Wind Chime Summer: A Wind Chime Novel Read online

  Grace took a step back as the full impact of what Carolina was saying began to sink in. “Izzy took the fall so your children wouldn’t have to grow up without their mother?”

  “Yes,” Carolina whispered, bowing her head. “She’s a hero. She’s my hero.”

  Nineteen

  Three hours later, Grace sat at a table in the café with Ryan, Annie, Will, Becca, and Colin. Overhead, a lone ceiling fan whirred. The only other sound was the click, click, click of a tangled pull cord knocking against one of the light fixtures.

  No one made a move to fix it.

  “So…she’s innocent,” Becca said, the first one to speak after Grace finished telling them the story.

  Grace nodded.

  “But”—Becca looked around at the rest of her friends’ faces, each registering a different stage of shock—“she pled guilty.”

  “In exchange for the deal the prosecution offered,” Grace said.

  “Right,” Becca said. “I get that. But why did she have to take a deal at all? Even if she had been the only one in the alley that night, it was still self-defense. Tyree pulled a gun on her.”

  “I know,” Grace said. “I asked myself that same question. My best guess is that she did it to prevent any further investigation. A self-defense argument would have required a trial. It would have strung things out. The detectives working the case would have spent more time in that neighborhood, asked more questions. They might have been able to piece things together, the same way I did.”

  Across the table from Grace, Will shook his head. “She shot him with his own gun.”

  “Exactly,” Grace said. “The fact that she was able to disarm him would have actually worked against her in court. The prosecution could have argued that she’d had the upper hand at that point, that it hadn’t been necessary to shoot him at all.”

  “She wiped the gun down before the police got there?” Colin asked.

  Grace nodded. “She wiped all the prints off the gun, but there could have been more in the alley. If the investigation had continued, the police could have found them. They might not have been able to identify a match right away, since her friend is living here illegally. But that, alone, might have raised more questions. Eventually, someone could have pointed them in the right direction. The only way Izzy could be sure to prevent that from happening was to confess as quickly as possible.”

  “What about Tyree?” Colin asked. “Wouldn’t his story have conflicted with hers?”

  “I wondered about that, too,” Grace said. “But remember, he tried to rape Izzy’s friend. And he wouldn’t have wanted the police to know that. This guy is a seasoned criminal. He’d already served two years in prison before this. And he knew he was going to jail again. It wasn’t like this was his first time dealing with the police. When they started questioning him, he probably waited to see how much they knew first. As soon as he found out that Izzy had admitted to shooting him, and no one was accusing him of sexual assault, he probably just went along with it.”

  “I don’t understand how the police missed all this,” Becca said. “It doesn’t make me feel very safe.”

  “Baltimore has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Every cop in that city is overworked. The detectives are stretching themselves to the limits, just trying to keep up. They don’t have the time or the resources to turn someone away who’s willing to make a confession.” Grace sat back in her chair. “Tyree’s shooting led to the arrest of a major drug dealer. A lot of cops think Izzy did them a favor. They were relieved when she got off on probation. Even if some of them still have their doubts about whether or not she actually did it, the last thing they want is to start poking holes in a case that’s already closed.”

  Becca frowned.

  “I know it doesn’t seem fair,” Grace said, “but think of the alternative. Izzy’s friend could have come forward and told the truth. A jury might have cleared her of any criminal charges. But, afterwards, she could have been deported to Mexico—a country she left when she was four years old. She has no family there, no friends, no job. She would have been separated from her children and forced to decide between bringing them to Mexico to live with her, or letting them stay here, in someone else’s care, where—as citizens—they would have access to the best education and job opportunities in the world.”

  Outside, the air had grown still. The wind chimes hung silently from the beams of the porch. “So…what do we do now?” Becca asked.

  “I told Izzy’s friend I’d get back to her with the names of a few immigration attorneys,” Grace said. “The last one she hired charged her two thousand dollars before telling her she didn’t have a case. I’ll need to do some research first—make sure whoever I refer her to is legit. It’s possible, with the right attorney, and a very sympathetic judge, she could obtain some kind of legal status in this country. If she were ever able to accomplish that, she could potentially reopen the case and try to get the charges against Izzy dropped. But that would be up to them.”

  Colin shook his head. “That criminal record is going to follow Izzy around for the rest of her life.”

  “That may be,” Grace said. “But she’s not dangerous. Every single person at this table knows that now. And every single one of us can vouch for her to a potential employer.” She turned to face Annie, who was sitting in the chair beside her. “I think it’s safe to say that you and Taylor can move back to the inn.”

  Annie looked away, her expression filled with remorse. “I feel terrible. I should never have treated her so badly.”

  “Then make it up to her,” Will said simply.

  “How?”

  He took one of her hands, threaded their fingers together. “You’ll think of something.”

  Grace checked the clock on her phone. “I’d like to try and get to the inn before Izzy goes to bed. I want to tell her what I know, see if she’ll tell me the rest.” She looked up at Ryan. “Will you give me a ride? My car’s almost out of gas.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Are you going to tell us what she says?” Will asked.

  “I don’t know,” Grace said, pocketing her phone. “The only reason I told you this much was so Izzy could keep her place in the program and Annie could move back to the inn.”

  And she’d been careful not to reveal Izzy’s friend’s name, Ryan thought. Or where she lived. Or what she looked like. Even though she could trust every person in this room with her life, and she’d sworn them all to secrecy beforehand, she still hadn’t revealed her source.

  “If I’m right about what happened,” Will said, “will you at least tell me if the guy who assaulted her is still out there?” He exchanged a look with Colin. “You don’t have to tell me his name. I just want to know if he’s still out there.”

  “I’m not making any promises,” Grace said, stepping through the door that Ryan held open for her.

  Ryan followed her outside and they crossed the yard to his truck. As soon as they were both inside, safely out of earshot from the others, she turned to him. “I’m not almost out of gas.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” Ryan let the keys dangle in the ignition without starting the truck. They sat in silence, parked under the oak tree, listening to the chorus of chirps and trills from the night-singing insects. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m having some trouble…detaching myself.”

  Ryan nodded. He’d lost his ability to detach himself from anything related to Izzy weeks ago. And that was before he’d heard about what she’d done for her friend.

  “I don’t usually have that problem,” Grace said, picking at a few pieces of dog hair stuck to the seat. “When I talk to people on the job, I’m just looking for information—clues that will lead me to the truth. Emotion doesn’t really factor into it. But this… I don’t even…”

  “I know,” he said quietly.

  Grace looked back up at him. “She could have gone to jail, Ryan.”

  “I know.”

&nb
sp; “Her friend said she wouldn’t have let that happen—that she would have turned herself in if it had come to that—but Izzy couldn’t have known that.”

  No, Ryan thought, she couldn’t have.

  Izzy had been willing to go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit in order to keep a young mother with her children, when his mother—his and Grace’s own mother—had left them as if they hadn’t mattered at all.

  * * *

  Izzy stood in the hallway connecting the foyer to the kitchen at the inn, clutching her laptop in both hands. It had taken her most of the evening to work up the courage to come down here. She’d exhausted every other option first. She’d even considered the possibility of hiring a private investigator. But who was she kidding? She couldn’t afford that. She didn’t even know if she was going to have a job at the end of the summer.

  What she did have were ten people, in the next room, who might be willing to help her.

  If she told them the truth.

  Tightening her grip on the laptop, she took a step forward. Then another. There was a chance that some of them might not believe her. Which was why she’d changed her mind at least a dozen times before coming down here. But this wasn’t just about her anymore. It was about finding the rest of the women Bradley had assaulted before he hurt anyone else.

  That was all that mattered.

  “Yo,” Kade said, glancing up from the baseball game he was watching with Jeff and Troy. “Where’ve you been all night?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “In your room?”

  She nodded.

  “I knocked on your door a couple times.”

  “I know,” she said, pausing at the edge of the couch. “I didn’t answer.”

  Kade’s brows drew together.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  He started to stand.

  “No,” she said. “All of you.”

  On the other side of Kade, Troy picked up the remote and switched off the TV. “What’s up?”

  Izzy waited for the rest of the people in the room to stop what they were doing. Sitting at the table by the window, Zach, Wesley, and Matt slowly laid down their playing cards. From her chair by the fireplace, Megan looked up from the book she was reading. Hailey and Paul each set down their phones. And Ethan paused in the middle of raiding the fridge for a late-night snack.

  “I owe you an explanation,” Izzy began.

  “About what?” Jeff asked, his expression reflecting the same confusion that was on most of their faces.

  “About what happened in the kitchen a few weeks ago,” Izzy said, “with Will.”

  “You had a flashback,” Zach said, lifting a shoulder. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” Izzy said. “I could have hurt him. And I want you to understand why.”

  A few of the others exchanged glances.

  Looking around the room, Izzy realized, suddenly, that she knew why everyone else was here. She knew why they’d left the military, why they’d applied to this program, and what traumas—physical or mental—they were working to overcome. She was the only one who hadn’t shared her story.

  Just do it, she thought. Just rip the bandage off and get it over with. “Last year, on August 30th, I was sexually assaulted by a man named Bradley Welker.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kade stiffen. “He attacked me in the kitchen on the base where I was working in North Carolina, which is why I can’t cook anymore—because every time I do, it triggers a flashback.”

  Behind her, the refrigerator door closed. She heard footsteps coming toward her as Ethan walked into the room.

  “It wasn’t a random assault as we’d served on the same base in Afghanistan several years before. He was a lieutenant colonel at the time, and under normal circumstances we probably wouldn’t have had many interactions other than me putting food on his plate. But on that deployment, our dining facility was attacked. Several soldiers were killed, and dozens more were wounded—including Bradley. I managed to pull him and two other officers to safety before the next bomb hit, and I was later awarded a Bronze Star for saving their lives.”

  Izzy took another breath, trying not to focus on the stunned expressions on the faces all around her. “Afterwards, all three officers thanked me. Bradley was particularly outspoken in his gratitude. He gave dozens of interviews to the press, praising the cook who’d saved his life. He even came to my awards ceremony. So, when he raped me, and I tried to report it, no one believed me. When my commanding officer ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine if I was still fit to serve, I decided not to reenlist.”

  “Oh my God,” Hailey breathed. “Izzy—”

  Izzy held up a hand. She needed to finish. She needed to get it all out—all at once. “I thought I was the only woman Bradley had raped. I thought he was trying to get back at me because I’d emasculated him in some way by saving his life. And I thought, if it was just me, I could deal with it. I could find a way to move on. But it wasn’t just me.”

  Taking a step toward the coffee table, she set her laptop down in front of Kade, Jeff, and Troy. “Last night, I found out that he attacked someone else. She was able to fight him off. But he still has something over her. And she’ll only go public with me if I can find more women to back up our claims.” She opened the top of the laptop to reveal her spreadsheet. “I’ve been tracking the social media accounts of every female soldier who might have come into contact with him for months now. I know there are others. There have to be. But I can’t do this alone anymore. I need help.”

  Jeff looked up from the screen incredulously. “Is that what you’ve been doing up there, all those nights when you wouldn’t hang out with us?”

  “Yes.”

  Kade stood abruptly and crossed the room to the wall of windows. Pressing a hand to the glass, he stared out at the darkness, too emotional to speak.

  “How long did you say you’ve been working on this?” Troy asked, looking down at the screen again.

  “Five months.”

  Troy scrolled down the page, his eyes widening. “How many names do you have?”

  “About three hundred.”

  “Holy shit,” Matt said, making his way over to the sofa with Wesley and Zach in tow.

  “Does anyone else know about this?” Hailey asked as she helped Paul to his feet.

  “Erin knows,” Izzy said.

  Hailey looked relieved. “What about Will and Colin?”

  “No.”

  A few people glanced up, surprised.

  “I’ve already tried going to the top before,” Izzy said. “The next time I report this to a superior, I want to know that I have a case.”

  Beside her, Ethan put a hand on her shoulder. “Will’s staying at the café with Annie and Taylor tonight, so we should have the place to ourselves. What exactly do you want us to do?”

  It took a moment for his words to register, for the full weight of them to sink in. They believed her? All of them? Just like that? “Well,” Izzy said, letting out a long breath, “there are eleven of us. If we split up, and we each take thirty names, we could make it through the list pretty fast.”

  “Got it,” Paul said, already reaching for his laptop. “Kade, are you in?”

  From his spot by the windows, Kade finally turned. His expression was murderous. “A spreadsheet?” he asked. “You think you’re going to stop that guy with a spreadsheet?”

  “Uh-oh,” Ethan said, his hand sliding off Izzy’s shoulder.

  “Where is he?” Kade asked, his eyes flashing.

  Izzy took a step toward him. “Kade—”

  “No!” he shouted, his deep voice booming through the room. “I’m not going to sit here and scroll through social media accounts when that guy is still out there! Do you even remember what you were like when you first got here? You were shattered, Izzy! He almost destroyed you!”

  “But he didn’t,” Izzy said quietly. He hadn’t, had he? In the end, he hadn’t destroyed her at all.

>   Matt and Wesley came to stand beside her. “I think Izzy’s right,” Wesley said. “If we go after him now, she’s got nothing. If we build a case against him, we might actually be able to put him away.”

  Kade clenched, unclenched his fists. “He raped her. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Not unless I can prove it,” Izzy said. “And the only way I can do that is either with evidence—which I don’t have—or with enough women saying the same thing that people start to believe us. Bradley’s reputation is rock solid. It’s going to take more than one or two of us making accusations to crack through it.”

  “This is bullshit,” Kade said.

  “You’re damn right it’s bullshit,” Matt said. “None of us are going to argue with that.”

  “I need you here, Kade,” Izzy said, when he still wouldn’t move from his spot by the windows. “Your wife and children need you here.”

  Kade stared back at her, unblinking, as his warrior instincts challenged his ability to see this situation in anything other than black and white. But everyone had an Achilles heel and Izzy knew that the only reason he’d enrolled in this program was to get his wife and kids back.

  He’d taken her advice after their first run together and sent his wife flowers. His wife had rejected the first delivery, and the second, but she’d accepted the third, along with the letter he’d written. So he’d sent more—a new delivery every day—along with a letter. And just this week, they’d started talking on the phone again.

  He wasn’t going to risk having all that progress wiped out overnight.

  “I think we should start,” Izzy said, still holding Kade’s gaze, “by having everyone scan the list to see if they recognize any names. Some of you might already be friends with one or two of these women online. If so, we’d have access to more information.”

  “What, exactly, are we looking for?” Troy asked.

  “Anything unusual,” Izzy said. “Posts that seem out of character. Large gaps between posts if they usually post a lot. That sort of thing.”