The Dells (34 page)

“Mum and Dad will be okay on their own,” Rachel said.

“There's something I have to do,” Shoe said. “Give me the address. I'll join you if I can.”

“Are you going to talk to Janey?” Rachel asked, while Wiseman went into the house to get the restaurant address.

“Yes,” Shoe said. “Then I want you to introduce me to Ruth Braithwaite.”

Wiseman came out of the house and handed Shoe a business card. Shoe said he hoped to see them later.

Although the Hallam house was less than a kilometre away, easy walking distance, he drove, so he could go straight to the restaurant after speaking with Janey. There was a battered blue Pontiac Firebird in the driveway, but no sign of Dougie Hallam's Hummer. Parking on the street, Shoe went up the weed-choked flagstone walk, climbed the cracked concrete steps to the front door, and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. He went round to the side of the house. The property sloped steeply into the ravine, so that at the rear of the house, the basement was at ground level.

Shoe climbed a short flight of painted wood stairs to a side door. He pressed the bell button and waited. After what he thought was a reasonable time, he opened the aluminum screen door and knocked on the inner door. There was no window, just a peephole. And a sturdy
lock. He knocked again.

“All right, all right,” he heard Janey call. “Keep your shorts on.” The lock rattled and the door opened a few inches, the chain lock still in place. Janey peered through the gap, her face in shadow. “Shoe,” she said. “Um, look, maybe you could, um, come back later.” Her breath was sharp and sweet with the tang of vodka and tonic. “I'm not really up to having company right now.”

Her speech was distorted, as if her mouth were frozen after a visit to the dentist. He put his hand on the door, pushed it open as far as the chain lock would allow. She ducked back into the shadows, but not before he saw that her face was damaged.

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “I had an accident, that's all.”

He didn't believe her. She looked as though she'd been beaten. “Janey, open the door.”

“No. Shoe, go away. Please.”

“Is there someone with you?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then let me in, Janey. I'm not leaving until I know you're all right.”

“I don't suppose you'd take my word for it.”

When he didn't reply, she sighed, released the chain lock, and turned away. Shoe opened the door and stepped onto the landing midway between the half-flight of stairs down to the basement and the half-flight up to the main floor; the Hallam house was almost identical in layout to his parents' house. Janey descended. Shoe closed the door and followed her down into the kitchen of her apartment. She closed and locked the door at the bottom of the stairs, then went though the kitchen into the living room.

The living room was small and dark, the drapes drawn and the lights off. The air smelled fusty, as though
something had died there a long time ago. “Do you mind if I open the drapes and a window?” Shoe asked. “Let in some light and air?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she replied disinterestedly, still standing with her back to him.

He opened the drapes, flooding the room with northern light, tinged green from the thick woods behind the house. Unlatching a window, he cranked it open. The outside air was still hot, but fresher than that of the room, despite the pall of pollution trapped over the city.

He turned to Janey. Her back was to him, shoulders hunched, as if bracing herself for a blow from behind. He went to her, tread silent on the carpet. She flinched as he put his hands on her shoulders. Through the fabric of her T-shirt, the muscles of her shoulders were hard, more like stone than flesh. She didn't resist as he turned her to toward him.

A white-hot point of anger ignited within him. Her lower lip was split, her left eye was blackened and swollen almost shut, and her left cheekbone was red and raw. “Did Dougie do this to you?”

She tried to speak, but no words came. She gave up and nodded mutely, not looking at him. Tears spilled from her eyes, rolled down her bruised cheeks. Involuntarily, his hands tightened on her shoulders. She twisted away.

“Where is he?” Shoe asked roughly.

“I don't know.” She moved away from him, as if seeking shadow, shelter from the light. “I don't care.”

He unclenched his jaw. “Get your purse,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm taking you to the hospital.”

She shook her head. “I don't need to go to the hospital.”

“You could have a cracked cheekbone,” he said.

She looked at him, arms crossed below her breasts, hugging herself. Her cheeks were shiny with tears. “You
don't understand,” she said, turning away from him. “He didn't just beat me up. He — he raped me.” The words ground from her, as if her throat were filled with broken glass.

The anger within him burned brighter and hotter. “Then it's more important than ever that you go to the hospital, so they can run a rape kit and document your injuries for the police. Then I'll take you to a hotel. Anywhere you want. I'll pay for it. You can't stay here. Go pack some things. I'll wait.”

“I'm — I'm not worth all the trouble.”

“Of course you are, Janey,” he said. His anger seethed, threatening to consume him. He consciously relaxed, unclenched his fists, loosened his shoulders, slowed his breathing. “Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.” His voice was strained, the tone harsher than he'd intended. “This isn't the first time he's raped you, is it?” he said.

She shook her head. “The first time was when I was ten,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear her. “Freddy too.”

The anger and the guilt were a physical pain in the centre of his chest. “How long?” he asked, voice tight and rasping.

“Freddy stopped when I was sixteen. Dougie didn't stop till — till Freddy and my mother were killed.”

“Marvin Cartwright knew about it, didn't he?”

“Yes.”

“Was he sexually abusing you?”

“No. No. He — he wasn't — he didn't.” She raised her eyes and looked at him. “He tried to help me. He wanted to go to the police, but I begged him not to. I was too scared. And ashamed. I thought it was my fault. That's what my mother always told me, that it was my fault. She — she was having sex with Dougie.” She turned away. “Marvin promised to take me with him when he
left. He couldn't leave till his mother died, he said, but it wouldn't be long. She was very sick. But when she died, he left without me.” She shuddered and a sob scraped from her throat like a rasp on steel. “It's my fault that he had to go away. Maybe if I'd told the truth about … ”

Her voice trailed off. She would have fallen if Shoe hadn't caught her, held her, then lowered her onto the sofa. She clutched at his arm.

“How did he find out?” Shoe asked. “Did you tell him?”
Why didn't you tell me?
he wanted to ask.

“No, I didn't tell anyone. He caught me fixing up my little cave in the woods. You know, where we had sex the first time?”

Shoe nodded, not trusting his voice.

“I made him promise not to tell anyone. I told him if he kept it a secret, I'd let him have sex with me. He got angry — I didn't understand why at the time. I thought all men were like Freddy and Dougie. Until Marvin — and you.” She looked up at him. “You liked me a little, didn't you? It wasn't just the sex, was it?”

“I liked you a lot,” Shoe said. “And it wasn't just the sex.” Had he loved her? He wasn't sure. Probably. It didn't matter. He'd cared for her. And did still. “Why didn't you run away?” he asked.

“I did,” she said. “But Freddy always somehow found me and dragged me home again. He'd punish me, too. Eventually, I stopped trying.”

“Besides Marvin Cartwright, did anyone else know?”

She looked at him for a long time, then averted her eyes before replying. “Freddy said if I ever told anyone, he'd kill them, then he'd kill me. That's why I never wanted anyone to know about you and me. I was afraid they'd think you knew.”

“Joey knew, didn't he?” Shoe said. When she looked at him, he knew the answer. “When did you tell him?”

“You'd just started university,” she said quietly. “He was visiting his parents and I ran into him somewhere. We got a little stoned one night and I told him. I'm not sure why. He wanted to take me away with him, but … ” She shrugged and picked up a glass from the coffee table. It was empty. She put it back down. “Except for Dougie and Freddy, you were the only one I'd ever done it with till — till later. Till Joey. All those other boys I went out with after we broke up, I never had sex with any of them.”

Which explained why none of them lasted more than a week or two, Shoe thought. “You don't have to tell me any more,” he said. “Let's get you out of here. You need to see a doctor.”

“I don't need a doctor. It's not like I haven't been through this before.” She kneaded her lacerated cheek with her fingertips. “Nothing's broken.”

“It's the best way to document your injuries for the police.”

“I'm not going to the police. What can they do?”

“They can arrest him,” he said. “Put him in jail.” He knew as he said it that he was being naive. Even if the police arrested Hallam and charged him with assault or rape, how long could they hold him? He'd be out on bail in a day or two, perhaps even on his own recognizance, upstanding member of the community that he was. Then what? Could the police protect her? Could he? He'd tried protecting Janey from her stepbrother once before, and it had only made it worse for her.

“I'll be all right,” Janey said.

“I can't leave you here alone,” he said.

“Don't worry about me. I let my guard down with him. It won't happen again. Believe me. You're a sweet guy, Shoe. Always were. Me? Well, you want to know what I did last night after you left the pub?”

“I don't care what you did. It doesn't matter.”

“The kind of person I am, you don't want anything
to do with someone like me.” She stood and went into the kitchen alcove. “Stop trying to be the hero,” she said as she opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and took out a bottle of vodka.

“I stopped trying to be your hero a long time ago, Janey,” he said.

Scooping ice from a bin into a glass, she added a generous splash of vodka, then put the bottle back in the freezer.

“I'm just trying to save your life,” Shoe said. “The next time, he might kill you.”

She walked to the sofa and sat down heavily. “There isn't going to be a next time,” she said. “If he comes near me again, I'm going to kill him. Tell him that the next time you see him.”

The next time he saw Dougie Hallam, Shoe thought coldly, he might kill him himself.

“Pack some clothes,” he said. “And whatever else you'll need for the next few days. I can't stay with you and I'm not leaving you here alone. I'll check you into a hotel until we can make other arrangements. Don't bother arguing. You're coming with me if I have to drag you.”

“You're bluffing,” she said.

“Am I?” He pointed toward the door to another room. “Is that the bedroom?” Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door and went through into her bedroom.

“Hey,” she protested, struggling to her feet and following him.

On a chest of drawers a small TV flickered silently. The queen-sized bed was unmade. Clothing was draped over the back of a chair. The louvred doors to the closet were open. There was a suitcase on the top shelf. He took it down and put it on the bed.

“Will you pack, or shall I do it for you?” he asked,
opening the suitcase. He went to the chest of drawers, opened the top drawer, and began to transfer handfuls of underwear and brassieres into the suitcase.

“All right, all right,” she said, shouldering him aside. “Get out while I shower and change.”

He went into the other room. He wasn't going to make it to dinner with Rachel, Claudia, and Wiseman after all. He took out the card Wiseman had given him and used Janey's phone to call the restaurant. The woman who answered had an eastern European accent. She said she'd relay his apologies to Mr. Wiseman and his guests.

Janey came out of the bedroom fifteen minutes later. She'd changed into a short T-shirt and snug-fitting jeans that rode low on her slim hips, revealing her flat, muscular belly. Shoe was struck by the apparent contradiction between her hard-bodied physique and hard-as-nails attitude and her almost childlike vulnerability. Her bleached white blonde hair was still wet from the shower, and she had applied makeup in an attempt to cover the bruises on her face. She had a small leather backpack slung over her shoulder. The suitcase was on the bed, closed.

“Okay, let's go.” The drink she had fixed was on the coffee table. She picked it up. “For the road,” she said, and downed it.

“Have you eaten today?” he asked.

“It hurts to eat,” she said.

“You should eat,” he said.

“Damnit, Shoe. I didn't agree to go with you just so you could mother me.” He was somewhat surprised she had agreed to go with him at all. She put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were cool against his skin. “Sorry,” she said.

He retrieved the suitcase from the bedroom and they went up the stairs into the bright slanting sunlight.

“What about my car?” she asked as he put her suitcase
into the back seat of the Taurus.

“I don't think you're in any condition to drive. We can come back and pick it up later.”

“Okay, fine,” she said petulantly. She climbed into the Taurus.