Page 70 of A Gathering of Secrets

“I will never ask you to give that up.”

I want to respond. Say something to let him know how much the words mean to me. But my throat is so tight, so clogged with emotion that I can’t speak.

Reaching out, he cups the side of my face and caresses my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Now you cry,” he says dryly. “That’s just like you, isn’t it?”

I set my hand over his, find my voice. “I do have one small concern.”

“Yeah?” He scoots closer to me. “Shoot.”

I smack his shoulder for the poor word choice and then I nestle closer, lay my head on his shoulder. “I’m not sure how people will adjust to calling me Chief Tomasetti.”

“It’s got a nice ring.”

“You think?”

“I think you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

* * *

I dream of Daniel Lapp. I’m fourteen years old and I still believe the world is a safe place where nothing bad could ever happen. I’m innocent and carefree and I have no concept of the violence that is about to shatter my sheltered and protected life.

I’m in my mamm’s sunny farmhouse kitchen, washing dishes and daydreaming about all the things I’m going to do with my life. The window is open and the curtains are blowing in the breeze, the little lead weights sewn into the hem tapping against the sill. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The next thing I know Daniel Lapp is there, touching me, hurting me, and in that instant I understand that the world as I know it is about to change. I know it will never be the same. I’ll never be the same.

I lie on the dusty floor as he rips at my clothes. My dress. My prayer kapp. Shock and shame and numbing disbelief punching me as violently as any fist. His fingers dig into my throat, cutting off the blood flow to my head, and I feel as if I’m leaving my body, floating, watching the scene unfold from somewhere above.

I can see his face, and he looks down at me the way a starving dog might look at a pile of meat. I writhe and scream and claw; I scream for help, but no one comes. No one comes. And the shame that follows makes me want to die.…

I wake gasping, my heart pounding. I sit up, my breaths shallow and fast. Pain streaks down my left forearm at the movement and I curse the son of a bitch who shot me.

I look around, realize I’m safe at home in my bed. Just a nightmare, I think, and the residual fear scampers back into its dark hole. It’s early; the windows are gray with morning light, but Tomasetti is already gone.

The dream lingers, a stain, ugly and unwanted. I’ve spent years trying to erase that day from my memory. This morning, I open the gate and let myself remember. I think about Daniel Gingerich and all those parallels Tomasetti had mentioned, and it occurs to me that no matter how hard we try to forget, some emotions are indelibly branded onto our psyches. They become part of us. We wear the shame and the rage like invisible scars, unseen by others, but seared onto our souls, visible only to us, the damaged ones.

I consider taking the morning off, but there’s too much going on, too much to do. Whoever ambushed me last night is still out there. Daniel Gingerich is still dead. And his killer is still on the loose.

Keeping those things in mind, I roll out of bed and head for the shower.

CHAPTER 17

Sexual assault is a hideous crime, one that wrecks lives and affects all the relationships in a victim’s life. It shatters trust and destroys promising futures. It steals hope and changes the way a person views the world, the way they view others. The way they view themselves. Worst-case scenario, such as in the case of Emma Miller, it can kill.

It’s the crime no one wants to talk about. The crime that too often goes unreported because of stigma, ignorance, self-blame or any combination of the above. When that happens, the perpetrators go free. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Despite my best efforts, it’s ten A.M. by the time I hobble into the station. Lois is standing at the front desk, waving a handful of pink slips at me, when I walk in the door. As expected, I find Mona sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the desk, filing paperwork that could probably wait until her shift at midnight. They’re both looking at me a little too closely and with a little too much concern.

“I’m fine,” I say as I cross to the desk.

“Heard things got dicey out on Hogpath Road last night,” Lois says as she hands me my messages. “Any word on the shooter?”

“Not yet,” I tell her. “We’ll get him.”

Raising her brows, Mona rattles the bottle of ibuprofen she keeps on hand. I nod and she taps three tablets into my hand. “Thanks.”

“Oh. Before I forget.” Mona plucks a plain white envelope from my message slot and holds it out to me. “Someone left this for you.”

I take the envelope, curious because the only thing written on it is my name. “Any idea who it’s from?”