In the Wake of Wanting (48 page)

“It’s bad,” she says.

“Bodyguard bad,” Coley’s dad says.

“I’ve never needed a bodyguard,” I argue.

“It’s not for you, son.” I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling when he calls me
son
.

“I can walk her to classes. I can take care of her.”

“You can’t be with her all the time. Until this dies down, we’re hiring someone to stay with her,” Dad says.

“Stay with me? Like,
live
with me?” she asks, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. I don’t like it any more than she does. There’s no way in hell I’m letting another guy stay with us here, even if he is someone hired to protect her.

“No, Nic,” her dad says. My ears perk up. I had no idea anyone called her anything but Coley. “Just to accompany you places in public. I trust you’ll be with your roommate or… with this guy other times.”

“It’s Trey,” I tell him, unfazed, in case he was unsure of
my
name. Coley snickers, unable to hide her amusement, and I don’t bother waiting for his response. I look at her instead, carrying on. “Are you okay with this?”

“I haven’t even seen what they’re talking about. It does seem unnecessary…”

“I encourage you both to go to the lobby,” my mother says. “Just hold the elevator and be ready to come right back up.”

“Don’t let her out of your sight,” Martin says.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I don’t even blink when I tell him this, even though his stare is meant to intimidate me. As soon as we’re out in the hallway, I make a comment. “I know your dad’s trying to psych me out, but it’s not going to work. He doesn’t scare me.”

“You’re handling him very well,” she says. “None of my boyfriends have ever stood up to him. Especially the first day they met him. Granted, none of them were his height and could look him directly in the eyes like you can, so you have a bit of an advantage.”

“And I will exploit every advantage I have with him to win him over. Come here,” I say, putting my arm around her and pulling her into my chest as we go down the elevator.

“What?”

“Just be ready to hide your face when the doors open.”

She rolls her eyes as she looks up at me and smiles. “This is ridiculous. It can’t be that–”

I can’t hear her say the word “bad” over the noise of the chaos that erupts in the lobby at the sight of us in the elevator. She quickly covers her face with her hands and buries it in my chest. I angle my body slightly so she’s away from the door, but I look into the crowd. People are holding the doors open and asking questions.

“Did you film this video?”

“When was this made?”

“Is this the girl?”

“Is her name Coley?”

“How do you know her?”

“What happened to Zaina?”

“Was this filmed here, in your apartment?”

“Was there a break-in?”

“Did you know about the video?”

“Were you forced to compose those tweets?”

“How do you feel about the hashtag?”

“Is he a good lover?”

“Are you two serious?”

I’m sure there are hundreds more, but those are the ones I could decipher from the first couple rows of people shouting at us.

“I’ll answer three of those questions!” I yell over everyone, commanding their attention. Coley wraps her arms around me tightly; she’s still hidden from everyone. “And then you have to let us go back upstairs.”

“We want a picture of the girl!”

“That’s not happening today. Someone asked if we knew about the video. As I tweeted today, no, we had no idea about the video. Someone else asked if I was forced to send the tweets. No, I was not. And, uh… who asked about the hashtag?” I look around for the ballsy person to identify herself. A woman raises her phone in the air. Clearly, she’s filming the whole interaction. “Yeah. Clever, but tasteless. Are you happy you wasted your question on that? Now, please get your arms out of the damn doors and let us go back upstairs.”

“Is Coley staying with you?” someone asks as the last person removes their arm from the doors. “Does she live here?”

“If you assholes don’t leave, I’ll be forced to!” Coley yells just as the doors close.

“That’s nice, laureate,” I say, kissing the top of her head.

“I’m not even kidding. That’s scary as hell.”

“I know, Coley.” I squeeze her hard, holding her close the entire way up to the 27
^th
floor. When we get out and reach my door, I lean down to kiss her before going inside. “It’ll die down. We just need to give it some time.”

“I want the bodyguard.”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

“Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath and going inside.

It’s eerily quiet in my apartment, and my mother and father are both staring intently at Dad’s iPhone. “What’s up?”

“Do you know him?” I hear Danny ask on the speakerphone.

“Jackson, come here.”

“Did they find something?”

“Trey,” Danny says, “there was no one other than you and Coley and the guest you had over from the sixteenth, which is the date you gave me.”

“I don’t get it,” I say, walking over to Dad.

“I asked them to review the tapes from the time we collected them for the police–which was at noon on the fifteenth–until the sixteenth. Just to close that gap. Trey, someone was there. A guy went in that afternoon.”

“How’d he get in? Why wasn’t the alarm tripped?”

“He wasn’t alone.”

“What do you mean? Was
I
here?” I look at my mother when no one answers. She shakes her head, her expression distraught. “What?”

“It was when Jenny was here.”

“Jenny? She knows not to let anyone in. It’s in her contract,” I argue.

“Do you know who this is, Jackson?” Dad asks, double-tapping to zoom in on a picture. “Danny sent that over.” The guy in the photo is wearing black pants, a black zippered hoodie with the hood up, and sunglasses.

“That build… It
could
be Asher. I’ve never known him to wear a sweatshirt like that, though.”

“He takes the sunglasses off in the video, but he doesn’t look back toward the camera. He spends about four minutes talking to Jenny before she lets him in, but she definitely allows him to go in. He doesn’t force his way,” Danny tells me.

“I can’t believe she’d do that. Why would she do that? And not tell me?”

“Trey, I think there’s more to it. He’s in there for fifty-three minutes, and he’s in a big hurry when he leaves.”

A light bulb goes off. “The code Jenny uses–it deactivates the alarm, but it doesn’t disable the cameras,” I announce. “You told me not to give her the same code I use,” I tell my father. “When I was reading the system manual, I saw that you could do different things… and I decided to customize those settings for the first week or two just in case anything went missing. I was a little paranoid. I meant to change it back, but I never even referred to the videos and I forgot about it entirely. They’re set to record over the previous week’s when she uses the code again, but she didn’t come in last week. I should still have the video.”

“How do you access it?” Coley’s father asks.

“I just log in from here,” I say, hooking up my laptop to the large external display so everyone can see.

“Where are your cameras?” Coley asks.

“In that frame,” I say, pointing to a large painting of Livvy’s that attracts far more attention than the glossy black metal that frames it. “In that tree. In that lamp… and that one. That egg timer isn’t real. And then there are a few in fixtures in the bedrooms. When you and I put in the code to secure the place when we’re here, it deactivates the cameras.” I look at both of her parents. “Don’t worry.”

“Jackson has a lot of highly valuable things,” Dad says. “I encouraged him to protect them.”

After logging into the site, I find the lone folder attached to her code. Inside are nine different windows showing what was going on in my apartment at the time. After twenty-five minutes of her being here, cleaning, she walks to the door.

“Is there sound?” Coley asks.

“No.” The camera angled at the door allows us to see the visitor more clearly. At this point, he’s already removed his sunglasses, and while he’s wandering into my place, he pushes the hood off his head.

“Asher,” we say at the same time.

He’s laughing as he’s talking to Jenny and walking toward the balcony, presumably explaining why he’s there. Maybe that he left something the last time he was over. Possibly that he was picking up something I told him he could have. How did he talk his way into the place, anyway?

Jenny watches him for about thirty seconds before he waves her off. She goes back to cleaning the kitchen, occasionally peeking around the island to see what he’s doing. “It’s obvious she’s having second thoughts about letting him in. It’s clear she knows he’s up to something. Why in the world wouldn’t she tell me? We have a good working relationship,” I say, looking at my mom. She’s known Jenny for longer than I have, having met her at Livvy’s and spent time with her while Mom was babysitting the girls.

“I have no idea, Trey. It’s not like her at all. She’s always been very upfront with Livvy. If she drinks a soda at her place, she’ll leave fifty cents to replace it. I remember when she had to move the washer once to get a onesie out from behind it, she scraped the paint on the wall in their laundry room and left a half-page apology about it–when they never would have expected her to move the washer in the first place.”

After ten minutes, Asher looks like he’s pleased with his work. He comes inside, shutting the door behind him.

“He’s pulled his sweatshirt over his hands. Did you see that?” Beth asks.

“I noticed,” Martin says. “He’s trying to cover his tracks.”

“What’s he doing now?” Coley asks.

“Looks like he’s asking her for a drink.”

“She’s not my
servant
,” I say, disgusted that he would use her in this capacity. As she reaches up in the cabinet for a glass, he rushes toward her and grabs her from behind. “What the hell?”

My heart races. Jenny starts to struggle against him, and my blood begins to boil.

“Oh, God, Jacks,” my mother says, covering her mouth. “Oh, no.”

“This is the suspected rapist?” Coley’s dad asks.

“Yeah,” she answers quietly, looking away when Asher spins Jenny around and pushes her head down against the kitchen island. She’s facing the camera in the kitchen. We don’t need sound to know she doesn’t want this. The look of fear in her eyes is unmistakable. Tears drip onto the countertop.

“What’s going on?” Danny asks over the speakerphone.

With one hand, Asher holds her down. With the other, he unbuckles and unzips, and then pulls down the yoga pants Jenny is wearing. His thrusts are violent, powerful and unforgiving. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Breathless, I turn off the monitor and stare at the black screen in front of me.

“We’re going to need the police over here again, Danny,” Dad says softly just before an unexpected sob erupts from my chest. I cover my eyes, my face, trying to hide my emotions.

I am responsible for this.

“Trey, honey,” my mom whispers in my ear, her arm around me. “It’s not your fault.”

“She was in my home!” I cry. “That fucker came in my home and did that to her! She was on my watch, Mom. She’s supposed to feel safe here.”

“She let him in,” Coley’s mother says, trying to reason with me.

“Don’t blame her! He manipulated himself in here!” I yell at her. “I’m sure of that. Jenny would never let anyone in. She said she was sick last week. She didn’t come back. My God, Mom! My God, he raped her. He
raped
her! In my apartment!”

“I’m not blaming her, Trey.”

I shake my head, thinking about this guy that I considered my best friend for over a year. “That was the day after my formal,” I say, feeling more and more disgusted with him. “Coley, that was hours after he went by your hotel room.” From my chair, I look up at her. We lock eyes, and I can see the realization hit her. How close she was to being his next victim. If she had let him in, there’s no way she could have stopped him. I stand up and hug her, shedding guilty tears onto her shoulder and into her hair. That would have been my fault, too. I never meant to put so many people in danger. I didn’t know I was friends with a true predator.

“Trey?”

“Yeah?”

“You have all the evidence you need to get him locked up. It’s right there. It’s over.” I pull back and look at her, but my face still falls and my heart still falters. “He won’t do it again.”

“If I had just pressed the issue with Lucy in January, Coley, he never would have gotten to Pryana or Jenny. You never would have been at risk, either. It could so easily have been you.”