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“What do you remember?”
“Lying on the bed in pain.”
Mark nodded. “The cops arrived and arrested Rafael and your dad. Seth tried to keep them away from you for privacy since I couldn’t cover you up, but they were insistent. You kinda woke up but were groggy and the paramedics came up and checked you over. Your stomach was a mess and...” He sighed. “They wanted to use the rape kit on you too. You screamed when they tried to move you and gave you... something, and it knocked you out again.” He squeezed her hand. “They brought you here and cleaned up your stomach. You needed stitches.”
Emily nodded. “Geoffrey’s dead,” she said in a low voice.
“I saw that.”
“They shot him while he was...” She pressed her lips together, remembering Geoffrey falling to the floor next to her, his face a bloody mess. She shuddered and her jaw trembled.
David returned with a plastic pitcher and handed her a cup of water. “Thank you.”
“Feeling better?” he asked.
She nodded and looked at both men. “Thank you for... helping me.” She stared at the cup for a long moment before taking a sip.
“The police want to speak with you when you’re ready,” David sat the pitcher on the table next to her.
Emily nodded. “I’ll talk to them now.”
David raised his eyebrows at Mark and nodded toward the hallway. “Let’s wait outside.”
Mark kissed her on the cheek as he stood and followed David out of the room. A few minutes later, two detectives walked into the room and introduced themselves.
“We have a few questions about what happened yesterday,” the female detective, Drake, said, flipping open a small notebook. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Emily nodded and told them about the usher coming to get her and being taken to the cabin and what happened there.
“Geoffrey Lozano was your boss in Washington, DC?”
Emily nodded.
“What was he doing in LA?”
“I don’t know, though he knew Rafael and my father.” She swallowed. “They knew where I was the whole time,” she whispered. “They knew what he did to me.” Tears burned her eyes.
“You ran away when you were sixteen, yes?” the male detective asked. Emily thought his name was Sievers.
“I did.”
“Why?”
She jerked her head up and stared at him. Her jaw clenched. “Because I was tired of being abused.”
Detective Drake’s eyebrows raised. “Who abused you?”
Emily blinked several times and bit her lip. This was her chance to tell her story, but would they believe her? Would her father and Rafael stay imprisoned? If they didn’t, would they do worse to her?
“Emma, Rafael Alvarez and your father are in jail and will stay there. If nothing else, for the murder of Geoffrey Lozano. Jarrod Preston is in jail—well, he’s in the hospital right now, but under arrest. No one will hurt you.”
Emily licked her lips and took a drink of water. She stared at the floating ice. “What will happen to them?”
“They’ll stand trial and go to jail for a long time. There are witnesses to what they were doing to you last night. We have the DNA evidence. We found drugs in your system. They won’t get off lightly.”
She looked between the detectives, wanting to tell them the truth, but afraid to try. She’d tried to tell her father and things had only gotten worse. She’d told Geoffrey, and he’d used it to his advantage.
But she told Mark. And David. And they’d helped her.
