Overkill(55)
“No, not mad. Just trying to think things through.”
“Like what?”
“Do you want the topics in any particular order?”
“Make it random.”
“Well,”—she sighed—“for one, I was wondering why a man who claims to love his daughter, who demonstrates his love every day, would choose to keep her as she is rather than to let her go. Why not release her and himself from this purgatory they’re in? Neither of them is living.”
“I think it’s like he said. In order to understand, it would have to be your child.”
“No doubt that’s true. He’s not a likable person, but my heart aches for him.”
“I suffer the same mixed emotions. When he’s hurling insults, it’s a bitch to take it and keep my temper under control.”
“But you do.”
“Nothing to gain by lashing back,” he said and shrugged. “What else were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that Eban Clarke will probably get away with it. I’m afraid he will.”
Zach let a moment pass, then said, “Are you ready to tell me yet?”
She brought her head farther around so that they were fully facing, but she didn’t ask what he’d meant by the question. He figured she knew.
“The matter of the State versus Eban Clarke isn’t just any ol’ legal battle for you, is it, Kate? It’s a personal campaign. Or else I’m way off base and you can tell me to mind my own business.”
Her gaze faltered, and she said huskily, “You’re not off base.”
He said nothing more. He’d opened the door. She could go through it or not.
Turning to look straight into the seat back in front of her, she began speaking in a low voice. “Fall semester of my junior year in college. It was a Saturday night. One of my housemates—I lived with three other girls off campus—talked me into going to a party with her. After weeks of nonstop study, I felt I’d earned a night of festivity.
“The party was at a private residence, and the place was rocking when my friend and I got there. Blaring music, lots of people, lots of alcohol, pot was available. You know the scene.”
“Too well.”
“My friends and I had made a pact not to go to a free-for-all like that alone, and always to look out for each other while there. You know, monitor each other, make sure that no one got too far gone to realize that she was placing herself in a risky situation.
“Shortly after our arrival, I met this guy. Premed. Good looking. Humorous. We hit it off. One thing led to another. By the time the party began to wind down, we were smoochy. My friend sought me out, said she was ready to leave. He stepped in and offered to drive me home later. Moony over this guy, I told my friend that I was pleasantly buzzed but still had my wits about me. She left.”
She paused to clear her throat. “He and I found a sofa in a game room and started making out. Everything was dreamy. Until it became a nightmare. Like that,” she said, snapping her fingers, “I was being held facedown, and he was on top of me, wrestling with my skirt, then my underwear.”
She stopped speaking altogether. Zach wanted to say something, to touch her hand or her cheek, but he was afraid she might misinterpret the gesture, so he sat still and waited.
“I struggled, but he outweighed me by a hundred pounds. I tried screaming, but he was smothering me in the sofa cushion. He was being rough, calling me awful names, saying all the vile things that women hear when they say no. He was intent on raping me.
“But while he was, uh, better positioning himself, his knee slipped off the edge of the sofa. He lost his balance and rolled onto the floor. I sprang up and hurdled the armrest. He was trying to get himself off the floor and out from between the sofa and the coffee table. There was this big, brass bowl of potpourri on the table. I picked it up and banged it against the top of his head with all my might. I don’t think I knocked him out, but it dazed him.
“I dropped the bowl and ran like hell. I ran all the way home. I sneaked in, threw up my rum and Coke, which I haven’t drunk since. I sat in the shower until the water ran cold, crying, shuddering. I couldn’t believe it had happened. Not to me. Never to me.
“The next morning, my roommate was eager to hear all about this hot med student. I told her he’d turned out to be a dud, that soon after she’d left, I’d hitched a ride home with another girl.
“I saw him only twice after that. Once at a sandwich shop near campus. He looked at me quizzically, like he couldn’t quite place me. I hoped he couldn’t and pretended not to recognize him.”
She turned toward Zach. “The second time I saw him, it was his mug shot on TV. He’d been arrested for serial rape. Three separate battery assaults. The MO of each matched my experience. Charm and sweetness, and then wham. He was tried and convicted and to this day is serving his sentence.
“But because I felt like such a colossal fool, because I was embarrassed by my own culpability, because I was afraid that going public would sully me and negatively affect the law degree I was working so hard for, I never told a single soul. Not my parents or my closest friends, no one.”
“Till now?”
“Yes.”
“Why me, Kate?”
“Because as the individual who must make the ultimate decision regarding Rebecca, you deserve to know why I’m so passionate about putting Eban Clarke away.