by R. H. Herron
“Give him our best.”
“Oh, I will,” she said. Omid’s heart had better be stronger now, because she didn’t feel much like taking care of it.
THIRTY-FIVE
WHEN MOM LEFT her at home, Jojo got out her cell and ordered sushi.
She stayed curled up on the couch after the order came, cradling the plastic box of bay scallop rolls and two orders of salmon nigiri in her lap. Yesterday Ramsay had shot himself in the head. Would it make the news? She flipped from the Roku to the cable box to watch.
She’d smelled Ramsay’s blood, the coppery, sour tang of it.
Damn it. She’d been so hungry, but now she put the box of sushi on the coffee table. She couldn’t—the salmon was too fleshy, like the inside of skin.
She didn’t know why she was so astonished when Harper’s image filled the television screen, but there Harper was, in her living room, a place she hadn’t been for a long time. For a brief moment, Jojo was just happy to see her. Oh! There’s my best friend!
Then her brain snapped on again, and she heard the words that went with the on-screen photo. Teen girl missing. High risk. Suspicious circumstances. The community is urged to call San Bernal PD with any information. There was a picture of Pamela crying against Andy as they entered the department. The red coat Pamela wore in the photo was the one Jojo had borrowed from her last Christmas, when they were caroling at Union Square. She knew the smell of it, the weight. And there it was, going into her parents’ police department, in search of Harper.
In the next shot, Pamela’s tearstained face filled the screen. “We beg of the person who knows where our daughter is, please have pity on us. Have mercy. She’s just a baby. Give her back.” She swallowed audibly. “If anyone knows anything, tell us. The police won’t tell us what’s happening, and we don’t understand what’s going on. Please, someone, help us!” Andy rubbed her back as Pamela burst into tears. Oh, man. Jojo hoped Mom and Dad wouldn’t see this segment. The shot cut away with an image of Harper, her last yearbook picture.
Then, while they didn’t say anything about a possible link between the two stories, the story on Kevin’s arrest and Zach’s murder filled the screen next.
Did Harper know who killed Zach? Did she see?
In the very back of her mind, Jojo let herself wonder—just for a second—if Harper could have hurt someone. Could have hurt them that badly. Harper had been a bit strange in the last few months, a little more manic when she talked, her motions more energetic than ever, but she’d seemed happy, too.
And they’d done . . . that.
No. Harper couldn’t hurt anyone (anyone who wasn’t a boy she was dumping, that is). Harper had stepped on a lizard sunning itself by her parents’ pool when they were twelve, and she’d cried on and off for days. She could eviscerate a bully in the halls with six words and a disgusted look, but she couldn’t go fishing, because she couldn’t take the looks on their dying faces. She could barely eat sushi.
Who then?
A middle-aged black lawyer stood on the front steps of the police department, the red brick behind him as familiar to Jojo as the siding of her own house. “Besides being an outstanding athlete and beloved by a nation for sharing his belief that we can make this a better country, Kevin Leeds is an upstanding man. He believes in his community and is active in giving back. We believe this is a racially motivated charge—his involvement with Citizens Against Police Brutality has brought him both respect in some areas and ill will in others. A man was slain in his house while he slept.” The lawyer looked into the camera as if his very own life depended on it. “The truth will set him free. This intolerance and bigotry will not stand. Kevin is being released on bail tonight, because while these atrocities happened in his house, there is absolutely no evidence that implicates him in any way. While I’m sure you have questions about the investigation, please rest assured that my client is innocent, and this will be proved as we move forward. Now, excuse me.”
Jojo held her breath. They wouldn’t name her. They couldn’t. That wasn’t allowed. Was it?
But all the reporter said was, “Kevin Leeds has been held on counts of suspected homicide, suspected rape, and suspected forced imprisonment. We’ll have all the up-to-date details as they’re released. Stay with us.”
She kept watching through stone-heavy eyelids, and thirty minutes later, on the eleven thirty recap, they showed the same lawyer leaving the PD, Kevin at his side.
Kevin didn’t look at the cameras. He didn’t answer a single question. He just kept his head up and moved slowly. If Jojo had just turned the TV on tonight to see her friend come out of the police department, she would have assumed that whatever charges being brought against him were false. She would have assumed someone was trying to frame him, and she would have considered a girl accusing him of whatever to be a big fat liar. Kevin had morals. He had standards. He believed that everyone had the responsibility to leave the world a better place than they’d found it. He believed that America had to be better, and even if it got him hated by old white guys, he believed that it was his job to point out the injustices done to people of color every day.
But Jojo wasn’t just watching a news story unfold. She was part of it.
And she’d been raped by someone.
When she’d left the jail, Jojo had been pretty damn sure Kevin hadn’t touched her.
Now she was only seventy percent sure, and the number was dropping just by virtue of time passing.
Jojo went upstairs to her room. She pulled back her covers and shoved herself under them.
She picked up Harper’s cell phone again and opened Instagram. There wasn’t anything new in messages, but she scrolled automatically down the hundreds of selfies. She scrolled far enough that she reached the one of the two of them on the quad. Harper had been sitting on the grass, and Jojo had lain down next to her, putting her head on Harper’s thigh. Harper had handed her phone to Jaquil, and he’d snapped a few photos. The one Harper had posted was the one in which Jojo was yawning, and Harper’s fingers were playing with Jojo’s hair.
It was too painful to look at.
Fine, she could go through some of the older messages in Facebook.
She opened Messenger.
Oh, shit.
There were so many, most of them read, up until two days ago. She should have looked at them all before this, but something had held her back until now—she’d been so positive that Harper would find herself and come back. Jojo’d just known that she would turn up, furious and beautiful.
And there were so many names she knew in the in-box.
Jojo felt sick again, right to the bottom of her stomach. Who was Harper?
She scrolled.
The same names, guys from the department. And more of them. Peter Marberry. Frank Shepherd. Disgusting. She couldn’t make herself click to open, couldn’t imagine learning one more thing about any of them. They were all horrible. Sick.
But what did that make Harper? How could she do what she did with them?
Where did that leave Jojo?
Just another conquest?
She tried to breathe around the sudden excess saliva that filled her mouth with a sour tang.
Then she saw it.
Omid Ahmadi.
Don’t do it. Don’t click, don’t open. Make Mom do it. Delete it all, unread.
Jojo pushed the computer away and threw herself out of bed.
She stood there in the darkness—she hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights when she got home, and she regretted it now. Breathing heavily, she bashed at the light switch, and the room that had for a second felt so unwelcoming became just her room. Her posters on the walls. Her desk. The black bookcase her dad had gotten her at IKEA.
She panted, her face burning. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t her dad, he wasn’t in that message box.
Yeah, right.
There were, no doubt, other Omid Ahmadis on Facebook. But Jojo would bet her life that her father was the only one Harper knew.
Carefully, as if the bed might buck her out, she crawled back under the covers.
Pulling the computer onto her belly, she tried to breathe.
Then she clicked.
THIRTY-SIX
THE NURSE ON duty was one Laurie hadn’t met. “Hi,” she said, wishing to everything that existed that greetings didn’t exist, that she could wear a flashing BREAKABLE sign above her head that would cut through all the crap and she could just start talking. I’m too fragile to fuck with right now, so just give me the answers. “I’m Laurie Ahmadi, Omid’s wife. Can I ask you a question?”
The woman dropped a red folder on top of a pile of identical ones. Her hair was messy, as if she’d forgotten to brush it that day, but her dark brown eyes were kind. “I’m Elmaz. Sure, what’s up?”
Laurie pointed at Omid’s room. The door was closed. “I know it’s late, and it’s after visiting hours—”
Elmaz waved her hand. “Oh, it’s fine. Go on in. If he’s sleeping, I’d say just let him, but I think he’ll know you’re there no matter what.”
That was crap. When you were asleep, you were asleep. You didn’t know anything. It was like being dead. “No, not that. He’s lost some of his memory.”
“I’d heard, yes.”
“What if I remind him?”
Elmaz tilted her head to the right, either stretching her neck or trying really, really hard to look like she was listening. “Go for it.”
“It won’t hurt him?”
“Not unless it was traumatic. I wouldn’t remind him of anything that would get his blood pressure up, but other than that you should be fine. He might already be remembering things.”
Laurie shifted her weight. “What if his BP goes up? Does that automatically mean another heart attack?”
“Nothing automatically means anything, and theoretically his heart is much stronger now that the stent is in.” Elmaz grinned as if they were sharing a joke. “Don’t get him too riled up, but I’d say that to about any patient recovering from surgery.” She winked. “Keep your clothes on. That’s all I ask.”
Laurie knew she was supposed to smile but couldn’t quite make her face respond to the nurse’s command. “Gotcha.”
Inside the room Omid slept on his back, something that Laurie had rarely seen him do in eighteen years of marriage. Even with his CPAP strapped on, he usually managed to mash his face mask and the hose sideways into a pillow and sleep on his stomach. In the dark at home, she liked the rhythmic whoosh of his machine. Here the sound of it was lost among the other mechanical sounds, and with the tube coming from the front of his face he looked like a pod person, outfitted to sleep through space travel.
Laurie sat in the chair at the side of his bed. Her limbs felt too heavy to lift again, ever.
Who was this man?
“I would have sworn I knew everything you did at work,” she said.
His eyes fluttered. His head turned. His eyes smiled at her over the mask.
“But I guess I missed some crucial information.” Impatiently, she hit the POWER button on the CPAP. “You want to take that off?”
Omid reached for the mask. He croaked, “What time is it?”
“Time for you to talk.”
“Hoo. You aren’t playing.” He used the bed remote to lift his head higher. “Is Jojo okay?”
“No.” It was cruel, and it was awful, but she let him sit with it for ten seconds. She watched the fear land in his eyes, and she waited as long as she could before she said, “She’s as fine as she can be for someone who was raped.”
“What?” It wasn’t his normal roar—instead it came out as a pathetic yelp. He tried to twist himself upward.
Fuck. She shouldn’t have—no, she had to. He had to be made to remember. She stood and pressed his shoulders back into the bed, keeping him down. “She was roofied and raped. She’s fine now. Really. But you have to remember. I need you to remember.”
He shook his head, tears filling his eyes. “Laurie, stop. Tell me you’re lying.”
Laurie said nothing.
“Who was it?”
“You were the first to get to her. You were there with her. Do you remember that?”
“Where?” His breath was strong, medicated, foul. He didn’t smell like a man she could ever kiss. “That house. The football player. It’s . . . What the fuck.”
She stepped back. “You found her in his house, yeah. But Harper’s still missing.”
“Harper Cunningham?”
He said it as if he hadn’t thought of her in ages. “Tell me what you do remember.”
“Is she involved in this?” He twisted to look at the tray. “Where’s my phone?”
“Why do you need your phone?” It was heavy in her pocket.
“I need to—”
“Check on what Harper’s saying to you?”
“Laurie. What’s going on?”
He winced, and Laurie’s own chest went fluttery inside. Was she killing her husband? What kind of woman was she?
No, she would not feel sorry for him. “What were you hiding?”
“Honest to God, Laurie, I have no fucking idea—”
It was his lying voice. He might not remember rescuing Jojo, but she knew the voice he used when he was trying to convince someone to believe him. “Don’t you dare bullshit me. Harper might be dead, and I need you to start talking now.”
He rubbed at his eyes. “What do you know?”
“I know she’s been sleeping with our guys.”
“Fuck.”
“Are you one of the guys?” She hated that her voice wobbled. If Omid had slept with Harper, their marriage was over. The whole life they’d built together, torn apart. And if she didn’t love him so goddamn much, she’d kill him for hurting a girl the same age as their daughter, their daughter who had also been violated—
“No.”
“Swear to me.”
He held up his hand, as if he were taking an oath. “I swear to you on my honor.”
Honor.
What was she supposed to do with that? She had no idea if he was lying or not. “What do you remember about what’s going on with Harper?”
Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Omid closed his eyes. “She’s threatening the department with a lawsuit.”
“For?”
“For being a sex-trafficked victim of multiple officers.”
Laurie felt her lungs contract suddenly, as if she’d stepped outside into subfreezing air. “Omid,” she said.
He nodded. “She says they’ve been paying her for sex. She knows it would be big if it got out.”
“It will get out.” And they should, too—could Omid lateral to another agency? Could she? How could they stay in a department where it wasn’t safe for Jojo—
“It doesn’t have to.”
“It always gets out.” How many stupid things had she and Omid seen people try to cover up in the years they’d been with the department? Samuels’s drunk-driving crash. The racist comments made on the mobile data computers in the cars, which the media pulled with the Freedom of Information Act. The stolen property that Eric Dunham had been reselling. Goddamn Darren Dixon and his racist Facebook rant. The jail scandal with the forgotten drunk.
“She just wants money, that’s all.”
Laurie folded her arms tightly against her chest, hoping it would help her heart quit racing. She looked behind her to make sure the door was shut. “That’s blackmail.”
“It is.”
“Why the hell would she want money? Pamela and Andy have never seemed short on cash.”
Omid shook his head slowly, as if it hurt. “Maybe they’re running low? Maybe it’s just
a power move? I don’t know. I just know she wants money now.”
“But those men really slept with her. They sent her pictures.” Sweat ran between her breasts.
Omid flinched. Then he nodded.
“How did she contact you?”
“She Facebooked me.”
Laurie felt a thud in the pit of her stomach. “Let me see.”
Omid closed his eyes. His eyelids flickered, as if he were reading something in the dark of his mind. Omid was careful, always. Cautious. He thought things through, whereas Laurie had always been more impetuous. Then he said, “Okay. Get my phone.”
“Here.” She handed it to him. “But if you open Facebook and start deleting things . . .”
Omid gave her a look, and Laurie’s heart dropped to the floor. She’d always trusted him. Until now.
“Here.” He pulled up a string of messages and scrolled backward. He handed the phone back to her.
Laurie breathed through her mouth.
Your officers are very bad boys. We should meet to discuss it.
What are you talking about?
You want to meet me.
Whatever it is you want to tell me, you can tell me now.
I can make it worth your while, Daddy.
I will call your parents right now if you don’t tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.
The next message came almost instantly, less than a minute later. Seven of your guys have fucked me for money. But I’m still broke. Let’s talk about my needs.
Why should I believe you?
Screenshots followed of Instagram conversations. There was goddamn Bradcoe’s freckled penis again. And one—holy fuck—shot of Harper’s face, seen from above, the blow-job angle. A cock was in her mouth, and she wore a police jacket around her naked shoulders. Laurie couldn’t make out the name, but the embroidered badge number was 5236, Will Yarwood.
Laurie’s hand cramped around the phone.
What do you want?
A million dollars.