28 Days(18)

Draining the bottle of water that she’d been nursing, she placed it on the table and started to read.

He held me down...

There was so much hate inside him...

He kept talking about money...

His voice was distorted...like a machine...

He was so strong...

I don’t remember him raping me...

Did he?

I just wanted to leave...

I promised him I wouldn’t tell...

A short time later, Saige had reached the end of the report, and realized that tears ran down her face. So much so that she couldn’t even see the signature at the bottom of the page.

“Do you remember?” Alex offered another tissue while he stood to the side.

She shook her head. “My head is full of the report, but I didn’t see any mention of your brother.”

“Then you obviously didn’t read the last paragraph.” Alex pointed to the bit that she missed because her tears had prevented her from reading it.

Wiping her eyes, and blowing her nose, she took a drink from another bottle of water that Alex passed her, and started to read the last paragraph.

I, Saige Lockwood, state that the photograph selected, whilst in the hospital, from a lineup of ten photographs given to me by the District Attorney’s office, and Detective Coulter Robinson, is of my abductor, Quinten James Peterson.

She gasped, and managed to look at the signature before her tears started again, not that they’d ever stopped.

“That’s mine...oh, God.”

For five days she’d thought that maybe Quinten Peterson was innocent, but her statement obviously said otherwise.

“Saige.” Alex crouched beside her, and demanded, “Please stop crying and dry your eyes. I need you to take another look at the signature. Look at it. Don’t glance.”

She slowly quieted as she dried her eyes. She stared at the signature but she still couldn’t see it clearly. She jumped up. “Let me grab a notepad and a pen. I’ll sign my name and we’ll compare.” Grabbing the items from the end of the coffee table, she sat back down and put her signature to the paper.

“Okay. My signature.” Saige laid the paper out beside that of the statement.

“It looks the same,” she commented after a minute of looking between the two signatures.

“I have to agree.” Alex sighed.

Saige felt tired as she sat back and watched Alex trace the curves of her signature. She was disappointed because she hadn’t wanted to believe that Quinten was guilty after what she felt when she saw him. Even now, she wondered if she could have signed without actually giving the statement herself, but that wouldn’t have happened because someone in law enforcement would have taken the statement.

Feeling heavy of heart, Saige picked up the pack of photographs, wanting to see images of a time when Quinten had been free to enjoy life. She curled up in her favorite brown, leather chair and took the photographs out.

Her fingers shook with nerves as she slowly started going through them.

Some of the images were of Quinten with his brother, and others were of him alone. A few he mustn’t have had any idea that they were being taken because he looked deep in thought, or his gaze had been fixed on something off camera. Or someone.

She looked closer at one picture that was a close up of his handsome face. His dark eyes had pure joy in them and as her finger traced along his lips, a memory teased her mind.

She rounded the corner to the entrance of the boathouse and Quinten was there, waiting for her. Her heart felt so full of love at just the sight of him, and when he turned, his face lit up with pure joy.

Gasping, she sat up straighter in the chair, the photographs falling from her lap to the floor.

“What is it?” Alex quickly moved to crouch beside her.

“This picture.” She held up the image that had caught her attention. “I saw this and when I traced his smile with the tip of my finger, I remembered him smiling like this…for me, outside of the boathouse.” Saige met Alex’s gaze. “Did that happen? Did he smile like that for me?”

Alex stayed silent.

“Please tell me. You’ve hinted that Quinten and I were more than friends, so please tell me if what I remember was real?”

He nodded and cleared his throat. “It was real.” He looked away and then back at the photograph she held in her hand. “I used to tease him for having a sappy look on his face whenever he looked at you. So one day I spotted you in the garden and before I pointed you out, I got my cell ready and snapped that very image when he saw you. I wanted proof of the look on his face whenever he saw you.” Alex got up and relaxed back against the sofa. “I’d never seen him as happy. It was as though you gave him purpose to go on.”

“What went wrong, Alex?” Saige whispered, knowing that something had, otherwise he wouldn’t be behind bars, facing death.

Alex was silent for a while before he answered. “Your father.”

Saige frowned and quickly glanced at him. “My father? What does he have to do with Quinten being in prison?”

He ran his hand over his face. “I’ve never been able to find out for sure. Your father hated the time you spent with Quinten. He threatened to tell Jocelyn if he didn’t leave you alone. Quinten didn’t give a shit whether or not he told her, what he did give a shit about was you. He was concerned about what Jocelyn would do or say to you if she found out. So he tried to ignore you, which lasted all of two days.” Alex shook his head and smiled. “By day three, he realized how unhappy he was making you and himself. He couldn’t keep his distance any longer, regardless of the threat to you both. He needed you. So he went after you. The day before you went back to school, Jocelyn saw you both together. It didn’t help that my brother, um, dreamt. Sometimes vocally.” Alex shrugged. “But you’d gone back to school so he figured you were safe from her. She was deranged, and if he hadn’t been arrested then he’d have divorced her.”