Borrow.
Great.
From Clark’s Orchards, the wholesome family-run farm where his mom had worked back when she was in high school. Jules must’ve emitted some kind of judgy body language or sound, because Tom added, “Camping rules. We pack out the trash. We always leave it cleaner than we found it.”
Still not entirely legal, but okay. “What happened with Shelly?”
“I still don’t really know, exactly,” Tom said. “Kevin came and got us about an hour ago—I was still at Belle’s, her mom lets me crash in the playroom—and he wasreallyupset. I think...”
Whatever he wasn’t saying wasreallyhard for him to articulate, because when Jules glanced over, he had tears in his eyes, one of which he angrily brushed from his face.
“Jesus, is she dead?” Jules asked.
“No,” Tom said, “God, no, thank God...” But the relief at that news was soured by his next whispered words. “We think she was raped.”
“Oh, shit,” Jules said pulling onto County Line Road and heading north toward the park. “BySandy?”
“No, well, I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Tom told him. “She’s really out of it, I’m not sure she knows exactly what happened, but she did say that they broke up right before the party so she came on her own, looking for us. Shehad to walk and by the time she got there, we were gone andyouwere gone, and... The next thing she remembers is waking up in the woods and... her shirt was ripped and her jeans were gone.”
“Oh,shit,” Jules said again.
“Well, she found them, but...”
“Tom, we really should take her to the hospital, or call the police, or?—”
“She doesn’t want to,” Tom said grimly, “and I don’t blame her. The local police are... They don’t...” He shook his head. “Kevin’s father is the police chief and he’s such an asshole. He actually arrested Kev for public intoxication even though he’d only had maybe a half a beer. Everyone else got off with a warning, but he made his own kid spend the night in jail.”
Hobbit’s police-chief fatherarrestedhim...? Although it was only then that Jules made the connection. “Kevin Clark, likeClark?” Like Clark Orchards?
“Yeah. His family’s lived here forever. His uncle’s the town chairman, his father’s the head of the police and they’re both total dicks. It’s this next left.”
Jules signaled and slowed to make the turn that would take them toward Petty Park—and Shelly. Who’d been raped but didn’t want to go to the police. “She needs to at least tell her mother.” Maybe. Not everyone had a mother like his.
“She doesn’t want to do that, either,” Tom said. “I was kinda hoping you could talk her into that.”
“I’m not sure why she would listen to me,” Jules said.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “Emotions are running really high, and I thought if you came in as, like, the cool voice of reason...? It might help. Farm stand’s up here, on the right. Pull around the back.”
And there, indeed, was a structure that was half silvered,weather-worn wood, half tightly tied-down, faded-green tent canvas, alongside a small, empty, gravel parking area. The stand was about the size of a double garage—which neatly hid Tom’s car from the street as Jules pulled behind it.
Belle had no doubt heard their tires on the gravel, and she’d come out to meet them. “She’s finally stopped throwing up.” But then she corrected herself. “Well, nothing much is coming up so she’s really just been retching, but her stomach seems to have settled down.” She met Jules’s gaze somberly as he got out of Tom’s car. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Is she still coming up blank?” Tom asked, giving her a hug, which she accepted gratefully, but swiftly pulled away from as she nodded, back to the dire business at hand.
“She says she doesn’t remember anything,” Belle told them. “I mean, she remembers getting to the party—she gave herself blisters because of her new shoes, and she remembers looking for us. She remembers having a beer, but after that... Nothing.”
“That can happen when you drink too much,” Tom pointed out. “You black out.”
“But she says she doesn’t remember drinking more than that one beer,” Belle said.
“Do you believe her?” Jules quietly went point-blank to ask the question that Belle seemed to be dancing around with hershe says.
Belle was silent, her impetuousness tightly reined in as she obviously chose her words carefully. “She’s horrified and mortified and feeling a lot of shame.”
“God,” Jules said. “She shouldn’t be.”
