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Rachel
Kelly Moore’s mother conducted herself with enormous grace on the stand as she answered Mitch Alkins’s questions about what happened when her daughter finally turned up after taking the bus home from the beach that day.
She told the court that when Kelly arrived home, there was a police car in the driveway and detectives in the living room, setting up a task force to search for Kelly. Nobody noticed when Kelly came through the back sliding door and took the stairs to her bedroom. It was only when her mother went upstairs to use the restroom and saw Kelly’s bedroom door was shut that she knew Kelly was home.
Christine tried to open the door, but it was locked. Kelly wouldn’t let her in. She sat on her bedroom carpet with her back to the door, barricading herself inside for hours. In a quivering voice, Kelly’s mother described to the court how when it started getting dark, Kelly quietly unlocked her bedroom door and allowed her mother to come in. They sat on Kelly’s bed and she told her mother what had happened with Scott Blair down at the beach.Christine Moore convinced Kelly to go with her to the hospital. She blinked back tears as she drove, determined to be strong for her daughter. They returned home early the following morning. Kelly had to leave the hospital wearing a borrowed sweatsuit taken from a hospital charity bin, as her clothes were kept as evidence. Her rape kit examination had taken five hours.
The jury was deeply affected by Christine Moore’s testimony. Dale Quinn took jabs in cross-examination, but they were delicate jabs, like a reluctant boxer afraid of drawing blood.
Quinn kept pressing the same point with his questions. He established that Kelly’s mom wasn’t at the beach that night and that she, like everyone else, relied on her daughter’s word about what had happened. He also managed to get her to admit that Kelly had not always been truthful in the past, and that Kelly had lied in the note that she’d left in the kitchen saying that Lexi’s parents would be home the night of the party.
Rachel bolted out of court quickly after the morning session to move her car. Court had gone later than expected and she’d exceeded the parking limit by twenty minutes. She had a moment of panic when she saw a white parking ticket flapping on her windshield as she turned the corner into the street where her car was parked.
As Rachel came closer, though, she realized it wasn’t a ticket. It was another note from Hannah. Rachel read it leaning against her car door. When she was done, instead of feeding the meter and returning to court, she climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away.
As she drove, she called Pete for their daily catch-up. He sounded strained when he answered the phone. He’d returnedhome from the hospital a day earlier and was still adjusting to the lower doses of pain meds.
“What’s wrong, Pete?” Rachel asked. “You sound upset. Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m going over social media comments. It’s not exactly pretty,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never seen such a divisive reaction. Some listeners have gone ballistic at you. They think you’re blaming the victim and that you’re taking it too easy on Scott Blair. Others are accusing you of being biased in favor of Kelly. They’re accusing you of hanging Scott out to dry.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Rachel. “I have to show both sides of the story. Isn’t that the point? To be objective?”
“Objectivity is so last century. Didn’t you get the memo?” said Pete. “These days everybody has an opinion. Whether they know what they’re talking about, or not. Usually it’s the latter. Right now their invective is directed at you, Rach.”
“That sounds a bit extreme.”
“You didn’t spend two hours trawling through messages today,” Pete said. “It was horrible stuff. None of the social niceties apply online. People will say things they would never in a million years say to someone’s face.”
“Read me some of the comments. I’m a big girl. I can take it,” said Rachel as she turned onto the coastal road.
“Not a chance,” said Pete. “Some of the messages have so many expletives that I’d have to wash out my mouth if I read them. You’re better off not knowing, Rach. Trust me, you really are.”
“So what do I do about it?” Rachel asked.
“Nothing,” said Pete. “You’re doing great. You’re stirring the pot. Like you wanted. You’re making people think and talk aboutrape. Keep doing what you’re doing. This kind of response is exactly what we were looking for,” he said. “Plus, controversy is great for publicity.”
Rachel winced. She hated the idea that anyone might think that she was deliberately courting controversy by choosing a rape trial for her new season. She finished the call with Pete just as she pulled up at the single-lane Old Mill Road bridge, where she had to wait for a truck to cross before she could drive over. After a hair-bend turn, she drove uphill until, through the gaps in the trees on the roadside, she saw stone-colored town houses blending into the landscape of a ridge. Rachel was sure the Stills house had been on that ridge. It closely fitted Hannah’s descriptions in her letters.
Rachel waved at the guard who was sitting in a security booth with a “Sea Breeze Retirement Villas” sign on the side. The familiarity of her gesture gave the impression that she was a regular and the guard automatically opened the boom gate. Rachel pulled her car into a visitors’ parking lot and walked toward a pool area where she could hear splashing and music. As Rachel came in through the pool gate, she saw a handful of women doing low-impact water aerobics while an instructor stood on the edge demonstrating each exercise. Other swimmers swam breaststroke up and down the side lanes.
Farther along, two men slouched over a chess set. “Can’t believe I didn’t see that coming,” said one of the men, slapping his thigh when the other took his bishop.
“Excuse me.” Rachel approached them. “I’m wondering if you can tell me what was here before this complex.”
“You should ask Estelle.” The man gestured toward a woman in her seventies with dyed-blond hair who was lying on a sun lounger. “She knows everything there is to know about the history of this town.”
“You’re only saying that because she’s your wife, Hal,” said his friend.
Estelle put down the novel she was reading at the sound of her name. “Take a seat, hon,” she told Rachel, patting a chair next to her with red fingernails that matched her one-piece swimsuit. “What is it you want to know?”
“I’m trying to find out about the Stills family. I think they lived around here once.”
“Actually, they lived right here,” Estelle said. “These condominiums are built where Edward Stills’s house used to be. His land ran all the way up to the river. Would have been worth a fortune today. In those days, nobody wanted to live here. When his granddaughter Hope died, the land was sold cheap to a developer to pay for her funeral and debts.”
