A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

by Meli Raine

  I see it from ten feet away.

  “Oh.” A thought occurs to me. “How did you know?”

  Jane’s entire body leaps a fraction of an inch into the air. “How did I not know, Lindsay?” she hisses. Then she closes her eyes. “It was, um...” She’s trying to compose herself. I feel sympathy. This must be so hard for her. All my sympathy is radiating to her. I squeeze her hand.

  And yet my own emotions feel so far away.

  “It was the blood. Where all the blood was. Your face was covered in blood and, um, you know...but your lower half was worse. And your shoulder was dislocated and—”

  “Okay. Okay.” I think I’m about to throw up. I guess my feelings aren’t so distant, after all. “I understand.”

  “I’ll stop,” she says in a rush of words. “I’ll stop and I’m sorry, but you asked and there’s so much to tell and no one lets us talk about this. No one.” Her eyes dart to catch mine. For a split second, I swear she looks excited. That can’t be right.

  Must be nerves.

  “Us?”

  “I mean...me. I said us because—” An expression of distaste covers her face. “Because I don’t know. I’m still used to us being us. Not me only being me.”

  “Because Mandy, Jenna and Tara did something.”

  “Oh, yeah. Did they ever.” For the first time since we started talking, Jane struggles to make eye contact with me.

  “What did they do?”

  “You really don’t know?” She’s shocked. Genuinely shocked, her mouth in a little O of reaction, her wide eyes so innocent and filled with a sense of outrage on my behalf. “How isolated have they kept you?”

  “Very.” The part of me that is ten feet in the air, watching this scene unfold, moves about five feet closer. I can tell I can trust Jane. She’s not playing me. I’m not some specimen for her to watch and control.

  “You mean, you know nothing? I thought you said you knew about what Mandy, Jenna and Tara did.”

  “I woke up in a mental institution four years ago, Jane, and haven’t had any contact with the outside world that hasn’t been carefully monitored since. Yesterday was the first time I’ve had any freedom.” I roll my eyes. “If you can call it that.”

  I’m not telling her the whole truth. I know more than I let on. But why should I show all my cards when I don’t know if she has any tucked away somewhere?

  I can’t trust anyone.

  But God, I really want to.

  “No one explained...showed you the video...told you about the press coverage?” Based on her reaction, I can tell she thinks I’m lying.

  She’s right, but there’s no way I’m admitting that.

  “No. I do know Daddy won his re-election, though.”

  Her face twists into a snarl of rage I didn’t know Jane could manage. “What the f—” My phone rings, halting her words.

  I look at the screen and swipe.

  It’s Stacia.

  Chapter 17

  I stare dumbly at the screen. My stomach throbs, like there’s a pulse in there.

  “You answering it?”

  “No.” I turn the phone over and pretend my past isn’t chasing me.

  “It’s not your father, is it?”

  I look Jane square in the eye. “It’s my primary therapist. My manhandler. My babysitter from the Island.”

  “The Island?” Her eyes are neutral, gathering information, curious.

  “The mental institution Daddy’s been hiding me in all these years.”

  “So it’s true,” she gasps. “I knew you were in there for two years, but when they told me to stop writing you letters, when they said you didn’t want to be friends any more, I...”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and look down at the shiny table top. The rest of my latte’s gone cold. “They said that?”

  “Yeah. I figured they were lying, but I also didn’t know. Maybe you hated me like I imagine you hate Mandy, Jenna and Tara. I wasn’t part of that, though.”

  This is so confusing.

  “What did the girls actually say? What do you mean? I don’t know anything about this part. I know they did something. That’s all I know.”

  “They lied to the press. Lied to everyone. They said you got drunk and high and invited the four guys in the video to, um...to have sex with you. At the same time.”

  And now I’m twenty-thousand feet above this conversation, untethered in space, gasping for air.

  “Mandy, Jenna and Tara all said that?”

  “At different times, yes. About two days after it hit the news. You were all over the place, Lindsay. Major network news, cable news, the BBC, you name it. Online, too. None of the major news outlets showed the video. That appeared on tiny little websites slowly, like someone was trickling it out to each website one at a time. I know your mom and dad hired a company to get the copies taken down, but it was on enough sites that...”

  “I know. I’ve seen it.” But I never realized my own best friends were the ones who started the rumors.

  Her head jerks up from her cup of coffee. “You have?”

  “I found ways to access the Internet without being monitored.”

  Her eyebrow quirks up and she leans in. “Sounds like you outsmarted a lot of people.”

  “I have some new skills,” is all I can say. “So my best friends conducted a smear campaign on me.” A wall of grief hits me.

  Anger will come next. I know all about the emotional waves. Maybe Stacia was right. Maybe I’m not ready for any of this.

  “They lied. I tried to talk to them but they shut me out.” Jane’s eyelashes flutter. “I was never part of your core group. I wasn’t best friends with them like you were. But I thought I was good enough friends—especially with Jenna—to find out what was going on. They blew me off. Sent their parents’ household staff to handle any call I made. I even tried to go to Jenna’s house. They wouldn’t let me past the gates. Her household manager told me if I tried again, they’d file a restraining order against me for stalking.”

  My turn for my jaw to drop.

  “What? That’s not Jenna!”

  “None of this makes sense, Lindsay. But the shit they said about you...” Jane’s not one to throw around curse words.

  The full impact of my nightmare is starting to hit me. I thought I’d come home to re-integrate after being abused. I’ve carried rage for four years because the men who did this to me were never prosecuted. No charges were filed. I assumed Daddy didn’t press charges because he wanted to protect his precious political career. But now...

  “No charges were filed,” I choke out.

  She shakes her head sadly. “Mandy, Jenna and Tara all gave statements to the District Attorney. Quietly, of course. Once your dad knew about that, he said keeping this a private family matter was best.”

  “Oh, God.” My body feels like I’m hurtling through the air, falling from the sky without a parachute. My skin burns from the rush of free fall. No one is there to catch me. I’m about to break every emotional bone in my body and I’m helpless to stop it.

  I am powerless.

  “Lindsay!” Jane’s voice snaps me back, a little, to reality. “You look green. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “No, no,” I say faintly. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s anything but fine.”

  “More of the pieces make sense now,” I whisper. “Why Mandy, Jenna and Tara never wrote letters. You did. You always did.” I feel my voice tear in two. I can hear it, too, in the way I say my words. “You did until they sent a letter that blacked out a sentence. After that, your letters stopped.”

  She tilts her head in surprise. “Blacked out a sentence?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What sentence?’ She shakes her head fast. “Never mind. Of course you don’t know what sentence they blacked it out. Geez, Lindsay, what was that place? A prison?”

  I shrug.

  “Oh.”

  “A very, very nice prison. With every drug and therapy you coul
d imagine. No contact with the outside world except letters and net-nannied Internet access. I could watch all the Disney movies and 1930s classics I wanted, but heaven forbid I asked to see Buzzfeed.”

  “You’ve been treated like a nine-year-old all these years?”

  “Something like that. They let me finish my bachelor’s degree online. Someone sat with me the entire time, watching every move. Every mouse click.”

  “How did you manage?”

  “I spent a lot of time online entering stupid contests and writing book reviews.”

  She gives me a very strange laugh, her mouth twisting in a grimace.

  I shrug.

  Jane lets out a low whistle, then looks at her empty cup. “I need another round for this.”

  “I need something stronger.”

  Her face spreads with a smile. “There’s a bar next door. Quiet, with booths. No one will bother us.”

  “But what about ID?”

  She laughs. “ID? Lindsay! We’re twenty-three.”

  In more ways than one, I’m still nineteen inside.

  “Right. let’s go.”

  Mickey’s Bar is about as classic Irish dive bar as you can get, with green Boston Celtics jerseys and signs everywhere. The bartender gives us a wave and we sit down in a booth. Jane orders for me, because I am apparently too stupid to know how to do this, and a plate of fried bar food arrives along with two mixed drinks.

  “What’s this?”

  “Cheesy french fries with bacon,” she jokes, pulling one fry off the pile of fat and dairy fun, the cheese stretching out in a long string she finally has to break with her fingers.

  “Ha ha. I meant the drink.”

  “It’s a Cosmo. Cranberry juice and vodka. Give it a try.”

  I haven’t had alcohol in four years. I don’t confess that to her. I just take a sip.

  It transports me, instantly, back to that night.

  Fighting the shaking fear inside me that can’t distinguish between the past and the present, I chew my food. It tastes like gravel. Bacon and cheese-covered gravel. I swallow, then take another sip of the drink.

  Jane is about to open her mouth and say something when she frowns, then looks to the side.

  “Is that the same guy from the coffee shop? Is he following us?”

  I turn to look.

  “Don’t look! Don’t make it obvious.”

  But I know exactly who she’s talking about, and I don’t care if it’s obvious.

  “That’s Silas. My ‘chauffeur.’” I use finger quotes.

  Jane looks at him overtly now. She lets out a sound of admiration. “He can drive me any time.”

  “Jane!”

  “What? He’s hot.” She sighs. “I haven’t had sex in a year, Lindsay. Not with anyone other than myself, I mean.”

  I’m not sure I can handle this conversation. I’ve had my share of girl talk. Just...not in four years.

  My silence hangs between us. I drink most of my Cosmo, then pick at a fry.

  Jane suddenly says, “I did it again, didn’t I? Insert foot in mouth. I’m sorry, Lindsay. I shouldn’t joke about sex.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because...because you...”

  “Haven’t had sex, ever?”

  Jane looks like someone hit her in the face with a frying pan.

  “What?”

  “What those guys did to me wasn’t sex. It was rape. And until that happened, I was a virgin.”

  “You and Drew never...”

  “We, um, played. You know. Did stuff.” The alcohol is making it easier to talk about this. I want to talk about this. Need to talk about this. This is what normal people in their early twenties do, right? This is what I did four years ago. I sat around with my female friends and talked about sex.

  Now I’ve gone from loads of friends to exactly one.

  And I don’t have sex.

  And I lost my virginity in a gang rape.

  Trying to be “normal” isn’t really working so well for me.

  So far.

  “Lindsay, we don’t have to talk about sex.”

  “I need another one of these,” I say, holding my drink glass by the stem and wiggling it. The cocktail server happens to look over and see me. She nods.

  Jane smiles. Her eyes are so kind. “You’ve really been through so much, haven’t you?”

  I lean back against the booth and sigh. “Yeah.”

  “And now, with your father’s new campaign.”

  “Right. Big meeting tomorrow morning about that,” I add, pretending to use my father’s serious, deep voice. “Gotta rally the family around Senator Harwell Bosworth so we can make America strong!”

  Jane giggles. “And my poor mom will be working one hundred and twenty hour weeks.”

  “As opposed to her hundred and ten hour weeks she already works?”

  We share a weary smile. The server brings us both a new Cosmo. Jane looks surprised, but finishes her old one, then picks up the new one.

  “A toast.”

  “To what?”

  “To old friends and new beginnings.”

  I smile. It feels real. I clink my glass against hers and say, “I can definitely drink to that.”

  Chapter 18

  Jane waves to the server, a young woman about our age, and whispers something in her ear. The woman looks over at Silas, grins, and gives Jane a thumbs’ up.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m having some fun.” We drink our Cosmos and just relax. I don’t ask her what she’s up to, because I have a feeling I’m about to find out anyhow.

  I forgot how nice it is to spend time with someone you’re comfortable with. Someone you don’t have to pretend with.

  And as if on cue, my relaxation is interrupted by the entrance of a man in a suit.

  It’s Drew.

  “Damn it,” I mutter, watching him enter and approach Silas. Could they be any more obvious? They look like Secret Service agents.

  Jane follows my gaze and does a double take. “That’s Drew!” she gasps. Her face reddens. “Oh, no.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with Drew? Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

  “It’s just—he—I mean...” The server approaches Silas and Drew, and sets a drink down in front of Silas, who looks super confused. Drew’s face tightens with anger. Clearly, Silas isn’t supposed to be drinking on the job.

  “I sent that drink to Silas,” Jane confesses.

  “I figured.”

  When the server motions to me and Jane, Silas blushes furiously. Drew looks at us. Jane gives a little, silly wave, fluttering her fingers.

  Drew gets up and comes toward us as if Jane gave him an engraved invitation. He marches up to her side of the booth and hip checks her, sliding right on in.

  “Did you just offer my security officer sex on the beach?”

  I spray him with a mouthful of my Cosmo.

  Drew looks down at his now-wet chest, which is lightly misted with the fine, fruity droplets of my delicious drink.

  “Well.”

  Jane bursts out laughing, the kind of nervous giggling you can’t control with a drink in you and a hot guy sitting next to you, covered in your friend’s spray.

  I am feeling loose and overwhelmed, silly and slightly panicked, and I can’t stop laughing, either.

  Drew stares at me, his face impassive, but I see a smile in his eyes.

  “Occupational hazard,” I finally gasp, still hysterical.

  “I’ve been sprayed with bullets before, but never with a mixed drink.”

  “There’s a first for everything,” Jane says, grabbing the spare cocktail napkins from the table and patting his chest gently.

  He watches her, the corners of his mouth twitching with a repressed smile. Silas walks over, holding his drink called Sex on the Beach, and sets it down in front of Jane.

  “That’s very kind of you, Ma’am, but I can’t accept this.” He and Drew exchange an unreadable look.


  “You sure you can’t have sex on the beach?” she asks sweetly.

  Silas’s face turns even redder. I didn’t think that was humanly possible. He’s freaking adorable.

  “I, um.” He thrusts the drink toward Jane, who gives him a flirty look. “I just can’t, Ma’am.”

  “My name is Jane.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “You can call my mother ‘Ma’am.’” Jane reaches into her purse and pulls out a business card. I realize I have no idea what she does for a living. Last I knew, she was a computer science major at Cal Tech, but as I’m learning every second of these hours home, nothing is the same as it used to be.

  She hands the card to Silas. “But you can call me any time.”

  Drew groans. I groan. Silas just turns into a beet.

  I share a look with Drew. We’re both smiling. It’s like that feeling you get when you come in from the cold, your hands and feet turned to ice, and you sit down in front of a roaring fire as someone hands you a huge mug of coffee you wrap your fingers around.

  Like the sun parting the mist covering the bay and making you think you’re catching a glimpse of heaven.

  It’s like I can touch normal. Just with one fingertip, but still...

  “I see Jane got bold,” Drew says to me from across the table.

  “Lots of things changed in four years,” I reply.

  “Yes. Lots,” he says.

  Silas just stands there, all broad shoulders and dimpled cheeks, his eyes on Jane. I glance over his shoulder as a mane of thick, long, perfectly-highlighted honey-gold hair walks in, topping a body that looks like it stepped out of a Vogue Magazine issue.

  A chill runs through me, even though I haven’t seen the woman’s face. I know that hair, though.

  Lots of things haven’t changed in four years.

  Jane tenses, then looks where I’m looking.

  “No way,” she mutters under her breath. “Of all the places one of them could be today, she’s here?”

  Drew looks over and goes rigid. Makes eye contact with Silas, who gives him a slight frown, trying to read Drew.

  “Mandy,” Drew says under his breath. He looks at me. He looks at Jane. Then he leans over and almost bumps heads with Jane as he says, “You told Lindsay?”