Absolute Fear. Lisa Jackson
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rested her hips against the window ledge, her dark gaze boring into Eve’s. “The fact is that you’ve got credibility issues, Ms. Renner. You were taken to the hospital, unconscious, and, along with other medical treatment, you were examined for rape.”
Eve had nodded. Braced herself. Felt as if the air in the room had suddenly gone stale. She knew what was coming.
Yolinda’s voice softened a bit. “You weren’t raped, Eve. We know that. There was no bruising or tearing consistent with rape. But you had semen in your vagina.”
Eve met the ADA’s hard gaze. She’d been through this before, but it was still difficult to hear. “I’d been with Cole,” she said softly.
Yolinda nodded. “Some of the semen belonged to Cole Dennis. But there was other semen as well. Other viable sperm. Definitely not belonging to Mr. Dennis.”
The first time she heard that horrifying information, the blood rushed to her head and made her feel like she would pass out, throw up, or both. With an effort, she just stared back at the ADA.
“And it was not from Royal Kajak.”
Eve swallowed but still said nothing. What was there to say? What kind of comment could she make? And how could she not remember something so vital? This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. True, she had holes in her memory—a dark, blank nothingness surrounding the night of Roy’s murder—but she knew herself well enough to understand that she would never sleep with two men within hours of each other. Never.
You weren’t raped. We know that.
Then how???
“I only remember being in bed with Cole,” she finally managed to get out, sounding as confused and shattered as she felt.
Yolinda shrugged and exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “You see my problem, don’t you? If I get you up on the stand, and you ‘don’t remember this’ and you ‘don’t remember that’ and you don’t even remember who you slept with, how’s that gonna look to the jury? What do you think Cole’s attorney, Sam Deeds, is gonna do with that testimony on cross-examination?” Eve shook her head, and Yolinda continued tersely, “I’ll tell you what he’ll do. He’ll go at you, over and over again, get you tongue-tied and angry, so that you look like you’re either stupid or a bald-faced liar. Then, when it’s already awful, he’ll just keep pushing you, so that you get defensive and look like a two-timing bitch.”
“It was only Cole!”
“That’s not what the evidence says.”
They were at an impasse. Eve’s paltry excuse of “I can’t remember,” though the truth, was not going to sit well with the jury.
Yolinda nodded as if they’d come to some kind of agreement. “Even if we can convince the jury that you’re telling the truth about your amnesia, the idea that you slept with two men within twenty-four hours will be planted. Add to that, you’re trying to pin a murder on a jealous boyfriend. That’s how Deeds’ll play it. And he’ll have clean-cut, smart, innocent-looking Cole Dennis at the table, looking for all the world like the wounded party—the choirboy whose girlfriend was two-timing him with another man she can’t, or won’t, name.” Yolinda pushed herself upright and walked to the desk, found a file in her top basket, and slid it over the polished wood so that it landed, open, in front of Eve. “This will be one of Deeds’s exhibits. It’s the DNA report. Two different semen samples taken from you. It won’t help that the sperm wasn’t Kajak’s. If anything, that will only make it worse, because you claim you can’t remember whose it is.”
“Stop.” Eve knew she was being goaded, but she couldn’t take it a second longer. “I get it. I see your point. But I haven’t slept with anyone but Cole in two years.”
“Then how?”
“I don’t know!” Eve shook her head. “It…had to have happened…after…after I got into the cabin.”
“But you saw Mr. Dennis at the cabin. Was there someone in between the time you left Mr. Dennis at his home and went to meet Mr. Kajak at the cabin? Before Mr. Dennis arrived?”
“No.”
“Was there someone else there?”
“No.”
“Who was he, Ms. Renner?”
“No one!”
“Someone after you claim Mr. Dennis shot at you at the cabin?”
“No. I didn’t have sex with anyone!”
“How do you know, Ms. Renner? You don’t remember.”
“Then it…it was afterwards….”
“At the crime scene? Or the hospital? When the police were crawling all over the place, or in the ambulance ride when you were still unconscious? Could you pick out the EMT with whom you had sex from a lineup?” Yolinda hammered at her. “You know, those people who saved your life? Which one of them did you have consensual sex with?”
Eve’s eyes stung. “I’m telling the truth.”
Yolinda nodded. “We can’t use your testimony, Eve. You see that, don’t you? Not unless I want to completely destroy my case.” With a sigh, she said, “We’re done here,” and that was the end of it.
And Eve had no more answers now than she had then.
The old man was drunk.
So it wouldn’t take long.
Hidden in the shadows of the aging trellis in the side yard, the Reviver checked his digital watch. Twenty minutes had passed since he’d slipped into the house, taken care of business, and then noiselessly walked outside again. His victim, who had been in the den and listening to some radio program, was none the wiser that he’d ever had a visitor.
Yet.
That was soon to change.
Everything had gone perfectly, just like clockwork. Just as the Voice of God had instructed.
He watched through the window. The kitchen was now lit, the open bottle of Jack Daniels in the sink, a tray of ice cubes left on the counter, the few remaining in the tray beginning to melt.
Unlike the good doctor to be so messy.
Tsk, tsk, he thought as he retrieved the cell phone from his pocket.
He made the first call. Listened as the man on the other end answered.
“Hello.”
The Reviver didn’t respond. Not yet. He had to do just as God had told him last night in his dreams.
“Hello?” A pause. “Damn it, who is it? Can you hear me? If you can, I can’t hear you.” Another pause. “Terry?” he said, a trace of frustration in his voice.
“I have evidence,” the Reviver whispered, his voice so low and raspy no one would ever recognize it.
“What did you say?”
There was no need to repeat himself. The message had been heard and understood.
He hung up.
Glancing up at the house, he then swiftly checked the menu on the phone for a list of contacts, scrolled down, and pressed the dial button again.
Within seconds, the phone was connected.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
“Hello?” The old man’s voice was brusque, loud over the background noise of the talk radio show he was tuned to. “Wait a minute. Who is this? How did you get my…shit!” A beat. “You’re calling from my cell number…but…how?”
The Reviver smiled as the man appeared in the kitchen, walking with an uneven gait.
“You