“Sure,” he says softly. “I’ll head over to cold storage now and pull the file. Call you back soon.”

“Thank you so much,” I tell him with immense gratitude. After spinning my wheels for two days, feeling utterly helpless about everything, I feel energized now that something is moving. Even if it doesn’t directly impact Beck’s case, it’s one step closer we have to verifying JT raped both me and Caroline, and then we can tell her the truth.

When I disconnect, I immediately dial Beck. He answers after the first ring. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I say softly. “I just wanted you to know that Detective Remmers just called me. He’s going to pull my file and check to make sure the DNA was submitted properly.”

“That’s great,” he says, and his voice sounds lighter. I’m thinking the anger’s dissipated.

“When are you coming home?” I ask hesitantly, because I really, really want him to come home.

“In about ten seconds,” he says, and I can hear a slight smile in his voice. “I never made it past the elevator.”

I disconnect the call, run down the hall, pausing long enough to throw my phone on the dining room table. I scurry to the front door, open it, and see him standing there.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him before flinging my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain in your ass this weekend.”

His arms come around my waist and he hugs me tight to him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I deserved it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He pulls back and then kisses me sweetly, a little tentatively. He’s right…I told him I wasn’t in the mood for sex the last two nights. Not that we have sex every night, mind you, but we do most nights. Or days. Whatever. So I get why he’s hesitant and I don’t want him to be.

I press my body in tight, my signal to him that I want more than just a kiss.

He doesn’t hesitate further. Within moments, our clothes are gone and he’s got me on top of the dining room table, pushing my phone down toward the other end so we don’t knock it off. He’s hot and hard, lodged deep inside of me. He rocks slowly against me, holding my arms pinned above my head while my legs are clamped tight against his ribs. Beck kisses me leisurely while he fucks me, but soon, as with most times we are wrapped up with each other like this, his moves become more forceful.

His thrusts a bit deeper.

When he can’t concentrate on the kiss anymore because I know he wants to concentrate on getting us off, he pulls his mouth from mine, releases his hold on my arms, and puts one palm on the table for leverage. He pushes up slightly and then he’s able to really let me have it.

The condo is filled with the sound of the table creaking as we fuck and our heavy pants, and I get closer and closer to the finish line.

So close, almost there.

Then my phone rings.

Beck doesn’t even stop pounding inside of me, but does look above my head at my phone. “It’s a 408 area code,” he grunts at me.

“That’s Detective Remmers,” I manage to gasp out as his cock consumes me. “Should we answer it?”

“No,” he groans as he slides in deep. “Let him leave a voice mail. More important things right this minute.”

My phone rings three more times but then Beck’s hand is in between my legs, rubbing my clit while he fucks me and I don’t hear the phone anymore.

“Beck,” I cry out as I start to come, my back arching off the table.

“That’s my girl,” he mutters, and then he starts jerking inside of me with a long groan.

He immediately rolls us to our sides, legs still intertwined and his dick still wedged deep inside me. With his long reach, he grabs my phone and hands it to me.

We’re both still breathing heavy and layered in sweat, but I manage to access my voice mail, put it on speakerphone, and we listen.

“Sela…Detective Remmers. I pulled your file, and just wanted you to know, everything was done properly. It was submitted to CODIS and we have a receipt for it. I couldn’t find it at first, but it was mislabeled. So yes…the DNA we collected is in CODIS, and if the man that raped you gets put into the system in the future, we’ll get a match. It was great hearing your voice today. Stay strong and call me if you need me again.”

My eyes snap to Beck’s, who looks just as perplexed as I feel.

“JT didn’t rape Caroline,” I murmur, as the implication of what I just learned sinks in. JT’s DNA from my rape is in the database. It should have triggered a hit with Caroline’s case but it didn’t.

“He was saying that just to torture you,” Beck says. “But thank fuck…thank fuck we didn’t say anything yet to Caroline.”

Yes…thank fuck. We would have destroyed her for no reason whatsoever.

The relief I felt over finding out that JT didn’t rape Caroline only lasted for a bit. Sela and I dragged ourselves off the dining room table and spent the rest of the day in bed, both of us buoyed by that news.

But now, as I sit back in the same courtroom and listen to the proceedings around me, my stomach gets knotted back up with anxiety again. Periodically, I’ll look behind me to see Sela and Caroline there, giving me looks of encouragement. I dared to glance only once at Candace and Colin Townsend, who thankfully weren’t glaring at me but were talking quietly with ADA Hammond as she leaned over the gallery wall before court started. Still haven’t heard a word from my parents, and that neither surprises me nor makes me feel bad. They’re a nonissue in my life.

Doug had said the preliminary hearing could take anywhere from half an hour to several hours, depending on how good their evidence was. If they were building a circumstantial case, it would take longer so they could lay it all out. It was up to the judge to listen to it and determine if there was probable cause to move forward. As Doug explained, it was a low threshold for the district attorney to overcome, the standard being if the facts presented would cause a person to have an honest and strong suspicion that a person is guilty of the crime.

This doesn’t bode well for me, because all of the financial motives they think are driving me are enough for most people to have a strong suspicion that I did it.

Currently, an evidence tech is on the stand while ADA Hammond leads her through a series of questions about what was found at the crime scene. I watched as they identified color photos of JT’s body and bags of hairs and fibers. Doug had told me that it could take weeks for that to all get analyzed forensically, but that doesn’t hold up the criminal justice process.