The Sheriff's Daughter. Tara Taylor Quinn
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Название: The Sheriff's Daughter
Автор: Tara Taylor Quinn
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Superromance
isbn: 9781408905203
isbn:
“What do you want to know?” Her father’s question was brusque.
“Everything.”
Sitting up straight, his fingers tapping the sides of his glass, he frowned. “I don’t see how, after all these years—”
“You and Mom were still asleep that morning when the call came.”
“That’s right.”
“Who called?”
“Chris Watson.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Neither did I. He was a freshman at Wright State, new to town, and he came to the party with the rest of them.”
“How many people were there?”
He stared at her for a long time and Sara realized she shouldn’t have done this. Not because she didn’t need to know. She did—should’ve asked years ago. But she shouldn’t have done this to him.
Never once, in all these years, had she looked at that night and the months that followed through the eyes of a man who loved his only daughter. When she’d seen her father’s part in it all, it had been as her father, the enforcer, the sheriff. The big, strong man who always did the right thing and made damn sure those around him did, as well.
“Twenty-three for at least part of the evening,” he finally said. “Twenty-one of them male. I questioned everyone who’d been within half a mile of that lake, from the family who’d driven down to do some stargazing and left when they arrived to find a party in full swing, to the gas station attendant down the road who’d seen cars go by. And everyone who’d known about the party, as well, whether they attended or not. I’m certain there wasn’t a person in the vicinity I didn’t talk to.”
She’d known her father had worked exhaustively on the case. And she would have tried to find out more at the time if she’d been in any state to think for herself. In the months immediately following the rape, she’d been adamant about one thing. She was not going to have the abortion her parents were pressuring her to consider.
For everything else, she did as she was told. Ate the foods her doctor recommended, studied the lessons her mother prepared, visited with the two girlfriends her father encouraged her to see.
“In the end, the physical evidence did the work for us,” he said now, bending over his iced tea glass. There were lines around his eyes she’d never noticed before.
As soon as he left, she’d hook up her computer—she’d been planning to, anyway. And then she’d do what she’d never allowed herself to do before and begin to dredge up the past. She’d find the articles Ryan had found—articles that, until he’d told her about the small town news archives, she’d never even considered having at her disposal. She’d read about the night that had stolen away her childhood. It had taken an unfaithful husband, meeting her son for the first time, the shock of a quick divorce, but she was finally ready to rock the boat she’d been floating in precariously ever since that horrible night.
However, there was at least one thing she wouldn’t find in old newspaper articles.
And she had the chief investigator right here.
“Aside from the…incident…with me, was there anything else unusual about the party? Any fights? Or evidence of misconduct?”
“Other than littering?” her father asked. “No. By all accounts, and believe me I heard them all, the goal was to get trashed. It was the week before finals and they’d brought cases of whiskey, beer and wine to drown themselves. They put their car keys in a can, buried it and drank until they puked. Repeatedly, judging by what we saw at the party site the next day.”
“Were they smoking pot?”
John shook his head. “We found cigarette butts, but no drug paraphernalia of any kind.”
“Was anyone tested for drugs?”
“No. There was nothing to indicate drug use.”
“What about the fact that at least a few of us couldn’t remember anything the next day?” Ryan’s doubts confused an already blurry situation.
“You reeked of alcohol and were obviously passed out, drunk. With the number of empty bottles, divided by the number of people at the party, added to the fact that you’d mixed beer, wine and whiskey, we were more concerned with getting you awake and sober.”
And dealing with the rape. Sara filled in the blanks her father’s expression left hanging there.
“And you have no doubt that nothing else happened there that night?”
“Honey, I know the details of that party so well I could have been there myself.”
She wanted to believe him.
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