Page 23 of Hard Focus
Eyes burning, she’d stared at the wall until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
That night, Connie dozed and dreamed she was walking along a sidewalk. Each man passing her had a placard around his neck with various labels. One read “Goodkisser.” Another proclaimed “Calls his mother.” The next man who passed her didn’t look any different, but his sign read “Killed his baby sister.” The man behind him was “Kicks dogs.” The next was “RapedAudrey.” She stopped stock-still and looked up at the man’s face to see Jonas staring back at her.
Connie woke with a gasp and rolled to her back, surprised to sense the presence of someone in bed with her. She looked over to see Taylor lying on top of the comforter, eyes wide open as he stared back at her. The expression on his face was a mix of worry tinged by fear,andbefore she could sayanything,he shook his head.
“Cheapest locks on the planet. Took me like three seconds to pop it when I was ready to come in.” Connie rolled her eyes,andhe smirked at her, but the expression faded fast. “I don’t think you ever told me his whole name. I can’t remember you saying anything other than just his first name and for some reason that didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t have any cause to think…Alden talked about his case, but I didn’t put two and two together. I’m so sorry, Connie.”
“Why are you sorry?” She pushed up in bed and plumped a pillow before placing it behind her shoulders. “I’m the one with the terrible taste in boyfriends.”
Taylor mirrored her position and reached out, taking her hand in his. One by one he slowly threaded his fingers through hers, then clasped her hand tightly. “It scares me sometimes.” Connie waited, knowing this was just the opening statement for whatever was eating at him. “How vulnerable you are. How vulnerable my sister might be.” Taylor was the baby of his family, with an older brother and sister. “You’re both physically weaker; it’s a fact of life. I mean, you’re like a buck and a half soaking wet, and if you run into a guy who’s a bad dude, he could really hurt you.” Taylor twisted and glanced at her face, then back down at their joined hands, corners of his mouth downturned. “Thompson could have hurt you. I knew who he was and what he was capable of, but didn’t know enough to warn you off.”
“Would you have told me? If I’d come home from the club the night I met him and talked about him, would you have told me if I’d mentioned his name?”
“Hell, yeah. No doubts.”
“Then you aren’t to blame for anything. And he didn’t hurt me.” Taylor released his grip and traced the bruises around her wrist with one fingertip. “He didn’t, Taylor.”
“He could have. He’s hurt people before.”
“I looked him up online.” Taylor raised an eyebrow and Connie rushed to reassure him. “Not before, but tonight. I had no idea. I’d never even googled his name. First, we were just dating, and then when things got a little more serious, I think I believed I knew him. Trusted in my instincts, you know?” Taylor nodded. “But look at how wrong I was. How could I be so wrong?”
“Well, foroneyou aren’t psychic.” He stared at Connie as she wrinkled her nose at him. “Seriously. You met him in a public place and hit it off. It’s not easy to get to know someone while simultaneously distrusting they are who they seem to be. With online dating, we know a lot about what they want to share, and set-ups are usually friends recommending other friends. Meeting in a club like that? It can be a crapshoot. Plus, if itwasn’tfor Alden, I wouldn’t even know where to go to get a real background check. Half the online things are just scams looking for suckers to plug in a credit card number. It’s not part of our normal process for dating, right?”
“Right, but even without the papers or data to tell me ‘oh, hey, this is a bad guy, you might want to avoid him,’ why didn’t my gut tell me something was wrong?” She sighed, pushing out the air in her lungs on a huff. “It’s like my radar is bad.”
“Or maybe he’s just good at hiding who he is?” Taylor shrugged. “I don’t see where this is your fault. Sure, it’s more likely now that you would ask the next guy, ‘hey are you a closet rapist?’ But back then? Why would you?” He tightened his grip on her fingers and shook her hand up and down. “And even if you had, would a guy like him admit to being a bad actor? Again, unlikely. I say we sort out what the real lessons are here and toss the self-recrimination aside.”
“How much do you know about what he did?” Connie worked her jaw side to side, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. “About what he did to Audrey?”
“Not much. Just what Alden’s shared, but he tries not to bring all the ugly details home. When we talk about things, it’s mostly about how a case is making him feel.” He looked at her. “Why?”
“He raped her in the same club where I met him. Did you know that?”Taylorfingers tightened around hers painfully until she winced. “Yeah, my reaction, too. Is my tendency to go everywhere in a group the only reason it didn’t happen to me?”
“You can’t do that what-if game with yourself. It’s not healthy.”
“But isn’t that a valid lesson? Would things have been different if I’d been less cautious and headed somewhere, anywhere by myself? Sure I might never know, but it couldn’t have hurt thatmeand my friends are all careful. I mean—” She pointed towards the door. “—even when you and I are coming in from the pool during summertime, you think nothing of riding an extra couple of floors to make sure I get into my apartment safely. What if we could tell other women all these super easy precautions to take? Would it make a difference? Maybe that’s what I need to have as atake-awayfrom this. Maybe it’s to teach others?”
“Maybe, Connie.” He slipped down to lay on the comforterandshe followed, rolling on her side to face him. “Maybe that’s what you do. Maybe that’s how you moveforwardsfrom this.”
“Maybe. It feels like I have to do something. I know how lucky I was, Tay. With that knowledge, I can’t just toss all this aside and call it good luck.” She folded her hands under the edge of her pillow and stared at him. “I can’t just stand by for this to happen to someone else. I have to do something.”
***
Cole
He ran a hand through his hair, snarling at the dark. Restless, Cole turned to his side and stared at the glowing numbers on the face of his phone. His mind raced, thoughts and ideas crowding his head. “Dammit,” he muttered, flopping on his back, this change in position the third in as many minutes.
Swinging his legs off the side of the mattress, he propped his elbows on his knees, face buried in his palms. Fingernails scratching at his scalp, he scrubbed them across his cheeks for a moment, working at the skin until it burned.
He yawned so wide his jaw cracked, then dashed the wetness from his eyes.
She hadn’t known.
It didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem like it could be real. Something that had so impacted his family, torn his sister up from the inside out, bowed the backs of his parents with grief—and she’d had no idea.
It wasn’t a small town, but they didn’t live in a city either. Hell, Audrey had found she could hardly step foot outside her house without running into someone who knew what had happened to her. And here was this woman, connected in a distant way, but still connected through her friends…and she’d heard nothing.
How is that possible?
