Deadly waters, p.6
Deadly Waters, page 6
. . . and fell.
Rebecca can still hear the scream sometimes, the crash as Daphne landed on the table with the punch bowls. She can still see the deputies racing across the barn to her cousin, her dad’s voice choked and quavering as he called for an ambulance. She knows it isn’t fair, but Rebecca’s never quite forgiven her old teammates for their selfishness. Hardly anyone would have cared about the underage drinking, but they knew there were other dangers at that party. If they’d just told someone, anyone, the cops or parents would have found Daphne before she was taken to the loft. Before she was raped. Before she was left there like so much trash so close to the edge.
Before she fell. Before the doctors had to tell her that the damage to her spine had left her paralyzed, that the rape—with cans and bottles and farm tools, anything that came to hand that wouldn’t leave the DNA of her attacker or attackers—had injured her so badly that they had to do a full hysterectomy. Daphne spent the rest of the school year in the hospital. When it came time to go back to school in the fall, both Daphne and Rebecca were homeschooled by one of their aunts.
Nothing ever happened to Daphne’s attackers. The investigation stalled because the boys’ varsity team stuck together. Everyone knew, and no one could prove it, and Daphne is never going to see any justice for what was done to her.
She thinks about the sorority girl with her sisters, laughing and crying and feeling every emotion at once because the action that left her and other girls that little bit safer also cheated her, stole from her. It’s easy to think of her as Daphne, sitting up through the night and knotting jewelry when the nightmares keep her from sleeping; everyone in the family wears something she made. There’s no good solution, Rebecca realizes. Even prison won’t erase the harm that was done. Fines, imprisonment, death—there’s no possible consequence that matches the harm. So what’s justice, then?
“Well, aren’t you a pretty—”
“No,” she interrupts. A flash of fury spikes through her; it takes more effort than she’d like to bite it back. That kind of anger isn’t safe for a girl on her own, Ellie to the contrary.
“Huh?”
“Whatever you were about to say,” she tells the male voice. “No interest in hearing it.”
“You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
“Seeing as you’re not walking away, clearly I do.” She opens her eyes and stands straight, forcing herself not to wince as the brick tries to keep some of her hair.
The boy standing a little too close is alone, at least, no friends crowding around him to outnumber her. His blond hair is slicked back, some kind of cologne or body spray wafting too heavy in the thick air. If he weren’t sneering at her, he might be some kind of good looking. A small petty voice in the back of her mind says it’s the kind that won’t last. “I was just trying to compliment you,” he complains.
“I came outside to be alone and enjoy some silence. Whatever your intention, you’re bothering me.”
“Listen, bitch, you should be—”
“Grateful?” She snorts derisively. “Hardly.”
“Not everyone is as nice as I am, you know.”
“Nice, yes. You’ve called me a bitch twice already.”
His face twists further, turning into something ugly rather than just spoiled arrogance. Maybe she should have played along until she could get back inside, let him pretend his attentions were flattering. It might have been safer. But she’s tired and restless with memory and just wants to be home in her pajamas—and all in all in no mood to give him anything he wants. She shouldn’t have to. The fury bubbles back up, splashing through the fear and irritation that have become her standard response to too many college boys who think their dicks give them an all-access pass to the world. She studies the toe of her pink Doc Martens as she tries to figure a good way out of this confrontation.
She flinches from the hand that suddenly fills her peripheral vision, and it closes around the strap and surrounding neckline of the dress rather than her throat as intended. “Let go,” she snaps.
“You need to be more appreciative of people taking the time to compliment you,” he growls, yanking on the dress to pull her closer.
“Let go of me!” she yells, trying to get the attention of anyone else outside the building. She can hear the dress start to tear as she digs her heels in against his tugs. She braces one hand against the bricks, shifting her weight. Past the heartbeat thudding in her ears, she can hear footsteps hurrying across the lot, but who knows if they mean to help. Or who they mean to help. Does he have a gun? Will protecting herself put her in more danger?
“I’m gonna teach you—”
Her foot swings up, the steel-toed boot landing with a muffled thump in his crotch. He wheezes, his face turning somewhat purple as he bends, but he doesn’t let go of her dress. The long rip is terrifyingly loud even against the spill of music from the bar. His fingers dig painfully into her skin as his hand drops with the rest of him. She presses her free arm against her chest to keep her bra covered. She tries to back away, but her steps just bring him stumbling with her, hand still clutching the fabric.
“Bitch, you’re gonna regret that.”
Regaining her balance, she hauls her foot back to kick him again.
“Let go of her,” orders a new voice, male and stern.
Rebecca risks looking away from the boy to find Det Corby side by side with a uniformed UPD officer. Neither has his gun drawn, but the officer has his left hand on the baton hanging from his belt, behind his gun.
“This bitch attacked me!”
“Save it for someone who didn’t see it. Let go of her.”
He still seems reluctant, but he does open his hand to release the torn dress.
She immediately steps away, closer to Det Corby and the safety he represents, and she holds the fabric together from neck to waist. She can see Det Corby’s shoulders roll back like he’s trying to take off a blazer he isn’t wearing to offer it to her. The detective gently curls his hand around her elbow to lead her even farther away, letting the UPD officer continue the conversation. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly.
She looks down at the dress, at the lace-trimmed paisley bra that’s peeking through despite her best attempts and at her shaking hands trying to fix it. “Ellie’s going to kill me. This is her dress.” She blinks in surprise, fairly sure that’s not what she intended to say. She hates the adrenaline crash, the falling apart when the danger is past. Hates the sense of weakness and relief when, goddammit, she was strong, and she’s safe now.
He chuckles and lets go of her elbow, keeping his eyes on her face. “Is it just the dress?”
“Yes, the bra is mine.” It’s only at the pink in his cheeks that she realizes that’s not at all what he meant. “Oh. Um, yes. He was going for my throat but got the dress instead. He didn’t touch me otherwise.”
Glancing over at his colleague, who has the boy’s ID in one hand and a phone in the other, Det Corby sighs and shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re okay, but . . .”
“But it means there’s nothing to arrest him for,” she finishes bitterly. “Yeah.”
Because why would it ever be different? Why punish someone for the harm they intend to cause if you can just wag your finger at them a few times? Closing her eyes, she presses her forehead against Det Corby’s shoulder. His hand is warm and solid at her elbow, supporting without gripping. It’s not his fault he can’t haul the boy away. The problems are so much bigger than that. She focuses on slowing her galloping breaths, timing them to the soft brush of his thumb against her arm.
She suspects that may be the reason he’s doing it. He doesn’t move closer, doesn’t try to touch her more than that, just lets her use his shoulder to brace herself and breathe, and she’s pathetically grateful.
She recognizes the UPD officer, she thinks, hearing his calm questions and the boy’s truculent responses. Officer Kevin, as he’s known around campus, can always be relied on to walk students, especially girls, back to their cars or dorms after dark. He always seems so pleased to be asked.
“Nice kick, though,” Det Corby murmurs. “Ellie will be proud. Might even be enough to get forgiveness for the dress.”
She smiles slightly, about as much as she’s capable of at the moment. “She’s inside.”
“Thought she must be,” he says. “This isn’t someplace you come on your own. Do you want me to go find her?”
She shakes her head and reluctantly straightens up. It would be nice, but she would rather he not be directly confronted with the sight of her friends drinking underage. He’s generally willing to overlook things he can reasonably ignore, but actually seeing them drinking or buying alcohol would probably stretch that kindness past its limits. “I’ll text them.”
Then she remembers where her phone is. A scalding, painful blush heats her cheeks.
“I’m going to look at Kevin and the asshole,” he says cheerfully and immediately does so.
She quickly fishes out her phone, wiping the sweat-slick screen on the dress, and texts Hafsah to ignore the next few messages. Then she pulls up the group thread. Rather than sending a single text, she breaks it up into several messages. Hopefully the repeated alerts will get somebody’s notice, when just one would be easily missed.
I’m outside.
I need to head home.
Asshole attacked me.
Please take me home.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Hey, I kicked someone in the junk.
That’s the one that gets the response. From Ellie, which doesn’t really surprise her.
That’s awesome! Not the asshole part. The part where you kicked him. Good job.
And then, from Delia:
2sec we go
Good enough. She tucks the phone back into her bra, glances at Det Corby, and casts about for something to say, some kind of distraction from the boy who just attacked her. “Your hours have been kind of weird lately; are they changing your shift?”
“Had a meeting,” he replies, not dismissively or curtly, but there’s something in the tone that says not to ask more about it. She hums and shifts her weight, not sure where to go from there, really. A second later he sighs and shakes his head. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“It really has.”
“It’s going out in the morning,” he says quietly, “but we finally have an ID for the body in Lake Alice.”
Rebecca folds one arm under her chest to anchor that part of the dress and splays her other hand across the pieces of neckline to keep herself marginally decent. “You got a hit on DNA? Or you finally found the head?”
“Both, in fact,” he says with a grimace. “Though the head was secondary confirmation. Missing person report mentioned that the family had done one of those ancestry kits, in case we needed to compare samples.”
The asshole with Officer Kevin suddenly drops a loud f-bomb, and Rebecca flinches. Even as she castigates herself, Det Corby’s hand returns to her elbow with just enough pressure to be reassuring.
“Missing person?” she asks, because it’s easier to focus on that than on the warmth of his touch or the asshole still too close for comfort. “Was the report filed before or after the body was found?”
“After.” He sounds grim. “He never returned to classes after spring break, but he was seen out and about in the week and a half after that. Apparently his family and friends thought he was just lying low.”
Which begs the question: “From what?”
“He incurred some legal difficulties over spring break.”
She recognizes the careful phrasing from hundreds of conversations with her law enforcement family members. She can think of two possible reasons for it. First, whatever trouble he got into could have a bearing on his death, so the police can’t talk about it. Second, the family is litigious as hell and ready to sue the pants off whoever casts aspersions on their darling. Or both.
Either way, there’s no point in pursuing the question. Not without more information in general. “He was a student, then?” she asks instead.
“Sorry?”
“The deceased. He was a student?” She starts to shrug at his curious look, then decides she’d rather not find out if that imperils the already precarious positioning of the dress. “Spring break. If a professor didn’t come back, the whole campus would be talking about it. If a high schooler didn’t come back, the whole damn city would be buzzing.”
“True. He could be in admin.”
“Administration and support get spring break?”
He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair. Some of it promptly swings back into his face. “I don’t even know. Yes, he’s a student. Or was, I suppose. They’ll release his name in the morning.”
“So you were meeting with his family?”
“No, with my captain, trying to convince him to open an investigation.” Her surprise must show on her face, because he gives her a look equal parts sheepish and defiant. “Statistically speaking, the fact that two male UF students, roughly the same age, were apparently killed by alligators within two weeks of each other is more than passing strange. I know what the environmental theory is, but it’s still unlikely.”
“Environmental theory,” she repeats slowly. “You mean the encroachment?”
Det Corby nods. “The habitat loss has been happening over years. If that were the only factor, we’d have seen an increase each year, not a sudden spike.”
“So you think . . . what?”
“Honestly I don’t even know yet. Maybe there’s a new frat challenge running around—take a picture with a gator or something stupid like that. Maybe they’re just drunk and stupid.”
“And maybe?” she asks cautiously.
“And maybe it’s not coincidence or stupidity.” He almost looks like he’s bracing himself against her response, which gives her a fair idea of how his captain took his hypothesis.
She turns the idea over in her head, poking at it thoughtfully. “That seems . . . complicated,” she says finally.
“That’s the kinder portion of the consensus.” He isn’t frowning, but he doesn’t look happy either. “Any other year this state averages three deaths by alligator. In a year. Even nonfatal alligator attacks aren’t much more common. And somehow this year we have half a dozen across the state with the mating season just starting, and two of them happen to be very similar people at the same school? Statistical anomalies exist, but there’s usually an explanation for them.”
“And your explanation is a serial killer.” Despite the subject matter, she can’t quite hold back a small smile. It just sounds so ludicrous. Murder by alligator seems more like something from a Bond film than a real-life problem.
“Don’t forget accident and stupidity,” he says ruefully. “I have them about equally weighted right now.”
“Does that make you feel a little less silly?”
“Yes,” he says with a laugh, “but that might be wishful thinking.”
Her suitemates burst out the door in an explosion of noise, clustering so tightly around Rebecca that they push Det Corby to the side. He grins and holds up his hands in surrender, stepping back toward Officer Kevin and the belligerent boy.
As Delia and Susanna tut over the torn dress, Ellie crouches down to examine her shoes. “No blood,” she notes.
Why would there be . . .
“I got him in the crotch, not the nose or mouth,” Rebecca tells her.
“Still.”
Rebecca stares at her, trying not to visualize how that would work. “I’m a little unnerved by how hard you must be kicking them if they’re bleeding.”
“Do it hard enough, and they can’t come after you again.”
“Do it hard enough, and you could get the bill for their ruptured testicle.”
Ellie waves that off as unimportant. “Bills aren’t enforceable without a court order. Come on. We’ll get you home so you can change before we come back out. Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
“I am changing into pajamas and staying home,” Rebecca says firmly. “No arguments, no compromises, no begging. I am not leaving the room once I’m in it.”
“I can give you ladies a ride home if you’d like,” offers Det Corby, returning to the girls. “Kevin is going to stay and try to put the fear into Mountebanks there.”
All six girls stare at him, then swivel to stare at the increasingly cowed attacker. “Mountebanks?” Delia asks eventually. Rebecca bites her bottom lip. A giggle slips out anyway.
“According to his license, that’s his name.”
She dissolves into giggles, which sets the other girls off as well. If Rebecca’s laughter is somewhat tinged with hysteria, well, that’s understandable, isn’t it? It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask if it’s his real license, but she doesn’t. That would invite too much attention to her friends’ licenses.
Ellie, of course, has no such compunction. “Jesus, it’s so bad it almost has to be real, right? How does a polo-and-highball name like that not buy its way into the Ivy League?”
Rather than try to answer, Rebecca swallows the giggles, thanks the detective, and accepts the ride. None of the girls have jackets or sweaters, and she really doesn’t want to walk back to the dorm clutching her dress closed. She also doesn’t have quite enough confidence—or foolishness, perhaps—to let it flap open to the waist and pretend she isn’t bothered by it. Ellie would. Hell, Ellie would see it as a badge of honor. If you think I look bad, you should see what I did to him. Rebecca is more used to de-escalating situations than learning how to wear the shreds with pride. She just wants to get home, where she can lock at least one door between her and the outside world and let go of the hyperawareness that has her cataloging every shadow and movement in the parking lot.
