A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(26)

The outer door opens and Jane screams.

“OUT! This is the women’s room.”

“And I’m head of Lindsay’s security detail and need to make sure she’s okay.”

“What’s she going to do in here, Drew?” Jane challenges him. “Hang herself on a tampon string?”

Now I really can’t stop laughing. I hear Silas in the background, coughing to hide a chuckle.

“Fine.” I hear Drew leave and the door close.

“He’s really insistent, isn’t he?” she asks, slowly opening my door. I roll onto the ground and stare up at her.

“He’s my security detail.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be an * about it.”

“I heard that!” Drew calls through the door.

“Good!” Jane and I shout back in unison.

“I shouldn’t be mean to him,” I say, standing slowly. “He did get rid of Mandy for me.”

“Yeah.” Jane thinks for a minute. “But he hates her guts, too. So I think he got plenty of personal satisfaction out of that one.”

“Why does he hate her?” I wash my hands in the sink as Jane leans against the wall and talks.

“Why do you think? For what she did to you.”

“Why would Drew care?”

“Because he—ooooooohhhhhhh.” Jane’s voice winds down like a toy running out of batteries. “Shit. Was he really the fourth guy in the video?” I can tell she doesn’t want to believe it. I can’t blame her. I don’t want to believe it.

I’ve spent four years wishing it weren’t true.





Chapter 20





“Yeah. He was.” I’ve never, ever admitted that to anyone. Not Stacia. Not the secondary therapists. Not Daddy or Mom or...anyone.

“Fuck,” she says under her breath.

“Right.”

“So he just sat there on the couch and did...nothing?”

Jane gets it. Instantly.

“Right.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“No, Lindsay. It really really makes no sense. Drew loved you so much.”

I can’t have this conversation. Not now. Not here.

Maybe not ever.

This was a huge mistake.

“Lindsay, after you...after the attack, Drew was hospitalized, too.”

I feel like my body is too big and too small at the same time.

“What?”

“You probably had no idea. No one knows exactly what happened, because he was in the hospital and then suddenly he was shipped overseas for his first tour in Afghanistan.”

“His first tour?”

“Yeah. He did two tours. Came home with a bunch of medals and started his security company with some guy from the service. Now he provides security for a ton of politicians and my mom says he’s a big deal in the field.”

As Jane goes on about Drew, my mind tries to wrap itself around what she’s saying. I hold up one hand.

“Wait. He was hospitalized after my attack? Why? What’d he do—strain his neck trying to get a better look? He’s on the video doing nothing. Just sitting there. Watching. Watching them rape me.”

Jane’s face twists with grief and distaste. I know it’s not directed at me, but a plume of self-consciousness and shame fills my blood. My bitterness is seeping out in my words.

Jane sighs. “I know. It’s still a mystery. And you know Drew.”

“No. Actually, no. I don’t. I thought I did, but clearly...”

“I meant how quiet he is.”

“Quiet?”

“Closed up. Shut tight. Like a drum.”

That’s actually not the Drew I knew.

“What do you mean?”

“He was always the strong, silent type.”

“Not with me,” I say softly.

“With the rest of us he was. You don’t get to be a West Point student for nothing. He had it all, Lindsay. Brains, looks, athleticism, and the officer’s commission after he graduated. And then you were attacked, he was hospitalized, and poof! No one saw him for three years.”

“He was in Afghanistan for three years?”

“Most of it. I heard through my mom that he came home briefly. Went back. Some awful incidents happened there. Then something about a big success his unit had, and how he was a hero along with his team. They did something strategic and received a bunch of medals and accolades from Congress and the White House. But you’d never know. Drew never said a word. And then his parents died.”

I feel like Jane just threw a brick at my head. “His parents what?”

Jane groans and shoots me an apologetic look. “I keep forgetting you don’t know so many things that happened. It’s been about a year.”

“It’s new to me.”

“Yeah. it would be. I’m sorry, Lindsay. Drew’s parents died in a car accident. Single car. Went off a canyon road while he was in Afghanistan.”

“Oh my God!” Jim and Donna were good people. Really great parents. Warm and loving, sweet and kind. Drew and his older sister adored them. I went on family vacations with them. I’m speechless.