So now I am going back to the beginning again. It’s not HOW IT ENDS. It’s HOW IT BEGAN. I’m redrafting it and putting it into first person. Me. Immediate.Personal. Mine. Real. Seen. Not a dream. Not hiding. Not “she.” But “I.”
HOW IT STARTS
Slowly, I slide in and out of sleep and consciousness. A sharp shard of cognition slices through me—not sleep. Not in my bed. Not safe. Panic stirs. Where am I? I try to swallow. But my mouth is dry. There’s an unfamiliar taste at the back of my throat. A sharper jolt of awareness cracks through my mind. Blood—it’s the taste of blood. My breathing quickens. I try to move my head, but can’t. There’s a rough, wet fabric covering my face. I’m trapped, arms strapped to my sides. Something covers my head. I become aware of pain. Overwhelming pain. In my shoulders. Ribs. Belly. Between my thighs. The pain pounds inside my skull. Adrenaline surges into my veins, and my eyes flare open. But I can’t see. Panic licks through my brain. I open my mouth to scream, but it comes out muffled. What is this? Where am I?
Focus, focus. Panic kills. You have to think. You must try to remember.
But my brain is foggy. I strain for a thread of clarity, try to focus on sensations. Cold—my feet are very cold. I wiggle my toes. I feel air. Bare feet? No, just the one foot. I’ve got a shoe on the other one. I’m injured. Badly wounded, I think. A thick memory stirs into my sluggish brain—fighting people off, being held down. I’ve been violently attacked—I have a sense of that, of being hurt, overwhelmed, rendered powerless. Now I’m wrapped in something, and I’m in motion. Bumping. Ican feel vibrations. Is that the noise of an engine? A car? Yes, I’m in a vehicle of some sort. I become aware of voices. In the front seat. I’m lying on the back seat. The voices...they sound urgent—arguing. Underlying the voices is soft music. A car radio. I’m definitely in a car...They’re taking me somewhere.
I hear words. “Dump...her fault...asked for it. Can’t blame—”
I slide toward the blackness again. I listen to the voices, and it strikes me. Daisy. It’s Daisy Wentworth and her friend, whose name I don’t know. The friend is arguing with Daisy. I think it’s Daisy who is driving.
“You can’t just dump her, Daisy. It’s below freezing. It’s going to snow tonight. She could die.”
“It’s her fault. She asked for it.”
“She was drugged. You saw him—”
“Shut it. Just shut it, okay? We’ll leave her at the door of her house. Her parents will find her. She won’t remember anything, and if she does, it’s all lies. Got it?”
Silence. Just soft music from the car radio. Tires squeaking on snow and ice as the car turns. I know where we are now. Near my house.
“You do understand Jon and all those guys, they will be kicked off the team. The coaches will get in trouble for not chaperoning the lodge party. They could go to prison. No more ski racing. No more chance at gold. This bitch will destroy them. Do you want that?”
“What they did—”
“Guys do things when in packs. Things they would never do on their own. They were high. Full of themselves. Drunk. It’s not who they are. This will never happen again. He asked for my help to get her out of the lodge.”
“He’s using you, Daisy.”
“He loves me. I won’t let her do this to me—ruin my chances...He’s going to marry me. Both our families know it. We have our future cut out, and I won’t let this stupid fat foreigner kid destroy what the two of us can become. We worked for it.”
I am fading out of consciousness. I feel them dragging me out of the car and down the few steps to our basement suite. I’m wrapped in an old blanket. It smells like dogs.
“She’s too heavy,” says a female voice.
“Just drag her.”
I feel a thump, thump, thump. Pain explodes in my body. I open my mouth to scream but still no sound comes.
I feel a jolt as I thud against our front door.
“Come,” whispers Daisy. “Quick.”
“We can’t just leave her here. She could die.”
“Look, a light’s gone on inside. They’ve heard us. Come. Run.”
I must have passed out fully then. The next I knew it was almost twelve hours later, and I was in my bed with my mother sitting on the side, holding my hand.
So you see, Dear Diary, Daisy has a due to pay, too.
Mal sits back. She runs her hands over her hair. “The prosecutor needs to see this,” she says to Benoit, sitting at his desk across the room. “This throws a whole new light on Daisy Rittenberg and her mother’s involvement in trying to shut that old investigation down. If this is true, Daisy played an active role in that assault, and someone who was there—Saelim, one of the others—must know who was with Daisy in that car. We need to find that other female.”
“And if she talks, Daisy is going down. But will she talk? Will the others give her up?”
“We’ll find her, and she’ll talk if she thinks it will save her own skin.” Mal is about to say something more to Benoit when Lula swings open the bullpen door, and Arnav enters behind her, carrying a large cake and burning candles. Arnav is followed by Gavin with sparkling wine and flutes, and by Jack with balloons.
