Stone thrust a printout of the now-infamous picture of Trixie into Bartholemew's hand. “Have you seen this?” Bartholemew had. For about three straight hours this morning, at the high school, on the computers at the town offices, everywhere he looked.
“Hasn't my daughter been victimized enough?” Bartholemew instinctively went into calming mode, softening his voice. “I know you're upset, but we're doing everything we can.” Stone scraped his gaze over Bartholemew's off- duty attire. Yeah. You look like you're working your ass off.“ He looked up at the detective. ”You told us that Underhill's not supposed to have anything to do with Trixie.'
“Our computer tech guys traced the photo to Moss Minton's cell phone, not Jason Underhill's.”
“It doesn't matter. My daughter's not the one who's supposed to be on trial.” Stone set his jaw. “I want the judge to know this happened.”
“Then he's also going to know that your daughter was the one who took off her clothes. He's going to know that every eyewitness at that party I've interviewed says Trixie was coming on to a whole bunch of different guys that night,” Bartholemew said.
“Look. I know you're angry. But you don't want to press this right now, when it might wind up backfiring.”
Daniel Stone ripped the printed photo from the detective's grasp. “Would you be saying that if this was your daughter?”
“If it was my daughter,” Bartholemew said, “I'd be thrilled. I'd be fucking delirious. Because it would mean she was still alive.”
The truth rolled like mercury, and like any poison, it was the last thing either of them wanted to touch. You'd think, in this age of technology, there'd be some kind of network between fathers, one that let a guy who was in danger of losing his daughter instinctively recognize someone who'd already walked that barren road. As it turned out, hell wasn't watching the people you love get hurt; it was coming in during the second act, when it was already too late to stop it from happening.
He expected Daniel Stone to offer his condolences, to tell Bartholemew he was sorry for mouthing off. But instead, the man threw the printed photo onto the ground between them like a gauntlet. “Then of all people,” he said, “you should understand.”
* * *
She didn't have a lot of time.
Trixie's mother's voice swam up the stairs. Her mom was on babysitting detail and hadn't let Trixie out of her sight until she had headed for the bathroom. Her father, right now, was chewing out Detective Bartholemew or the superintendent of schools or maybe even both of them. And what difference would it make?
They could burn every last copy of that awful picture of her, and a few months from now, someone else would have a chance to strip her naked in court.
Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, she accidentally banged her funny bone against the wall. “Fuck!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.
Once, Trixie had had her mouth washed out with soap for roadtesting four-letter words. She was four years old, at the supermarket with her father, and she repeated what he'd whispered under his breath when the cashier couldn't do the math to make change: Use the damn register.
She knew all sorts of four-letter words now; they just weren't the ones that most people considered foul language. Love.
Help.
Rape.
Stop.
Then.
As a child, she'd been afraid of the dark. The closet door had to be shut tight, with her desk chair wedged under the knob, to keep the monsters from getting out. Her blanket had to be pulled up to her neck, or the devil might get her. She had to sleep on her belly, or a vampire could come and put a stake through her heart.
She was still afraid, years later - not of the dark but of the days. One after another, and no end in sight.
“Trixie?”
Trixie heard her mother again and swiftly reached into the medicine cabinet. The hilarious thing - the thing that no one bothered to tell you - was that being raped wasn't the worst part of everything she'd been through. In fact, that first frantic fall didn't hurt nearly as much as getting back on your feet afterward.
* * *
It was the kind of doorknob that needed only a straightened wire hanger to pop the bolt. The minute Laura stepped inside the
bathroom, she saw it - blood smearing the white wall of the sink,
blood pooling beneath Trixie on the floor, blood covering Trixie's
shirt as she hugged her slashed wrists to her chest.
“Oh, my God,” Laura cried, grabbing Trixie's arms to try to stop the flow. 'Oh,
Trixie, no ...'
Trixie's eyelids fluttered. She looked at Laura for a half second and then sank into unconsciousness. Laura held her daughter's limp Body up against her own, knowing that she had to get to a phone
- equally sure that if she left Trixie alone, she'd never see her again.
The paramedics who came minutes later asked Laura a barrage of questions: How long had Trixie been
