Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors

by Allison Brennan

  By this time, the prosecutor is practically yelling over me and the judge cuts me off. “That’s enough, Officer O’Connell.”

  But as I glance at Regan Adderly, I think: it’s not nearly enough.

  The seventeen-year-old is way too calm for someone on trial for murder, but the distant, tense gaze, not quite focused on anyone, reminds me of long-term abuse victims. I have no doubt she’s one of them, and I can’t help but wish someone else had slapped the handcuffs on her a year ago.

  Then maybe I wouldn’t feel so damn sad right now, thinking about the promising future she killed along with her father.

  ***

  WEDNESDAY:

  LAURA ADDERLY

  “Why didn’t you hear the gunshot that killed your husband a year ago?”

  “I had taken a sleeping pill. They really knock me out. My doctor prescribed them after I hurt my back a couple of years earlier and was having trouble falling asleep.”

  I stick to the script Bruce gave me, which is easy enough. It’s all true. But my hands grip the stand in front of me so hard my fingertips turn bone white. I know my voice sounds like I’m reading lines. I know the gauntness of my cheeks and the circles under my eyes make the jurors watch me with suspicion. If they had any compassion, they’d think it was because I’m watching my first born on trial for murder. Or maybe because I’ve recently been widowed.

  I don’t add that I’d washed the sleeping pills down with pain pills, and the pain pills down with vodka. I don’t add that I’d been doing it every night for almost a year. That it’s the only way I’d made it to this point without taking my husband’s gun and blowing my own brains out.

  Except I never would have done that, because it would have meant leaving Regan and Noah all alone with Maxwell. That fear is the only thing that kept me in the marriage in the first place. I talked to lawyers, staying far away from Maxwell’s colleagues, who all told me the same thing: without proof, I’d never get full custody. And my husband is—was—way too smart to leave behind anything we could use against him. Although apparently, he wasn’t as smart as he thought.

  I glance over at Regan, but after a few seconds, guilt takes over and my gaze jerks back to my lap. These days, I can barely stand to look at her. Not because of what happened, but because of what it says about me. I failed her.

  The idea leaves a bitter taste on my tongue. Or maybe that’s just the way my mouth tastes without the drugs.

  If I could, I’d tell everyone I shot him. But there’s Noah to think about. My parents aren’t well; they could never raise a twelve-year-old. My sister is off in Europe somewhere. Good luck to anyone who tries to find her. And Maxwell’s parents? I shiver because they should’ve told me all I needed to know about Maxwell long before I married him.

  But I didn’t see it. Honest to God, I thought he’d broken the cycle. He wasn’t perfect, but he certainly wasn’t mean, not back then. Not until Regan was born, and suddenly, all of my attention wasn’t focused solely on him. And then I was trapped.

  “What happened when the police woke you that night?” Bruce asks, his eyes kind.

  He thinks Regan is guilty. He’s never said so, but I can tell. The only reason I haven’t told her to get a new lawyer—and footed that bill too—is that I also know he wants to win. And not just for his own ego. He’s one of the few people who’d heard about the abuse and believes us. He thinks Regan was justified.

  “I came downstairs and my daughter was already in handcuffs.” My voice breaks at the memory. Yes, she’s seventeen now, on the cusp of adulthood. But sometimes, when I look at her, all I see is that newborn baby, when the doctor first placed her into my arms and those pale blue eyes stared up at me with awe and trust.

  “Have you ever seen her restrained before?”

  I know why he’s asking. He wants to surprise the jury, who probably thinks the question is about handcuffs and breaking the law. The reality is that my husband had done it repeatedly, using simply superior strength. It was his go-to response to something pissing him off. The TV was too loud. Someone talked back. Someone cut him off on his drive home.

  Ironically, he learned it from a doctor friend who worked in the mental ward, back when he was representing a schizophrenic man who’d attacked a stranger. Back then, I’d been proud of him for standing up for the man, for trying to get him psychological help instead of thrown behind bars. Little did I know that case would come back to haunt all of us because it taught Maxwell how to hold someone down without leaving a mark.

  The words I’d rehearsed with Bruce about this jump to my mind, but stall on my tongue. A friend of mine—one of the few people I’d dared to talk to about Maxwell who didn’t get mad at me for staying or look at me with disbelief or ask me what I’d done to make him mad—told me if I admitted the abuse now, I was an accessory.

  I thought she was crazy when she said it didn’t matter if I was too scared to leave, if he hurt me too. If I kept my kids in that situation, no matter what my motivation, no matter how hard I tried to protect them, the law could call it neglect. If they believed me, they could take my kids away, even after Maxwell was gone.

  Not like they’d believed it the few times we’d tried to get help, back when we still needed them. The thought is bitter, but useless. Because I looked it up, and my friend is right. It might not be common, but it happens.

  Maybe in some ways, my husband was right too: he was never going to let us leave.

  I look at Noah, sitting in the courtroom because they’ve already called him to the stand, and because he can’t bear to be home when it’s his only chance to see his sister. He may be twelve, but he’s still my baby. If I answer this question, will I be trading Regan’s safety for Noah’s? Will Maxwell’s parents try to use it as a way to snatch him away from me? They’ve already threatened to try.

  I swallow my fear and nod at Bruce, making my decision and praying it won’t come back to haunt me. “I have seen her restrained before, but not by the police. By my husband, before he hurt her.”

  But as I glance at the jury, I realize my choice doesn’t matter. I took too long debating my answer. They don’t believe me.

  ***

  TUESDAY:

  NOAH ADDERLY

  “Is that you speaking?” Regan’s lawyer asks.

  “Yeah.” My voice comes out a very small squeak and I straighten on the stand, even as I feel my whole face get hot. Regan told me I have to be strong now, and I sound like a kid.

  But this is the first time I’ve heard the 911 tape. I remember making the call, but in my head, I sounded calm, maybe even too quiet, from the shock of it all. On the tape, my voice is somewhere between a scream and a sob. It’s barely intelligible and the operator makes me repeat it three times.

  “I heard a gunshot. I heard a gunshot. Yes, in my house! I heard a gunshot!”

  “Good, Noah,” Mr. Lotte says, like I’m a baby. “Can you tell me who was in your house that night?”

  “Me, my mom and Regan. And my dad,” I add, although does it count since by then he was dead?

  “No one else?”

  I frown, trying to figure out who else he thinks would be in our house at one in the morning. “No?” I mean it as a statement, but it sounds like a question.

  “Are you sure?”

  I glance at Regan, confused, wondering how she’d want me to answer. She looks like shit. She’d be mad if she heard me say it—more because of the swear word than anything else—but it’s true. Still, I know she’d be hiding a giggle when she told me not to use words like that. My stomach starts to hurt thinking about her going to jail. Would mom take me to visit her in jail?

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “So, Regan’s boyfriend didn’t sneak over?”

  I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend until he showed up at the house that afternoon to talk to our dad. Still, I wouldn’t have known it had anything to do with Regan, except I heard dad screaming. I scowl at her, mad that she kept such a big secret. She prob
ably did it because he’s gross. He’s old, with a job and everything, not in school like me and Regan.

  “Noah?” Mr. Lotte asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “When you called 911, Noah, you said you heard one gunshot. Is that right? Did you hear one, or two?”

  I pause because Mr. Lotte didn’t tell me he was going to ask this, and even though I’m repeating the story I promised I would, I’m not sure how to answer. Does it matter? Will it help Regan if I say I only heard one shot? Or is it better if I say I heard two?

  “Um, one, I think,” I finally decide.

  “So you didn’t hear another gunshot?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And what did you do after you called 911?”

  This part is easy, because there’s no story now. “I waited in my room. The operator told me to stay on the line with her, so I did. The police came upstairs later and got me.”

  I’d gone downstairs to find my big sister in handcuffs. I start breathing hard, thinking about her being locked up all the time. She hates it. Always has. Even being stuck inside the closet made her freak out. She’d pretend she was okay, but I could tell she wasn’t.

  Me, I liked it better in there. If you were locked in the closet, no one could smack you. I’d take a day or two without food or water, hoping you wouldn’t pee yourself, over the nasty name-calling, the whacks to the head, the twists to the arm that didn’t bruise until days later. I bite my lip, and feel my eyes well up with tears. I bet I’d do better in jail than Regan.

  I glance around the room, from my grandparents with their disapproving snarls, to that jerk Dane, to my mom trying so hard to be like she used to be, to the big sister who always looked after me. If I could just tell the truth… My gaze skips back to mom, who’s trying to smile encouragingly at me, nodding like I’m doing a good job.

  And then Mr. Lotte says, “Thanks, Noah. That’s all I needed to know.”

  ***

  MONDAY:

  DANE SCHILLING

  I wish I’d never met Regan Adderly.

  It’s kind of an unrealistic wish, I guess, since she’s lived down the street from me since she was born. But I never really noticed her until she hit sixteen. Then all of a sudden, she was worth looking at.

  But she’s not worth this.

  Despite my best efforts to stay calm, I fidget on the stand, wanting Regan’s lawyer with that doughy face hiding savvy brown eyes, to get to it already. As soon as he does, I just want to get out of here.

  “How long had you been dating Regan?”

  “Well…” I give my most charming smile to the jury, the one that still makes the high school girls giggle and blush, and two jurors smile back at me, but it’s hesitant, uncomfortable. “We weren’t dating. Just friends.”

  “Just friends?” Mr. Lotte’s words are brimming with skepticism and I can feel my neck start to sweat in response.

  “Yeah.”

  He frowns, shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me. “If I call some of your friends to the stand, what will they say?”

  Shit. Can he really do that? What would they say? They knew our relationship was a secret, but could they keep it together?

  A million more swear words lodge in my mind and I try the smile again. “Well, look, I think Regan might have thought it was more. But I told her we’d have to wait.”

  It’s all bullshit. Would anyone care about the age difference if I was thirty and she was twenty-five? She’s practically of age anyway.

  “Wait for what?” Mr. Lotte prompts.

  Heat climbs my face at my mistake. But it had all been so easy with Regan.

  When I first started talking to her, I had no idea what was happening in her house. I’d met her dad. He’d seemed pretty normal, maybe a bit gruff, but not the kind of guy you’d imagine screaming at his family on a regular basis or smacking them around. But after a couple of months of “running into her” near her school, she’d started confiding in me, and then I’d known exactly what she needed.

  Someone who spoiled her, looked after her. Someone who talked about how much he wanted to kill her dad for what he’d done.

  She was a little awkward, but eager to please. A couple more minutes in the back of my car and I would have gotten exactly what I’d been picturing since the day she’d stepped off that school bus a few months earlier.

  “I told her we had to wait to go out. You know, until she turned eighteen,” I tell Mr. Lotte.

  “Hmmm. I guess I’m going to need to call a couple of your friends to the stand and ask them.”

  “Fine,” I snap. “We were dating. She was—she was a great girl, you know? But we weren’t sleeping together.”

  That much, at least, is true. It might not have been, if her father hadn’t caught us. Pure stupid bad luck, that was. I’d parked in the driveway of the empty house on a dead end in our neighborhood. I have no clue how he’d spotted us. I hadn’t even heard him drive up and then there he was, yanking me out of the car and onto the ground while Regan yelped and tried to get back into her dress.

  Fucking humiliating is what it was. Terrifying, too, because I knew her dad was a lawyer, and even though Regan wanted it, bad things happen when you get put on a sex offender’s list. No way was I letting that happen.

  “Before Regan was arrested, when was the last time you saw her?”

  I glance at her, wondering if he already knows the answer to this, and shift uncomfortably in my seat. I can’t tell anything by looking at Regan. She’s like a zombie, staring at me but not really seeming to see me.

  So, I don’t gamble. I admit, “That day. I came over to talk to her dad, because he knew about my, uh, friendship with Regan.”

  “Really?” Mr. Lotte asks, raising his eyebrows like I’ve just admitted to grabbing Mr. Adderley’s gun and shooting him with it.

  “Look, when I left that house, he was alive. He was pointing the gun at me, okay?”

  “And you didn’t sneak back in later, do the same to him?”

  “No!”

  Then he asks a question I don’t expect. “Do you think Regan did?”

  I study her again, wondering now what made me pick her out of all the other girls climbing off the bus that day. Then I remember. She’d looked so sad I’d wanted to see if I could make her smile. And I lie. “Yeah.”

  ***

  ONE YEAR EARLIER:

  REGAN ADDERLY

  The gun is lighter than I expect. I balance it in my hands the way I’ve seen my father do, my heart beat pounding in my ears so loud I can’t hear anything else. My vision is blurred by my tears and they make me mad. It’s not like he ever shed a tear over the things he’s done to me.

  When I squeeze the trigger, it jumps in my hands, knocking the shot wide. But it still rips a hole through my father’s button-down shirt, sends more blood dripping down his side.

  I want to fling the gun as far away from me as possible, but I can’t do that. Instead, I lower it carefully, my finger slipping free of the trigger guard.

  I can’t take my eyes off of my father. I’ve imagined this before: his death. In my mind, it wasn’t necessarily me who killed him. Sometimes, it was a car crash and police officers would show up on our doorstep to give us the news. Other times, I worked up the courage to hit him back, striking over and over until he couldn’t hurt any of us ever again. But my favorite was always imagining him winding up to smack Noah, and my brother ducking out of the way at the last second. My father’s swing going wild, throwing him off balance, until he fell down the stairs, then went still forever.

  The reality is a whole lot bloodier than my dreams. My father’s eyes are still open. Even though they’re angled slightly upward, I imagine he’s staring at me, even in death, judging and finding me lacking. I know exactly what he’d say if he saw this mess. “You stupid bitch. You can’t even hit a target from five feet away? What a worthless excuse for a daughter.”

  “Yeah, but this time, I won, didn’t I?
” I mutter, swiping a hand over the wetness on my cheeks.

  “What?” Noah’s scared whisper reaches through my dazed anger.

  I spin, putting my hand on his arm to comfort him, only to discover it’s shaking so badly it makes him shake too. “Noah.” I can’t believe I forgot he was there.

  Seeing my brother—with his hair sticking up on his head, wearing superhero pajamas—makes calmness settle over me. “The neighbors might have heard the gunshot. I need you to do what we talked about, okay?”

  His gaze skips to our father, then back to me. He’s not crying, but I can tell by the way his chest is heaving up and down that he wants to. “Are you sure? What if they arrest you?”

  “I’ve got gunpowder on me now. And I’ll be standing here when they arrive. They’re going to arrest me,” I tell him, picturing how it will all play out. “I’ll say I don’t remember doing it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they won’t press charges and I’ll just get to come home.”

  I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the days and months to come. It takes a long time to go from an arrest to a trial, and I know there’s a good chance I’ll spend that time behind bars.

  The thought makes my chest get tight, panic settling in, and I push the thought aside. “Most likely, there’ll be a trial. Hopefully, the jury will think I went momentarily crazy from all the beatings and set me free.”

  “What if they don’t?” Noah whispers.

  “Then maybe they’ll hear all the things we’ve been too afraid to say before, all the things no one listened to when we dared to speak up, all the things he’s done to us.” I take a deep breath, getting control of my anger. “And they’ll understand.”

  “They’ll find you not guilty?” Noah presses.

  “Yes,” I tell him, praying I’m right. But what other choice do I have?

  I’m a skinny seventeen-year-old girl who’s never been in trouble a day in her life. I’m an honor student, and I already have a full ride scholarship to an Ivy League college. I don’t look like the kind of person who would intentionally kill her own father.

  Noah is a boy who already has a police record at twelve. It’s not exactly in that record why he was running around town acting out, striking back at my father the only way he knew how. From that, he looks like trouble.