Page 26 of Mistaken Identity
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Laney was only my wife on paper. Don’t think poorly of Creole because she was Laney’s best friend. Creole and I had just as much of a romantic relationship as Laney and I did.”
There was a long moment of silence and then, “Fuck, that makes so much more sense now. I heard you discussing a few things with another club member, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to act like I knew or not.”
I rolled my eyes. “Apollo, you know more about everyone’s lives than even we do sometimes. Plus, we practically invite you to dig into our lives. You can speak freely with me about anything you want to.”
“Okay, good,” he said. “So since Creole was sexually assaulted, I decided to do some digging into Kory. I didn’t like the way he cornered her in there. Took up…”
I held up my hand. “Whoa. Wait. What do you mean sexually assaulted?”
He looked at me in surprise. “When she was seventeen. You said y’all were…”
I closed my eyes as horror washed through me.
Everything started to make sense.
Her actions. How she reacted our senior year. How she pulled away.
How she was pregnant and wouldn’t tell anyone.
How she had trouble connecting with her own child.
How Laney came over and cried when she told me Creole’s son’s name.
Fuck.
Jesus fuck.
I was finding it hard to fucking breathe.
How had I missed this?
How could I have been so blind?
I scrubbed my face. “Does it show in her records who did it?”
I knew that he’d dug deeper once he’d found out about the rape.
Rape.
Goddammit.
Only thinking the word made bile rise up in my throat.
“Rapist was never found, technically,” he said, “but there’s a boy who unenrolled from the school a few days after she reported it.”
My mind was reeling, trying to remember who’d left our senior year abruptly.
There was only one and…
“Who?” I asked.
Jordie Goodwin.
“Jordie Goodwin,” Apollo echoed my thoughts.
I clenched my fists and tried to breathe.
But I was finding it really hard to.
