingers. “I always wanted to do something like that.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Cultural norms and my mother.” She waved a hand. “Does your mother like yours?”
Shannon thought she sounded sixteen years old, frozen in time before the accident.
“She does. It took her a bit to get used to it, but she has brown hair and now she says she’s jealous hers won’t take the color without bleach. I bet you could do pink or purple without bleach, if you wanted to.”
“I’ll think about it.” Delilah took a deep breath. “Pleasantries and styling tips aside, how can I help you?”
Shannon waved a lock of blue in front of her face. “I’m sure you already gathered from this that Hayden… I mean, Ryan and I are no longer together. That ended shortly after I saw you, and I wanted to do two things.” She held up one finger. “I want to apologize for sitting there with my mouth sh ut when I should have been screaming that something was wrong. I didn’t know then how wrong, but I knew… I just knew. I should have spoken up.”
“He’s not an easy person to call out. His parents aren’t either,” Delilah said, shaking her head. “I don’t blame you for staying seated, especially when you didn’t have the facts. I appreciate the sentiment. What’s the other thing?”
“I want to offer my help in bringing that bastard to his knees. I have some information that might be helpful to your lawyers, both regarding the civil suit and some other things he’s done wrong that could help us with a little payback.”
Delilah stared.
“And I kicked him in the head for you the other day,” Shannon said, trying to hide a smile behind her hand. “Pretty damn hard.”
“You what?”
“Well, he was already on the ground because my—this guy I know knocked him out. The kicks were just the icing on the cake.”
“Who knocked him out? Why?” Delilah pressed a hand to her forehead but couldn’t keep from smiling.
“One of his teammates. It turns out he’s not as popular as he thinks he is,” Shannon said, trying not to laugh. “But the reason is something you’ll want your lawyers on, if they are still talking about the ‘repentant defendant’ angle and pitting his word against yours. Hayden was arrested for trying to drug a girl at a party. There are witnesses, and not just one they can write off as a bitter ex-girlfriend.”
“You’re joking. Oh my God, that’s awful. Is she okay?”
“Some guys saw what he was doing right away and got her out of there. She’s just fine. And my friend broke his pretty nose.”
Delilah covered her mouth. “I hope you didn’t get in trouble.”
“We went to jail for a few hours.” Shannon shrugged. “But since he was doing what he was doing, it’s probably no big deal.”
“No big deal.” Delilah sounded dazed. “Can I… can I tell my parents? They’ll hate meeting violence with violence, but I think they would love to picture it.”
“Yes, please tell them. I want them to know that even if we can’t get him for what he did to you, we will get him. Scum like that doesn’t need to walk free and hurt more women and… well.”
“Achieve his dreams when he ended mine.” Delilah glanced down at her right leg and the twisted scar tissue on her knee that still ached at night. Nothing would bring back the tennis scholarship she lost while the boy in the driver’s seat went on to play football on national television, banking licensing money by showing off limited edition cleats with his name on the sides.
“Exactly.”
“I didn’t want to keep the baby, either,” Delilah said in a small voice. “I didn’t want to have an abortion, but I didn’t want us to be teen parents. I thought adoption would be the way to go.”
“It would have been a wonderful way to go.”
“He didn’t have to do this.”
“I know. And for what it’s worth, this complete stranger believes you,” Shannon said.
“If you knew him like I knew him, we’ve already survived something together and you’re no stranger to me.” Delilah half-smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m glad you got out all right. It’s what worries me the most about him getting away with this—he’ll hurt someone else, just because he can. What about the next girl who becomes inconvenient to his dreams? The next girl that he knocks up?”
Shannon jolted upright. “Ooh. I need to tell you about that.”
“What the hell do you want?” Hayden asked two weeks after the hearing, slurring his speech like he’d been drinking. “You broke up with me. You’re not supposed to call.”
“We have a problem,” Shannon said in a small voice.
“You have a problem. ‘We’ are not a thing anymore, and that was your choice, not mine.”
“I might be pregnant.”
She waited.
“Hayden? Are you there?”
“What do you mean, you might be? Take a test and don’t freak me out if there’s nothing to freak out about.” His furious voice wobbled.
“I did. I took three tests, and one says I am and two say I’m not, so?—”
“So go to the doctor’s. Figure it out. You shouldn’t even call me if you don’t know.”
“It’s Christmas Eve. No one’s open.”
“Go to the fucking emergency room, Shannon! Why did you even call me if you don’t know?”
“So you don’t screw around with Emma or Emily or whoever she is over break and end up in double trouble,” she snapped. “I was trying to be respectful and keep you informed.”
“This isn’t double trouble. This is your trouble. If you’re pregnant, get rid of it.”
“That’s not your decision.”
“You’re not getting shit from me if you think you’re keeping it.”
She laughed. “Oh, good one. That’s also not your decision.”
“You set me up.”
“Are you drunk? I wouldn’t set myself up for that.”
“Then get rid of it,” he said, panic shaking his words.
“I thought adoption would be a more reasonable choice. I don’t feel right about a termination.”
“Are you kidding me? Everyone will know anyway if you’re dragging all over campus pregnant. Everyone will know it’s mine. No. You’re not doing that.”
“Cheer up,” she said, brightening her tone. “Maybe I’m not. I’ll find out after Christmas when my doctor’s office is open, and we’ll discuss it then, like adults, if there’s anything to discuss.”
He blustered and swore, and Shannon knew he was pacing, yanking his hair. With his initial panic over, he’d pretend to be rational.
“I don’t know who you are anymore.” He lowered his voice. “This attitude, this act you’re putting on… we never fought, Shan. Not once. I know my life wasn’t easy for you, but you never complained, and when you blindsided me and ended it last week, I was devastated to find out you’ve been carrying all this resentment around. I could have changed be fore you started screaming about how you were the only one who believed in me and I let you down. You could have told me months ago it wasn’t working for you, and we wouldn’t be in this position.”
“No, you would have sweet-talked me into staying just like you tried to do the day I left. Not because you loved me, but because you’d already invested enough time and you needed me.”
“Invested?” Hayden asked. “I told you that you kept me steady, that you were a good influence, and you made me feel better about turning my life around. That was all true. Then you dumped me at Logan airport in front of half of Boston.”
“Don’t worry. No one was watching,” she snapped. “I know I didn’t have my hair properly curled or my thousand-dollar school jacket on so we would be all matchy like your sister the image consultant wanted. Did you ever truly care about me when no one was looking? Or was I a little prop to make you look ‘repentant,’ in the words of the court? Did the pro scouts approve of your cute little girlfriend who didn’t have her tits out and look like she’d get you back in trouble?”
“I took good care of you when no one was looking, remember?” he snarled. “Name one time I didn’t get you off first. Name one.”
“You can get anyone off. Good for you, and bad for me sticking around because that’s how I thought you proved you loved me. I know your stiffest competition in the draft this year is from a couple of guys who are still with their high school sweethearts. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had my ring picked out so you could propose at the scouting combine in front of the cameras and get a little good PR to outshine them. ”
“Now hang on a minute.”
For a moment, she dropped the act and let the real rage hit him.
“You’re an okay actor, but your parents and sister are not. They wanted a nice girl at your side to rehabilitate your image, and that’s the only reason you ever looked at me. You can’t have a party girl on your arm anymore. You needed someone to make the scouts forget how volatile you are, and help you look trustworthy in court while your shady lawyers paint your ex as a crazy girl. Sit down, shut up, and smile—and you never met a little nobody who would do it better than I did.”
“This is a misunderstanding. I can’t help what they said. I didn’t know my sister wanted to take you shopping and curl your hair, or whatever she did. Does it look better for me to be in a solid relationship with a good girl for once? I guess it does. That doesn’t mean I set up some big scam to use you. Shan, trust me, will you? We should have sorted all this out together. We still can.”
“Trust you? With what?” She tried to sound surprised by what she fully expected would come next.
“We can still make it,” he said. “Get back together and make it work. All that stuff you said at the airport about Delilah and… I’ve made so many mistakes. But you were never a prop or a nobody to me. Shannon, you’re like no other girl I’ve ever known.”
“That was precisely the point,” she said drily.
“This has nothing to do with my parents. They’d choose some socialite princess for me if they had their way. I needed you there because I’m not always strong enough to handle things on my own, and that’s hard for me to admit. I needed you , not someone they picked.”
Not Luna. Or Marissa. Or any of the other names that clogged her tongue with pity for the girls behind them and fury at the predator who said he loved her. He was a terrible voice actor even when his body distracted from the truth and told the story he wanted—and his body could be dangerously distracting. Phone calls always gave him away, and the back-together ploy was nothing more than a demand to let him dictate the terms of a fake pregnancy she’d wield as a weapon until he talked himself into a corner.
“I love you,” he said. “I’m so sorry for everything. Shannon, I… I didn’t pick out a ring to give you at the combine. I’m not even going to the combine, because I’m staying at school with you next year. I picked out your ring for New Year’s Eve. I still have it.”
Sure you did. After only four months and all this mess—sure you did.
“Hayden, I need some time to think,” she said, veering into his lane to make him comfortable. “I didn’t expect this. I thought you’d be angry at me forever, and if you’re truly not…”
“I’m hurt.”
She imagined him narrowing his gaze to see how his line about the ring was received, but she knew better than to make it a video call. Poor signal, she would say.
“I won’t pretend I’m not,” he continued. “But I’m not angry anymore. I think I understand why you were so stressed. We can handle this. And the other thing, I guess we can handle that, too. ”
She heard a muffled “hang on…” before the buzz of an incoming text.
A photo loaded, and Shannon could hardly grip her phone. The ring was breathtaking—a bright white marquise-cut diamond with a thin band of brilliants. He held it not in a velvet box like he’d grabbed a photo from the internet, but hooked over his pinky finger next to a thin, white scar forming where she’d bandaged a gash a few weeks before.
It was real.
It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment ploy to get her back or deal with an unplanned pregnancy. It was real . What’s more, he’d remembered a casual remark she made when a couple they knew got engaged. She said the shape of the stone in the girl’s ring reminded her of a football and thought it was sweet coming from a guy who loved the game so much.
“Shan? Did you get the picture I just sent?”
“It’s… it has that little spinning thing. It’s loading. I’m sorry, my signal here is rotten. I’ll go somewhere else in the house. Hang on.”
She gestured frantically to Elouise, who had been seated next to her at her desk, and waved the phone in her face. Elouise covered her mouth with both hands to keep from screaming.
Maybe he hadn’t meant to hurt Delilah. It could have been an accident. Why would he crash a car on his right side and risk his throwing arm? Why would he do that?
Shannon’s thoughts darted wildly from panic to fear. Marrying him wasn’t even a consideration. Was it? She racked her brain. What had she gotten wrong in her hasty research about the court case? He bought that ring and still had it two weeks after she dumped him. He hadn’t taken it back. What else might she have misread about this man who, at only twenty-one and with a lucrative future ahead of him, would offer her that ring and a promise—and, more importantly, why would he do that if he was still running around with other girls?
In seconds, the truth crushed her into her bed, and she fell backward on her pillow.
She allowed it to happen.
That was why he did it—because she allowed him to keep her in a bubble and call that space love, on call to warm his bed and pose prettily whenever he liked. Outside that space, he was impulsive and arrogant enough to believe he could control a crashing car.
Hayden did love her. He loved her as much as he could love anybody, and in the fires of her fury, she still pitied him a little for the family that taught him such a selfish love. He cared for her and appreciated her willingness to care for him so much that he decided she’d be a good wife.
A good wife to a self-righteous waste of talent who was surprisingly generous in bed and free with gifts to compensate for her tolerance for his destructive behavior. A good wife who would kiss him goodbye at the airport for away games and training camps, and wait on his calls. She’d proven she could cope with it. He would have the money to give her anything she wanted, and that ring, glaring its ostentatious size through her phone, would be offered to the girl he believed would put up with the life of his dreams.
He thought she was that girl, because that was all she’d shown him she could be.
“It’s stunning, Hayden,” she said. “Oh my God, it’s… you got that for me? ”
“I did,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I told you, it was for New Year’s. Meet me in New Orleans for the Sunrise Bowl. I bought your plane ticket when you came to visit, but I’ll forward the email with the timestamp if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever meant it so completely.
“I’ll send it anyway. Shan, I need you there. Are you okay?”
“I’m just in shock, maybe. I didn’t expect anything like this, and especially not so soon.”
Elouise yanked her hair until she winced and mouthed What the hell are you doing? before clamping one hand over her mouth again.
Hayden laughed awkwardly. “I didn’t expect it either. This is going to sound stupid, but the thought came out of the blue one day, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about us building a life together. Then I looked at rings a few weeks ago just to get some ideas, and the first one I saw was the kind you said you liked. I looked at a million others and kept coming back to this one. It seemed meant to be. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to take it back.”
Shannon didn’t have to fake her stunned silence. Hayden had many moments of tenderness, but she hadn’t heard his voice so raw with emotion since he lost to Michigan in a blowout.
He cleared his throat. “But anyway, it’s not even as big a deal as the other thing you called about. I know I overreacted. Shan, I had just gotten used to the idea that we would never be together again, and to even think about you being pregnant—my brain short-circuited for a minute. ”
“Well, it’s a lot to consider,” she said. “Both things, I mean. I was a little worked up, too.”
Stilted and stiff at the beginning of the call, now his voice almost matched the emotions she would expect any other man to feel talking with a woman he loved who spurned him. And that was not like Hayden at all.
“Yeah,” he agreed, “it is a lot. I think we should handle these one at a time. Together.”
Shannon stood and pressed her hand to her chest while she walked back to sit by Elouise at her desk. She let her tone soften and added the edge of a sigh. “Do you really think so? I’ll get a proper test as soon as I can, I promise. Maybe it’s nothing.”
“That would be nice,” he said, blowing out an exaggerated long breath. He lowered his voice. “But if it’s not, you don’t want to make it harder when we’re trying to get back together, do you? I want to try. I hope you’ll let me show you how much I mean that. You were always so reasonable, baby, not like when she—This doesn’t have to be more painful for us.”
“Wait. What are you saying?”
“I don’t think I could handle it. We have time for that down the road, Shan. Not now.”
“I’m not ready for it either, but I’ve thought so much about it, and I’m okay with an adoption. Then we could go on with our lives.”
“That would be so hard on you, though.” Hayden forced a fake laugh. “Don’t pick another fight now. I’ll take care of everything. Worst-case scenario, I have other cars.”
I have other cars.
Her brows shot up, and Elouise went so pale Shannon thought she might faint. She shifted her voice to a full-throated whine to disguise the hoarseness.
“But Hayden, I don’t understand what you?—”
He repeated the awkward laugh, but didn’t distract her. “That was a terrible joke. I was just kidding, baby. Worst case, right, and the judge said that thing about—I’m sorry. I’m out of my mind right now and not thinking straight. I just meant we could start fresh. And I won’t let you carry a pregnancy we don’t even want. It would embarrass both of us. And sometimes that isn’t so safe.” He cleared his throat. “Some girls have a hard time. My sister did. I won’t put you through that. I’ll take care of you.”
“Oh.” She made a sigh of relief. “Oh, you’re so thoughtful, Hayden.”
“I’m glad you’re seeing it my way. Think about what I said. If it turns out you’re pregnant, we have to deal with that before we settle things about a future together.”
“I understand.”
“Will you meet me in New Orleans for New Year’s Eve? It would mean so much to have you cheer me on in the game. I’ll get you a sideline pass, and we’ll have a champagne toast to a fresh start for us.”
“I’ll—I’ll think about it.” She didn’t have to fake the hitch in her voice. Shannon ended the call with sweet apologies and thanks for his forgiveness, then wiped her sweaty forehead. She was glad to be home and not at school where he could find her, at least for a while. Winter break couldn’t have come at a better time.
Elouise tapped the buttons to stop recording on her laptop. “What was that?” she squeaked.
Despite her shaking hands, Shannon allowed a tiny smile. The beginning minutes and the last thirty seconds of the conversation should do it. It was all on speakerphone since her phone couldn’t record both ends of a call, and she’d walked away from the desk for anything that might cloud a listener’s perception of his motivations, then back to the computer just in time. A champagne toast on New Year’s Eve. He wanted the pregnancy problem out of the way, and fast.
“It was enough to convince me,” Shannon said. “It might not be enough to prove it to anyone else, so I need to play detective and hunt down some phone numbers.”
“ We will hunt down phone numbers, then.” Elouise reached for Shannon’s hand.
Shannon clutched her phone, ready to toss it onto her bed, when the photo of the ring caught her eye again—the most beautiful shackle she would never wear, and a glance in the mirror at the girl whose teeth chattered even as she spoke her brave words.
“One week,” she said, her eyes darting between her friend and her reflection. The girl in the mirror straightened her shoulders and stood a little taller. “Let’s come back to this in a week.”