Stolen(90)

It had taken him years to learn not to bury his feelings, because emotion and instinct often helped solve a case. The hardest part was acknowledging those feelings, and then getting straight on with business. The cube helped—not only to clear his head, but to slide his emotions into a safe slot.

He found the kitchen and took three glasses of water into the living room, passed them around and sat back down in the uncomfortable wooden chair. “Lisa, why didn’t the police pursue your rape case further?”

“Because by then, I didn’t want them to. By then, I knew who’d raped me . . . only at the time, I didn’t believe it was really rape.”

A familiar refrain, even now, when date rape awareness was much higher than then. “Because he’d been your date?” Caity asked.

Lisa nodded.

“Whit Chaucer,” Spense said.

Caity’s eyes widened. She hadn’t seen what he’d seen.

Lisa’s gaze darted all around the room then found Spense again. She gripped her hands together tightly in her lap. “Yes. But if you ask him now about that night, he’ll not only tell you he didn’t rape me, he’ll tell you he wasn’t even my date.”

“Why would he deny that he was your date?”

“Because he’s a liar. He lies about things even when he knows you know they’re lies. He’ll look up at a clear blue sky and tell you it’s raining and somehow, he can get you to believe it.”

“What did he get you to believe?” Caity asked.

“That I said yes. He made me believe I asked for it.” Lisa’s mouth quivered, and she quickly looked away.

No one pressed. He and Caity simply waited for Lisa to regain her composure. He suspected Caity might need a minute herself. She identified with Lisa. He could tell by the way Caity’s posture mimicked the other woman’s, by the way her eyes glistened with empathy, and by the way he itched to put an arm around her shoulder to shore her up.

After a couple of minutes, Lisa looked up and started talking again. “When I found out the semen wasn’t Grady’s, I confronted Whit. He admitted he’d had sex with me that night, but he said it was consensual.”

“You were unconscious, Lisa. You can’t give consent under those circumstances,” Caity said.

“Whit said I was high, but willing. They were passing around Quaaludes at the frat party like candy, and he said I asked him to get one for me so that I would be brave enough to lose my virginity. I told him that was impossible, because I didn’t do drugs. Then he said that I did do drugs when I was drunk.”

Blood surged to Spense’s face. He wanted to punch a wall, or better, Whit Chaucer. But there was work to do. He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward, concentrating on what Lisa was telling them.

“Whit said that I came on to him. He claimed that I begged him to take my virginity. He said he really didn’t want to, and that he was doing me a favor.”

Spense didn’t think he could speak and keep his cool at the same time. Best to let Caity take that one.

“Why didn’t Whit come forward with his version of events before you filed charges against Grady?” Caity asked.

“He said he knew the charges against Grady would be disproven, and he didn’t want anything spoiling his reputation, or his family’s.”

“Earlier, you called him your boyfriend, but you said he wasn’t at the time. Does that mean you continued to see him afterward?” Spense found his center again.

Lisa averted her gaze. “I was so stupid.”

“This isn’t your fault, Lisa.”

“No. It’s his fault—it took me years of therapy to really accept that. Sometimes I fall back into my old mindset, but I don’t let myself stay there.” She let out a slow breath. “Anyway, Whit was very handsome, and to say he was a ‘big man on campus’ would be an understatement. I was infatuated with him. When he said I asked for the Quaalude, I thought, maybe, I really did. I didn’t believe that a guy like Whit Chaucer would rape me. He was president of his fraternity, and an academic all-star. He was even a youth leader at church.

“And after the incident, he was a perfect gentleman to me. He said we would wait until I was sure I was ready to fool around again. I wanted to believe him. So I continued to date him, and I didn’t say a word to anyone.”

“Why did you finally break things off? Or did he?”

“I did. Because it happened again. I still didn’t understand that it was rape, but I knew I wasn’t in control of what was happening to me, and I didn’t want it to continue.”

Spense forced himself to breathe slowly and keep the expression on his face neutral.