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“How old are you, Chalene?”
“Seventeen.”
I wasn’t sure what the age of consent was in this state, but did it even matter? She was a child compared to him. He coerced her. He…
I shook my head. “Did you… Did he make you do other things?”
Her lips trembled, and she nodded once.
I sucked in a breath.
Her hand shot out, gripping my wrist with a force I wouldn’t have thought her capable of. “But we hadn’t, you know…”
“Had sex?”
She nodded. “I know he wanted to, but we hadn’t yet.”
Yet. I was going to be sick.
“After that night… After he shoved you down those stairs…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know what to do. Who to tell… if I should. I was so scared you were going to die. He told me that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, he’d tell everyone I’m the one who pushed you and they’d believe him because he was him and I was me.”
She went on like the weight of carrying all this around for so long had truly been torture, and now that she could get it out, she wanted to bleed until there was nothing left to confess. “We have lessons every week. I was there with you that night. I was the last one to see you. They would have believed him. He said he’d tell everyone that he overheard you telling me I was terrible at piano and I’d never get in here. He said he would tell everyone I shoved you because of it.”
I hugged her again, my arms squeezing tight. “I know it wasn’t you. No one will believe that. I’ll tell everyone what he did. You aren’t alone, okay? They’ll believe us.”
“He heard you got out of the hospital and that you canceled your lessons.” She gave me a guilty look, and I knew that meant she’d told him when I canceled.
I nodded encouragingly, trying to smile so she knew I wasn’t mad.
My smile probably made me look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but hey, I tried.
“He never wanted to just talk. He wanted to kill you so you couldn’t tell anyone.”
I nodded again.
“He shoved you in that washing machine.”
“I know,” I told her. “I know.”
“I was going to tell the police, but I didn’t want my dad to find out. You know? The stuff I’d done… He’s still pretty broken up about my mom.”
“I don’t blame you. This is Fields’s fault,” I repeated. I’d say it as many times as I had to.
“Anyway, then we heard you had amnesia. I was so relieved.” She glanced at me, sheepish.
“Because if I couldn’t remember, then I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Her nod was eager, like a puppy, and it broke my heart a little more. “Yes! I thought we’d both be safe.”
“But then you remembered.”
We both whirled. Director Fields stepped out of the shadows from behind the piano. His heeled loafers clicked over the floor.
Click. Clack. Click. Clack.
He looked like he always did. A distinguished scholar with an arrogant air, upright posture, and a suit that told his age more effectively than the gray in his hair. Matt was right. I bet birds really did try and build a nest on his shoulder. Poor birds.
“I warned you, Miss Park,” he said, shrewd eyes drilling into mine. “I told you not to think too much. Not to remember.”
