Because of Liam

by Erica Alexander

  “Yes, you’re right. Things go missing all the time. Have you ever told your partners about the missing ten million dollars? Oh, wait. You did, but you said it was an investment that went belly up, right? Yes, I remember that now.” I look at Logan. “Do you remember that, Logan?”

  Logan smiles. “Yes, I do. And I still have that old laptop he gave me to use for school. Funny thing about deleted files. You can always recover them.”

  Father blanches but carries on as if nothing was said. “Enough of this rebellious behavior. You played soldier long enough. Time to face reality and take your place in the family business and be a man. Do as you are told.”

  River steps in and positions herself between me and my father. “Be a man? What the hell do you know about being a man? You can’t even drive yourself. You have someone drive you here while you drink bourbon in the back seat. Your head is shoved so far up your ass, all you can see is your own shit. You know nothing about being a man. Liam did not play soldier. Do you know anything about your son? He’s a marine. He’s a corpsman and saved hundreds of lives. He was in battle dragging people back from the brink of death while you played at monopoly. Did you know he almost died? Did you know his body was covered in shrapnel and he was in a hospital in a coma for days?”

  The momentary silence that follows her words is filled with gasps all around us, except from my father. He has no reaction. No one knows about me almost dying and being in a coma. Not even Logan. I never told anyone but River. When River realizes what she just said she looks at me apologetically, but I shrug it off. It’s time the truth came out.

  My father stews in anger. “Flesh wounds, I bet!” he mutters under his breath.

  “Flesh wounds?” River goes on. “Are you dense or just so self-centered you can’t see past your own needs?” She pauses for effect and then looks around the room. “Wait? Is there a difference? In your case I think not. People don’t go into a coma because of flesh wounds, you moron!”

  My father advances on her. “You little bitch! How dare you speak to me like that?”

  Both Logan and I jump in, ready to take our father down, when we all stop in our tracks.

  “Enough!”

  I look over at my mother. I had forgotten she was here for a moment. She is on her knees, tears running down her face. The face that’s always composed and perfect is now marred by black lines from ruined makeup. She gets up now and comes to me and she holds me. I hesitate for just a moment before my arms go around her. Then she lets go of me and does the same to Logan. When she lets go of him, she walks up to Dad and stands right in front of him. She pulls her shoulders back and looks him in the eyes, tears still streaming down her face. Not a sound can be heard. We’re all in shock. Mother has never raised her voice. Not once had I ever seen her being anything less than perfect.

  Then the most amazing thing happens. She slaps him. He looks at her in absolute shock and she slaps him again.

  “You will leave here and you will never, ever address my children in such a disrespectful way again. I will return to the house tomorrow to collect my things. Make sure not to be there. I will have my lawyer deliver the divorce papers by the end of the week.”

  “Olivia? Are you insane? Have you lost your mind? Don’t forget your place—”

  Mother slaps him again.

  Father is furious. Coldness like I had never seen washes over his face. “You cannot divorce me. I own you. Even if you could there is no way you’d have divorce papers ready by the end of the week.”

  “The divorce papers have been ready for years now. All I need to do is add a few amendments and have it delivered. I suggest you sign it as is,” Mother counters. “Like Logan and Liam, I have collected some interesting information over the years. I’m sure the media would be very interested in your escapades into sex clubs and your many mistresses, not to mention the money you have been sending offshore.”

  “Holy shit!” I hear myself say and look at Logan. His face tells me he already knew about it.

  “You will regret this,” Father threatens Mother.

  I step behind her and put a hand on her shoulder and Logan does the same on her other side.

  “No, you will, if you ever threaten any of us again.”

  He leaves after that and Mother’s shoulder’s sag. I pull her into a hug and Logan joins me and we both hug her.

  “I have to find a hotel to spend the night,” she speaks.

  “Mother, you can stay with us. We have the room.”

  She sobs and looks at me and then at Logan. “Call me Mom, please.”

  I look at Logan and my eyes water. His are a mirror of mine. We were never allowed to call her Mom. Our Father demanded that we call her Mother. Even as toddlers.

  “You can stay with us, Mom.”

  She sighs. I look at River over Mom’s shoulder, and she’s smiling between her tears. She wipes them with the hem of her shirt and gives me a glimpse of her flat, tanned belly.

  Mom disengages from Logan and me and turns to River. Then she walks to her and gives her a hug.

  “Thank you for standing up for my son and doing what I should have done long ago.”

  Chapter Forty

  Mother—Mom—goes back home. I wanted to go with her and make sure my father would not be there or if he was, he would not turn on her, but she wouldn’t allow it.

  “It’s time for me to fight my own battles,” she says.

  “Your father is not a fool. He knows what he’s facing. Self-preservation will win. Besides, I have Hugo.” Hugo being the driver who had come back this morning to pick up my mother.

  Logan and I hug her and let her go. It’s a strange feeling hugging my mother and watching her leave.

  Logan’s been looking preoccupied all morning, checking his phone on and off and leaving when someone called. Something is up and as soon as Mother leaves, I’m on him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Bullshit and you know it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, glancing at his phone one more time before putting it in his pocket.

  “Logan, don’t lie to me. I’m not a little kid you have to protect anymore. I’m a grown man and I have seen more shit in one day than you ever will in your whole life. Cut the crap and tell what’s going on?”

  He sighs, his shoulders sagging. “I had a friend check into local rape by roofie cases.”

  I’m in his space in two steps.

  “And?”

  “There are several reported cases of girls waking up and not remembering what happened. There was no DNA evidence, which indicates the rapist used a condom each time. All the girls are between eighteen and twenty-one and either attended Riggins or were friends with someone who did. All the rapes happened at a party. Three of the girls swear they had nothing or very little to drink. The other four could not remember how much they drank. There are enough similarities between these cases and River’s to think that maybe Jon was the person behind them, but no physical evidence of any kind to link him to any of the victims.”

  I’m already shaking my head, my hands fisting with the need to punch something. To hurt something, to draw blood.

  “Can they bring him in? Question him?”

  “No. We have no reason to do it. No evidence of—”

  “But, what about River? We know he did it. He as much as confessed. We heard him!”

  “It would be looked at as hearsay. And our word against his. I did some background checking on him. He comes from money. His father is a big shot attorney in New York. We wouldn’t have a chance if we bring him in, and then he’d be careful and cover his tracks.”

  “What then? He walks away to rape someone else?”

  “We watch. The only way to get him behind bars is to catch him in the act or to have someone actually come forward and say he did it and odds are no one is coming forward.”

  My head is spinning. I’m so angry I can’t think straight an
d then I have an idea. And that idea starts to take shape. I look at Logan and he knows.

  “What? What are you thinking?”

  “If no one will come forward and the only way to get him is to actually catch him, then we set up a trap.”

  “A trap? What kind of trap?”

  “We bait him.”

  “Bait him how?”

  “With something he can’t resist. A beautiful girl who refuses him.”

  Logan rubs his eyes. “Liam, I get what you are saying, but the department will not go for it. And he could claim entrapment.”

  “Who said anything about involving the department? This is between you and me.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a little. You want to use a girl to get him to drug her and then when he’s in the middle of raping her, bust in and catch him?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  “You’re talking about letting him try to rape someone so you can catch him? Who will volunteer for that? And there’s like one week left of school. He’s graduating and then he’ll be gone. How are you going to pull it off?”

  “Oh, we are having a party.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Logan’s text message to Skye had us running over here. He didn’t give any explanations. Just said we had to come over ASAP. After making sure they both looked unhurt and had all visible parts attached, I can breathe a little easier. This better not be some kind of joke or those previously unseen parts will be forcibly removed. They scared the crap out of me and Skye.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Logan since he’s the one who sent the text.

  He points back at his brother. “It’s his idea.”

  “What?” My voice is a few decibels louder.

  Skye reaches for me and tugs my arm in the direction of the big chocolate brown sofa parked in front of the even bigger flat screen TV.

  “Let’s just sit down and I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough what the reason of this is . . .” Skye trails off.

  She sits down and I drop next to her. “What is this exactly?” She’s always so calm. Her calmness makes me even more agitated. I hate not knowing. It doesn’t matter what it is. That feeling of not knowing something makes me crazy.

  Logan and Liam sit opposite to us. The dark wood coffee table in between. That might be a good thing. If someone doesn’t start explaining what’s happening right now, my jumping over that table will give them an extra second to try to escape.

  Liam takes the lead. His excitement mutes when he looks at me and his voice softens.

  “Logan’s been investigating sexual assault reports in the area.”

  He’s paying close attention to me, gauging my reaction. I stay cool, trying to not show anything. He goes on. “They have several reports that have a lot in common with—”

  He doesn’t finish, but we all know what the next word would be. Asserting I’m still okay, Liam speaks again.

  “Unfortunately, none of the girls who came forward had any kind of information that could help us. But they were all attacked at a party, either on campus or nearby. None of them remember anything and in each attack, a condom was used.”

  “How does this help me?”

  “It doesn’t and the cops can’t do anything about it.” Liam glances at his brother. “Sorry, Logan.”

  “It’s true. We don’t have enough evidence to go on. Even if you were to report what we overheard, it would be our word against his and then he’d get spooked and that would be the end of it. But Liam has this crazy idea and it just might work.”

  “Okay, go on.” I’m nervous. My heart is racing and my hands are shaky now. I sit on them and lean forward.

  “We’re going to throw a party on Saturday. A last chance to get together before graduation next week and we are going to invite Jon. We will provide the place”—he gestures around the room—“and the beer.”

  “How do we know we can get Jon here?”

  “That’s where you two come in. We don’t know the asshole, but you two do. What would get him here? And what would tempt him enough him to try to get one last girl?” Logan asks.

  “Me.” Skye speaks for the first time.

  We all look at her.

  Logan is on his feet. “No! Absolutely not. I’m not letting that asshole anywhere near you.”

  Skye just looks at him, calm as ever. “There is only one thing that will get him here for sure and that’s me. He knows this will be his last chance to get me. Like Liam said, graduation is in one week. If he thinks he can get to me, he’ll come. I’m the one who got away, and in his sick mind, no one says no to him.”

  I look at my sister. “Skye? I don’t know about this . . .”

  She interrupts me. “River, I have to do this. I can’t forgive myself for what happened to you. I feel it’s my fault. If I had never gotten involved with him in the first place, this would’ve never happened.”

  I’m shaking my head the whole time she’s talking to me. “No, there’s no way you could have anticipated this. No way. It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. There’s only one person at fault and it’s Jon.”

  Skye pulls my left hand from under me and squeezes it. She looks at Logan.

  “I have to do this. Him knowing I will be here? That’s too much temptation for him. He knows I don’t go to parties. I went to one with him. Probably the only reason he didn’t do the same to me is because he never had the opportunity, but if he thinks he can get to me and get away with it, he will. I’m the perfect bait.”

  “You’re not bait, Skye.” His voice is low, sad. Logan doesn’t like it any more that I do, but I can tell by the look in his eyes, he knows what she’s saying is true. Jon would see this as the perfect opportunity to get to Skye.

  “So, what do you have in mind?” My sister might be the quiet one, but when she gets something in her mind, you may as well give up.

  “We are going to rig the house with wireless hidden cameras. One in the kitchen, a couple in the living room. And a couple in the guest bedroom upstairs.”

  “The bedroom?” I ask.

  Liam explains, “Yeah, I figure, we can lock both my room and Logan’s from the inside. You should not be at the party. If he sees you, he might scare off. We need you to be upstairs in my bedroom where we will set up the monitors for the cameras. I already checked and we can rent cameras with a remote control so we can follow his every move and he won’t know. The feed gets stored into a hard drive.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we wait for him to make his move.”

  “Wow, wait! You’re not letting him drug Skye and take her upstairs, are you?”

  “No.” Logan takes over. “The original plan was watch who he was going after and intercept him before he did anything but with enough evidence of him trying to drug someone to get him arrested.”

  “But now that I’m doing it, I can fake being drugged. Get even more evidence,” Skye says.

  I look at my sister. “Do you think this can work?”

  “I do. We have to try.”

  “How do we get him here?” Liam asks.

  I smile for the first time. “Oh, that’s the easy part. I can arrange to have him hear about this awesome party my sister is going to but I can’t make because I have to go home for something. I know people who can make sure he knows about the party.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Everything is pretty much in place. I look around the living room. “Cold” by Crossfade is playing in the background, loud enough to make the windows rattle. ‬I haven’t listened to music this loud in a while. Not since moving in with Logan. No. That’s not true. I listened to music as loud as the speakers would go the first two days I was here. I haven’t since the day after River dumped her fruity drink on me. ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

  For a whole year the only way I could drown out the phantom sounds of bullets and explosions out of my head was to listen to music. Loud eno
ugh to do damage to my ears. For a while I hoped if I went deaf, I’d stop hearing the sounds inside my head. Futile, I know. The sounds were inside of me. They pounded in my veins, in the beat of my heart, and they’d wake me up drenched in sweat in the quiet of the night.

  The nightmares, more real than the facts I remember. I’d wake up with the taste of blood in my mouth. The sting of burning metal cutting my flesh. The pain, so intense and so real, it left me paralyzed for minutes at a time. Then the fear would hit me and keep me trapped inside my mind, inside the nightmare, even when my eyes were open and I was awake. My breath caught in my chest and burned until I could finally breathe again, sucking air and life into my lungs. In those moments I understood why we lost so many vets after the war. After they came home. You may leave the war behind. But the war never leaves you. You may think coming home will erase the nightmares, but it doesn’t.

  You’re no longer the person you were before. You become a version of yourself you don’t recognize at times. Anger is real and close to the surface, and it doesn’t take much for it to explode.

  When I left the hospital, I knew I couldn’t go back home in that state. Logan and Mary were the only two people I cared about, or at least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t want my parents to see me like that and I certainly didn’t want Logan and Mary to look at me and . . . and what? I had no idea. I didn’t like the person I had become and I didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with it. Deal with me. I made the choice to enlist alone, I’d fix myself alone as well. Stupid, I know. But my state of mind back then was not something anyone could call stable.

  I spent a year traveling all over Europe. Working odd jobs, sleeping on the street sometimes. I could have gone into my bank account. I could have used the money I had there and stayed in hotels, but I didn’t feel I deserved any kind of comfort. Any kind of joy or forgiveness. It has taken well over a year to get to this point . . . and River, for me to see there was nothing I could have done differently. Hannah’s death was not my fault, but the guilt still eats at me. More so because I never went back to see her family. I have a few things of hers. Letters she wrote to her husband and daughter and the promise to hand deliver it to them if anything ever happened to her. I have a necklace she bought from a street vendor, a gift for her daughter. I don’t know why she had me holding onto it. I told her she would have to deliver it herself, but she made me promise her I would keep those things for her. So, I did. I kept the small package she gave me, exactly the way she gave it to me. Inside the plastic bag still. It’s in the bottom of the backpack I traveled thousands of miles with, now sitting on the back of my closet.