Regrets Only (29 page)

Dylan
felt sick. It must have shown on his face because Bonita said softly, “Mr.
Burke, why don’t you step out for a minute? Dylan?” He shook his head. He
needed to hear this. It was his fault it happened and he needed to hear it.

“Penny
got me up from the chair and tried to move me toward the bedroom, but my ankles
and wrists were still tied so I fell. Penny tried to carry me but couldn’t.
Gunnar said never mind, the kitchen table would work just fine. I tried to
wriggle away, tried to scream through the duct tape. He said if I moved again,
he’d shoot me. Penny put me face down on the table. He gave her the knife and
told her to cut off my skirt and underwear. He was still holding the gun at
her, and I think he might have been taking video with his phone.” The
policewomen exchanged looks.

“I
think she was hesitating, because she didn’t touch me, and I’m not sure what
she would have done next.” She looked intently at both female officers and
repeated, “I’m not sure what they would have done.”

Dylan
wondered whether Suzanne was feeling some sympathy for the girl. He did not
share these sentiments one bit.

“That’s
when you got here,” Suzanne told Bonita, her wavering voice strong again.
“Thank God.”

“Ms.
Hamilton, you’ve survived a terrible ordeal,” Bonita said. She put her hand on
Suzanne’s shoulders. “You’re going to need lots of support over the next few
days.” She told Suzanne and Dylan what would happen next—a trip to the hospital
just as a precaution, a visit from a social worker who would talk to Suzanne
about trauma and help her find counseling if she needed it, and so on.

“Thank
you,” Suzanne said. Then she smiled wanly and put her hand on top of Bonita’s.
“Lately I’d been feeling that my life had become a series of terrible ordeals.
Now I know it was all basically just one. And it’s finally over.”

Even
now, Dylan thought, with tears staining her cheeks and her face crumpled like a
little girl’s, she was beautiful. He wanted to wrap her in his arms again, but
he knew that she needed her space.

Moments
later, Marci’s unmistakable voice echoed in the hallway. “Let me through,
please, she’s my friend. Yes, they called me. What is your badge number? That’s
right
you’ll let me through.”

Behind
her they heard Jake, murmuring apologies, as Marci flustered into the room. She
was blotchy and pale today, nothing like the rosy glow Dylan had seen two
nights ago. She rushed to Suzanne and embraced her. “Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

Bonita
nodded to the other officer that she could get up and clear the space. Dylan
stood, too, to give Marci his seat. He and Jake shook hands awkwardly, while
Marci tearfully inspected Suzanne for damage the same way he had.

“And
you,” Marci said, whirling toward him and hugging him hard. He could feel the
ball-like hardness of her belly against him, an odd sensation. “You saved her.
Thank you so much.”

“No,”
he said, his eyes filling with tears for the first time. He fought down a
painful sob trying to escape his tightened throat. “I should’ve been here
sooner. I should’ve answered my phone.”

“What
are you talking about?” Marci asked. “That’s stupid.” She looked behind him
then, at someone else entering the room.

When
he turned around, he thought for a second he was imagining things. But there
she was, standing in the doorway looking lost, wearing the same running shorts
and t-shirt she’d had on when she showed up at his door a few hours before. Misty
was looking curiously around Suzanne’s condo, seemingly assessing both what was
happening and the home of her perceived rival. She had followed him. He never
should have opened that door.

“Hello,”
Marci said shortly. “Are you a neighbor?”

Suzanne
looked up then, and Dylan wished with every fiber of his being that he could
make someone invisible. Preferably Misty, but really anyone would do. “No, I’m
here with Dylan,” she answered possessively. She bounced over to him and put
her arms around his waist. “Is everything okay, baby?”

Her
presence here was a big problem in itself, but the feigned concern made him
angrier. “Go wait outside,” he hissed. Her disappointed gaze moved from Dylan
to Marci, who was glaring at her, and Jake, who looked confused. She slunk back
out of the apartment but the damage was done. Suzanne’s head was lowered. He
took the seat next to her again.

“Suzanne,
I—”

Her
words were soft, emotionless. “You were with her when I called.”

He
wished that she sounded angry. Anger, he could handle. Jealousy, he knew what
to do with. Even sadness, he might have been able to respond to. But Suzanne’s
tone was so quiet, so neutral, that he felt as though she had shrunk inside
herself like a snail.

There
was no reason to add dishonesty now. “Yes, I was.” He tried to ignore Jake and
Marci’s stares, keeping his eyes trained on Suzanne. The hot lights of the
stage were nothing compared with this. “I’m so sorry.”

She
nodded almost imperceptibly, taking the information in. When she looked up, he
saw to his utter shame that she was crying fresh tears. He sank to his knees in
front of her. “Suzanne,” he started. He wanted to apologize, to explain, to try
to make things right. He wanted to take it all back. Anything that would make
him not the worst guy in the world right now.

“No,”
she said, and took both of his hands. Through the tears, she sucked in a deep
breath and looked up at the ceiling. “You don’t need to explain anything. I owe
you my life.”

This
complacency was the worst thing imaginable. “Suzanne, please. Can’t you just
slap me or call me an asshole or something? Come on, kick me in the nuts.”

She
gave him a tired smile. “Maybe some other time,” she said.

“Sorry
to interrupt,” Officer Daniels said gently from the doorway. “Suzanne, your
parents are here. The ambulance is on its way, and they can ride with you if
you want.”

“Oh,
God, Bonita, do I have to go in an ambulance? I’m fine, physically at least.”

“Well,
that’s protocol, but let me see if I can take you in the squad car.”

Bonita
stepped back into the hallway and radioed back and forth with someone while
Suzanne’s parents, looking overwhelmed, went to their daughter. Her mother was
blonde and pretty, an older version of Suzanne, and her dad was the well-fed
pasty type, seemingly too young for the cane he carried.

Suzanne
hugged her mother tightly while her father hung back awkwardly. He seemed
unsure whether to talk to Jake and Marci, or to wait to hug his daughter. Dylan
felt like a stranger at a family dinner. After a few moments, his shame and
discomfort became unbearable. When Bonita returned to say that the ambulance
had already arrived and it might be best if Suzanne simply rode in it, he took
the opportunity to duck out quietly.

On
the Thursday before Memorial Day, nearly three weeks after the attack, Suzanne
set out for the cabin in Tennessee with even more discomfort than she’d felt when
she left it last time. Traffic was a mess getting out of the city, as everyone
else seemed to have the same idea she did of starting the holiday weekend
early. The afternoon heat was stifling and the I-75/I-85 Downtown Connector was
a parking lot.

She
fidgeted in her seat while she waited for the cars to move and practiced her
deep breathing exercises, trying not to panic. She’d been seeing a therapist
twice a week since the attack, which seemed to be helping her regulate her
feelings, but she was still sensitive to feeling hemmed in. Mercifully, the
traffic began to move after about twenty minutes and soon she was barreling up
the highway toward the Smokies.

Kate
had offered, of course, for Suzanne to back out of the job, with full pay,
after what happened. But Suzanne knew there was no way she could hand off the
wedding now, especially knowing that anyone who could be found on short notice
for a holiday weekend would be likely to take advantage of Kate. More than
that, Suzanne was tired of hiding. Now that she knew who Penny and Gunnar were,
it was easier to direct her anger at them, and she refused to let them steal
one more minute of her life.

Until
the incident at the High, she had never failed to finish an event, and she did
not intend to let that become a pattern. Neither Penny and Gunnar, nor her
feelings about Dylan, were going to prevent her keeping her promise to Kate.

She
had barely spoken to Dylan since the attack. He’d called a couple of times to
check in on her the first week, while she was staying with her parents until
she could force herself to go back to the condo, but she let it roll to
voicemail. The third time, she had answered, and their conversation had been
short and stilted. He asked how she was, she assured him she was fine, and then
they sat in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before Suzanne insisted
that she needed to go. So many emotions tumbled inside her: anger, gratitude,
attraction, betrayal and…something deeper that she did not at all want to acknowledge.
She couldn’t process all of it. He seemed to get the message, or maybe he felt
something similar, because he hadn’t called back.

William,
however, had called again, that same week. When she heard his voice, she
realized she’d completely forgotten the message he left right before the attack.
She decided to simply explain what had happened. Their first “date” was
actually a long walk around her parents’ neighborhood during which she told the
whole story and cried, and William held her hand as though no time had passed
since they were together.

Suzanne
had apologized for his humiliation ten years before, and he waved it away.
“It’s in the past,” he said with a smile. “Even my parents are getting over it.
Besides, it’s nothing compared to what you just went through.” They’d been out
a few times since then and he had graciously agreed to come up the next day to be
her date to the wedding weekend. Crossing the border into Tennessee Thursday
evening, she still wasn’t sure this had been the wisest choice. But Marci and
Jake had plans for the weekend and Suzanne didn’t think she could handle it
alone.

#

Friday
morning, Suzanne wandered into Kate’s bedroom at the cabin to bring her a tray
of snacks, and found the bride in tears. Thinking it was hormones or
pre-wedding jitters, Suzanne sat on the bed next to her and waited for her to
talk. When it seemed all Kate could do was cry, Suzanne prompted gently,
“Anything I can do?”

“You
can send everyone home!” Kate said wildly. Unlike some of Dylan’s other sisters,
Kate was not prone to baseless dramatics, so Suzanne began to worry.

“Honey,
what’s wrong?”

“Everything.
Jeff is playing
golf
.”                                                                      

“And
we don’t want him to play golf?”

“I
told him if he went to play golf he shouldn’t bother coming back because the
wedding was off!” Kate hesitated, and then went on, embarrassed. “We had a huge
fight. I had asked him to stay nearby today, in case I needed him. Then he
informed
me this morning he was going to play golf, by text message. The coward.”

“Ah,”
Suzanne said. She had actually overheard Dylan and his two brothers-in-law convincing
Jeff the night before that he should go play golf with them that day. They
reasoned that keeping himself out of the way would really be a gift to his
bride, and it was his last chance to play golf without needing permission from
his wife. Jeff had resisted, but they had teased him mercilessly about his
manhood and being “whipped” until he gave in. Suzanne suspected that the
primary reason they actually had in mind was that taking the groom to the golf
course before the wedding made it easier to get permission from
their
wives. But she stayed out of it.

She
decided to take a practical approach with Kate. “Do you need him now? Is there
something I can do?”

“No,”
Kate admitted tearfully. “But I just can’t believe he would go play golf after
I asked him not to. He didn’t even
ask
—not that he needs my permission,
of course; I know that’d make me sound like a controlling bitch.”

“No,
it doesn’t,” Suzanne said.

“It’s
just so unlike Jeff to disregard my feelings like that, or at least I thought
it was unlike him. But lately it seems like we’ve been fighting a lot.”

“Fighting?”

“Well,
not knock-down drag-outs or anything,” Kate said. “Oh, you don’t want to hear
all this. Not after everything…everything you went through.”

“Of
course I do,” Suzanne said, pressing Kate’s hand gently. “This matters, too.”

“Well,
we’ve been talking a lot about the wedding and the, the baby.” She reddened on
the word baby. “I have wanted to tell our families about it. I just think it
would be easier if everyone knew. I’m three months along now and I have so many
questions. I want to be able to talk to my mom and my sisters who have kids,
and to tell Dylan.”

“They
don’t know?” Suzanne asked, incredulous. She had spotted it almost immediately
a month ago; she found it hard to believe that Kate had successfully hidden
this information from the people who knew her best.