Lucas : A Preston Brothers Novel (Book 1)(55)

She cries into her hands.

Brian cries into his shirt.

And I’m too fucking angry to cry.

Keels looks at me, speaks to Laney. “If that happened, Ms. Sanders, then why is Cooper Kennedy’s signature on the hospital bill?”

“It’s not,” she sobs. “It’s not Cooper’s. It’s his mom’s.”

I’m on my feet before I can think, before the consequences come to me, and I march for the door with one thing on my mind: I’m going to finish Cooper fucking Kennedy. “Lucas!” Judge Nelson yells at the same time Dad grasps my arms, keeps me in place. The judge is in front of me now, her eyes red and raw. “Don’t do this, Lucas. Don’t make me question my investments.”





LOIS





“Your boyfriend’s got quite the temper, doesn’t he?” Keels asks, watching Luke storm out of the room.

I glare at him, eyes wide in shock. The Kennedys had requested detectives from a different precinct because they felt like Misty’s connection would somehow sway the investigation. I didn’t tell Lucas. I knew how he felt about the Kennedys. “You have no idea, do you?” I croak.

Keels crosses his arms, widens his stance like he’s readying himself for a confrontation. But he’s a blur. Everything is. I lost my glasses the moment I lost my breath somewhere in the parking lot of the hotel. He asks, “No idea about what, Miss Sanders?”

“Lucas isn’t the threat here, sir. Luke’s reaction is because he has a heart, not a temper. You heard everything I said, right?”

They don’t respond.

“Because you’re both looking at us like you don’t know us, like you don’t understand us. We’re just kids, detectives. We didn’t plan for this to happen. You think Luke’s got a temper? Imagine if I were your mother or your wife, your sister”—I glance at Dad—“your daughter. And then try to fathom how you would react if you were Luke.” I wipe my eyes, a memory searing my brain. “I got my first period when I was thirteen. By then it was just Dad and me. I didn’t know what was happening or what to do, and we didn’t have the supplies I needed. It was a Saturday; Dad was working overtime so I was all alone. I sat in my bathroom and I called my mom but she didn’t answer, not that she’d do anything, but I was that desperate. I called Lucy, Luke’s older sister, but she didn’t answer, either. Then I called Luke. I was in tears by the time he picked up the phone. I was so nervous and scared and awkward. He thought something had happened to me, and he kept insisting he call 911. When I finally told him what was happening, he took charge as if it was something he’d done a thousand times before. He raided his sister’s bathroom and packed everything in his backpack and rode his bike over to my house. He sat on the other side of the bathroom door while I—you know—and he read the instructions out loud to me. He kept saying things like, ‘This is normal, Lane. Nothing to worry about, Lane. It just means you’re a woman, Lane…’” I speak through the giant knot in my throat. “Lucas is still that same amazing boy he was back then, and up until Saturday night, he’d never laid a hand on anybody. He’s the most caring, most gentle person I know. He tucks his little brother into bed every night. Without fail. No matter where we are or what’s happening, 7 pm comes along and he’s there for his youngest brother. He’s there for all of them. It was those qualities in Luke I found in Cooper that made me fall for him in the first place.”

The detectives are listening to me now, not just hearing me. Mayfield says, his voice weak, “Will you please tell us about your relationship with Cooper Kennedy. In detail?”

I nod slowly, fear of the memories squeezing my throat shut. I twist my hands, look over at Dad. “You can leave, Dad… if you want to.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He sits on the bed next to me, his arm around me. “It won’t be any harder for me to hear than it is for you to tell. You’re braver than anyone I know.”

I wipe my tears again and try to steady my emotions. I want to speak with conviction, with heart. And I do. I tell them about how Cooper and I met. How he’d call every day when he was on campus and we’d see each other every day when he was in town. I mention the jealousy Cooper felt for Luke, but how he restrained it. At least at the beginning. Then he started to do strange things like calling me in the middle of the night to make sure I was alone, that I wasn’t with Luke. He’d call my work, make sure I was there when I said I would be. He didn’t like me talking to guys. Any guys. And I’d never been in a serious relationship before so back then, I thought it was kind of flattering—the jealousy. He got me a car for my birthday, and I found out later that he installed a GPS tracking device in it. He did the same with my phone. When I realized, I was too scared to go home.” I look over at Tom. “That’s when you found me sitting in my car on your driveway and I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t.” I go back to the detectives, tell them how whenever I wasn’t with Cooper, he stalked me from a distance. He knew where I was at all times. I tried to leave him during winter break. I said it was too much for me, and he promised he’d stop. New Year’s Eve, I was alone in a room on a houseboat and I was sick and I was scared and I needed Luke, he’d always been there in the past. So I called his brother’s phone because Cooper had blocked Luke’s number, and I knew they’d be together. Cooper came down a few minutes after midnight and caught me talking to someone. It feels strange to say “caught me” as if I was doing something so terribly wrong. In truth, I was negligent with Cooper’s wants, his needs, and those are the types of excuses I made throughout the entire relationship. I tell the detectives that New Year’s was the first time Cooper hurt me physically. He pushed me against a wall, and I collapsed to the floor and my glasses went flying. When I went to reach for them, he stomped on my hand and then stomped on the glasses and he picked me up, his hands tight on my upper arms. He shook me and yelled and shook me some more until I puked all over him, all over myself. He made me clean it up while he went back to the party, to the loud music that hid the evidence of what he’d done to me. I had bruises on my upper arms, but I didn’t tell anyone. I hid the truth, hid my shame, hid my guilt. Then I tell the detectives about how when school started again, things got worse. Cooper was under a lot of pressure. Again with the excuses. He had to maintain a certain GPA and his classes were killing him and his training was just as bad. His dad was threatening to kill him because his dad’s a monster, another excuse, and he started taking amphetamines so he could stay awake, stay alert, but they just made him crazy, paranoid. He became manipulative and vindictive and destructive, and every weekend I spent with him felt like I was walking on eggshells. He’d always go for the places I could cover up: ribs, back, hips… and he knew I wouldn’t tell. He used my weakness to his strength. I tell them about the time Cooper took me to a business dinner with his dad and some of his clients and Cooper’s dad kept talking down to him, saying that he would amount to nothing and running track wouldn’t earn him a degree and Cooper got so mad, so livid, and we got in his car and he pulled over in an abandoned parking lot and smashed my head against the window. It came out of nowhere. I screamed, and he covered my mouth and then he forced me to…

I stop there.

At the point where Dad releases me, and all I feel is shame.

Then I hear him cry and I look up, but it’s not him, it’s Tom. Swear, there’s nothing sadder than watching a 6”4’ man hunched in a seat, his head in his hands, shoulders bouncing, sobs slicing the air.

Mayfield asks, “He raped you?”

My eyebrows pinch, confusion swirling. “No. I mean, I was his girlfriend and I was scared, so I just let him…”

“Oh, Laney,” Tom groans, rubbing his face. He looks up, his eyes locked on mine. “Why didn’t you come to me, sweetheart? I understand if you were afraid to tell your dad or Lucas, but all these years you’ve been like a daughter to me. You could have told me.”

I break down. Shut down. It hurts too much. Physically and emotionally. I grasp onto Dad, use his shirt to catch my cries. “Can we please stop now? I don’t want to do this anymore.” I look up at him, speak through my sobs. “Please, Dad, make it stop?”





LUCAS





I didn’t kill Cooper.

Instead, I go outside and get some air, away from the bullshit media and the bullshit cameras and the bullshit reporters who have nothing better to do than wait around a hospital, digging for their next fucking angle. I go far away, more than a hundred yards, so I don’t break my bullshit restraining order.

I find a bench under a tree. I sit. I think…

The glasses.

The clothes.

The blocking me from her phone.

The distance.

“We’re still together. It’s just hard… you know…”

“There’s so much I want to tell you…”

He was controlling.

Unpredictable.

“I managed to escape—”