Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

That evening, Carter grabbed some sides from Francine’s café, and we threw Ida Belle’s sausages on the grill. We ate in front of the TV, watching an old Western and talking about anything besides my case. When we’d cleared out the dishes, he sank on the couch next to me and flicked off the TV.

“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.

I nodded and went through everything that had happened, backtracking on occasion to put it all into the correct timeline and perspective. He listened silently and when I was done, he shook his head.

“And you have no idea why she did it?”

“Zero. Not that I expect to—I barely know her—but I don’t think Morgan has a guess either, so it must be something really awful if she’s kept it quiet all these years, and the first time she sees the guy, she kills him. Keeping things quiet is entirely in her skill set, mind you, given that she’s been in love with her best friend’s husband for over a decade and Brittany doesn’t seem to be aware of that fact. But I have to say, I didn’t see her for murder, especially since this one required some planning.”

He nodded. “She’ll have mental health counseling in the hospital. Maybe she’ll get help. I understand you have unresolved feelings about all of this, but it’s the best possible outcome given the situation. The guilty party is known and will get medical attention. An innocent man won’t be railroaded into prison. Corndog and Petunia are off the hook and hopefully, Bryce’s treachery will make the rounds, and he won’t be reelected.”

“I suppose it’s the best outcome given the situation.”

But I still didn’t have to like it.

After all the drama and sausages, I crashed on the couch with Carter’s arm draped over me. He was on the early shift the next morning and we’d almost made him late for work by ‘saving time’ and showering together. He’d slowed only long enough to dump some coffee in an insulated cup, give me a quick kiss, and get out the door.

It was barely 8:00 a.m. when my phone rang, and I saw Brittany’s name in the display. I quickly answered.

“Are you all right? Is Nicole?”

“Yes. We’re fine. Before I launch into why I called, I wanted to let you know that Morgan explained that you were a PI and a former CIA agent and were at the B and B undercover to help Corndog and Petunia. He said he’d recognized you from a news story or something but didn’t want to blow your cover. Anyway, your tackling me in the dark and kicking that gun out of Nicole’s hand certainly made a lot more sense once we all knew. But the bottom line is I owe you a huge thanks for saving my cousin.”

“Is she still in the hospital?”

“Yes. I just visited. Her wrist is sprained and they’ve stabilized her emotionally…well, sort of. She’s a bit drugged, but she’s lucid. Anyway, she wants to talk to you.”

My pulse quickened. “Why?”

“She wouldn’t say, other than to stress that it was important. I hate to ask you for anything—you’ve already given us so much—but I promised her that I would call you.”

“I’ll see her. I assume I need some form of permission?”

“She’s already talked to her attorney. The cops can’t question her until her psychiatrist has declared her sound and that hasn’t happened yet. But I think it might soon. Before then, it’s up to Nicole and her doctors and they said it was okay. Her attorney is fine with it as well.”

“What time should I be there?”

Two and a half hours later, Ida Belle pulled through the hospital entrance to drop me off.

“You sure you don’t want us to wait?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Go grab some sandwiches at Mother’s. I’ll eat mine on the way home and hopefully provide you with some answers.”

She nodded and drove off. They’d insisted on coming with me even though they wouldn’t be allowed in to see Nicole. But they hadn’t wanted me driving to NOLA and back with only my own thoughts for company. I’d stopped by the sheriff’s department to tell Carter where I was going, and he’d given me a hug and kiss and whispered that he hoped I got the answers I needed.

My mind was whirling with possibilities, some rational and others completely wild, so I took a deep breath and headed inside. Nicole was being housed in a locked-down unit, and Brittany was waiting for me in the lobby outside a glassed-in desk. She gave me a quick hug and then I gave the nurse my ID and she buzzed me through. Brittany gave me an anxious look before I headed off, and I wondered if Nicole had told her anything yet or if she was still leaving her best friend in the dark on her well-kept secrets.

I knocked lightly on Nicole’s door and heard a faint ‘Come in.’ I pushed the door open, and Nicole gave me a small smile. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Her usual stylish and beautiful hair hung limply onto her shoulders, but her pupils were normal and she was sitting mostly upright.

“Sorry about the wrist,” I said.

She lifted the bandaged hand and shook her head. “It’s much better than the alternative. So I’ll start with saying thank you. I owe you my life. I was very confused about that, by the way, until Brittany filled me in on your real identity. You’re very talented. You and your ‘aunts,’ who are a genius cover. I have to assume they’re not nearly as frustrating in real life as they pretended to be.”

“Well, Gertie tries my and Ida Belle’s patience daily but much differently than she did on the island. Let’s just say she refuses to recognize that with age comes limitations.”

“Good for her. Limiting your life only causes trouble in the long run. Take me for example—holding so much in all these years thinking I was protecting myself and now look at the situation I’m in.”

She let out a huge sigh. “I asked to speak to you because I wanted to explain.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“I think maybe I do. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here and people I truly love would have to live without answers. I think that’s probably harder than knowing even if the truth is painful.”

“That’s true. ”

“I want you to know that I never meant to hurt Corndog and Petunia. I thought the anaphylaxis would be taken as an innocent mistake and nothing more. Since Justin didn’t have anyone to push the issue, I thought things would just be crappy for a bit, then go back to the way they were. I had no idea that sheriff would use Justin’s death to try to take their home.”

“I believe you. No one could have known the direction Bryce would take. Or that Tyler would end up being arrested. I don’t know you very well, Nicole, but I have to believe that you had a good reason for what you did. I’d like to understand…”

She stared down at the bed for a long time and when she finally looked back up, she was crying. “He raped me.”

I stared. Of all the things I’d thought she might say, that hadn’t even been on the list.

“It was at a party right before graduation, a sort of combination graduation and late Mardi Gras, which basically means we were all wearing Mardi Gras colors and masks. I was drinking, but he slipped me something because my memory wasn’t right. I’d get flashes of things, but it was like I was looking at everything through a blurry lens, you know?”

I nodded.

“I guess I need to preface the story by saying I’ve been in love with Daniel since grade school. But I also love Brittany, and Daniel has never had eyes for anyone else. But that night, when things started to fade in and out, I headed for the restroom. There was a line, of course, and the second floor was off-limits, but since the house belonged to a friend, I figured she wouldn’t mind if I used her parents’ bathroom.”

She took a deep breath and slowly blew it out and I could tell the next part was going to be hard for her.

“Daniel followed me upstairs. ”

I blinked, confused. Daniel?

“He came up behind me as I was about to go into the bathroom and wrapped his arms around me and kissed the back of my neck. I was startled at first, because I didn’t know who it was, but then I turned around and saw the team shirts that all the football players were wearing and the purple mask that Brittany had made for him…”

“And Justin and Daniel looked enough alike to be brothers.”

She nodded. “Sounded alike too, or maybe it was the drug… Anyway, he told me Brittany was gone and we could finally be together.”

She looked down, clearly embarrassed. “I knew it was wrong. Brittany was my cousin and my best friend. She and Daniel were practically engaged, but then I convinced myself that if he would cheat on her then she wouldn’t want to be with him. That I’d be doing her a favor if she found out. And then I wondered if by ‘gone’ he meant they’d broken up. That he’d finally realized she wasn’t right for him, and he wanted me instead. I won’t say it was all the drug because that would be a lie, but I am positive the drug sent me over the edge into my fantasies.”

She took another breath and looked back up at me. “We had sex in the bathroom. He sat me on the counter and…it was my first time. I’d been saving myself—stupid, I know—but I’d always had this hope that Daniel would come around. And it was finally happening.”

She frowned. “But afterward, it was all wrong. He just finished and then gave me this cocky grin and said he had to get back to the party. I tried to protest, but he said we had to keep things secret for now or people would take sides, and he didn’t want problems between me and Brittany. That made sense, but then, I was so spaced out most anything would have.”

“So what happened after the party?”

“I don’t remember getting home. My mom found me in a lawn chair in the backyard. She freaked out because I was so out of it and could barely walk, and she hauled me to the hospital.”

“They did a drug test?”

She nodded. “They said I had Rohypnol in my system. I swore to the doctors and my parents that I didn’t knowingly take anything. Jesus, that was my vegan phase. Why on earth would I take drugs, and definitely not roofies.”

“Did they ask you if you’d been raped?”

“Yes. And I lied. I just said I must have blanked out when I got home and fell asleep in the lounger. I couldn’t tell them. Brittany is my cousin and my best friend. Our mothers are sisters. It would have torn our family apart, so I begged my mom not to tell anyone.”

“No one ever found out about the visit to the ER?”

“Ha. Small town. Everyone found out, but I just told them it was alcohol poisoning. Not like anyone would be surprised by that given the way we were all drinking.”

I nodded. “And what about you and Brittany and the others?”

“Everything was the same as before…well, except me. Because of what happened, I avoided her for a couple days in school, which was easy enough with all the end-of-year responsibilities we both had. Since most of them extended into the evening, that bought me more time, but finally, I couldn’t stretch it any longer. And I was troubled because I hadn’t heard any gossip about her and Daniel’s breaking up. That confused me, because usually gossip got through high school in th e blink of an eye, so even if Brittany was avoiding telling me, I should have heard whispers of something in the making.”

“Because boys rarely keep their thoughts to themselves.”

“Exactly. So I headed over to Brittany’s house, figuring I’d poke around and see what I could find out. She looked a little stressed but otherwise normal, so I asked if she was feeling okay as she’d left the party early and I hadn’t seen her in days, figuring that was her opportunity to share something about Daniel. She said she was fine, but she’d had a migraine at the party, which was why they’d left early.”

“They?”

Nicole nodded. “I figured being the dutiful boyfriend that he was, Daniel had taken her home, then come back to the party. I convinced myself that he’d just stretched the truth a little about the breakup because she’d been sick and that he was just waiting until she was better to tell her.”

“But it never happened.”

“No. They were the same as before—the perfect couple, planning their perfect lives. Daniel would be working for his dad, which he did every summer, but this time, he wouldn’t be quitting in the fall to go to school. His dad would be grooming him to take over, and Daniel was going to do online and night classes in business. Brittany had been teaching summer cheer camp to younger girls for years and was already pushing her parents to help her rent a space and equipment to open her own gymnastics studio.”

“You didn’t confront him?”

“Not until I missed my period. I’d always been like clockwork, but the first couple days, I figured it was all the stress of graduation and waiting for Daniel to call it quits with Brittany. And then one day I saw a woman walk by our house pushing a baby in a stroller and I almost passed out. I drove two towns over and bought three pregnancy tests because I had to be sure. All three were positive.”

“But you didn’t tell Daniel?”

“No. I went to see him at his house when I knew he’d be alone, and I asked him about him and Brittany, hoping he’d tell me that he was working on it. But his face lit up like it always did when he talked about her. He told me that he was so glad I’d stopped by because he’d been wanting to ask a favor of me. He was going to ask Brittany to marry him and wanted my help finding her a ring.”

“That must have been quite a blow.”

“I was dumbfounded. He was acting like we’d never hooked up. I started to cry and asked him, ‘What about us?’ He looked at me like I was crazy, then he got all cautious and says ‘Nicole, there has never been an us and there never will be. I’ve always loved Brittany, and I’m going to marry her and make my life with her.’ He sounded genuinely confused, and I started to wonder if he had been so drunk he didn’t remember. Or maybe he’d been drugged as well.”

“So you never told him about the pregnancy.”

“How could I? He’d made it clear he didn’t love me. He loved Brittany. If he didn’t remember what had happened, then it was no one’s fault, right? And if he did remember and was just pretending not to, then what would I accomplish by calling him out on it? It would have destroyed our lives and our families. So I told my mom that it was a boy from another school and I didn’t want anyone to know his name because his parents were drug users. I convinced them that the baby would be better off being adopted so that he and his parents could never get their hands on it, and that then my life wouldn’t have to be ruined.”

“I can’t imagine that was easy on your parents.”

“They were so upset. They tried to talk me into having the baby and letting them adopt it, but I couldn’t. Everyone would know. And every time I looked at that baby, I’d see Daniel and relive his betrayal. And God forbid, what if the baby ended up looking just like him? I couldn’t risk it. And I didn’t think I was strong enough to live with all those secrets. They hated it—it was their grandchild, after all—but they finally agreed and we arranged things with my dad’s sister in Italy.”

“Was it a closed adoption?”

Nicole nodded. “I didn’t want to know anything, and I didn’t want him to come looking for me, because if explaining now was impossible imagine explaining it twenty years down the road. My aunt took me to an agency over there. It was all legal and all records closed.”

“And you started a rumor that you’d fallen for an Italian man and had vexed your parents by refusing to come home.”

“Yes. It seemed the best way to avoid questions about my gap year and it worked.”

“It must have been hard, though, to remain close to Brittany all these years, being around Daniel all that time.”

“At first, it was, but he treated me the same way he always had. That’s when I realized that he truly didn’t remember. No one can carry on an act every second of every day for years, especially someone like Daniel. I figured he’d been roofied and maybe Brittany as well, which was why she got sick. My own memory was spotty—like flashes of that night, not really a film playback. So I figured it was possible that he didn’t recall anything at all.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, when I returned from Italy, I pushed it all out of my mind. Locked it in a box and attempted to throw away the key. Brittany and Daniel were about to get married and everything was the way it should be. I went off to university a few weeks later and moved to NOLA after graduation. Brittany and I still saw each other regularly, but it was mostly a girls’ thing then. I didn’t have to see Daniel, and that made it all easier. And time. After a while, I finally let it go.”

“But did you?”

She sighed. “I let that night go. But if you’re asking if I’m still in love with Daniel, then the answer is yes, in a way. I think part of me will always love him. But seeing him now doesn’t hurt. And he and Brittany love each other. I know they have their issues, but don’t all couples?”

I nodded, her story finally clicking with her current situation. “How did you figure out that it was Justin that night and not Daniel?”

“Completely by accident. I guess I’ve been stupid all this time, still believing it was Daniel that I had sex with, or maybe I just couldn’t face that I’d probably been drugged and fooled by some rando who’d been laughing at me ever since. I gave him my virginity. I know that doesn’t mean anything to a lot of people, but it did to me. And it’s something I can’t ever recover.”

“It was stolen. Your choice was removed because he drugged you and lied.”

She nodded. “That first day after we arrived at the B and B, it was misting on the boat ride over, and we all went upstairs to change. I took longer than usual, and Brittany sent me a text saying Justin and I were holding up the party and to get down to the library. I stopped by his room and knocked but he didn’t answer. I tried the door and it was unlocked, so I figured I’d poke my head in and make sure he’d already headed down.”

“But he was still there?”

“Yes. Standing right in the middle of the room, naked and drying his head with a towel. He grinned at me when I froze and then he said, ‘See anything you like? You did once before.’ And then I saw the mole. In a place you could only spot it if he was completely naked. And I remembered seeing it that night. I looked at him and I’m sure my expression was one of horror. He realized that I was just now getting it, and he laughed. He laughed at me. Like it was all some practical joke.”

Tears slid from her eyes and down her cheeks. “Like he hadn’t raped me.”

“You could have gone to the police.”

“And said what? Proven it how? He’d have just said it was consensual, and I’d have to tell them everything…about Daniel and about my son… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin so many lives because of him. But I couldn’t let him do it to other women either. All that bragging about his conquests, and I wondered how many had been drugged like I was. How many had wound up pregnant or diseased, and that’s just the physical side of things. The emotional is far worse. He ruined my life. I never dated anyone, not seriously. I certainly never had a relationship because after that night, I couldn’t trust men anymore.”

I sighed because she wasn’t wrong. Chances were if she’d gone to the police, there would have been nothing they could do, and she would have blown up a lot of lives to accomplish nothing. And while I absolutely believed things had gone exactly as she’d explained, there was no way to prove it, short of a confession from Justin, who was no longer here. And even though I’d never met him, I was absolutely certain that a man who openly mocked his victim would have never told the truth.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I said. “Justin was a criminal but far worse, he was a horrible human being. He didn’t deserve friends.”

“He deserved to die.”

“Maybe,” I hedged. “But we can’t go around killing everyone who deserves it. ”

“The world might be a better place if good people did.”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, the way the world works now is the good people just have to pay again when they try to fix awful situations.”

“I’m going to prison, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know. That’s for you, your attorney, and the DA to work out. But if you haven’t already, I think you need to tell your attorney the truth—all of the truth. It’s about protecting yourself now. You’ve spent too much of your life protecting other people at your own expense. And maybe if you’d let it all come out, you would have known the truth a long time ago, or at least that it definitely wasn’t Daniel. You could have gotten help. Brittany and Daniel are adults. If their marriage can’t handle this, then they didn’t have much of one to begin with.”

She nodded and swiped at the tears running down her cheeks.

“And I’m going to make another suggestion, which your attorney will probably come around to, but just in case he doesn’t—go looking for other victims. Even one or two would be enough to support your story. Because I’m sure you’re right. They’re out there, and maybe some would be willing to come forward to help you. After all, you gave them closure.”

The door opened and a nurse walked in.

“Visiting time is over,” she said. “Ms. Lange needs her rest.”

I gave Nicole an encouraging smile. “Stay strong. You can still have a life after this, but you’ve got some work to do in order to manage it.”

I rose from my seat and walked out. I hated when I got the answers, but they weren’t at all what I wanted. And I prayed that Nicole’s attorney was a good one and could figure out a deal that would still allow her a future.

A future free from the burden of one horrible night.

Brittany was still in the waiting area when I exited the unit. She rose from her chair, an anxious expression on her face.

“Did she tell you about the baby?” she asked.

I stared, confused. “You knew about the baby?”

“When she came home from her year abroad, I knew,” Brittany said. “A woman looks different after she’s given birth, you know. And if you’ve known a person and seen them naked your entire life, then you notice it.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“I didn’t at first. After all, it wasn’t my business, and I figured when she was ready to tell me about it, she would. But we got drunk one night a couple weeks after she came back, and I told her that Daniel and I were talking about trying for kids in the next couple years and she broke down. She told me she’d been drugged and raped by a stranger at a party when she was overseas and had given birth to a baby boy and put him up for adoption.”

Brittany swiped at tears forming in her eyes. “I had no idea it had actually happened here…that it was Justin who’d raped her. She left right after graduation, so she wasn’t showing yet and she wasn’t sick. She was nervous, but I just figured that was about her trip. It was an aunt on her dad’s side and one she didn’t know very well, so I thought she was just worried about fitting in and all.”

“Her mother is your aunt… She never let on that anything was wrong? Never told your mother what was going on?”

“No one told me anything for sure! And I doubt she told my mother. She holds a confidence like religion. And there’s no way she’d do anything to hurt Nicole. She thinks Nicole hung the moon. We all do. I hate Justin for what he did to her.”

“How did you figure out it was Justin?” I asked. “Because Nicole didn’t tell you.”

“There was a rumor about that party—that she’d hooked up with Justin that night. I didn’t believe it, of course, because Nicole couldn’t hardly stand Justin. But then Tyler got all moody and depressed one night when he was drunk, and he told me he’d seen them in the bathroom. Justin was wearing the mask I’d made for Daniel, and they’d all been in their team T-shirts, but Tyler had just spoken to Daniel and me as we were leaving, so he knew immediately who it was.”

“But he didn’t do anything.”

“He said she was into it. They both were. Justin had a reputation… He’d been with a lot of girls, including me. So Tyler just figured Nicole was one more notch on his bedpost, but it broke his heart.”

“You never asked Nicole about it?”

“No. Clearly, she was mortified by the entire thing as she avoided me for days. I just assumed she was super drunk and then when she said she’d gone to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, that just confirmed my thoughts. No one ever mentioned that night again. Well, except Justin, who used to taunt Tyler about hooking up with Nicole. Everyone else thought he was lying just to get to Tyler, but Tyler and I knew exactly why he was doing it.”

“What did Nicole say about it?”

“That Justin was lying as usual and everyone believed her. Everyone but Tyler and me, that is, but we would never have said anything. And every time I tried to bring it up, she immediately changed the subject. So eventually, I just let it go. High school ended and we all moved on. I guess I figured it didn’t matter anymore. ”

“Justin was a despicable person. I hope you do a better job vetting your friends as adults.”

“Ha. Definitely.” She teared up again. “Poor Nicole. She’s lived with this huge secret all these years. But what I don’t understand is, why now? Why wait all these years? Did she not know it was Justin who’d raped her before the reunion? Had the drugs made her believe it was someone else?”

“I don’t think it’s my place to say.”

“You’re right—don’t tell me. It wouldn’t change anything and the less I know the better, right? I mean, legally. I’m going to assume Nicole didn’t know before now but somehow found out and she decided to get even. Now I just have to pray that the DA sees it the same as I do.”

I had my doubts that the DA would be as accepting of Justin’s murder as his victims were, but it was the Louisiana legal system and Nicole had a great attorney. I had no doubt he’d find the best course of defense.

“I wish she would have told me back then,” Brittany said. “I could have helped her.”

“I don’t think she was in a mental state that allowed it.”

Especially if it meant Nicole had to admit that she’d thought it was consensual sex with Daniel all this time. But I didn’t tell Brittany that. If Nicole’s case went to trial, there was a good chance the real story would come out, but if she made a deal, no one ever had to know.

Brittany nodded. “I wish you weren’t so good at your job. She might have gotten away with it.”

“Do you really think she would have allowed Corndog and Petunia to lose their home because of what she did? Or for Tyler to be railroaded for a murder he didn’t commit?”

She sighed. “No. She’s just not made that way.”

“Then everything worked out the way it needed to.”

“I guess so. ”

“There is one last thing I’d like to know,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Why were you really in the kitchen that night? There was water in the library.”

Brittany blushed. “I have an eating disorder. I only eat tiny amounts in front of other people, but I knew the leftovers were in the refrigerator, so…”

“You sneaked down for a midnight snack while no one was looking, just like you did with the leftover fish.”

The simplest explanation once again.