“Your parents don’t know she exists.”
“Not yet, but they will. I left a document in case I was arrested. It explains all they need to know. The whole ugly story. No one knew Angelique had left a suicide note. Apart from me, Jolie, and Bastian, no one knows she was raped at all. At the time, I kept it to myself. When the police came, I told them what I knew. There was a baby to deal with, and I had to explain it somehow. I said I didn’t know about the pregnancy or who the father might be. I described how her moods had been off lately and told them that she refused to talk about it. Nothing but the truth. The story wrote itself. Teenage suicide is sadly not uncommon. Under the circumstances…”
Dominique shrugged and continued. “I set up a trust fund for Cosette before I started this… mess. My mother would never turn her away. Cosette will be loved and cared for. She is young. In time, she will forget me as she should.”
And I hated him in that moment. For his easy acceptance of fate. For coming into my life and showing me what it meant to have a family. What it meant to be loved.
“How can you do this to me?” It was selfish, considering, but I didn’t care. I was part of the equation too. “I’m a cop, Dominique. How can you put me in this position? What the hell am I supposed to do? What do you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to do whatever you feel is right. I will not sway your decision.”
“You already have by being in my life,” I shouted.
“I know.”
“Was that part of your plan? Lure in a gullible cop, make him fall hopelessly in love, so maybe he’ll look the other way?”
Dominique’s sad smile was a knife to my chest. “No, Kobe. I tried to resist you. I didn’t want to drag you into my nightmare. I fell for you quite by accident.”
“How beneficial.”
“Stop right there. You act as though I manipulated you, and I didn’t. Not once while you worked on your case did I suggest the victims deserved their fate. Not once did I ask you to question whether their killer should be caught. Those wereyourthoughts. You were questioning your decision long before you figured me out, and I was careful not to have an opinion or influence you. We never spoke the words aloud, but the truth of your feelings was always so bright in your eyes. I heard it in all you didn’t say. So now look at me.”
Dominique turned me to face him. “Look me in the eye and decide. Don’t see me as your lover. Don’t see me as Cosette’s grandfather or the man who shared meals with you or danced with you on New Year’s Eve. Look at those four men and remember what they did to a fourteen-year-old girl. Think about all the others they would have hurt before someone finally stopped them. If you want to arrest me, then arrest me. I deserve to rot in prison for the rest of my life, and I will go without a fight. I will plead guilty and never look back, but Ido notregret what I did. I willnotrepent. I amnotsorry.”
Wrists pressed together, Dominique held out his hands and waited for the cuffs.
A decent cop wouldn’t have hesitated, but no one had ever called me a decent cop. I’d been reprimanded plenty and skated a thin line with my career. My attitude and my heart were too big, but I had never gone into policing to be a hero. I’d chosen this path to support the victim no one understood.
The starving kid who stole food from the grocery store. The tear-blinded, battered woman who drove recklessly and caused an accident after finally getting the courage to fleefrom her abusive husband. The nineteen-year-old girl, driven to prostitution after she was kicked out of her house when her parents discovered she was a lesbian. The single mom with expired insurance, who chose to buy groceries for her kids instead of forking over money she didn’t have to renew it, praying no one would notice before she got paid again.
What about the father of a girl who had been gang raped, who decided to kill the men responsible before they could hurt anyone else?
And theywould.
They already had.
Was that father a victim too?
This wasn’t a situation I could argue with my sergeant. If I got caught, I would be finished. It went beyond disciplinary measures, and I wouldn’t simply be fired. I would be arrested and tried for aiding and abetting in serial murder.
Who all knew the truth? Jolie and Bastain. Although I knew already they would rather see Dominique walk free than ever say a word against him.
Ari fucking Yates, a goddamn police officer. That was worse. Dominique had told him. Yates knew everything. Yet, he’d allowed Dominique to walk out of the restaurant. Had he called it in the minute we were gone? Had he seen me talking to Dominique outside on the street? Did he know we were dating? It wouldn’t take much to figure it out.
Apart from that one glaring problem, this entire leg of the investigation had been solely driven by me. Rue knew less than nothing and had been pursuing other avenues. I’d shared my suspicions, but they had been less than detailed, and she had brushed me off. Could I steer her onto a different path, or was it too late?
The heat of Dominique’s gaze cut through the cold night, asking questions I didn’t have the answers to. The scarf had vanished back inside his coat.
I paced, needing to expel energy. The snow had gotten deeper, and the storm had not let up. It accumulated at the base of every headstone in the field, slowly climbing their fronts like an ominous second burial.
I thought of Jesse and all the prowling stories I’d heard from the girls on campus. I thought of Laurent St. Pierre and the implication that Jesse had gotten his hands on his daughter. Of Blaze and her withdrawn assault charge. Of Cheyenne and her friends, the terror in their eyes. Of Fatemeh Kortisani’s disgust over a student she didn’t know but had heard rumors about.
I thought of Malik’s acquittal. Of Dominique’s declaration that men like them never stopped. They got bolder after acquiring a taste of power, like a sick sort of drug addiction.
I knew from my studies that almost fifty percent of convicted criminals went on to commit crimes again after being released from prison. I didn’t know the specific statistics for perpetrators of sexual assault, but I had to imagine it was as high, if not higher. What if they were never caught? If they were never convicted? How many more Angeliques were out there in the world, suffering alone?
I turned to Dominique.
