Wind Chime Summer: A Wind Chime Novel Page 23

  “What if we can’t see anything?” Hailey asked. “Don’t a lot of people have private accounts?”

  “Yes,” Izzy said. “And that’s the biggest flaw in my system. At least a third of their accounts are private.” When she saw a few of them deflate, she added, “I know it’s not perfect. I’ve known that from the beginning. But, up until recently I thought I was the only one. I didn’t think I was actually going to find anything.”

  “Is this how you found the other woman?” Megan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s worth a try,” she said, looking around at the rest of the veterans. “We can at least start there, right? Maybe one of us will see something Izzy missed.”

  “I’ll get my laptop,” Zach said, pushing to his feet.

  “Me, too,” Matt said, then glanced at Ethan and Wesley. “Want me to grab both of yours while I’m up there?”

  They nodded.

  “Can I print this out?” Troy asked, gesturing to the list on the screen. “Make copies for everyone?”

  Izzy nodded.

  Wesley headed into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and Ethan cracked open a soda.

  When Kade held out his hand for one, Izzy let out a breath. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  From across the room, Kade continued to study her. “Did you think we wouldn’t believe you?”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  Kade shook his head. “Just because one asshole didn’t believe you, doesn’t mean no one will.”

  Izzy looked around at the others. She could tell from their expressions that they agreed with him. A few of them actually looked a little hurt that she hadn’t told them sooner.

  Was it possible that she’d been going about this the wrong way from the beginning? That she should have pressed charges regardless of whether or not she’d had any evidence? That, in speaking out, she could have prompted other women to do the same?

  She’d been holding onto so much pain for so long, blindly assuming that everyone would react the same way as her commanding officer, she’d never considered that some people might take her side.

  And wasn’t that exactly what Bradley was counting on? That she wouldn’t have the courage to speak out against him? That she wouldn’t dare accuse him without any evidence and risk the public backlash?

  Sure, some people might have called her a liar. Some might have called her a whore.

  But she wasn’t a whore.

  She knew that.

  And that was all that mattered.

  Even if her word hadn’t been enough to convict him in court, it might have been enough to plant some doubt in a few people’s minds. It might have been enough to poke a few holes in Bradley’s Teflon reputation. It might have made it a little easier for the next woman to come forward.

  Because there would be another woman. There would always be another one. As long as the previous victim stayed silent, bound by her own debilitating shame, the abuser could act again and again and again.

  The only way to stop him, and to be free of that shame, was to give it a voice.

  By the time Troy returned with copies of the spreadsheet, Izzy knew what she needed to do. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she was going to do it, whether they found the rest of the women or not.

  She helped Troy pass out the copies and once everyone had a chance to look at the list, they divvied up the names and spread out throughout the two adjoining rooms. She was about to take a seat on the empty barstool beside Hailey when the front door opened.

  Everyone froze.

  A moment later, Ryan walked into the room, followed by a woman Izzy didn’t recognize. Halfway to the bar, he stopped walking. He took in the gurgling coffee maker, the laptops on every table, the muted expressions on all their faces. “What’s going on?”

  The rest of the veterans looked at Izzy.

  When Izzy didn’t say anything right away, Ryan’s gaze dropped to the spreadsheet in front of Hailey. “What is this?” he asked, reaching for it.

  Hailey put her hand on it, spreading her fingers to cover as many names as she could. “It’s nothing.”

  Ryan frowned, tugging it free. “It’s obviously not nothing.”

  No, Izzy thought. It wasn’t. And if there was anyone who deserved to know the truth, it was Ryan. Will and Colin might have accepted her into this program, but Ryan was the one who’d given her a job. Ryan was the one who’d taken on all the risk in employing her. Ryan was the one who’d convinced her to believe in something again, when she’d tried so hard not to care.

  “You’re right,” Izzy said. “It’s not nothing.”

  Ryan slowly lowered the sheet back to the bar.

  Izzy glanced at the woman beside him. She was probably the same age as Ryan. She had the same sun-streaked blond hair and pale gray eyes. And she was as tall and slender as he was lanky.

  “I’m Grace,” she said, introducing herself. “Ryan’s sister.”

  His sister, Izzy thought. Of course. Ryan had a twin sister who lived in D.C.

  “You’re the journalist, right?” Hailey said from beside her. “The one who works for the Tribune?”

  Grace nodded.

  Izzy paused. A journalist? She remembered Ryan talking about having a sister, but not what she did for a living. “What kind of journalist?”

  “Investigative.”

  Izzy slowly set her laptop down on the bar. Ryan’s sister was an investigative journalist for The Washington Tribune—one of the most widely read newspapers in the country?

  Hailey’s eyes met hers, and Izzy could tell she was thinking the exact same thing.

  Izzy looked back at Grace. “I need your help.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t been prepared for this, Ryan thought. Will had warned him about the possibility weeks ago. But hearing Izzy say it—hearing her say the words out loud—had shaken him to the core.

  He understood, now, why she’d been so closed off when she first came to this island. It wasn’t just that she’d been raped. Her best friend had almost been raped, too. And she must have assumed, since the system had failed her, that it would fail her friend as well. So she’d taken matters into her own hands to protect her.

  She’d been willing to sacrifice her future—her entire future—for another woman and her two children. As if her own life hadn’t mattered. As if she’d had nothing left to live for. She’d already lost her career, her ability to cook, her trust in other people. Everything she’d ever believed in had been shattered.

  All because of what one man had done.

  Ryan wasn’t a violent person. He could count, on one hand, the number of times he’d lost his temper. But he could feel the anger building up inside him now—the need to do something about it, to respond in some way, physically.

  Intellectually, he knew that responding to violence with violence rarely solved anything. It often made things worse. But he would love nothing more than to drive down to North Carolina right now and smash his fist into Bradley Welker’s face—over and over and over again—until the man was unconscious.

  Instead, he stayed where he was, biding his time. He waited for Izzy to finish answering all of Grace’s questions. He waited for Will, Colin, Becca, and Annie to arrive. He waited for Izzy to tell the story all over again. And, then—once everyone had turned their attention to searching for more victims—he went to her.

  Resting a hand on the back of her chair, he lowered his voice. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  She looked up. “Sure.”

  He nodded toward the front of the house, where they could have a little more privacy. She slid off the bar stool and followed him out to the porch. As soon as they were both outside, he turned to her.

  In the muted glow of the porch light, the circles under her eyes appeared even darker. He could tell she was exhausted. Not just physically, but emotionally. He had to slip his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. To keep from pullin
g her into his arms.

  All he wanted was to hold her. To tell her that everything was going to be all right. But she’d made it clear today that she didn’t want that kind of comfort from him. That she regretted what had happened between them the night before. And he needed to address that. “I need to apologize.”

  Izzy’s brows drew together. “For what?”

  “For kissing you,” he said. “I don’t want things to be awkward between us. I got…caught up in the moment last night. It won’t happen again.”

  “I don’t want things to be awkward between us either,” Izzy said slowly. “But I’m not sorry that you kissed me.”

  That wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been expecting. “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “But…you could hardly look at me today.”

  “That’s because I heard from Alicia right after I left you last night. I didn’t know what to do about it. I was afraid if anyone found out about you and me, they would think I’d been doing the same thing with Bradley. That, if I ever tried to come forward and accuse him publicly, they could point to this as a pattern and say it was consensual, that I must have asked for it.”

  “You didn’t ask for it,” Ryan said, the anger building inside him again at the mere mention of her rapist’s name.

  “I know,” she said. “Or, at least, I know that now. I didn’t before.” She took a step toward him, hesitantly. “I was also afraid that I’d never be able to kiss anyone again without thinking about Bradley, and I was wrong about that, too. The only person I was thinking about last night was you.”

  When she took another step toward him, Ryan’s heart began a slow, dull thud in his chest. What was she saying? That she wanted him to kiss her again?

  “I’m not sure if it was a fluke,” Izzy said, “or if there’s something about kissing you that keeps me from going there, but maybe we should try it again, just to be sure.”

  She didn’t need to say anything else, because Ryan was already pulling her into his arms. When she pressed up on her toes, meeting him halfway, he laid his lips on hers. He heard her sigh, right before she melted into him. And all the anger that had been building inside him dissolved instantly.

  He kissed her slowly, wanting to savor it, wanting to remember what it felt like—the moment he realized he was falling in love.

  By the time they pulled apart, he knew there was no going back, but they needed to talk about how to navigate the next seven weeks. “I’m still your boss.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Do you want me to talk to Will and Colin—see if we could find you another job for the rest of the summer?”

  “No.” she said. “I don’t want that.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Izzy took a deep breath. “But I don’t want to keep any more secrets either.”

  “Then we won’t,” he said, brushing a thumb over her cheek. “You focus on finishing the rest of this program. I’ll focus on the farm and the environmental center. When we want to spend time together, we’ll spend time together. It’s as simple as that.”

  She smiled softly. “That sounds nice.”

  He bent down, touched his lips to hers one last time, because he didn’t know how long it would be until he got her alone again. Then he took her hand, and started to lead her back inside.

  Two steps into the foyer, Jeff rounded the corner from the kitchen, a somber expression on his face. “We found something.”

  Twenty

  Bradley Welker scrawled his signature across the bottom of a form his assistant had left for him to sign, then reached for the next one, paying no attention to the words on the page. His thoughts, as they had been for weeks now, remained fixed on Alicia—and the fact that she’d gotten away.

  No one had ever gotten away before.

  It was bad enough that he’d had to live with the humiliation of being saved by a woman for seven years. Now, he had to accept the fact that he’d been beaten by one in a fight?

  Scraping his pen across the next signature line, he thought about going after her again. He’d gotten his hands on some pills recently—pills that would ensure her submission. It would be easy enough to slip one into her drink, to finish what they’d started several weeks ago.

  But if he asked her into his office again, even under the guise of an apology, she would probably suspect something. It might be better to lay low for a while, at least where she was concerned. In the meantime, he needed to find another target, an easier one—one who wouldn’t expect anything.

  Turning the page, he spotted the next ‘sign here’ sticker, perfectly aligned with the blank above the signature line, and wondered why all women couldn’t be more like his assistant. Judy had a clear understanding of her role in society. She had no interest in advancing past an administrative support position at work.

  It was her home life that mattered most.

  She was a dutiful wife, married to her high school sweetheart for over thirteen years, and a devoted mother of three children. She was perpetually cheerful, impeccable in her appearance, and every morning she had a fresh cup of coffee waiting for him on his desk.

  It was so obvious that this was the way the world was supposed to function. Why were so many women trying to change that? Why were they fighting for jobs that didn’t belong to them? Why couldn’t they see how happy everyone would be if things just stayed the same—or, better yet, went back to the way they’d been before?

  At the sound of footsteps in the hallway, Bradley glanced up. He was surprised there was anyone else in the building. His assistant, and the rest of his colleagues, had left over two hours ago. He was planning to leave soon, too, once he got through this pile of paperwork.

  When the footsteps turned toward him and a woman in fatigues appeared in his doorway, he frowned. Enlisted soldiers were expected to make a formal appointment to see him through his assistant, not stop by his office unannounced.

  “Sergeant Rhee, sir,” the female soldier said, standing at attention. “Lieutenant Woods said you wanted to see me.”

  Ah, yes. Sergeant Rhee. He had wanted to see her. They’d only been introduced once before, so he wasn’t surprised he hadn’t recognized her. “You’re here late, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m trying to get everything in order before I leave. Would you like me to come back tomorrow?”

  Bradley sat back, assessing the petite Asian-American female in his doorway. It was a shame he couldn’t make out the shape of her body through her uniform. Her curves were clearly smaller than he preferred, but she had an appealing face. High cheekbones, full lips, exotic almond-shaped eyes that were so dark they were almost black. “No. This is fine.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He stood, gesturing toward the comfortable seating area in the corner. “I heard your orders came earlier this week.”

  “They did, sir.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Two weeks,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa.

  Bradley settled into the chair beside her. “You think you’re ready to go back to school full time? It’ll be a big change from what you’ve been doing.”

  “I am, sir,” she said. “I never thought I’d get the opportunity to go to medical school. This is a dream come true for me.”

  Bradley nodded. In an effort to strengthen a shrinking workforce of doctors in the armed services, the military had launched a program to assist highly qualified enlisted service members in applying for medical school. The two-year program would give them a chance to complete all their pre-med courses and prepare for the MCATs. If they passed, they would be admitted to the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences Medical School, where they would earn a fully funded graduate degree while maintaining their active duty status.

  The program only admitted a handful of service members each year and it was a huge honor to be chosen.

  “The program’s still fairly new,” Bradley said. “As one of the first
female candidates, a lot of people will be watching to see how well you do. I hope you’re up for that kind of pressure.”

  “I am, sir,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”

  Bradley smiled. “I’m happy to hear that.” Especially since her name was connected to his now. As a favor to her platoon commander, Lieutenant Woods, he’d written a letter of recommendation to include with her application. Lieutenant Woods could have written it himself, but Bradley had a friend in the admissions department so it carried more weight coming from him.

  Lieutenant Woods had filled him in on all of the particulars—her years of service as a combat medic, her two tours in Afghanistan, the medals she’d won for her bravery overseas. Whether or not that background had prepared her for a career as a doctor remained to be seen, but he hadn’t minded writing the letter. It had only added to his reputation as a champion of women’s advancement in the military. Plus, it meant that he had something over her.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of doctor you want to be?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, sitting up even taller than she had been before. “A neurosurgeon.”

  “A neurosurgeon?” he asked, lifting a brow.

  “That’s right, sir. Traumatic Brain Injury is one of the most common afflictions among service members now. I’ve seen the damage that IED explosions can do firsthand. I want to be able to do more to help my fellow soldiers.”

  “I see,” he said. How noble of her.

  And if she were a man, he might be impressed. But she wasn’t a man. She was a woman. And women did not become neurosurgeons.

  He had assumed, when he’d written the letter, that Sergeant Rhee had planned to become a general practitioner, an emergency room doctor, or a pediatrician—specialties commonly occupied by women. He knew the Army needed doctors. He understood they would have to fill some of those positions with women, simply to meet their diversity quotas.

  But this…?

  This was taking it too far.

  Everywhere he looked, the systems, the order, the structure; they were breaking down. He felt like a one-man Army, trying to make things right again.