Things Made Right [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Read online

  Yes, there was flirty, sometimes even sexy banter between them, but Ross had not made a single romantic move on her beyond holding hands, sitting with his arm around her shoulders, or hugging.

  She wasn’t about to voice her suspicions to Mark or Emily, either. Loren was smart enough to know that if Ross was gay, he probably didn’t want it blasted all over the place. It would remain their secret. It wasn’t like it bothered her beyond the fact that it meant she’d never get to be more than just friends with him.

  She damn sure wasn’t going to ask Ross about it and risk hurting his feelings one way or another. First and foremost she was coming to think of him as her best friend, next to Emily.

  So on a Tuesday, when one of the girls in Loren’s accounting class had asked Loren if she was interested in going to a frat party with her on a Friday night, Loren had no reason she could think of to say no. Ross had to work until eleven that night. The girl, Chelsea, hadn’t wanted to go alone. She was meeting some other girls there, who’d invited her, but Chelsea didn’t know them very well.

  Loren and Chelsea had shared a class the semester before, and had been neighbors in the dorm before Loren moved in with Emily. They’d studied together plenty of times, so it wasn’t like they were strangers.

  “I don’t want to outright tell them no,” Chelsea said. “That might mean no more invites. But I don’t want to go alone, either. And my roommate’s going out with her boyfriend Friday night.”

  “No problem,” Loren said. “I’d like to meet some new people. Aren’t those frat parties usually closed, though?”

  “Not this one. It’s an open party. Apparently a small, private one. Walter Kessling’s one of the seniors. It’s really his party, him and some friends of his, not an officially sanctioned party. Like a farewell thing.”

  “He’s on the football team, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” Chelsea sighed. He’s cute, too. And single. I had a biz ad class with him last semester.”

  “He’s a senior.”

  Chelsea shrugged. “He’s a football player. I guess they can take easier classes if they want.”

  * * * *

  Chelsea stopped by and picked Loren up a little after eight on Friday night. Emily and a guy she was interested in were going to the movies with Mark and his girlfriend that night. The siblings had an unwritten rule they hadn’t shared with their parents. Mark wouldn’t rat his little sister out—and she wouldn’t rat him out, either—but until Mark signed off on a guy, Emily would have a few safe double dates with Mark and his girlfriend first.

  Loren envied them a little. The closest thing she had to a sibling was Emily, or Ross. Not that she didn’t want more from him, but the longer they spent time together, the more apparent it was that Ross didn’t seem to be in a hurry to speed things along, either.

  She hadn’t even told him about the party. She’d told Emily, just as a precaution. Not that Loren had any worries. She was going with another girl, and it wasn’t like anything bad would happen. It’d be a few hours to relax and chat with people.

  Maybe she’d even meet a guy.

  Then again, he wouldn’t be Ross.

  As they rode to the party, Loren realized any guy she might meet would be held up against Ross as the benchmark whether she meant to or not.

  Face it, he’s your perfect guy and he doesn’t seem to be interested in taking it farther.

  When they arrived at the party, Chelsea found the girls who’d invited her and introduced Loren to them. Everyone seemed friendly enough. When Walter Kessling, one of their hosts, asked Loren what she wanted to drink and offered to get it for her, she thought it was nice of him.

  He returned with her drink, just plain cola and ice, a few minutes later. As Loren sipped it and chatted with people she’d never met before, she tried not to let her mind wander to how much she missed Ross and his contagious, quiet serenity.

  * * * *

  Loren winced as she turned over, shards of pain shattering her sleep. Bright sunlight hit her squarely in the face. She shivered and realized she was lying on damp grass in what looked like a park. There was a dirty sheet wrapped around her, which she struggled to get free from.

  When she tried to sit up, more pain filled her. Her head felt like she had a horrible hangover, which wasn’t possible since she didn’t drink.

  And pain between her legs. Pain all over. A nasty taste in her mouth.

  Unable to process everything, she turned and retched, more bile than anything, as if she’d already vomited up whatever else had been in her stomach.

  Disjointed images from the night before, like nightmares, filled her mind as she tried to comprehend where she was. She was dressed, but it felt like her panties were missing. And the back hooks on her bra were undone.

  Looking around, she found her purse on the ground next to her. Her wallet was in it, the twenty-three dollars and change she’d had still there, as were her bank card, driver’s license, student ID, and other cards.

  And her panties.

  The only thing missing was the strip of three condoms she usually kept tucked in the same zippered pocket where she kept a spare tampon and panty liner, just in case.

  With more focus returning, yes, she realized she was in a park. Or at least somewhere wooded. She heard cars somewhere close by, and from the angle of sunlight, it had to be seven o’clock in the morning, or close to it.

  More pain seeped into her awareness as she tried to stand. Everything hurt, but there were unsettling, concentrated pains in her ass and between her legs, cramping. When she looked down, she spotted a dark red stain on the crotch of her jeans.

  Her last clear memory had been at the party the night before, of chatting with Walter Kessling, Charles Van Hardy, Lawrence Busch, and David Corning. Of sipping her cup of soda and wondering why the world was going a little fuzzy.

  From that point on, her brain was filled with spotty, jagged memories. Being held down, being—

  She turned and vomited again, dry-heaving, her stomach painfully empty as her tears began to flow. Somehow, she managed to get to her feet, clutching her purse against her. Stumbling toward the sound of cars on a highway, she found the parking lot and restrooms for the park. Now she recognized where she was, a park not far from campus.

  The lot was empty. Fortunately, the restrooms were open. The woman looking back at her in the mirror was haunted, ravaged. No bruises on her face, but her hair was a mess and there were suspicious, dried patches of stuff on her face and hair and she didn’t want to know what they were.

  Locking herself into a stall, yes, she was bleeding. And it wasn’t time for her period yet. Cleaning herself up as best she could, she spotted bruises, fresh, on her thighs, stomach, and hips.

  That’s when her brain locked down and refused to process anything else.

  After cleaning up, and then washing her face and as much of the crusty stuff out of her hair as she could in the sink, she left the restroom and went over to the payphone.

  Emily sleepily answered on the sixth ring. “This better be good,” Emily mumbled.

  Loren tried to talk and burst into tears.

  Now Emily sounded more awake. “Lor? Honey, is that you? Where are you? What happened?”

  Choking, crying, Loren finally got out where she was and begged Emily to come get her. Their apartment building was over three miles away, and Loren wasn’t sure she could walk another three yards, much less miles.

  After Loren got off the phone with her, she sank to the ground next to the payphone and waited, crying.

  Emily’s car squealed around the final turn into the parking lot twenty minutes later. She left it running as she got out and ran over to her.

  “Lor! Oh, sweetie, come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “No.” She shook her head. One of the memories that had returned was of the four men telling her if she reported what happened, they’d not only beat the charges, but would return and do this—and worse—to her and Emily both. That the
y could, because they were on the football team and basically untouchable.

  “Sweetie, you’re bleeding. We need to—”

  “Home,” Loren insisted, nearly screaming it, letting Emily help her to her feet. “Just take me home.”

  “Who did this to you? What happened?”

  “Just take me home.”

  “I’ll call Mark and—”

  “No. Do not call Mark.”

  Loren was huddled in a ball in the tub, under the spray with her arms wrapped around her knees when Ross burst into the bathroom thirty minutes later. Murder in his eyes, he sank to his knees next to the tub and reached for her.

  Sobbing, she let him hold her, even though he was now getting soaked.

  “Shh,” he said, stroking her wet hair. “We need to get you to the hospital and then to the police.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. She still wasn’t sure exactly what all had happened, but was beginning to suspect Walter Kessling had spiked her drink with something. From the residual evidence, she guessed what they’d done to her after spiking her drink. “I can’t.”

  Ross cradled her face in his hands. “I didn’t say I was asking you, sweetheart,” he said. “I am taking you to the hospital, and I am taking you to the police. End of story.”

  “I can’t. They’ll do it to her, too.”

  “Who?”

  She sobbed out as much of the story as she could remember. Emily stood in the doorway, crying, hugging herself as she listened.

  “I can take care of myself,” Emily told Loren. “Those fucking animals need to pay for this. You listen to Ross, you hear me? If I have to, I’ll stay with Mark.”

  “No, don’t tell anyone else, please!”

  Ross waited until her gaze settled on his. “Stop,” he softly said, the command as steely as if he’d shouted it. “Emily’s right. We have to take you to the hospital. You’re bleeding.”

  That she was, and it worried her. The pain was still there, a deep, painful cramping ache unlike anything she’d felt in her period. And she thought she might be bleeding from her ass, too, but she wasn’t sure.

  Everything hurt.

  After getting her out of the shower, dried off and dressed, Emily brought Ross one of Mark’s T-shirts that she’d ended up with for a sleeping shirt. Ross, with Emily flanking Loren, got her loaded in his car and headed to the hospital on the edge of campus that was also part of the medical school there.

  Three hours later, with Emily and Ross by her side, the humiliating exams and treatment by the doctors and nurses were over. They wanted to admit her for observation, but Loren refused. She also refused to let them call her parents. When they wanted to call the police, she told them she’d refuse to talk to them if they did.

  It was only after Ross and Emily swore they’d take her by the campus police office after they left the hospital did the attending physician finally agree to let her leave.

  When they were alone, the three of them, Ross once again cradled Loren’s face in his hands. “You have to report this. You were raped. It’s a crime.”

  “What happened to that damn Chelsea, anyway?” Emily angrily asked. “How could she just leave you there alone?”

  “I don’t know,” Loren said. That was one of the memory gaps. One minute she was downstairs in the living room, the next, she was in a bedroom with the four men. Fragments of memories there, before she awoke in the park.

  “We’ll find that out soon enough,” Ross said, sounding close to homicidal. “First, we will get this reported so those bastards are arrested.” He pulled Loren close, holding her. “I swear to you, they’ll pay for this. I’ll fix this for you, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Nothing can fix this,” she tearfully whispered.

  “Then I’ll make it right,” he said. “I swear to you I will.”

  While the rational part of her understood it was a platitude, well-intentioned but likely meaningless in the grand scheme of things, there was a small, quiet part of her deep inside that believed him and knew he meant every word of it.

  It scared her.

  But even more, it brought her a small measure of peace.

  Chapter Four

  Now…

  Sully watched as Loren stirred her iced tea with her straw. She’d gone quiet, and he was loathe to interrupt her. He’d handled more sexual assault cases in his time as a detective than he cared to remember.

  It didn’t matter if it was thirty minutes or thirty years ago, the victims always bore a similar, haunted way about them. Sometimes tinged with rage, sometimes with fear, sometimes a mix of both and more.

  He waited.

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “They really didn’t want to discharge me,” she softly said. “I thought it was more a malpractice thing. I didn’t understand until later, a couple of days later, as I started to get myself under control again and started thinking, that I realized it was because of how badly I was injured.”

  She stared at her left wrist. “Ross never left my side that morning. Neither did Emily, although she would move away and sit over in a chair by the wall if they were doing something. Ross held my hand the whole time. The only time he let go was when he helped me get the hospital gown on, and then when I put my own clothes back on.”

  Her right index finger lightly stroked the back of her left hand, near the wrist. “I don’t think he realized it at the time, I think it was a nervous tic of his own. He kept lightly tapping my hand with his ring and pinky fingers. He had this little three-beat rhythm he kept up. It was soothing. Distracting. I didn’t even realize it at first. It was one of those things it finally hit me later, he was holding me one night while I was crying in bed, before he had to leave to go home, and he was humming to me. And it had that same soothing rhythm. Just a little made-up song. But it sort of became a kind of anthem for me, you know?”

  When she finally lifted her gaze to Sully’s again, her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she was close to crying. “I caught myself humming it all the time when I was stressed or worried. It was like he was there with me. Sort of a self-soothing kind of thing.”

  Sully nodded but didn’t interrupt.

  Loren finally let go of her straw and sat back in her seat. “He tried. He tried so damned hard. He pushed. He got angry. I was scared and retreated and pretty much gave up. If it wasn’t for him ordering me to keep going to classes after I missed that first week, I think I would have quit and dropped out.”

  “What happened to Chelsea?” he finally asked. “Why had she left you there alone at the party?”

  “She’d looked for me. The four guys told her I’d left with someone else. She was actually pissed off at me, thinking I’d deserted her without even telling her. Then I told her no, I hadn’t left.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Her face fell. She asked me what happened, and I told her I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want her feeling guilty when she wasn’t a part of what happened. I just didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Why not?”

  Loren met his gaze dead on. “Because by then I knew the campus cops weren’t going to do a damned thing about it. And so did Ross.”

  Chapter Five

  Then…

  Loren stared out the passenger window of Ross’ car as he drove them back to the apartment. It was Monday afternoon, and they’d just had another talk with the campus police.

  Who’d ruled there was no basis for further investigation. There was no proof. It was Loren’s word against theirs, and they claimed they hadn’t seen her after midnight. That they’d been told she left with someone else, so that’s what they told Chelsea when she was looking for Loren so she could leave.

  And no one else at the frat house had remembered seeing Loren there after midnight. They’d heard nothing, seen nothing.

  The four men vouched for each other, that they’d waited until after the party broke up around three or so to go to bed.

&n
bsp; She said, they said.

  And Loren had washed the only proof she had off in the shower. Apparently they’d used condoms for the rapes, because the hospital had found no traces of semen inside her. Or the shower had washed it all away, which Loren doubted.

  The men said that whoever Loren left the party with was likely her attacker, not them.

  Gee, too bad they couldn’t offer more help, and they felt badly about what happened to her. If they heard anything, they’d immediately pass it along to the campus cops.

  In the backseat, Emily ranted, railing, until Ross finally spoke up. “Em, stop. Please.”

  She fell silent.

  “It’s okay,” Loren softly said. “I knew it’d be a waste of time.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Ross said.

  “Yeah, we are.” Loren turned to look at him. “They won’t do a damned thing about those guys. There was no evidence. I was stupid. I should have called 911 when I woke up in the park but I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to get home.”

  “Lor,” Emily said from the backseat, “you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re the victim here. It’s their fault.”

  “They were smart,” Loren said. “They alibied each other. There were no witnesses to what they did.” She felt dead inside. “They set it up. They’ve done it before. I remember them saying they knew they’d get away with it because they always did, and they would this time, too.”

  Ross reached across the seat and took her hand, gently squeezing, tapping that soft rhythm against her flesh with his fingers.

  Earlier that morning, Loren had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up visit. She was still bleeding, and still in pain. The bruises had turned into dark purple marks all over her body, handprints, fingers, on her breasts, her hips, her legs, around her ankles and wrists.

  Marks she couldn’t wash off and wished like hell weren’t there.

  Marks even Ross’ gentle kisses pressed to her wrists couldn’t heal.