Undeniable (Tortured Love Book 4)

by Ravenna Tate

  “Good plan.” If Annie found irrefutable proof either way, Houston would be off the hook as the one who had to blow the whistle on the woman he loved.

  Coward!

  As he worked into the morning, the guilt overwhelmed him. He should tell Annie everything. He should go to Ty and tell him everything. He should seek out advice from the department psychologist, who could then examine Rosanna and make a diagnosis. And if it turned out she wasn’t only the victim but Brian Wayside’s killer…

  No!

  He couldn’t go there right now, but it was a moot point. He’d already gone there multiple times, in his waking thoughts and in his dreams, since last night’s revelations.

  The fact that Rosanna had told him this morning, before she fell back to sleep and he left, that she’d had no nightmares, only made him feel worse. He’d led her into a false sense of hope and security. Worse than that, he’d let his hormones get the better of him.

  Returning to the statement he’d found, he read it again, slowly this time. This girl had been a student at CWRU, and had attended multiple frat parties before that particular one. When Annie had asked her how she knew one of the other guests’ parents taught history at Kent State, this young woman stated she’d heard the girl say so to one of the frat members.

  Annie had then asked why this detail stuck out, and the young woman said because her parents also taught history, but at Cleveland State. She and the girl had a short conversation about what it was like having such smart parents, but that’s all the young woman remembered. Annie had not asked who the girl was or what she looked like, but why would she have? Until they had spoken with Jessica, they hadn’t known about the gang rape angle.

  This woman was the person to start with. This young woman with parents who taught history at Cleveland State.

  Houston began a search to find Hollee Duffield. As he clicked around, he imagined scenarios that would get Rosanna the help she needed without forcing him into a position of having to bring her into the precinct himself.

  What if he encouraged her to seek professional help on her own? A therapist wouldn’t be obligated to reveal anything discovered during sessions. But what would happen to Rosanna if he was right, and she was that victim? Her mind had blocked out those memories for a reason. Did he really want to help them surface? They were obviously trying to, and he had inadvertently provided the trigger by talking about this case with her.

  After closing his laptop, he walked over to the windows and gazed out at the traffic on Chester Avenue. This was fucked up six ways to Sunday. If he stayed quiet, he was breaking more regulations than he could count. If he encouraged Rosanna to get professional help, he would unleash a shitstorm inside her head that surely would hurt her, and surely would, in turn, ruin their relationship.

  His choice was between hurting and subsequently losing the woman he loved, or doing that plus trashing his own career.

  ****

  Normally, the cases she worked on for the attorneys at her job never got inside Rosanna’s head, but for reasons she didn’t understand, this one had. A twenty-one year old football star at Cleveland State was among six men accused of holding four female students hostage in their suite in one of the dorms for an entire week, and forcing them not only to have sex with each other while the men watched, but to have group sex with the men.

  Two of the female students had filed charges, but the other two had refused to come forward. The university was cooperating with law enforcement, but apparently had known about the incident for close to a year and had done nothing until the two females went to the local police.

  Now, the men were saying the women had lied, and questions were being asked on both sides about why the alleged incident was kept under wraps for so long. Their firm had been hired by three of the men accused of the charges, and it was Rosanna’s job to organize the hand-written notes into an intelligible brief by the end of the week.

  As she typed, she made so many mistakes that she stopped to go into the bathroom and splash cold water on her face. This was completely unlike her. Work was automatic. She didn’t even have to think about it, and she never let what she was summarizing inside. Until today.

  The nightmares hadn’t returned Saturday night or last night. She’d been foolish enough to believe that meant the fuzzy memories and images were gone, too. But now, she was forced to confront the reality that reading notes on this case had proven her theory wrong.

  They had returned as soon as she began summarizing the notes, in much the same way Houston telling her about the murder of that CWRU freshman twelve years ago had intensified them in the first place.

  It wasn’t necessary to draw a diagram to see the connections. Twelve years ago was a blur—strike that—a black hole in her conscious memory. Both cases had to do with fraternities on college campuses. Mike had been in a fraternity at CWRU. Had she told Houston that detail? No. She had not. It hadn’t come up.

  Had she remembered that fact before this moment? Rosanna wasn’t sure, just as she wasn’t sure she and Houston had a future. Not after this weekend, at any rate. Her worst fear about spilling her secrets to him had come true. Ever since she’d finally told him about the images and the nightmares, he’d been distant.

  First, having to beg him to make love to her Saturday night. And yesterday, he’d called while at work and told her he had a terrible headache and wasn’t coming over that night.

  It’s only been two days.

  True, but the change in his behavior during those two days was marked enough for her to believe it was related to what she’d told him.

  As she stared at her face in the bathroom mirror, she grew alarmed by the paleness of her skin and the dark circles under her eyes. Another image floated up in her mind, dark and blurry. Mike’s face contorted in frustration, and his voice, slurred with the effects of too much booze, yelling at her.

  No matter how hard Rosanna tried, she could not grasp the exact words he said. It was only a sense of him being drunk and angry with her, much like the sense of extreme danger she’d had in the dream during which she’d been chased.

  Had Mike been in the dream? She wasn’t sure of that, either. Was she recalling details about Mike because Houston had asked about her high school boyfriends, or because there was a connection between this case, the one Houston had told her about, and the time she could not remember in her own life?

  There were no clear answers, and they weren’t likely to come from standing inside this bathroom, staring into the mirror. It was time to face what she’d resisted owning up to for years. She needed help. Professional help. Houston had done what he could, but he was not a knight on a white horse, ready to swoop in and save her by some miracle.

  Thanks to her father’s sense of fix thyself, Rosanna was pragmatic if anything. To solve this mystery, she needed to find a mental health professional. Before things got to the point where she could no longer control her reaction to them. There was too much at stake, beginning with her job.

  Chapter Twelve

  Finding Hollee Duffield proved easier than tracking down Jessica Eberle had been, and for that Houston was grateful. Hollee had married but taken back her maiden name after her divorce two years prior, and she had also moved back in with her parents.

  Apparently, her ex-husband had emptied their bank account and taken off for a country that didn’t give a shit about money stolen from a US citizen. She was currently trying to involve the State Department, without much luck.

  “I have a degree in applied mathematics. I work for NASA, for God’s sake. And I’m broke because that asshole tied up not only my bank accounts, but my credit cards, the mortgage we had on the condo, and my fucking car loan.”

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” said Annie, tapping the typed version of Hollee’s statement with one finger. “But anything else you can remember about that night would help us a great deal.”

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you that isn’t here. One frat party was
the same as another.”

  “Do you recall the girl you spoke to about her parents? The ones you said taught history at Kent State?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Dark, curly hair and big dark eyes. Looked Middle Eastern. I asked her where she was from, and she said Kent. I laughed, felt embarrassed, and corrected myself, asking instead what her heritage was.”

  The hairs on the back of Houston’s neck prickled. “Do you remember what she said?”

  “Not really. I’m not even sure she answered me. She was there with some guy, and he came downstairs during our conversation, pretty drunk, and pissed off that he’d had to go looking for her.”

  “Was this before or after you had the conversation about what your parents did?”

  “Had to be after, because that’s why we stopped talking. She said something to him I can’t recall, but eventually went upstairs with him.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. Blond hair, maybe. Not dark, like hers. That’s all I remember. Pretty sure he was in the frat because he had on a shirt with letters.”

  That corroborated Jessica’s story about the girl and her boyfriend fighting. It also corroborated Jessica’s description of the girl who was gang raped, and it corroborated the boyfriend of said girl being drunk and pissed off.

  “Do you remember anyone talking about the girl or her boyfriend later in the party?” asked Annie.

  “Ah, no.” Hollee gave a short laugh, and her face colored slightly. “Afraid not. I hooked up with one of the frat members, and we spent the rest of the party in a bedroom on the third floor. I couldn’t tell you anything else that happened at that party.”

  “Let’s go back to the conversation you had with this girl,” said Houston. “Can you recall any other details?”

  “No, I really can’t. I’m sorry. Like I said, it was short.”

  “But you do remember what she looked like.” It was so damn tempting to pull out the picture of Rosanna in his wallet and shove it in this woman’s face.

  “Yeah, like I said, Middle Eastern maybe. Very pretty. Tall and willowy. I was jealous of her body and her eyes. They were black, like obsidian, but filled with light, if you know what I mean. Some people just have that sparkle in theirs.” Hollee frowned.

  “Until the boyfriend came downstairs. Then she looked … not afraid. More like disappointed. Can’t say I blame her. He was acting like a possessive jerk…” She snapped her fingers. “Hold on. There is one more thing. It just popped into my head. I remember her calling him Mike.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Houston. He hoped his voice didn’t betray the emotion coursing through him. “Are you certain that’s the name she called him?”

  “Yes.”

  How many additional two by fours did he need to get hit on the head with before he admitted the connection?

  The look Annie shot him before cutting her gaze toward Hollee was guarded, to say the least. “Thank you for your time.” She handed Hollee a card. “Please call if you think of anything else, even if you think it’s not significant.”

  Once they were in his car, Annie placed a hand on Houston’s arm. “Before you start the engine, you want to tell me what the fuck has you so rattled?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look at me, Houston.” He did, though she likely knew it would be pointless. He was a skilled liar when he needed to be. It came with the territory. “What’s wrong? You looked like you’d seen a damn ghost in there when she named the boyfriend.”

  “I ate something this morning that didn’t agree with me.”

  Annie laughed loudly. “All right, hotshot. You’ll tell me the truth when you’re ready. Let’s go.”

  ****

  After two hours on the phone, and countless calls during that time, Rosanna found a therapist two minutes from where she worked, and the woman had a spot open the following afternoon because of a cancellation. That gave Rosanna the impetus to finish the brief in record time, and without mistakes.

  When she asked for an extended lunch hour the next day to take care of a personal issue, her supervisor told her to take all the time she needed. They were understanding like that, as long as anything urgent was taken care of first.

  As she waited for her appointment time, she glanced at her phone. Houston had texted her only once the day before, and hadn’t called her in the evening like he usually did. Her heart was broken, but at the same time, she knew it was important to get help for this. Maybe once she did, they could salvage their relationship. If there was anything to salvage, that was.

  How did two people go from saying they were deeply in love and thinking about marriage, to barely speaking? Even though she wanted to kick herself for thinking it, she couldn’t help comparing the way he’d shut down after she told him about the images, dreams, and partial memories to his three failed marriages. Had he been like this with his ex-wives? She also noticed that he hadn’t kept up his end of the bargain Friday night. He hadn’t told her shit about his ex-wives, like he had agreed to do.

  But he had been right about one thing. They didn’t know a great deal about each other. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. His pulling back had motivated her to seek out professional help. It would give them both time to think about the relationship, and what they really wanted out of it.

  But it still hurt like hell. She’d be lying to herself if she said it didn’t.

  “Rosanna?”

  Glancing up, she regarded a woman in her fifties, impeccably groomed and with a warm smile, standing a few feet from her. “Yes. That’s me.”

  The woman stuck out her hand. “I’m JoElle Thompson. Come on in.”

  Rosanna felt instantly comfortable inside JoElle’s office. It was decorated in earth tones, and when she spotted the dream catcher hanging on one wall, she grinned like an idiot. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but do you have Native American blood?”

  “Cherokee on my mother’s side, and my father’s family is from Kenya.” JoElle pointed toward a comfortable chair. “How about you?”

  “Sioux on my mother’s side, Turkish on my father’s.”

  “Fabulous. Tell me about yourself, Rosanna.”

  Once she began, she couldn’t stop. Rosanna told JoElle everything she could recall from her childhood, the missing year in high school, and what she did now for a living. She told her about Houston, and what had triggered the increase in the dreams, images, and memories. Lastly, she relayed as much detail of the dreams as she could recall, using the notes she’d made in her phone as prompts.

  JoElle took a few notes on paper, but mostly listened. Their allotted time was two hours, as JoElle’s assistant had advised Rosanna she preferred longer appointments the first time she saw a potential client. When Rosanna finished, she glanced at her phone again. They still had half an hour left. She’d covered a lot in ninety minutes.

  “I’ve been a psychologist for almost thirty years, and in that time, I’ve only seen a few true cases of focal retrograde amnesia. It’s also referred to as psychogenic or functional amnesia in some circles. Have you heard the terms?”

  “No.” Her heart was racing. To have an actual diagnosis made this real. It also meant she’d have to do something about it. But even that was better than the alternative.

  “Simply speaking, it presents because of psychological trauma more often than physical, although there can be a physical component to the trauma which precipitated it. It can also manifest traits associated with both antegrade and retrograde amnesia. Retrograde is where the patient can’t recall events before the traumatic event. Antegrade is the opposite. The person can’t recall events afterward.”

  The room felt too warm. Rosanna took a large sip of water, and without missing a beat, JoElle rose to refill the glass for her. “You’re all right, Rosanna. You’re in a safe place.”

  “I know. It’s just a bit overwhelming to hear you give it names, and describe it like that.”

  “Do you need a moment?”
/>   “No. I’m all right. I have one question.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can it be cured?”

  “Sometimes. It all depends on the precipitating event, and whether there is any organic damage to the brain tissues.”

  “How is it treated?”

  “Assuming no actual injury to the brain, many therapists use a combination of hypnotherapy and ECT, or electroconvulsive treatment, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

  “Do you mean shock treatments?” No way.

  “They’re not what they used to be, and they aren’t anything like the movies portray. As I said, we’re getting ahead. The first thing we need to do is make sure there is no actual lesion, or injury, to your brain to explain the memory loss.”

  “I can’t recall falling or anything like that.”

  “The event that precipitated this is lost to you as well, so you could have fallen but don’t remember it. Are your parents still alive?”

  That made perfect sense, but it also scared the shit out of her. What the hell had happened to her in high school that led to this? “No. They were killed in a car accident when I was nineteen.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. Did you ever ask them to help you fill in the missing pieces?”

  “No. I never told anyone about this before I told Houston.”

  “Did you live with your parents during high school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anyone else from your past you still keep in touch with who could help fill in the missing pieces from that year?”

  “No. I’ve kept in touch with no one.”

  “All right.” JoElle glanced toward a clock on her desk. “Our time is almost up, but before you go, I’d like to get you set up with a physician group so we can begin to rule out organic causes.”

  “Okay.” Rosanna let out a slow breath. She was on her way to finding out how this had happened, and working toward a possible cure. Sure, it was frightening as hell, but so was living with the fact that you were missing one year of your life. The dreams and emerging memories were scary, too. She’d rather have professionals to turn to if they started coming back fast and furious one day.