Salem Falls Read online

  Clearly, he was asleep and this was a dream. A bad dream. The car following him, his run-in with Wes, and now, these half-dressed girls. Yes, it all made sense now. This was a trick of the mind. He felt safer now, knowing it was not real.

  When Gillian took Jack's hand, his entire body jerked. "Oh," she said soothingly, running her fingers through his hair. "Poor Jack." She touched the cuts on his brow and cheek, then lifted her discarded shirt and dabbed at the blood.

  Her beautiful breasts were an inch from his mouth, and they looked as real as anything he'd ever seen. From the far corners of his mind, Jack began to struggle. "I can't ... I need to ..."

  "Stay here."

  Gillian finished for him. She smiled at her friends. "What's the one thing we haven't done tonight?"

  The short, plump girl's mouth rounded. "You wouldn't, Gilly."

  Jack could suddenly see the scene as if from a great height. This girl, his hand in hers, the ribbons fluttering behind them. You cannot be here, he warned himself, because ... but he could not finish the sentence. He willed his feet to move, but he was too drunk. Get away, he thought, and did not realize he'd spoken aloud until Gillian turned to him. "Don't you like us?"

  "I have to go," he said, his voice breaking.

  "But you'll help me first, won't you? I need a man for this."

  Jack made himself a deal: He would reach something up high or open a pickle jar and then he'd be on his way. But to his surprise, Gillian laced his fingers with hers and tugged him toward the fire. She began to run, until he had no choice but to do what she did, to leap it.

  They fell to the ground. Gillian's face was flushed. "Now you're tied to me, for a year."

  Jack didn't understand, but then he didn't understand much of anything. The forest was spinning around him. He watched the girls pour drinks from a thermos, pass out biscuits. "For you," Gillian said, and maybe he would have even drunk it if one of the other girls hadn't lost her balance and fallen on top of him.

  "Steady." He looked at her--Meg, that was her name, and she was related to a detective in town--but in that moment, she might well have been Catherine Marsh. That was how pure the need was in her eyes. Jack's heart began to pound, and he turned to the other girl, the taller one, and to Gillian--and they all looked that way. They all wore that expression. That want, that incredible one-sided want that had nearly ruined him before.

  Jack staggered upright and crashed through the woods, finding the path he had come in on. He stumbled forward for nearly a minute, and then Gillian came running up from behind. She was near tears, her hair wild around her face. "The fire--we can't get it out. We're going to burn the whole forest down. Please," she begged. "You have to come."

  He followed her to the clearing, where there was no fire ... and no one else. Before he could ask her what was going on, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his. He choked on the whole of her; he backed up along the edge of the glowing fire, unsure which was the greater danger. Gillian writhed against him, aiming to slip under his skin. And then she took his hand and brought it up to her breast, holding his gaze the whole time, so that he knew this was an offering.

  "No," Jack whispered. "No." He put his hands on Gillian's forearms and set her away, fireflies sparking around their bodies. "I said no," he answered more firmly. No. The pine needles quivered, the stars slipped from their perches, history looped back on itself. This was not Gillian Duncan; this was Catherine Marsh. And Jack was being given the chance to defend himself, in a way he never had last year. "You get away from me," he said, his chest heaving, "and you stay away."

  But Gillian Duncan, who had always gotten what she wanted and then some, grabbed at him. "I cast a spell," she insisted. "You came to me."

  "You came to me," Jack corrected. "And I'm leaving." With a shove, he sent Gillian sprawling, and he ran down the path so far and so fast that for the first time in months, he managed to outstrip his past.

  "Jack," Jordan asked. "Did you rape Gillian Duncan on the night of April thirtieth?"

  "No."

  "How did your skin get under her fingernails?"

  "She was trying to keep me there, when I kept trying to get away. Her hands kept grabbing at me. And when she ... kissed me, she had her fingers raking into my scalp."

  "How did you get the scratch on your face?"

  "From a branch, when I was running. I had it before I ever saw her that night."

  "How did your blood get on her clothes?"

  "She used her shirt to dab at my cheek."

  Jordan crossed his arms. "Do you have any idea how difficult it's going to be for these twelve people to believe your story?"

  "Yes." His eyes swept the jury members, compelling them to listen. "I could lie to you and tell you a version of that night that's easier to digest ... like that we were getting intimate and then she changed her mind at the last minute ... but that isn't what happened. The truth is just like I told it. The truth is I didn't rape her."

  "Then why would Gillian make up a story like this?"

  "I don't know. I don't really know her at all, in spite of what she's said. But if I were seventeen and I was discovered in the woods doing something I didn't want my father to know about ... I guess I'd spin a different story, too. And if I were really smart, I'd dream up a tale that would ruin the credibility of the person who'd intruded ... so that no one would believe him, even if he told the truth."

  Jack met his attorney's eyes. That, Jordan communicated silently, is the best we can do. "Your witness," he said, and offered Jack up for sacrifice.

  *

  It was all Matt could do to not laugh out loud. That had to have been the absolute worst defense he'd ever heard in his life, and he truly believed he could get up and speak Swahili and still manage to win this case. "Ribbons, candles, naked girls ... are you sure, Mr. St. Bride, that you didn't leave out any pink elephants?"

  "I'm sure I would have had no trouble remembering those," Jack answered dryly.

  "But you yourself say it's hard to believe."

  "Just being honest."

  "Honest." Matt snorted, to let Jack know what he thought of that assessment. "You testified that you were very drunk. How can you be sure this recollection is accurate?"

  "I just know it is, Mr. Houlihan."

  "Isn't it possible that in your ... drunken stupor ... you raped Ms. Duncan and then blacked it out of your mind?"

  "If I was drunk enough to suffer a blackout," Jack countered, "surely I was too drunk to be physically capable of sexual intercourse."

  Matt turned, surprised by the gauntlet the defendant had thrown. "So your theory of why Gillian Duncan became hysterical, sobbing, claimed you raped her, went to the hospital to undergo an invasive physical exam and have a sexual assault kit done, reported the rape to the police, and now has come to tell a panel of strangers the intimate details of how you sexually assaulted her ... is because she was scared of her father?"

  "I don't know. I'm just telling you what happened."

  "All right," Matt said. "You've given us your explanation for why your skin was found beneath Ms. Duncan's fingernails ... because she was grabbing at you to get you to stay, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Ms. Duncan didn't give you the scratch on your cheek--the injury was sustained in the woods, on a branch?"

  "Yes."

  "Your blood was on her clothes because she was trying to clean up that scratch by dabbing it with her shirt?"

  "Yes."

  Matt frowned. "Then what's your explanation for why semen matching yours was found on her thigh?"

  "Objection!" Jordan leaped up, furious. "Approach!"

  The judge waved the attorneys closer. "The semen wasn't a match," Jordan said angrily. "The state's expert even deemed the results inconclusive."

  Matt scowled. "She said this defendant was seven hundred forty thousand times more likely to have been the donor of the semen than anyone else. Those are still pretty damn good odds."

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