Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [3]
“Have you told your folks?”
Her head snapped up and he saw a wild, frightened look in her eyes. “No! No way! And you can’t say anything! They don’t even know I was out with him! They think I was at your house!”
“Swell.” He remained baffled. “What … how…?”
“He asked me to go out with him. Said it was so cool, you know, about the body we found, and about Cody, and he wanted to hear all about it.”
Jack made a face. “And your brain turned into a big gummy bear.”
She looked offended. “Did not.”
“I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Well, okay, when the hottest guy in school is interested in you … you wouldn’t understand.”
“Got that right.”
“Anyway, I told him my folks would never let me go out with a senior, especially a guy with a car.”
Toliver’s car … a cool Mustang GLX convertible. Jack wouldn’t mind a ride in that himself.
“So he told you not to tell them.”
She cocked her head. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“So anyway, last night I walked over to Old Town and he picked me up and drove us into the Pines.”
“Weren’t you a little worried about that?”
She frowned. “Looking back, yeah, I should have been, but we were talking about the body and how it had been mutilated and about Cody and about how mysterious the Pines are and he said he’d found a cool place he didn’t think anyone else knew about and would I like to see it and of course I said yes.”
“Of course.”
Telling Weezy about a cool new place in the Pines was like dangling a wriggling goldfish before a cat.
“So we stopped here and instead of showing me anything, suddenly he’s grabbing me.” She blinked. “I told him to stop but he wouldn’t. His hands were all over me and I kept pushing him away but he kept on. He even tried to unbutton my blouse. Finally I hit him and he lost it. He started screaming and cursing about how ‘you goth chicks are always easy’ and I got so scared I jumped out of the car. But even that didn’t stop him. He came after me and grabbed me and ripped my blouse but I got away and ran.”
“You outran Carson Toliver?” The guy was an ace athlete.
“I got into the trees and hid. He couldn’t find me, so he just stood there and screamed. Maybe because he’s who he is and lots of girls are easy with him he expected me to be too, but he was…” She raised trembling hands to her face. “Jack, I was so scared. It was like he’d gone insane. Finally he left.”
“He left you to walk home?” The urge to kill rose again. “You’ve got to report him.”
“I can’t! I just want it to go away.”
“He attacked you. That’s assault or battery or both. That’s a crime. You should tell the cops.”
“Ohmigod, no! If I report it I’ll be in trouble with my folks and he can just say I’m crazy and that we were never together and I can’t prove that we were and everyone will side with him because he’s popular and I’m a nobody, and besides, who’ll believe he’d ask me out anyway, and I’m already known as a weirdo, so just think of what they’ll be saying about me if I say he attacked me.”
When she stopped for air, Jack jumped in.
“So … you want me to do something?”
She looked at him as if he’d just spoken Swahili. “Do something? No. And anyway, what can you do?”
He had a flash vision of himself as some kind of Galahad defending Weezy’s honor by challenging Toliver to a fight … and being stomped into the dirt.
Jack wasn’t following. “Then why are you telling me all this if you don’t want my help?”
Why else would you tell someone a problem?
“I had to tell someone. I couldn’t tell my folks, and not Eddie of all people. And the girls at school—forget them. You’re the only one I can trust. And just being able to tell someone helps, don’t you see?”
Jack didn’t, but that didn’t matter. You’re the only one I can trust rang through his head, leaving a warm echo.
“So you’re just going to give him a pass?”
“I’m just going to keep my distance and pretend this never happened.”
“Tell the cops, Weez.”
“No way! I’ll just make things worse for myself. It’s over and done. I’m okay. And I’ve learned something.”
“About what?”
“About getting into a car with a guy I don’t know all that well.