“Colleen, where did you grow up?”
“Blacksburg, Virginia. Why?”
His liquid brown eyes rested on hers, and she saw his eyebrows twitch, just a fraction.
“Why?” she asked again.
“Have you ever been to Forest City, North Carolina?”
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
“I don’t believe so,” she said.
“Colleen,” he started. She shifted Flynn, buried her face in his neck. She felt the panic begin to rise in her chest.
“Colleen,” Lincoln said again. “Forest City. Do you remember anyone named Emma Brighton?”
They don’t know. They don’t know. Please, God, don’t let them know.
“I’ve never been to Forest City, North Carolina, Detective.” She raised her chin in sheer defiance and looked him straight in the eye.
“I had your prints run, Colleen. I know you’re Emma Brighton. I know what he did to you.”
The name. It brought back immediate, slavish memories, ones she’d buried so deep she’d actually convinced herself it had happened to someone else. Someone she didn’t know. A story she’d heard about, a dreadful rumor, but someone else’s rumor. The kind of things she dealt with every day on Felon E, women raped, children dying. The very people she fought for, who deserved her justice.
She felt the pancakes rise up the back of her throat. The detective was staring at her still, watching. How could she have ever found him attractive? For the rest of her life, she would see those lips form around the name, his pink tongue touching the edges of his teeth as they parted and joined. Open, close, open, close. Emma. Emma. Emma.
She was crying. How did that happen?
“Colleen? Are you okay? I’m sorry to drop this on you. But we had to know. The way you reacted when you heard Copeland’s name-”
“Don’t you dare say his name to me.”
She jerked to her feet.
“I’m leaving. Now.”
Flynn started to cry. She didn’t care, she just crushed him to her harder and bolted for the door. The detective followed, but she was quicker. She was already out and down the hallway, running blind, her hair in her face, tears shattering her vision.
She hadn’t thought of that moment in years. She’d done extensive therapy, working with a system called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was a cognitive therapy that realigned the neural pathways in her brain so she could move forward with her life, leaving the crippled portion of her soul on the therapist’s floor, shoved with her foot under the therapist’s couch, forever left behind. EMDR allowed her to hear the word rape without cringing, without faltering. It allowed her to get married, to find enjoyment, even abandon, in her marriage bed with Tommy. It gave her a new life, one free from the crushing, horrifying memories of what happened that night. It gave her a new name, one not sullied with the stains of violence. She started over, and no one knew. No one. Not even Tommy.
With two words, that fucking detective had undone years of work.
Her arms relaxed. The door was just ahead.
Emma. Emma Goddamn raped until she bled on the carpet torn open between her privates her stomach slashed forty times with the sharpest blade he could find her virginity her sex her blood spilling on the carpet the ambulance driver screaming her stoned mother’s pitying gaze the whole world knew what he had done to her and she’d never escape the pain the screams the blood Brighton.
“Stop her,” she heard the detective yell, but the faces that turned to her were shocked, and that moment’s delay was all she needed. She scooted out the door and rushed across the street. She pounded down the ramp to the garage. She didn’t even realize that she’d dropped Flynn back in the station, by the door.
She had no idea who Flynn was.
All she knew was she had to leave, to go, to get out. Now.
The car. Right ahead. Keys…she slapped her pockets and found them. Unlocked the door. Pulled it open and sat in the seat. Emma Brighton.
The face from her past floated to the surface, the sweet smile, the curly hair. A happy girl.
Emma Brighton, before she was debased and defiled.
Colleen didn’t feel the blade slide through her throat. She didn’t feel anything at all.
Forty-Three
E wan Copeland scraped at the dried blood on the table with a fingernail.
So much of his life was spent waiting. For his mother to hurt him. For his father to come home. For the bars to his cell to open. For the painkillers to take effect. For the swelling to go down. For the damn woman tied to the chair to wake up.
He had all the time in the world, but really, this was getting ridiculous. He wanted to play. He got bored with waiting after a while. Patience was a virtue, yes, but in his case, he should be given a bloody Oscar for his performances.
He finished removing the red flecks from the table and debated. He’d started an excellent thriller last night, gotten halfway through. He liked thrillers. They moved quickly. Just like him.
Read? Or wake her ass up?
Choices, choices.
He stood, crossed the room and retrieved the ammonia capsule from his bag. He’d pilfered them from work, the perfect antidote for fainting relatives and distraught spouses. He cracked the capsule open and waved it beneath her nose until she began to moan. He placed it upright on the table, he might need it again. “Hello, Samantha.”
The woman stirred, her dark hair shifting against her perfect ivory skin as her head lolled forward. Not quite there yet. “Samantha…Samaaaaaantha…wakey wakey.”
He tapped her cheek with his open palm, softly, not a slap, just a nudge. A little push toward the left. Her eyelids started to flutter, the brown eyes out of focus. She blinked heavily, the lashes soft against her lids.
He tapped her harder this time, on the other cheek, with the back of his hand, enjoying the bloom of red on her perfectly peach-skinned cheeks. Her eyes flew open. He watched them process the situation-he, the glorious one, standing before her, head cocked to the side like a curious puppy, a ten-inch blade in his hand. The fear registered in an instant. An appropriate, intelligent reaction. Of course, he expected nothing less, but still. Fear was good. He liked fear. He wanted to see that same glance bleeding out from gray on gray eyes, but for now, this would have to do.
He did so love the look of a wide, mobile mouth incapacitated with a gag.
“Glad you could join us,” he said.
She shrieked behind the gag, and he shook his head.
“No yelling. That’s not fair. I’m not yelling at you, am I? Calm down and be a good girl, and you won’t get hurt.”
He traced her collarbones with the blade, watched as her eyes filled with tears. Sam Loughley wasn’t a dumb woman, she knew what was happening. She sniffed hard, her mouth stretched against the gag, then shut her eyes. They always shut their eyes. He’d gone through a stage when he’d tried gluing their eyes open, but the staring started to get to him. It was so much more feminine, more demure, for the lashes to brush against the cheeks, guiding the rivulets of tears leaking down their skin. Crying with eyes open looked… strange. Like dolls. He wasn’t a fan of dolls.
“Sam, you know your role in this play, don’t you?”
She opened her eyes again, and there was a bit of defiance lurking there.
Good. She would fight for her friend.
