Hidden Away (KGI #3)(44)

He walked around to put her in the passenger side and she looked briefly up as she slid in. “Not going to make me ride in back like the other prisoners?”

“I haven’t arrested you. Yet.”

He slammed the door and went back around. He needed to call Marlene to put her mind at ease but he wanted to find out what the hell had happened first. Rusty was holding out—not that it was any shock.

They drove up the road and about a mile up, he saw the car nosefirst in a deep ravine.

“Goddamn,” he muttered. “Is Matt still inside?”

Anger flashed on her face again and she shook her head. “Mind telling me where he is?”

“He took off.”

Sean pulled up beside the wrecked car and rested his hand over the steering wheel as he looked over at Rusty. “Any reason why?”

“Because I threatened to call you,” she blurted.

His eyes narrowed. “Call me?”

“Yeah, okay? It was a bluff. Pretty stupid. You wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.”

Sean reached over and touched the blood drying at the corner of her mouth. Then he lowered his hand and pulled the collar of her shirt back just an inch to reveal the already discolored places on her neck.

Rusty stared back at him, her gaze challenging.

Sean picked up his phone and punched in Frank’s number.

“Frank. I’ve found Rusty. I’ll bring her home after I’ve straightened things out. No, don’t come. I’ll take care of it. You and Marlene just worry about Sophie.”

He hung up before Frank could press further and then he stared back at Rusty.

“We can do this one of two ways. You can tell me exactly what happened, or I can take you back to the station and you can tell me there. Your choice. But you are going to give me an exact accounting or I’m going to find Matt Winfree and get his side.”

Rusty closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t believe me. Nobody will believe me.”

“Try me.”

She turned her face toward the window and stared out. More bruises shadowed the slim column of her neck up to her ear. He was getting more pissed off by the minute. Then she looked down and her shoulders shook as if she was valiantly trying to hold on to her control.

“I didn’t mean to make them worry,” she said in a cracked voice. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a ride home. Matt Winfree is cute and popular and I thought he was interested in me. He asked if I’d give him a ride home. So I said yeah. I mean, what girl wouldn’t? After we left the school, he asked if he could drive. He thought the car was cool and wanted to get behind the wheel. I know I should have said no, but I wanted him to like me.”

The pained vulnerability in her voice gripped Sean by the throat. Christ, she was just a kid. It was hard to remember that sometimes, but she was still just a seventeen-year-old kid who’d had a hell of a hard life.

“So I pulled over and told him he could drive to his house and that was all. I knew Marlene would worry if I wasn’t home, but I figured she wouldn’t mind five minutes.”

She went silent and locked her gaze on some distant object out her window.

“Go on,” Sean urged.

She dragged her hand through her hair and he saw two nails, broken to the quick, tiny lines of blood at the tips. He had a very bad feeling about this.

“He drove past his house. I asked him what the hell and he laughed and said he wanted to show me something. I was pissed because I’d already told him just to drive to his house. He came out here, with me yelling at him the entire way. He tried ...”

She leaned her forehead on the glass and hunched her shoulders inward as if to hide herself completely from Sean.

“What did he try?” Sean asked quietly.

Rusty whirled around, tears swimming in her eyes, but they blazed with fury. “He wanted sex, okay? He wanted me to put out. Apparently it’s the hot gossip at school that any boy can get into my pants, and so he wanted his turn.”

Sean’s jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. “Did he rape you?”

She gave a dry laugh. “He tried. He tried, okay? I told him I’d tell you, and he laughed. Said you’d never believe me over him, that everyone knew what kind of girl I am. I fought him off and he drove my car into the ditch. Then he took off. Probably called a friend on his cell phone to come get him. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“He’s wrong.”

She lifted pain-filled eyes to his. “What?”

“I believe you.”

Relief was crushing in her eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks and then she raised her hands to her face as sobs billowed out. He reached over to lay his hand against her hair.

“He won’t get away with this, Rusty.”

She jerked her head up again. “No. You can’t tell anyone. No one will believe me. No one. Do you understand? My life will be ruined. I won’t be able to go back to school.”

The sad thing was she was right about a lot of people not believing her. But that didn’t mean that Sean and the rest of the Kellys couldn’t make the little bastard’s life miserable.

“I won’t press charges,” she said vehemently. “I won’t. I’ll say nothing ever happened. You can’t make me.”

Sean slid his hand underneath her chin and nudged it upward. “Trust me, Rusty. I know you and I don’t see eye to eye. I know you hate me. But trust me. I’ll take care of this.”