Truths and Roses

by Inglath Cooper

  He shook his head in confusion. “I’m sorry, Miss Jacobs, I don’t quite follow.”

  The older woman turned her gaze toward the window, still gripping his hand. “All my fault, you see. She came in that night, clothes torn, face scratched. She said they’d been in an accident. That Tom had run into a ditch. But I should have known. I should have known.” The words rang out in the still room.

  Will stared at her as if he’d misheard. He felt as though a rack of weights had been dropped on his chest. He struggled to keep his breathing steady.

  In his mind, pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. That Dillon boy… clothes torn, face scratched….

  Will’s lungs expanded with air, which then whooshed out in a rush of realization. Tom had lied. The whole thing had been a lie. And the picture of what must have happened that night after Brad Manning’s party was as clear as if someone had opened a window to the past and allowed him to look inside.

  He sat there, too stunned to move while Sarah Jacobs stared out the window. When anger began to wash away the shock, he scooted his chair back and leaned over to give the old woman a gentle kiss on the forehead. “I have to go now, Miss Jacobs. Thank you for calling me,” he said, gently disentangling his hand from hers.

  Sarah turned to stare at him with eyes that no longer recognized him.

  Despite the downpour, Will made the hour-long drive back to Lake Perdue in forty minutes.

  Anger ate at him, so hot and out of control he thought he might explode. His hands clenched the steering wheel. One question hammered in his head like the rain on the windshield. Why?

  He wished he had no idea what the answer was. But he did. He had a very good idea.

  He drove by the sheriff’s office. Tom’s car wasn’t there. He drove by the cafe, then wheeled out to Clarence’s. Still no sign of Tom’s car.

  Will circled back by the sheriff’s office. When he spotted Tom getting out of his brown county vehicle, he gunned the Cherokee into the parking lot.

  He slammed on the brakes and slid to a halt just behind the other car, spewing gravel in his wake. He flung open the door and with every ounce of the fury raging inside him, charged at the man he’d once considered his friend.

  The deputy glanced up in surprise, his mouth opening to utter a stunned, “Will, what are you—”

  Tom Dillon never stood a chance.

  He’d gone pudgy over the years. Will had not.

  It was raining harder now, and Tom slid on the wet pavement as Will grabbed him by the shirt collar and flung him against the county car.

  Tom grunted and then stared up at Will with wild eyes. “Have you gone crazy?”

  Will slammed a punch into his gut, oblivious to the other man’s roar of outrage. All he could see was Tom’s face the day he’d stood there by his high school locker, gloating about having “scored” with Hannah Jacobs.

  Shouts and sirens wailed from behind them, and in seconds two deputies were rushing toward them, struggling to pull Will away from Tom.

  But Will shook the two deputies off. Chest heaving, he grabbed Tom by the shoulders and forced him to look at him. “You raped her, didn’t you?”

  Tom’s head lolled back, and when he didn’t answer, Will’s demand became a shout. “Didn’t you? Admit it, you bastard! You knew I was interested in her. That’s why you did it, wasn’t it? Was it because of football? Because you didn’t get the scholarship you wanted, and I did? Was that it? You thought you could get back at me that way?”

  After hearing Will’s accusations, the two deputies looked at one another, dropped their hands to their sides and stepped back. One went to radio for an ambulance.

  Will shook Tom again, demanding, “Answer me!”

  Tom finally looked up at him, his expression dazed. A smile touched the corners of his mouth, turning into an obscene grimace as blood trickled from between his lips.

  Will released him as if he were a bag of week-old garbage. Tom collapsed to the ground.

  “Not that anyone would ask her,” Will rasped. “You did that to her, you bastard! You did that to her.”

  He backed away, stumbling as he wiped at his mouth. He swung around and dropped his head back, the rain pelting his face as he limped back to his vehicle, climbed inside and drove home.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  News of the fight spread through Lake Perdue like a match thrown to kerosene-soaked hay. Word reached Hannah’s ears just before she left the library that afternoon. Kay Lynn Gillespie, Jenny’s friend, had dropped off some books after work, obviously bursting to share the news with someone.

  Jenny and Hannah were both at the front desk when the woman came through the door.

  “Well, hello, Kay Lynn,” Jenny said.

  “Jenny, Hannah.” The woman dropped the books on the desk and shook her head from side to side as though a heavy secret were weighing on her soul. “Bet it’s been pretty quiet around here this afternoon, compared to what it’s been over at the sheriff’s office.”

  “Pretty quiet here. What’s going on over there?” Jenny asked.

  Kay Lynn allowed herself a dramatic pause. “Will Kincaid beat the tar out of Tom Dillon, that’s what.”

  Hannah looked up from the computer screen and went still. “What?”

  “Beat him within an inch of his life, they said,” Kay Lynn said with a nod.

  “Why?” Hannah and Jenny asked in unison.

  The woman leaned forward, her voice dropping several decibels lower. “Rumor had it Will said something about Tom raping somebody. Can you believe that?”

  Hannah stepped back, the blood draining from her face. “Wh-who?” The word pushed past her lips, barely audible.

  Kay Lynn shrugged. “Nobody seemed to know. Tom says it’s a lie, but the funny thing is, he refused to press charges against Will. Pretty strange, don’t you think? Except, I guess, that they used to be such good buddies.”

  Noticing Hannah’s expression, Jenny put a hand on her shoulder. “You all right? You’ve gone white as a sheet.”

  “Fine. I’m fine. I think I’ll go ahead and leave, though.” She slid off her stool and bent over, reaching with mechanical movements for the drawer that held her purse. “Can you lock up, Jen?”

  Jenny eyed her strangely. “Of course I can. You sure you’re okay, though?”

  Hannah headed for the door without answering.

  She got in her car and drove. The car might as well have been on automatic pilot. She had no control over the direction it took.

  Her mind could register only one thing. She had to see Will.

  She kept her thoughts blank as the car nosed around the curves and over the hills leading to Tarkington’s Cove. She wouldn’t think. She had to see him first.

  Heading into the development, Hannah ran the stop sign in front of the marina, wheeling the old Cadillac into the parking lot beside Will’s Cherokee. She shot out of the car, leaving the door open.

  Her heels echoed on the wood entryway. She banged on the door with a fist. “Will?” Not giving him time to answer, she continued to pound.

  Seconds later, the door swung open, and he stood looking down at her with regretful eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  She stared up at him, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Say it isn’t true.”

  “Hannah.” The way he said her name told her more than she wanted to know.

  “How could you?” The question was torn from her.

  Will shook his head, his expression a mixture of pain, regret and sympathy.

  “Now everyone will know. They’ll all know.” She spoke slowly now, precisely, as though this moment had been inevitable.

  “Hannah, I’m sorry.” His look was helpless. “It’s okay. It’ll be all right.”

  But she just shook her head, certain nothing would ever be all right again.

  He reached to push a strand of hair from her face. She flinched and stepped back. His hand dropped to his side. “I shouldn’t have let it out that way. It was wrong
. I realize that now. I was just so consumed with anger I didn’t think about—”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Sarah was asking to see me. I went there today. She didn’t tell me anything outright. But I put two and two together. And all I wanted to do was kill the bastard.”

  “Why didn’t you come see me first?”

  “Had I been sane enough I would have. I just…I still want to kill him for what he did to you. He’s why you’ve stayed here all these years, isn’t he? He’s why you’ve locked yourself away, convinced yourself you had nothing to offer anyone.”

  Hannah’s glance skittered away. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She didn’t want to see the truth reflected there. Admitting it to him would be admitting it to herself.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone after it happened?”

  She bit her lower lip at the compassion in his voice. “I was too ashamed.”

  He groaned and hauled her against him, overcoming her protests. His lips were close to her ear, his voice low. “I should have known something was wrong. I should have known he lied about it, should have known better than to believe him. I couldn’t understand why you had—after what had happened between us at the lake. He was my best friend. I had no reason not to believe him. If I had thought for one second that he forced you—”

  She held up a hand and said, “Will, don’t.”

  “Hannah. Hannah.”

  She wilted against him, defeated.

  They stood like that, her head on his shoulder, his hand stroking her back. Long minutes passed. How many, she did not know. For the moment, she needed his strength, his protection. For the moment, nothing else mattered.

  When she finally raised her head, she felt embarrassed by her display of vulnerability. She looked away and slipped out of his arms.

  He let her go, watching as she went to stand by the window and gaze out at the lake. “I didn’t think to ask if you were all right,” she said.

  “I’m fine.”

  She turned to pin him with her gaze. “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t think about me.” He came to stand beside her. “What are you going to do about this?”

  “About what?”

  “The rape,” he said softly.

  Hannah flinched. How ugly the word was. How odd that she’d never said it aloud before. “It’s been ten years, Will.”

  “I called my attorney just before you got here. There’s no statute of limitations for criminal charges of rape in Virginia. It could be thirty years, and it wouldn’t matter. You still have the right to press charges.”

  “No one would believe me now.”

  He reached out and tilted her chin toward him. “I believe you.”

  What would she have given ten years ago to confide in him, to know that he would have believed her? She pulled away and turned toward the lake once again. “I could never go through that now, Will,” she said. “I realized a long time ago that I should have gone to the police that night. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. That’s the last thing I want now.”

  “He should have to pay for what he did to you.”

  “It’s over, Will. I’ve put it behind me. I don’t want to dredge it all up again. And after today….”

  “But that’s just it. You haven’t put it behind you. You live it every day of your life. You let that bastard convince you that you’d done something wrong. I know there’s part of you that knows that isn’t true.”

  “No, I-”

  “Can you deny that you’ve buried yourself in that house of yours, hardly coming out except to go to work, attend church or visit your aunt?” The words were quick and angry.

  “You’re twenty-eight years old. You’ve got a life to live.”

  She stared at him, overwhelmed by a need for time to think. “That’s right. And I don’t need you to tell me how to do it,” she said before bolting for the door.

  Will stood there at his living room window long after Hannah’s car had roared out of the driveway. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and let out a weary sigh. He’d let her go for now. But they weren’t finished. Not by a long shot.

  Chapter Fifty

  Hannah arrived home some fifteen minutes later. She raced up the sidewalk on shaky legs, stepping over the Madam Butterfly rose that had fallen from the bush by the porch. She didn’t bother to pick it up. She slammed the door behind her and leaned up against it as if by doing so, she might somehow hold the world at bay. Shut out the nightmare that had been resurrected.

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. How had this happened? Why couldn’t things have remained as they were? Now everyone would know.

  The thought launched her up the stairs. She turned on the shower and stripped off her clothes before stepping under the hot steaming water, letting it pound against her, burning her skin, cleansing her as it had cleansed her that night ten years ago. How long she stood there she couldn’t have said. Finally, leaning her head against the wall, she turned off the faucet and stepped out onto the bath mat, wrapping a white fleece robe around her.

  She went to the kitchen and put on the teakettle. Just to busy herself while the water boiled, she washed the dishes in the sink. Her mind was blank. Her hands worked automatically. Wash, rinse. Wash, rinse. Wash, rinse.

  The whistle sounded. She jumped, then reached for a bag of Earl Grey and dropped it into a cup before adding the water.

  She shut off all the downstairs lights, climbed the stairs to her bedroom, slipped into her nightgown and slid under the covers, and lay there, sipping at her tea.

  Apprehension tugged at her, fears both old and new, yet equally frightening in their reality. What would everyone think? How would she face them? Would they believe that she hadn’t wanted it to happen? That Tom was lying when he’d said she’d wanted it?

  With fumbling hands, she reached for the book on the nightstand beside the bed. Flipping it open to the bookmark, she forced her eyes to follow the words across the page. She needed to escape. To step into someone else’s world….

  But the effort was wasted. The world between the covers of that book held no magic for her this night. She was not a part of it. And for the first time ever, she admitted to herself that the people in those pages weren’t real. This was real. Here and now. The weight of the changes in her own world lay heavy on her heart.

  She flung the book aside and lay there staring at the ceiling, a solitary tear streaking down her face. Had Will been right? Was she punishing herself? Had she really put it behind her?

  She closed her eyes and saw Tom’s face as he had looked that night when they’d left the party. So gentle. Admiring. She relived anew the shiver of unease that had passed over her when Tom had announced to the others that they were leaving.

  Why had she dismissed that unease? If only she’d asked someone else to take her home. If only. If only.

  Snapshots of what followed flipped through her mind like pages of an old photo album. The dark dirt road he’d turned onto about five miles outside town. The smile on his face as he’d reached for her across the seat of the car, pulling her to him with no effort at all. The way she’d tried to make light of his advances at first. Tried to resist him. Afraid. Terrified. Fear building. Escalating within her until she thought she might choke with it. The sounds of fabric ripping. The feel of his wet mouth on her breast. The obscene scraping sound of her jeans zipper. Her hands fighting him until….

  Her eyes flew open. She stared at the ceiling, her heart thudding unevenly in her ears. How many times had she walked down the street and wondered if passersby could just look at her and know? How many times had she wanted to stop and cry, “I was raped! Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I could have fought harder.”

  She reached across the bed and pulled open the drawer of the nightstand, shuffling beneath a stack of papers for the book of Beethoven’s letters Sarah had given her for her eighteenth birthday.

  She flipped it open to the letter the young composer had written to his b
rothers as an explanation for the way he was living his life. The letter had struck a familiar chord within Hannah’s young heart when she’d read it ten years ago. It still did.

  Oh! ye who think or declare me to be hostile, morose, and misanthropical, how unjust you are, and how little you know the secret cause of what appears thus to you!

  She closed her eyes and let the book rest against her chest. Will was right, she realized with a sickening rush of clarity. It wasn’t over. It had never been over. In a way, it had just begun.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Hannah was out of bed the next morning well before the sun rose. At first light she went for a run, then showered and went to work as though nothing was wrong. Jenny stood waiting for her at the front desk when she arrived.

  “Are you all right?” the older woman asked, her forehead wrinkled with concern.

  Hannah shrugged off her coat and tried to smile. “Fine.”

  “After the way you took off yesterday afternoon, I was beginning to wonder—”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Did you see Will?”

  Hannah nodded and attempted a light, “He seems to be none the worse for wear.”

  Jenny crossed her arms and eyed Hannah shrewdly. “Did that fight, by any chance, have something to do with you?”

  Hannah shook her head. Then she went still, and the wall of composure she’d erected around herself crumbled. She’d forced herself not to think about anything this morning—the rape, Will and Tom’s fight, the town’s knowing—running until her lungs screamed for relief, pounding herself with the shower’s cold spray to force the tormenting thoughts from her head. But now, for the first time, she didn’t think she could face this alone. “Oh, Jenny, I don’t know what to do!”

  Jenny took her by the arm and led her into the back room. “You come and sit down,” she said, pressing a gentle hand against her shoulder. “What is it, Hannah? You can tell me. It can’t be that awful.”

  “It is,” she said. “It is.”