Matters of the Hart (The Hart Series Book 3)

by M. E. Carter

  “Lauren, I am your real friend—”

  “No, stop. This is not how friends treat each other. I went through this in high school. I’m not doing this again.”

  “Lauren, would you listen to me—”

  “No! There’s nothing you could say to make this better right now—”

  “Lauren! I was raped!”

  As soon as the words tumble out of my mouth, I know I can’t take them back. Lauren stumbles back and her eyes get wide. The bravado she had deflates as she whispers, “What?”

  Taking a deep breath, I steel myself to finally tell her the truth that has been between us all this time. It’s ugly and dirty and terrible, but I already dropped the bomb. Now I have to answer her questions, no matter how much I don’t want to say it out loud. “I was raped.”

  Her face pales and I can see the questions in her eyes, but all that comes out is “When?”

  “The night we went out.”

  She looks off to the side, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head. “The night at Ambrosia? When Kiersten was here?”

  I nod.

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know.” I sink down on my bed, shoving my hands between my thighs as I curl into myself. I refuse to put on a sweatshirt. I refuse to hide from this. Not in front of my best friend. But I can’t look her in the eye either.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “He said his name was Ron.”

  She’s quiet again, thinking, and I know she’s trying to figure out if we know anyone by that name. What she doesn’t realize is if we had, Jaxon would have already figured it out and found him by now.

  “I…I don’t understand,” she finally says, slowly collapsing on her bed across from me. “You…you spent the night with Jaxon that night.”

  I shake my head. “He drove me home from the hospital. Jaxon is the one who found me.”

  “Found you?” she quips. “What do you mean found you? Where were you?”

  I close my eyes tight again before answering. “Unconscious behind a dumpster.”

  “What?” she shrieks. “What the hell, Annika? What happened? Tell me. I need to know.”

  Her voice is getting more high-pitched and hysterical. This is the reaction I knew would happen, but it wasn’t what I was trying to avoid. I was trying to avoid more humiliation by protecting myself from having to talk about this over and over again. But now, here I am. Talking about it. I might as well go all out.

  “Apparently I was drugged.”

  She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Her eyes widen as she takes in the information I’m giving her.

  “Jaxon found me and called the cops. When I got to the hospital, they tested my blood and found a bunch of drugs in my system. The police think someone put something in my drink and then helped me outside when I got sick. I don’t remember anything after that.”

  She sits back, and I can tell she’s in a state of disbelief. In shock. And who can blame her?

  Taking a second to process her thoughts, she looks at me and says, “Annika, why didn’t you tell me?”

  It’s a valid question, but the only thing I can do is shrug. “I didn’t want you to know?”

  “How come? I’m your best friend. I would have helped you through this.”

  I laugh humorlessly and look at the ceiling. “Lauren no one could help me through this. Don’t you understand? I’m the one who’s always telling you to be safe. I’m the one who broke Martin Rawson’s nose at Homecoming when he tried to grab my boob. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.”

  She comes over to sit next to me and grabs my hand as I bat away a stray tear. “That is a load of bullshit,” she says, turning to look at me. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. But Annika, there is nothing you can do if someone drugs you. Nothing.” She looks away suddenly. “Except, remember there is safety in numbers so someone always has your back, and I didn’t. I was there, and I didn’t even notice.”

  Now it’s my turn to look at her. “No. No Lauren, do not go there.”

  “But it’s true. You never texted me back when I was trying to find you, and I just assumed it was because you’d hooked up with someone and were busy. I saw the police outside the club, and it didn’t even cross my mind that it would have anything to do with you. And then when you came home with Jaxon that morning and you were wearing his scrubs—” She stops and looks at me. “They weren’t his scrubs were they?”

  I shake my head. “No. But he really is pre-med.”

  She giggles softly and looks back at me. “I’m sorry Annika. I’m so sorry. I’m the world’s worst friend.” Tears cascade down her cheeks and mine are quick to follow.

  “There is no way any of us could have anticipated this,” I say, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “We’re taught to be careful when we’re at a frat party. We’re taught to be careful when we’re alone with a guy. But we were in a crowded room full of people. In a business. Together. Safety in numbers and all that shit. But did it matter? No! I didn’t even turn my back on my drink for that long. It was half a second. Half a second to wipe the booze off my leg. Half a second is all it took. You can’t be responsible for every half-second of everyone’s life. Hell, I can’t be responsible for every half-second of my own.”

  She sniffs and itches her nose with the back of her thumb. “I just, I can’t believe you’ve gone through all of this alone.”

  I smile shyly at her. “I mean, I haven’t exactly been alone.”

  She perks up a little at my implication. “Jaxon really is that amazing?”

  I nod and smile. “Yeah. He’s been with me every step of the way. Hasn’t told a soul, and he’s been so respectful. Hasn’t pushed my boundaries but encourages me, ya know? Like, he encouraged me to get back into public again. Encouraged me to get back out of my dingy sweats and into regular clothes.”

  Her eyes widen. “You didn’t have the fucking flu, did you?”

  I can’t help but laugh at that. “No, I’m sorry. I never even went to the clinic.”

  “Damn, this room smelled like Lysol for weeks after I disinfected.”

  The giggles take over, and we laugh for way too long over something that isn’t really that funny. But we needed this. We needed to clear the air, and we needed the comic relief. It’s nice that this is no longer a wedge between us.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, Lauren. I needed time to process it, and at a certain point, it seemed like too much time had passed.”

  “I get it.” She pulls me in for a hug. “But if you ever keep something like this from me again, I will kick your ass. I don’t care how many self-defense moves you know.”

  I laugh into her shoulder, enjoying having my best friend back.

  The feeling is short lived when someone bangs on our door.

  “Annika!” we hear Jaxon yell. “Annika, let me in!”

  She looks at me quizzically. “What the hell is his problem?” She jumps up and heads for the door.

  “No idea. He sounds panicked, though.”

  He bangs again. “Annika, let me in. It’s important.”

  “Hang on, Loverboy,” Lauren calls as she picks up her pace. Opening the door, she starts with “What’s got you—?”

  But he races past before she can finish her sentence and runs straight to me. “Annika, are you okay?”

  He’s on his knees in front of me and that has me on high alert. “Why? What happened?”

  “Did you get the phone call yet?”

  I grab my phone off the counter and sure enough the light is blinking indicating a voicemail. I quickly open the call log and look at the phone number, but don’t recognize it. “I guess. Who is this from?”

  “Don’t listen to that yet.” He grabs my phone and tosses it on my bed, clasping my hands in his before he says the words that turn everything upside down again. “They caught him. They caught t
hat Ron guy.”

  My vision begins to swim and my breathing gets heavy. Suddenly Lauren is sitting next to me, rubbing circles on my back while Jaxon cups my cheeks, holding my gaze. “Breathe, baby. Breathe.” I concentrate on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying not to pass out as he keeps talking. “They want us to come down to the police station, okay? But I’m going with you. You’re not going to do this alone.”

  “They got the guy,” I whisper, concentrating on looking at him while I try to ward off the fear coursing through me.

  “Yeah, they did,” he confirms. “It’s almost over, baby.”

  He stands us both up, wrapping his arms around me. All I can do is inhale his scent. Thinking too hard makes me want to hyperventilate.

  “She just told me,” Lauren says over my shoulder while I just keep breathing.

  “Good,” Jaxon responds. “It’s going to take all of us to get through whatever comes next.”

  I hold him tighter, taking just a minute to gather my strength. Right now, all I want to do is hide, but I won’t do that anymore. I won’t.

  It’s time to take back all my control.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jaxon

  The chairs in the police station waiting room are not at all meant for waiting. They’re hard plastic and are making my back hurt. We’ve been waiting here for close to an hour and the irony of this moment is not lost on me.

  We started this entire ordeal with me sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair waiting to find out if Annika was okay. Before I even knew her name or who she was.

  Now, we’re sitting here together, on equally uncomfortable police station chairs, waiting to find out if this nightmare is almost over.

  Except for getting in and out of the car, I’ve not stopped touching Annika since getting to her dorm room. The look on her face when I told her the news…fuck, I will never forget that. It was part fear, part sadness, part humiliation, and a whole hell of a lot of anger.

  Reaching out her hand, she places it on my shaking knee. “Stop,” she says quietly, stopping my bouncing. “You’re making me more anxious.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble and rub my hand down my face. I’m trying really hard to be strong here, but the anticipation of what’s coming has me on edge. The scenes from that night keep flashing through my brain, and I have a bad feeling we’re about to plummet right back into nightmares. I’m praying that’s not the case, but regardless, it might be time to set up another appointment with my counselor, Harold.

  I only agreed to meet with Harold after Coach gave me an ultimatum. I went, I participated, and I felt better. Then I stopped going. Now I realize that might not have been a smartest idea. Like maybe I’ve been pushing all these issues aside instead of dealing with them. Or maybe this is how everyone feels, even after years of waiting for answers.

  A door slams in the distance, and my ears focus on the squeaky footsteps. Looking to my right, I see him coming towards us. It’s the detective I talked to outside of Ambrosia. I’d recognize him anywhere. Bushy mustache. Big beer belly. A little bit of waddle to his walk. Why do police departments always have one guy who looks like a walrus?

  There is no doubt in my mind he’s coming for us, so I stand to greet him, pulling Annika up with me.

  “Jaxon, nice to see you again.” He puts his hand out for me to shake, me mumbling my greetings in response, then he turns to Annika. “I’m Detective Bellerini. Sorry we haven’t met before. I took over the case a couple weeks ago when the lead detective retired.”

  “Annika. Annika Leander,” she replies, her voice strong.

  He looks back and forth between us for a few seconds, clearly confused. “I didn’t expect to see you here at the same time. I assume that’s not a coincidence.”

  Annika smiles shyly at me. I know how much she hates explaining herself. It makes her uncomfortable for people to know this much about her. She prefers to keep her private life private. “No, we uh, we’ve been hanging out for a couple months,” she says by way of explanation.

  The detective just nods. “It’s actually not terribly surprising. Over the years I’ve seen my fair share of people who’ve been thrown together due to a tragedy, and they end up having very happy lives together. Funny how fate works that way.”

  I put my arm around Annika’s shoulder and squeeze her to me. He just said the exact opposite of what our counselors have been warning us of. It’s nice hearing from someone outside the therapy session that this does happen. People do fall in love amidst tragedy. This is real.

  “I’m assuming y’all are here for the same information. If you wanna follow me, I can do this once with both of you, or I can split you up. Totally up to you.” He looks back and forth at us again, waiting for a decision.

  Annika reaches down and grabs onto my pant leg, like she’s worried I’ll take off without her. “We want to do this together, please.”

  He nods again. “Follow me.” He turns around, squeaky shoes going back down the same hallway he just came from.

  Once we’re settled into his small, bare office, in chairs that are much more comfortable than the ones in the waiting room, he pulls out a file. “We got a call about a week ago from a girl who was assaulted at a frat party.”

  Annika gasps next to me and my jaw drops open. He certainly didn’t waste any time before jumping right into that information.

  “I’ll leave out most of the details. What I will say is somehow, someway, she was coherent enough to call her mother. Girl happens to be a local, and when she told her mother where she was and that she felt funny, her mom called her own brother, who’s a cop, and they tracked her down.”

  “How’d they do that?” I ask. It all sounds too easy, too simple.

  “The brother happens to be a cop in this department.” That explains it. “Wasn’t hard to track her phone. Found her at the Kappa Phi house pretty easy.”

  “Kappa Phi?” I exclaim, stunned.

  “Yeah. You know the place?”

  “I was there at Halloween.” I was this close to the scene of yet another crime. Visions of the drunk girl I saw come back to me. All I can do is pray that the rapist wasn’t there that night and she ended up home safe. I feel Annika bristle next to me. She knows I was there.

  “I can’t say much more about that,” he continues. “The guy isn’t part of the fraternity, so we can’t hold them responsible. Anyway, when the mom and her brother got there, they searched the rooms and found her upstairs, passed out cold. The guy who assaulted her was still there.”

  Annika gasps, throwing her hands over her face.

  “What the hell?”

  “He was in the bathroom trying to dispose of some evidence, but he was in cuffs before he could. It was a lucky break, one we’ve been waiting for. Once we collected DNA evidence at the scene, we were able to link it right back to him.”

  “Holy shit,” I exclaim. “That seems too easy.”

  “It wasn’t easy. It was lucky. Sometimes luck is all we have to go on. I wish it would have been sooner, though.” His face falls slightly. “The girl called her mom before the attack, right as she was starting to feel sick. From what we can figure, he didn’t see her make a phone call before she passed out or he probably would have altered his plans. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get there sooner.”

  The weight of his words hang heavy in the room. They finally cracked a case they’ve been working on, but it came at the expense of yet another girl being raped.

  Annika clears her throat before speaking. “Um, my dad had said there was an increase in sexual assaults in the area.” I grab her hand and intertwine our fingers. She squeezes. “How did you know that this is the guy who…who…how do you know I’m involved?”

  “That’s a good question,” Detective Bellerini answers kindly. “There’s a bit of a backlog of getting all the sexual assault kids processed. However, yours had been done. When we ran the DNA into the system, yours popped up as a match.” He sighs like
he’s choosing his next words carefully. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I feel like you have a right to know.”

  I sit up straight, immediately on alert. This feels like information overload now.

  “The DA is taking this case before the Grand Jury because we want this guy off the streets. But I’m not done investigating. My gut says there’s more. And I want to find them.”

  Annika gasps again and my head drops. Before he continues, I recognize that her breathing is getting irregular. I look up and see the fear on her face. Grabbing her face in my hands, I force her turn toward me.

  “Annika, look at me.” Tears are streaming down her cheeks and my heart breaks, knowing this is the beginning of what is going to be a rough few months.

  “Baby, look at me.” She holds my gaze. “You’re okay. You’re safe. They got him, honey. The police got him.” She tries to smile, but it comes out like a sob. I continue to stroke her hair and rub my thumbs over her cheeks as she works on getting her breathing under control.

  Detective Bellerini sits quietly, giving her a moment to pull her herself back together. When she finally opens her eyes, I can see the fiery determination has come back. She will not let this crush her. She refuses. I smile and nod once, because I get it. She doesn’t need me to ask if she’s okay. She is absolutely okay. She’s shell-shocked and probably afraid of the near future. But she’s ready to help the police in any way possible.

  Pulling away from me and turning back to the detective, she confirms my assessment. “Sorry about that.”

  “No apologies necessary.” He leans forward on his desk. “Just part of the job.”

  “What happens now?” Annika asks, ready to face the future.

  “He’s been sitting in holding for the last week. The judge denied bond until the DA has more evidence. Now that we’ve collected it all, he’s gonna sit for a while. We’re hoping the judge will think he’s dangerous enough to keep him locked up, but it could go either way. We’ll have another hearing tomorrow where the District Attorney will present everything to the Grand Jury, and we’ll go from there.”