Whispers Under a Southern Sky

by Joanne Rock

  Would it do any good to haul Tiffany McCord in for another interview?

  “I met a woman at my sister’s store who is coming into the police station to give you a deposition this week.” Amy speared some of the leftover walnuts with her fork, all her attention on chasing down the nuts.

  It surprised him that she’d shared the information. She’d so far been reluctant to discuss the trial or his investigation.

  “Yes—Faith Wilkerson. I’m glad some people are starting to come forward.” He’d sent his appeal out in all directions in the community, and it seemed those pleas were finally paying off.

  “Faith didn’t see her attacker.” Amy stirred her fork around the bowl without eating anything else. “So maybe her testimony won’t help.”

  His cop instincts started humming, and he warned himself to tread carefully. Having Amy talk about this voluntarily was far better than him asking and putting her on the defensive. He wanted to maintain the easy rapport with her. Let her feel comfortable sharing things without him pushing his own agenda and asking follow-up questions.

  But that wasn’t easy when he had about twelve inquiries in mind.

  “It will help. Establishing a common MO links the cases and helps show the jury that one man was behind multiple assaults. If he says similar things to his victims, or lures them to the same spots, it shows a pattern.” He lifted his wineglass and took a sip to stop himself from diving into interrogation mode. Since it was impossible to talk around a mouthful of Chianti, he leaned forward to tickle his son’s foot while the boy’s eyelids grew heavy.

  Amy set down her fork, staring out over the living room floor littered with baby gear.

  “Anything that helps connect the cases is valuable,” he continued, unable to stop himself.

  What did she know, damn it?

  “Even if it’s old information?” Her green eyes slid his way.

  “I’m actively seeking both old and new information to prove the same guy has been quietly working this area for years. I’m personally invested in nailing him for what he did to Gabby and the other women. And, frankly, what he did to me.” He hadn’t dwelled on that, of course, since Gabriella had been the intended target. The one who’d been scared out of her mind and screaming on the forest floor while a masked bastard wrenched off her dress. “Helping Gabby through that was hell for me and Zach—it was far more than a couple of seventeen-year-old boys were equipped to deal with. I turned my back on my foster family, on you, on the military career I wanted...”

  For years he’d told himself that it didn’t matter. But the truth was, his life had taken a radical turn because of Jeremy Covington’s attack in the woods.

  “It must have been hard on all of you.” She leaned forward to peek at Aiden’s face, checking on him.

  Sam watched his son fall into peaceful baby slumber, envying the kid his simple needs even as Sam vowed to make sure he would always be there to fulfill them all.

  “I moved back here to try and close the case.” Carefully, he lifted away the play gym and covered the baby with a corner of the blanket he lay on. “I’ve wanted revenge for ten years.”

  Amy was quiet for a long moment. So long that he almost excused himself to put Aiden in his crib. But then she drew a deep breath.

  “I know something that might help.” She spoke quietly. Holding herself very still, she glanced up at him with wide eyes. “That same night Gabriella was attacked, a man molested me outside her house.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MEETING FAITH TODAY had shifted something inside Amy. She had identified with the woman, from her battered car to her secondhand suit. She’d traveled that hard-knock road herself. Yet Faith hadn’t let life’s blows keep her down. She’d been determined to speak the truth no matter how much it hurt.

  It shamed Amy to think she couldn’t do the same. Not when she was sitting beside a strong man who’d been brought low by the same creep. How could she kiss Sam while withholding information from him that he desperately needed? How could she hold his precious son while harboring information that might help Sam figure out who had threatened the boy?

  Would he blame her for keeping quiet this long?

  The guilt and indecision had her in knots. Or it had, until it occurred to her that she could confide in Sam without committing to making an official statement. For tonight, she would find the courage to do just that much.

  “Amy.” Sam’s hand settled on her shoulder, his fingers gently rubbing along her upper arm. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry—”

  “You couldn’t have known.” She shook her head, unwilling to let him shoulder any guilt for what had happened to her. “I followed you to Gabriella’s that night, but I made very sure you didn’t see me.”

  Memories returned, as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday. How many times had she relived the events in nightmares that woke her in tears?

  “Why?” His eyebrows lifted, head tipped to one side. “Why would you follow me?”

  “I had a weird vibe that day. You seemed anxious to leave me and do something else, but when I asked you about it, you were kind of cagey.” Shrugging, she didn’t even remember precisely what had set her feminine jealousy flaring. It had been an instinct. A hunch that something wasn’t quite right. “I felt stupid for following you, but I just had this feeling you weren’t telling me something.”

  “We’d been at the swimming hole with our friends that day,” Sam said, his hand still warm on her shoulders, anchoring her in the present even as her mind wandered back in time. “Zach was there with some others, and he told me he had a shift to work at the nursing home that night. He was worried about leaving Gabriella alone.”

  “Maybe I overheard something about Gabby.” So much else had happened after that, it was tough to recall how it all started. “So I rode my bike through the woods. It wasn’t hard to stay hidden since you had on headphones and it was starting to get dark outside anyway.”

  Her skin chilled at the memory. Her chest tightened with the need to draw a breath as the picture in her mind’s eye narrowed. Sometimes she wondered how much of that night she remembered accurately and how much had shifted over the years, growing even more frightening with time.

  Sam’s brow furrowed. “I took the car to Gabby’s, though.” His voice was gentle, like he didn’t want to contradict her. “Not the bike.”

  “First you biked from my house to yours. Once you got in the car at the Hastings’ place, it still wasn’t that hard to follow you. You were headed toward the Chances’, and there aren’t many houses out that way.” That was where her memories really took on the qualities of a scary movie. In her nightmares, there was fog all around her, but she knew that hadn’t been the case in real life.

  She’d been staring at the Chance house when she’d been helpless. Choking on her own fear.

  “So you pedaled to the Chances’.” Sam’s voice was low and even. Calm.

  Remotely, she realized he was stroking her hair now, but any warmth that she’d felt from his touch before had faded in the face of sharing this moment with him.

  Swallowing, she closed her eyes. “Your car was in the driveway, so I hid the bike in the trees and then moved toward the living room window to look inside.”

  “Why didn’t you just come to the front door? Confront me?”

  How different her life might have been if she’d done that. But she could drive herself crazy second-guessing everything she’d done that day. If she changed any one of her choices, The Incident might never have happened.

  “I knew you and Zach were friends. What if you were just there to see him?” She hadn’t wanted to appear irrational. Overly emotional.

  Bottom line? She hadn’t ever wanted to behave in the same way her unstable mother might have in the same circumstances. And no doubt about it—her mom would have l
ost it if she’d suspected the love of her life was cheating on her.

  “So you looked through the living room window...” Sam kept the conversation on track, leading her through the night, all the while smoothing his hand down her hair with slow, even strokes.

  Amy opened her eyes, unwilling to get lost in those old visions. She focused on the baby sleeping nearby instead, watching his chest rise and fall, the Cupid’s bow of his mouth slightly open, his skinny arms spread wide as he lay on his back. So precious.

  “I did. And I saw you talking to Gabby.” It had looked like a heated discussion, in fact. “It must have been before she was attacked, but at the time, you both seemed upset. Your voice was raised, and I heard you tell her to wait.”

  “Right. Because she wanted to go out and meet some scumbag who she’d been talking to online.” His voice went hard. Frustration evident even all these years later. “If only I could have convinced her to stay home, she would have never been accosted.” No doubt he’d had as many sleepless nights as Amy, wondering what would have happened if he’d done any one thing differently that day.

  “I couldn’t hear all the details.” It had been like listening to voices underwater, the conversation distorted and muffled. “But you stood close to her, and I was worried about what was going on between you two. Right up until a man grabbed me from behind.”

  Sam swore softly. He slid an arm around her waist and drew her close. Kissed the top of her head.

  She appreciated that connection to him. It helped her keep her heart rate in check. Helped her manage the urge to run.

  “He wore a hoodie pulled up, and his face stayed in shadow.” Shaking her head, she wished she could shake off the feel of those iron arms locking around her. One clamped at her hips.

  One over her breasts.

  “Was he much taller than you?” The question was a welcome reminder that she was speaking to a cop and not just her old boyfriend. In some ways, that made it easier, disconnecting a lot of the emotional baggage from the episode to focus on facts.

  She might not want her experience on record, but it was simpler to tell the tale to an officer.

  “A few inches. Medium height. But he seemed strong—like I could have never gotten away if I tried.”

  Of course, she hadn’t tried. She’d been paralyzed with fear. As he’d tightened his hold, her chest cramped and her lungs burned with the need to breathe more air.

  “Did he say anything?” Sam’s jaw rubbed lightly against her hair as he spoke.

  “He asked what I was doing there. If I was your girlfriend.” Her voice sounded thin. Young. She cleared her throat. “At first I thought it might be one of your friends—a guy from the senior class who knew me even though I didn’t recognize him.”

  “You didn’t hear him approach? No car engine? No sound of him walking through the woods?”

  “Neither.” In her dreams, he showed up like a wraith, ghosting around her in the fog.

  “He was probably there before you,” Sam mused. “Covington was probably making sure Gabriella was going to meet him. He could have had a BlackBerry or an early smartphone that he used to contact Gabriella even as he watched her through the window of her own home. He could have watched you watching us.”

  “Maybe.” She swallowed over the raw words in her throat. “All I know is that his grip got tighter and he dragged me backward.”

  She’d hardly fought. The fear and surprise had caught her off guard.

  “What else did he say?”

  “I blanked for a little while. I mean, I have a vague memory of him saying other things into my ear while he brought me deeper in the woods, but my brain was screaming at me to do something. To shout. Get free.”

  “Did he have your mouth covered?”

  Her eyes burned at the question. At the memory. She shook her head. “He latched on to my chest and my hips. Pinned the back of me to the front of him. I wanted to scream, but I was scared. And when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.”

  More than anything else that happened that night, that was what stayed with her most. Not the forcible touching. Not the ugly words or things he’d eventually threatened. It was that—when she’d had the chance—she hadn’t been able to make a sound.

  “Don’t blame yourself. Different people respond to fear in unique ways. No one can predict how they will react in a crisis.”

  And she’d reacted like a frightened child, waiting for someone else to save her.

  “Eventually, he told me he had a knife, and he would use it if I made any noise.” Her breathing came fast and shallow. Reliving The Incident had that effect. “He put one hand up my shirt. One hand down my pants.”

  “Amy.” Sam’s grip on her waist tightened. “I’m so damn sorry—”

  “Let me just get it out,” she blurted, having come too far to stop. “It could have been worse, and I was afraid that any minute he’d throw me down and rape me. But he seemed content to stare up at the Chance house—maybe looking at Gabby through the window—and molest me with his hands. He rubbed my body against his, although he never got naked or anything.”

  She’d burned her clothes in the fireplace when she’d gotten home. Then washed for hours afterward, until she shivered uncontrollably in the bathtub, unable to rinse away the feel of his hands in her underwear. Inside her. Years later, a counselor helped her work through some of her intimacy issues, but she’d remained—technically—a virgin for a long time afterward, unable to feel good about her body since her innocence had been lost that night in a terrible way. A way that made it so difficult to face physical intimacy.

  She’d numbed herself to everything and everyone, a coping mechanism that had made it difficult to feel pleasure later. She’d tried to explain to one of her college boyfriends. But he’d only remarked that she was lucky she hadn’t been raped, and his dismissal had grated on her endlessly. She’d been assaulted. Violated. And that was when she realized she needed counseling to heal.

  Even now, it took her a moment to realize she was crying silent tears. Sam wiped them away gently with his thumbs.

  “What made your attacker leave?” he asked, pressing soft kisses to her eyes.

  She’d closed them, forgetting to anchor herself in the world around her as she’d gotten lost in that night. Damn it. She forced them open now, peering into Sam’s gray gaze, which was full of concern.

  That connection felt right. Good.

  “Maybe the sound of the garage door lifting at Gabby’s house?” She sifted through the ugly memories, searching for concrete details. “He ran toward the car as it backed out and shoved me aside.”

  “You didn’t look at him then?”

  “At his back? I guess so. He was wearing a dark hoodie and jeans. I couldn’t see much in the woods. And he stayed out of the beam of the headlights when the car rolled out of the garage.” By then, she’d been so traumatized she hadn’t been thinking about Gabriella or Sam. Her thoughts were solely on her body and the way he’d used it. The way he’d made her feel dirty, and the fact that she hadn’t screamed for help.

  Scared silent.

  “Did you see or hear him get into a vehicle?”

  “No.” After Gabriella had left the house—or at least, she assumed now it had to have been Gabriella—there had been quiet in the woods for long moments until Sam jumped in his car and followed in the same direction.

  He kissed her forehead. “Thank you for trusting me with what happened.” He brushed her hair off her face. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and I’m even sorrier that you carried the burden alone for so many years.”

  “I didn’t have any useful information anyway.” She wanted to make him understand why she’d maintained her silence. “If I thought it would have helped you, I would have spoken up sooner. But I never saw his face. I couldn’t identify
him—then or now. I don’t know if I ever met Covington as a teen, and I didn’t put the old pieces together until you told me what happened to Gabby.” She shrugged, frustrated with her ignorance. “And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t carry the burden alone. I told my mother after it happened.”

  She didn’t count the crappy boyfriend who’d written off her experience with a few careless words.

  “Your mother knew this whole time?” His hands fell away from where he’d been smoothing her hair off her cheek. Shock colored his words.

  “She may not remember. She was on a lot of medication.” But telling her mother had only made things much, much worse.

  “And she never reported it to the police, either?”

  His eyes went wide. And it took a lot to surprise a cop.

  “She was struggling with bipolar disorder and new medications.” She sat so close to Sam now, his big body curving protectively around hers. She could so easily tip her head to the side and be cradled against his shoulder. The temptation to do just that was strong, but she forced herself to get through the story. “She screamed at me that I was a slut, that I’d led you on and to get the hell out of her house.”

  “You’d led me on?” He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Mom was convinced that it was you who molested me in the woods because I’d encouraged you after the skinny-dipping incident. Remember I mentioned how upset she was about that?” Her stomach knotted. She had loved her mother. Needed her desperately. But when it counted most, her mom had blasted her morals and told Amy she needed to move out by nightfall.

  “Holy shit.” Beyond that, he was speechless.

  And who could blame him?

  “She had a nervous breakdown later that summer.” Amy hadn’t heard about it at the time, but apparently her mom had fought with Mack’s then girlfriend, Nina, too. Nina had moved away for almost as many years as Amy had.