The Night Swim(81)

Light flickered from the beach, followed by the noxious smell of gasoline as they built a bonfire on the sand. Their dark silhouettes were set against the fire as they stood by its flames and drank beer, clinking the bottles together.

There was a public phone booth across the parking lot, near the toilet block. I didn’t have money, but I figured that I could dial the operator and ask her to call the police. I walked across the lot quietly, hunching down so there was no chance that I could be seen. My shoes had fallen off when I was in the forest. I was in my bare feet. The dirt parking lot was littered with sharp stones that dug into the soles of my feet. Despite the pain, I didn’t cry out or make any sound at all.

I had to run out into the open to get to the telephone booth. I did so quickly but was delayed getting inside as I fumbled to open the door in the dark. Finally, I pushed my way inside. I lifted the receiver and dialed the operator, my hands shaking so badly that it took a few attempts to press the correct buttons.

“How can I assist you?” the operator said.

“Please,” I mumbled; my throat was so dry that no sound came out. I cleared it and spoke more loudly: “I need to speak to—”

The phone booth door was pushed open abruptly, hitting me painfully in the shoulder. A hand reached inside and pressed down the receiver to disconnect the call. I turned around slowly. It was Bobby’s friend, one of the boys who stole candy from Rick when they gave us a ride home that first time. He stank of liquor. It was so overpowering that I leaned as far away as I could until my back pressed painfully against the telephone console.

“Well, if it isn’t the little sister,” he snarled. He curled his hand into my hair and pulled me close to his hot drunken face.





47



Rachel


They met at the boardwalk at dusk. Dan and Christine Moore approached Rachel arm in arm, baseball caps pulled low to obscure their faces. They were dressed like twins in matching jeans and tees under unbuttoned shirts. Denim for him. White linen for her. Their shirts blew in the wind like parachute canopies.

The three of them stepped off the boardwalk onto the beach, passing stragglers shaking sand off their towels before flipping them over their shoulders and heading home. At the far end of the beach, surfers were paddling to shore, pushed out of the ocean against their will by the ebbing light.

Dan had told Rachel when they’d set up the meeting over the phone that he and Christine were happy to talk with her, but not in the house. Mitch Alkins had been there the night before. It upset Kelly to know that she was being discussed downstairs while she stayed in her room, with her grandmother looking in on her intermittently. They never left Kelly alone for long.

Meeting at a restaurant was out of the question. So was Rachel’s hotel. There was so much publicity around the case, so much scrutiny, that Kelly’s parents hadn’t gone out in public since the trial began. Dan told Rachel they were going stir crazy. His strained voice indicated that he was neither joking nor exaggerating.

Kelly’s name had been withheld by the media but nothing could suppress the town’s rumor mill. It was common knowledge in Neapolis that Kelly Moore was the girl at the center of the rape trial. She’d had to leave her high school, and then a second school, because of the constant buzz of gossip as she walked down the halls. Her mother had taken to ordering groceries online long before the trial started. She didn’t dare go into a supermarket, let alone a restaurant. Kelly had anonymity in name only.

Rachel had suggested she meet Kelly’s parents at the beach at twilight. It would be dark enough that nobody would recognize them and deserted enough that they’d be able to talk privately without being overheard. They’d agreed their discussion would be off the record.

The farther they walked from the marina, the fewer people they saw, until it was just the three of them strolling on the edge of the shore, their outlines dark against the intermingling ink blots of sea and sky as night began to fall.

“How’s Kelly doing?” Rachel asked.

“Not great,” said Christine. Her sigh said more than her words. “She goes into full-on panic mode at the thought of returning to court.”

Christine explained that Kelly was on high doses of anti-anxiety medication to keep her calm. The medication made it hard for her to think coherently. When her doctor lowered her medication, Kelly became anxious. “It’s a vicious cycle,” Christine said. The exhausted dark rings under her eyes told their own story.

“Christine doesn’t want Kelly to go back on the stand,” said Dan, looking down at the pattern the soles of his shoes made in the sand as he walked.

“You don’t agree. You want Kelly to finish testifying,” Rachel surmised.

“Yes.” He looked up. “Mitch Alkins told us that he won’t get a conviction without Kelly. I was up all night thinking about what he said. Kelly needs to do it. She needs to do it so that son of a bitch goes to prison. She needs to do it so she can move on,” he said firmly. “She’ll regret it for the rest of her life if she doesn’t finish the job. If Scott Blair gets to go free and enjoy his life unpunished.”

Christine shook her head as her husband spoke. It was clearly a major point of contention between the two of them. Time was running out and they still hadn’t reached any joint agreement.

“What do Kelly’s doctors think she should do?” Rachel asked.