Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(88)

“Give me his name. Start there, Jacie, because it’s not going to help you if he ends up in this file. It’s not going to help you if he’s dead.”

“Cooke, Ryder Cooke. At about ten o’clock on August eighth of last year, he raped me, and he ruined my life.”





17


As Peabody came back in, Eve considered the best approach.

“Jacie, we can ask you questions, or if it’s easier, you can just tell us what happened.”

“Nothing’s easier.” Jacie took slow, small sips of water. “I wanted to put it behind me, but he made sure I couldn’t. I have to face it every damn day.”

Peabody started to speak, but Eve shook her head.

They waited.

“I’m a singer. I have a voice, a good voice, and I was willing to do the work, make the effort to improve. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to sing. I didn’t have to be a star, you know? Just sing, make my living, use my gift. I was doing okay, then I got it into my head to come to New York, to push myself. I got some good gigs, too, some really solid gigs. Good reviews, some attention. And a shot at a recording contract. It was like a dream, more than I’d let myself want, but here it was.”

She took another sip, set the water aside.

“A scout from Delray heard me, told me to send an audition disc. I spent a good chunk of my savings booking a studio, good musicians. If I had a shot, I was going to do it right. And it worked, or I thought it did.

“Ryder Cooke is Delray. He’s the star-maker. So when Ryder Cooke asks you to his place to discuss your future, to talk about a contract, you go. I went. We had drinks. I was not drunk,” she added with considerable passion. Her eyes went very bright, not with tears, not now, but with that passion, and with memory.

“I’m not stupid enough to get drunk at the most important meeting of my life. But I had some wine. We talked, and he painted this picture of what I could have, what I could be that meant everything. Then he said there was something I needed to see upstairs.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Was it stupid? I still don’t know. He never made a move, never said anything that made me uncomfortable, so I went. I didn’t even get a bad feeling when I went into the bedroom with him. Then he grabbed me. He’s a pretty big guy, and I wasn’t expecting … Doesn’t matter. He had me pinned to the bed. I’m telling him no, get off. He says just lie back and enjoy it, baby. Just like that. Lie back and enjoy it, baby.”

She had to suck in air. Let it out again.

“I tried to get him off, to get out, but he was stronger, and he just … After, when I’m crying, and he still has me pinned, he tells me to deal with it. This is how it works. Be a good girl and he’ll sign me, he’ll make me. Tell anybody, make a stink about it, I’ll be finished. Nobody’ll believe me, and I’ll be lucky to earn the price of a sandwich singing on street corners.

“When he rolled off, I ran out. He hadn’t even bothered to pull my clothes off, just my panties, right? I ran out. I don’t know why I didn’t go to the cops.”

Tears spilled now, and she swiped at them with fingertips, impatient. “I was ashamed and shocked and afraid. I did everything wrong that night, okay? I admit I did everything wrong.”

She had to pause another moment, sip more water.

Eve waited her out, signaled Peabody to do the same.

“I went home and I showered. I took shower after shower, scrubbing him off me. And I cried half the night. Useless, useless. Then I started to get mad, and that was better. I went straight into Delray in the morning, and I told anybody who’d listen what happened. And just like he said, nobody believed me. Or if they did, they weren’t going to go up against Cooke.

“I didn’t get the contract, big surprise.” Bitter now, hard and brittle as ice. “I got fired from the decent gigs I had. I couldn’t get another gig in a good venue. He spread the word I was a troublemaker, a drunk, that I used, stole—the works. So now I take whatever gig I can get to make the rent.”

Eve gave it another beat to be sure Jacie had finished.

“Jacie, do you want to file charges?”

“With what?” It all but exploded out of her. “It’s my word against his, so I’ve got nothing.”

Peabody reached over, laid a hand over Jacie’s. “Do you think you were the only one?”

“I— Probably not. No, not the only one, but that doesn’t make me less of a nobody. He’s the star-maker. Who’s going to believe me?”

“We do,” Eve said simply.

Her breath hitched, tore, and the tears rolled down again. “If I try to go after him for it now, after all this time, I will be singing on street corners.”

“No, you won’t. But we’ll leave that for now. You told this story, identified the man who raped you, in your support group.”

“That’s the whole point of the group.”

“Did anyone speak to you more about it, outside of the group?”

“Yeah, some of us went for coffee and bitch sessions after. I did that sometimes.”

“I need names, full names if you have them. We need to talk to them the way we’re talking to you.”

“It doesn’t feel right.”

“We’ve already talked to Jasmine Quirk, Leah Lester, Darla Pettigrew, Una Ruzaki, Rachel Fassley. And Natalia. We have interviews scheduled with Mae Ming, Sasha Cullins, and Bree Macgowan.”