12

Jake woke when Caleb’s phone went off.

A call at this time of night resulted from alcohol, a misdial, or an emergency. The shadow of Caleb’s voice drifted into the room. He spoke a couple more times, too many words for shooting down a drunk or hanging up on a misdial. No clunking accompanied his voice, no getting up to run off to the hospital.

Jake turned away, determined to fall back to sleep, but then a dull thud signaled Caleb rising. Jake rolled onto his back to listen.

His friend’s shape—dark pants, white t-shirt—appeared in his door. “How have you justified this?”

So the call had come from Brooklyn. “Justified?”

“With your faith. If God is good, how did this happen to her?” He spat the words as if he didn’t share the same faith. “Have you tried to find the rapist yet? She says you saw him.”

“Only in a dream.” Jake put his feet on the hardwood floor. “I don’t justify it. That’s God’s job.”

“His job was to protect her.” Caleb jabbed his finger as if God were a visible presence in the doorway. “There’s a rapist on the loose. We need to hunt him down. This can’t just happen like this. Not on my watch.”

That must be Caleb’s real problem: Brooklyn had been attacked on his watch.

“You saw him,” Caleb continued. “Together, we could—”

“He was a guest at a hotel in a big city. He might not even live in the country, for all we know.” The assailant spoke in a light southern accent in the dream. American. Possibly a New Wilshire local. “Scratch that. We don’t even know he was a guest.”

“How can you just sit there? I thought you felt something for her.”

As if ‘something’ described the way he loved her. “What would you have me do, Caleb?”

“Go down there. Find him.”

“If you’re so sure it’s possible to catch him, maybe you should try.”

“I haven’t seen him. You have. It’s your responsibility.”

“The dream wasn’t some command to get revenge. God gave the dream so people could help her. Without intervention, she would’ve spent her life passing off the baby as if it was a lapse in judgment.” He rubbed his arm. Caleb’s initial question nagged him. How could he still believe in a God that let this happen? If God was good, how did he let Dad die? He debated applying the same answer to Brooklyn’s situation, but Caleb continued to seethe in his doorway. “God’s in charge. He doesn’t owe us anything. Not even an explanation for bad things.”

Caleb slammed his palm against the doorframe and let out a sound that landed between a growl and a roar. He disappeared. Minutes later, the door out of the apartment slammed.

At six, Jake woke to the shower hissing. Knowing Caleb, he’d been out running. The water shut off, and Caleb’s footsteps went to the guest room. The bed creaked, and then the apartment went silent.

Jake got up and walked by the spare room. One of Caleb’s arms hung over the edge of the bed, and his breathing was even. Asleep.

~*~

Brooklyn stumbled through her devotions, her cell phone nearby like an armed jack-in-the-box. Last night, she’d told Caleb he had to listen without asking questions. She’d stated as little as possible before hanging up. He’d call anytime now, demanding more details.

She went to the apartment complex’s fitness room.

Still no word from him.

Back in her living room, she scrolled through websites until she came across a pattern for a crochet scarf with a texture similar to Jake’s hat. He didn’t wear scarves. Still, she’d need something to work on at Closely Knit. Maybe she wouldn’t give it to him, but she liked the idea of making something that could embrace him even when she couldn’t. She worked on the project until lunch time.

As she ate, she skimmed a book on pregnancy from her doctor. At twelve thirty, her phone startled her. Finally.

“Want to take a drive?” Caleb asked.

“Sure. Are you here already?”

“Just pulled in.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Outside, his car growled in idle. The stereo hit odd beats, but then the sound melted away. She took her seat as Caleb’s hand dropped from the volume control. They’d gone for drives like these before, and Caleb’s only set destination would be in conversation. An unpleasant one, judging by his hardened mouth and eyes.

Caleb soon cut into the countryside. A sign introduced an unincorporated village made up of three houses and a white church with a weathered cemetery. She could live in a place like this. It exuded peace and quiet. Maybe some of it would seep into her.

“Who called the police?”

Pressure built around her eyes. “A couple who was going into a room.”

“Were you hurt?”

“I had to have stitches on the back of my head. I was bruised everywhere.” When she’d gotten home and seen all the marks in her mirror, she’d broken down, sobbing.

“What about the police?”

“I spent hours answering questions. They searched the hotel and looked at the security footage.”

“And no one saw him? The guy couldn’t have just disappeared.”

“There were a lot of people.”

He’d been there and should understand, but he continued to scowl.

“The hotel hosted two other conferences the same week as ours, and the building’s right near all the tourist spots and the stadiums. The lobby had two restaurants. Three, if you count the coffee place.”

“That’s why someone should’ve seen him. There’s no way to explain how the police came up with nothing. It’s their job to get results. What about security cameras?”

“They found footage of me and the man getting off the elevator, but there was no face shot of the man. Nothing to identify him by. They aren’t even sure if they have footage of him leaving. The only cameras in the hotel are on the elevators and in the lobby. Nothing in the stairwells. I never should’ve been there.”

Roadside trees flew by like the blades of a fan. What would she have done if they’d caught the rapist? How long would she have had to be in New Wilshire to testify? Who would’ve gone with her? Jake was the obvious answer, but she cringed to think of him listening to her testimony. The room would’ve been full of people, including a lawyer bent on discrediting her. She cracked open her window and breathed in the scent of earth, wet from melting snow. How could she have testified if she struggled with this conversation?

“You need to stay after them. If you don’t, they won’t follow through.”

“There’s nothing more they can do.” A lie. A better victim wouldn’t have been in the staircase. A better victim would’ve taken their pills. She would’ve stayed longer, helped with a sketch and looked at mug shots. But Brooklyn didn’t want or deserve their best work. “I want to focus on the future, not the past.”

“You don’t have that choice when something like this happens. The guy’s out there. He needs to be caught.” Caleb let off the gas for a stop sign and looked at her. “I mean, is he a felon or not?”

Was the rapist’s guilt questionable? Had she really not done enough? She needed space to breathe. The car neared the intersection, going less than five miles an hour. She pulled the door handle.

The car jerked as Caleb stomped the brake. “What are you doing?”

She pushed the door open, climbed out, and shut the door. She drank in a cool, deep breath and looked down the road. Home waited miles away, but a walk promised to gather her thoughts better than getting back in that car. She pulled her coat tighter and started on foot.

Caleb’s door clunked open. “What are you doing?” His voice rang through the dampness of this no man’s land between winter and spring.

“I’ll walk home.”

“It’s freezing out. You can’t do this. Get back in the car.”

True, she couldn’t walk away. Perhaps if she faced the truth about herself here, she could leave the ugliness of it in the country, buried in the graveyard of a small country church. “It was my fault, wasn’t it?”

“Brooklyn, get in the car.” Gravel ground as he followed her, but then his steps retreated and a door slammed. The engine rumbled as he put it in gear. The wheels rolled parallel to her on the far side of the road. “I don’t know what you’re so mad about. You can’t walk all the way back.”

“I’m not mad.”

“I want to know they did their jobs. Why is that so wrong?”

“I told you. They did everything they could.”

“They didn’t catch him.”

“No.” She pulled her arms tighter. “They didn’t.”

“Exactly.” He kept checking the road, but his shoulders angled toward her. “You should’ve come to me. This could’ve ended differently. I would’ve caught him and killed him.”

A car came over the rise in front of them.

She stepped in the grass, and Caleb steered a tire onto the shoulder.

The car slowed to pass between them, and its breeze brushed her face.

“At least stay after them.” The interruption faded into the background. “Make sure they don’t forget about you.”

Her breath caught. Was she really obligated to demand the police remember when she’d give anything to forget?

“Why didn’t you come to me?” His voice tightened. Was he near tears? His face showed only frustration.

“Because I wanted to leave it all behind—my mistakes, the rape, the police, the doctor, the whole thing. And that’s why they didn’t catch him. I shouldn’t have been in that staircase, that’s for sure. I screwed up. Let’s leave it at that. Any more people looking into it would’ve just added to the list of things I did wrong, so I didn’t need anyone else investigating it. Least of all you, someone I would have to face from then on out.”

Caleb stopped the car and jogged up next to her. “I’m sorry, Brook. You made your decisions, and they’re good ones. OK?”

Nothing was OK.

“Even when I thought the baby had… come about the normal way, I didn’t come to judge you. But I don’t know what to do now. The father’s not a decent guy you can fall back on.”

What would that have been like, having a decent guy to fall back on? To regret the mistake of a physical relationship, instead of the mistake of taking the stairs?

“You’re not to blame for anything. Nothing at all.”

“Thank you.” Now if only she could believe it.

Caleb drew a loud breath. “The baby’s only half the reason I’m here. I started seeing Rosalie.”

So he was letting her off the hook of this conversation, changing the subject. She waited for the story of how he’d asked out their coworker, a Latina with gorgeous cascades of dark hair.

He scraped in another breath. “She’s working on a project that I’m not supposed to know about, but she told me because of you.” He stopped walking and touched her shoulder. “Brook, they’re shutting down the North Adams office.”