Page 86 of Betrayal

A few minutes later, Hunter knocked on the door.“Can I come in?”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

Anna was kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet bowl.Finally she pushed to her feet, rinsed her mouth, and washed her face.She rolled her shoulders, and it made not a damn bit of difference to the tension lodged in her neck and back muscles.

Her helplessness when she’d heard Helen had suicided swamped her now.Other images of that night scrolled through her head with unrelenting horror.Helen’s bruises, her silent sobs of pain.Anna pressed a hand to her throat to stop herself from throwing up again.

Closing the door behind her, she made her way back to the table and sat down.“What else?”

* * *

“Verbatim”—Hunter hadmemorised the words, but Anna’s reaction to Nick’s identification of the bracelet cemented his doubts—"‘Anna and I fucked at my party.She’s an ‘okay fuck.’Happy for the few extra bucks for the night’s work.She came on to me.’”

Her skin turned the pale yellowy green of parchment, and she pressed a hand to her stomach.He expected her to turn tail again.

“He’ll publish the photos and his accusations to as many sites as he can find.”

“For a split second you believed him.”She tilted her head to one side, and Hunter knew he’d failed her.

He held up both hands in surrender.Hunter hadn’t believed she’d chased Nick, but he’d believed she’d been set up, taken advantage of, as he’d been, and like him, been unable to say aloud what had happened.

“I believed—thought—considered—I don’t know what word fits the disorientation that felled me when I received the photos.Not that you’d been willing.Never that.But that he’d coerced you in some way, and you were ashamed and blamed yourself.”

“You’ve got part of it right.”

Hunter closed his eyes.How the hell could he give back what Nick had stolen from her?How the hell could he protect her?

“Nick will destroy you.”

“I wasn’t wearing the bracelet that night.”

“I wasn’t sure,” he said.What a pathetic excuse.

“But you didn’t ask.You didn’t talk to me.”The finality in her words sliced through him.“The bracelet belonged to a friend, Helen.Her mother gave it to me when Helen died.”

“How did Helen die?”He held his breath, afraid of the answer.

“Helen was ashamed.Helen blamed herself.”She scrubbed at the tears running down her cheeks.“Two women jumped out of your father’s birthday cake.”

Hunter hissed, and she filled in the missing pieces.

“I didn’t tell you everything before.It was Nick’s birthday.His party wasn’t a safe place to be.When I found Helen, she’d been sexually assaulted.She was incoherent with shock and pain.Injured enough to need a hospital.I made a full statement to the police to go with Helen’s complaint.Helen withdrew the charges.I don’t know who got to her, but I have my suspicions.”

“What do you want, Anna?”Jesus—Did Nick set Helen up the same way he had me and Marygai?

“My dreams to come true,” she sing-songed.“But that’s a bit fanciful for a tough cookie like me.And trust is impossible for you.”

“How did Helen die?”Hunter tasted ash.

“She killed herself three years ago.Still ashamed and blaming herself.I spent all night on the phone with her.She promised she was getting off the phone and calling Lifeline.I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”He blinked rapidly several times, tears stinging the backs of his eyes, recalling his constantly shifting emotions after Marygai, the fleeting thoughts of death as escape.“And sorry doesn’t cut it.She must have been in endless pain.”

“I guessed you had photos from the party, that somehow Nick had worked out I’d been there.It never occurred to me Helen’s bracelet was the key.”She licked up a tear that had reached her upper lip.“I failed Helen.”

“No, you didn’t.”Hunter wouldn’t allow her to criticise herself.

“But you failed Gina?Because that’s part of this story.”She flung her hand in the air.

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