CHAPTER TWENTY
Sydney was home, as usual, by midnight.
She no longer felt suspicious of Nicholas once they had talked, and definitely once they had settled in to watch a movie after Eddie left them alone.
As she walked into her bedroom, she was still free of the thoughts that had strangled her before. But she found as she headed to the bathroom for a shower, that her mind had nothing else to chew on, so it went in the direction she had avoided for the past few hours. She didn’t want to think about all the clues, but they swarmed past her, teasing her. She knew a memory was coming, and she tried to run away but couldn’t since she didn’t know which way to go.
Once she started showering, she realized the battle was lost—the thoughts came at her from all sides, becoming louder and clearer until she could no longer ignore them or push them away. Then they stopped tickling her brain, slowing down to peel back the layers of her memory and show her their spoils. She remembered...
His strange behavior and facial expressions when he spoke to her in the beginning, running away from her. Guilt?
Then there was the cabin. It felt familiar—she even recognized a vase. He also started to feel weird there eventually.
And of course, the myriad coincidences. He was clearly a bad boy in his day. Besides, he knew Brandon. And he had been part of a threesome.
Wynken, Blynken and Nod...
Winston, Brandon, Nicholas? All she had to do was ask him and the mystery would be solved. But would he admit it? Did he even remember?
If he was who she thought he was, then the blow to the head might have affected his memory.
She put her hands to her temples and shook her head.
She couldn’t ask him directly—she didn’t want to know for sure. But she couldn’t keep torturing herself with not knowing either.
Sydney decided to call Maria over. She needed someone to talk everything over with.
When Maria arrived, she came right to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“Why exactly did you call me over again?”
Sydney felt her heart warming up for a race.
“I think...it looks like Nicholas could have been the one who...you know.”
Her news was not as earth shattering to Maria as she expected.
Maria looked like she was weighing it for a few seconds.
“Nicholas, huh? Can’t say I disagree.”
“I’m probably wrong. We both are.”
“I don’t think so Sydney.”
“Okay, I know it looks bad, but come on. You know him too—how could you think he would do something like this?”
“Who knows why people do what they do?”
“I shouldn’t have told you...”
“Syd, guess what—I figured it out on my own. There’s no way I can chalk all this up to coincidence. No way. Neither can you. Look, I know you’re a little blinded right now, but forget about all that for a second, forget about what you think you know about Nicholas. Let’s do some number crunching here...”
“Numbers lie Maria. I’ve read about greater coincidences than this. For example, there was this case in the sixties that involved a black man with a beard whose white girlfriend had snatched a lady’s purse. The girlfriend wore her blond hair in a ponytail and their getaway car was yellow. Policemen found a couple matching that description—white lady with blond hair in a ponytail who associated with a black man with a beard who owned a yellow car. The jury convicted them, agreeing with the prosecutor that it was statistically improbable for them
not
to be that criminal couple. And guess what—they found out they were wrong later. It was
another
interracial couple who drove the same kind of truck, the same color. So don’t tell me anything about coincidences Maria.”
Maria chuckled.
“I understand that Syd, but I can’t help it. How I see it, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck...”
“Didn’t I just say? Okay, there was this other case...”
“Stop it Syd. Don’t be afraid to face the truth!”
“There is no truth at this point Maria.”
“Yes, there is Sydney.” Maria sighed, lowering her voice. “Sydney, I wish it wasn’t the case too, but what more evidence do you need? Listen, didn’t Nicholas mention that he and these other two guys hung out together in boarding school?”
“Yes.”
“And come on, N.O.D? Okay sure, that could just be a coincidence, but he knows Brandon and yeah, that’s not exactly a smoking gun either, but you know what Brandon did to me, you know it was all part of a plan. Birds of a feather Sydney. And why do you think he has been so fixated by you, huh? Why do you think he’s gotten together with you Sydney? Why else would he pick you out and pursue you? Don’t you think he was just trying to alleviate his guilt? I mean it’s good that he feels guilty and all but...”
Maria stopped, looking at Sydney’s face.
“So that’s the only possible reason, right? Maria, why don’t you just say what you mean: why would he like me instead of you right? You can’t understand that, can you? You can’t wrap your head around any straight guy not noticing you, much less one who is attracted to me instead of you.”
“Sydney, that’s not it,” Maria began. “You’re just changing the subject...”
“No, we’re finally on the subject Maria. God what do I have to be to be worthy of him? Cute like you? Playboy body? White? A slut?”
Maria’s eyes flashed.
“Did you just call me a slut?
Again
?”
“Well, if it walks like a duck...Why do you think Edward left you, huh?”
“I never cheated on Eddie!”
“Yeah, but clearly he doubted your integrity. And it’s no wonder with you flirting with every guy and his dad from here to Timbuktu.”
“Well, what about you? I know you want some sign that you’re lovable ‘cause your parents won’t give you enough since they love Adam more. And like Adam told you, Nicholas wanting you proves you’re actually desirable right? I know that’s what you’re getting out of this Sydney, and it’s no wonder! But don’t get mad at me ‘cause your knight in shining armor almost raped you!”
Sydney fell apart in less than a second. Before she could stop them, tears started to fall.
“What’s going on? Why is everything so crazy now? I’m sorry I said what I did Maria, I’m just so confused about everything. I don’t know what to do—nothing has ever confused me, not like this!”
Maria sat on the bed and held her hand.
“If it had been Winston instead, this would all be so much easier,” Sydney said.
Maria cocked an eyebrow and looked truly shocked.
“It would?”
***
The next day, Sydney got a call from Maria about meeting with Sarah.
She decided to jump at the chance to have another legitimate reason to avoid Nicholas.
“Thanks for coming you guys,” Sarah said when she arrived at their agreed-upon spot. “It’s so nice to talk to people every now and then. I didn’t mean to be so impatient and insist we meet again with such short notice.”
Sarah smiled, but Sydney couldn’t force a smile back, so burdened by Sarah’s nearly tangible loneliness.
“It’s no problem,” Maria said, “we probably should have met up earlier. I found a few things, Sydney found out a few things...” Maria looked pointedly at Sydney.
Sarah looked excited.
“Great! Can’t wait to hear about ‘em.”
Sydney couldn’t stop thinking about the Sarah in front of her, and comparing her to the Sarah she remembered from high school. Back then, Sarah was beautiful, and popular, bubbling over with life and laughter, multiple friends at her side. Her nails were always manicured and perfectly decorated, her hair like she stepped out of a salon, her slim body tight and toned from being on the dance team and the volleyball team. Now, she was still a pretty girl, but she had a harassed edge to her, her hair thrown back in a careless ponytail, no make-up, no polish.
“What is it Sydney?”
Sydney figured Sarah must have noticed her scrutiny.
“I just, you know, I was just wondering about some of your old friends—the other girls from the dance team for example.”
Sarah’s face took on a sour look.
“Friends? You think I call those bitches my friends?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring...”
“I mean you’d think they would have understood, that they’d have sympathized with me or felt bad for me but no. They turned on me, all of them. Like it was an embarrassment to be associated with someone who was raped. Like I lessened their value somehow.” She let out a frustrated breath. “Why would they do that? Who blames a victim like that? And it wasn’t just them—I felt like it was the whole frickin’ school. Some of the guys were even looking at me like, ‘why’d you have to tell?’” She gave a dry laugh. “Can you believe that? I just don’t understand people at all.”
She exhaled heavily.
“Sometimes I think maybe I shouldn’t have said anything...”
“No, Sarah—if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be able to put this together. And you don’t know how many women you could have inspired to come forward. We can’t keep letting them get away with it!” Maria said.
“But what else has come of it? What good has it done for me?”
“Sarah, the report is there. They can still catch this guy.”
“You know honestly, I almost don’t care anymore if they do. I have my little girl to think about.”
“Okay, about this information Sydney and I have...” Maria stopped and watched Sarah.
Sarah looked like she was in another world for a minute.
Then she sighed again.
“My little girl.”
She looked up and at them both.
“You’re right, I have to do what I can.”
Then she suddenly looked down, her forehead creasing.
Sydney saw that she was reading something from her cell.
“Excuse me a sec,” she said.
She dialed.
“Yeah this is Sarah...What for? I told you I can’t identify him...S-sure,” she stammered. “I’ll be right there.”
Sarah disconnected the phone, breathing hard.
“Sarah, what’s wrong?” Sydney asked.
“Yeah, who was that?” Maria said.
Sarah laughed but it was a strange laugh, like conflicting emotions combined.
“You know, I’m hearing you guys but it’s like you’re far away.”
Sydney could tell she was only barely aware of them taking her by the arms and sitting her down. Then she let Sarah’s head fall into her arms.
Sydney let her cry.
“They think they’ve got him,” she said simply.
***
Winston Hallows,
Sydney wrote in her journal.
He had been brought in for something else—serial rapes in multiple areas and they ran his DNA through the system.
They are 99.9% sure that Winston Hallows is the father of Sarah’s child.
Sarah’s reaction was almost comical, if not for the circumstance—I mean, she lost it when she found out it was him.
“Oh my god...not that bastard!” she said, anger seeming to take over her every atom. “That f-ing bastard!” she screamed (she used the actual word). “I can’t believe this—I’m gonna kill him I swear. I can’t believe he did this to me.”
She was warned not to use such phrasing.
Anyway, apparently, Winston is an ex of Sarah’s, or as she put it: “that sorry-a$$ loser was my boyfriend once. Well, so he thought.”
She came alive in a way I hadn’t seen; in that moment, she was full of life, full of mocking and hatred. She spat out some more insults and expletives, and was so much more like the Sarah from high school.
Then she sort of laughed—a fake one.
“He sure showed me though, right? Never would’ve guessed that son-of-a-b had it in him.”
Anyway, she wants to attend some of his court dates for all that other stuff.
She wants to watch him squirm, look him in the eye. Glare at him in hopes that her stares turn into actual lasers I think.
She wants us to go with her when we can, and of course we said we would.
Sydney’s flow was suddenly interrupted as Maria appeared in her doorway.
“So, are you going?” Maria asked Sydney, looking at her with curious eyes.
“What, to Allison’s party?”
“What else?”
Sydney shook her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea. She invited you too, you know.”
“Yeah well, I’m not going. I wasn’t invited directly.”
“Since when do you care about being invited directly? Anyway believe me, if she had seen you, she would have invited you. I’m surprised she didn’t track down your number and call you.”
Maria was silent for a moment.
“So...”
Sydney sighed.
“Only if you come with me. Safety in numbers, right?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was the second day in a row Sydney couldn’t make time for him. She never offered an explanation—just seemed eager to get off the phone, and Nicholas could not understand why.
He decided to just drop by her place to
extract an explanation, but Evelyn surprised him at his door.
He didn’t know what to expect of her before, and he had no idea what she would bring now.
He considered going ahead with his plan, but then she made the decision for him.
“Nicholas, sit down darling. I have something important to tell you.”
He sat back down and she came over and sat next to him.
She took his hand in hers and held it firmly.
He tried to control his recoil instinct.
She took a moment, then heaved a dramatic sigh.
“There’s no easy way to say this. You’re out of the will, Nicholas—your father has disinherited you.”
Without thinking, he withdrew his hand.
“Wait, what?”
“I’m afraid you’ve been disinherited dear.”
Nicholas put his hands to his face as he let the information seep in.
“Well, you must have known that whole Christmas thing wouldn’t just fly over darling! And to top it off, you’re dating a...a...well, whatever they’re calling themselves these days. You must have known this would not sit well—don’t play dumb dear.”
Nicholas shook his head. He really needed to talk to Sydney now.
He remembered telling Eddie that money didn’t matter to him, but who was he kidding? It was his life, all he ever was.
A mirthless chuckle escaped him.
“Surely he wasn’t serious mother.”
“Oh no, he was quite serious. In fact, it’s already been done—it just took me a while to tell you.” She sighed. “I was hoping he’d change his mind. Sweetheart, I tried to warn you about this, I tried to lead you down the right path...”
Nicholas wondered if she had been smoking parts of her garden.
“But you wouldn’t listen! Always getting involved with the help, leaning toward the wrong side of the tracks...remember that Charlotte woman or whatever her name was? You were so attached to her you were forgetting who I was dear!” She gave a false laugh. “Perhaps I should’ve sent you to boarding school with your brother—he could’ve helped you stay on the right path. Such a good boy that Edward. I just thought you’d be more disciplined if you were alone, that it would whip you into shape faster...”
Nicholas’s eyes were wet and he hated that she would be able to see it but it was too much at once—losing his place in the family, his mother talking about the most painful, loneliest years of his life where he felt like he had lost everyone that mattered. He felt like he was always losing, no matter where he was in life, even when it seemed he was winning.
“You’re lucky you’re at least good-looking, you should be just fine,” Evelyn said, tapping his knee.
“Mother stop!” He stood up and quickly brushed at his eyes. “I don’t want to hear anymore, I don’t...” His voice broke as he choked back a sob that escaped a moment later, no matter how hard he tried to suppress it.
He left his room, ignoring his mother’s call of: “Wait! I have more to tell you!”
Nicholas cried through the knot in this throat until his head ached as he sat in his car in the garage. How could this be happening? He was essentially being kicked out of the family, and on top of that, Sydney was acting strangely toward him. Something was crawling between them and he had no clue what. Could things get any worse?
***
The next morning, as Nicholas was eating breakfast, he saw the morning paper and picked it up. His interest had been grabbed by the headline, but when he read the story following, his heart dropped.
MYSTERY RAPIST’S IDENTITY REVEALED
Police have finally identified the man who raped Sarah Landon four years ago as Salt Lake City local Winston Hallows.
Hallows was initially brought in as a suspect for multiple counts of rapes throughout various states.
He is also being investigated in the murder of his mother seven years ago.
Nicholas decided right away to visit his old friend.
He would see Sydney and find out what was going on with her later.
***
“This isn’t quite how I imagined meeting up with you guys again,” Winston said as he stared at Nicholas through the glass.
Nicholas studied his old buddy. The hard blue eyes hadn’t changed.
“Been a while,” he said. He took a deep breath, considering his next words. “So you’ve finally gone a bit too far with your games.”
Winston laughed. Nicholas wasn’t sure why.
“Winston, I can’t believe you’re laughing about this.” He pulled the cutout article from his pocket, straightening it out and holding it up against the glass. “What’s this about?”
Curiosity swept across Winston’s face for a moment.
“You really don’t remember,” he said enigmatically.
“Remember what? Should I remember this?” He shook the piece of paper.
The look on Winston’s face resembled fascination, although he still maintained a slight smile of amusement.
“It’s like you’ve not only erased it, but everything related to it. This is quite interesting.”
“Win, I came for answers, not more questions.”
Winston’s smile widened, a cold, evil smile that made his eyes seem even more reptilian.
“How could you forget you raped Sydney,
Nod
?”
Nicholas felt like he had been drop-kicked in the chest.
The pressure in the room seemed to have changed, his ears clogging up as if he were on an airplane.
“No...” he said softly. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never raped her...”
“You had some fun with her about the same time I had some fun with Sarah, and Brandon with Mary. Christ, you pulled the biggest prank of us all! You really one-upped me there Nod—I mean dating your victim? Getting her to fall in love with you? Screwing her again? That’s fucking brilliant!”
Winston howled with laughter.
Nicholas was shaking his head as if he could deflect Winston’s words by doing so.
“No...” he said again, whispering, getting up and backing away.
It was all lies, lies. There’s no way he could have...
“Aw, leaving so soon? Well, thanks for stopping by! Wow, having visitors can really brighten your day. So what do you say, same time tomorrow?” Winston laughed. “Maybe when you remember some more? Hey, I can help you fill in some of the blanks right now if you want...”
“No!” Nicholas shouted, covering his ears with his hands and running out.
Nicholas drove all the way back home after figuring out there was no where else to go. He went straight up to his room and paced for a while, replaying the conversation with Winston in his head.
He had called him Nod—his code name for when they carried out pranks. Nicholas thought he was so clever when he came up with their pseudonyms, especially since they matched them so perfectly, coincidentally beginning with the same letters as their actual name. He had plucked them from an old children’s poem he remembered Charlene reading to him.
They had been making fun of people’s names one day when it came up:
“Hey you know that guy Andrew? With the curly brown hair?” Brandon said. “His full name is Andrew Steven Smith.” He laughed. “He’s an ASS!”
He and Nicholas thought that was so funny, that they started going through other people’s names to see who else they could make fun of.
“Hey, Taylor Ivan Thomas is a TIT!” Nicholas added. “And you’re like, barf.”
“Hey, not really,” Brandon said, the joke no longer funny. “Brandon Allan Fawkes is BAF, idiot—that’s not even anything. But you, Nick, you’re a NOD.”
Nicholas rolled his eyes. Then he was struck for a moment.
“Hey, you remember when we were talking about code names? Well, when I was little, my nanny read me this story about these three boys: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. It was about eyes and a head and sleep or something. Anyway, how about those?”
Brandon’s eyebrows raised.
“That’s kind of perfect!”
Nicholas put his hand to his head.
When Winston spoke to him, he felt a lot of things click into place but still refused to step back and see what picture was made. A thing that had been calling him from a distance that he had been able to ignore now started leaking into his consciousness.
He instinctively knew he didn’t want it to—he didn’t want confirmation, but he needed it, and he needed to hear it come from outside of himself.
He decided to call Brandon over. He needed to know if this was why Sydney wouldn’t see him, wouldn’t talk to him. She must have figured it out.
“Brandon come over here please,” he said once Brandon picked up.
“Nicholas? What...”
“Just get over here!” Nicholas bellowed. He shut his eyes and checked his emotions. “I’m sorry, I just...I need to talk to you, can you make it?”
“Sure man. I’ll be right there.”
Nicholas hung up the phone and walked back and forth, running his hand through his hair, trying to push away the memories nibbling at his brain.
Of course there was still a chance Winston was just playing him—the ultimate prankster. Always scaring the pants off of somebody or pulling their leg. Nicholas decided that yes, Winston was just messing with him. After all this time, he finally decided to make Nicholas the victim of one of his pranks.
He’s just mind-fucking me
, Nicholas though as he went about preparing for Brandon’s visit, leaving a message with Samuel to escort Brandon up to his room when he came.
When Brandon showed up some twenty minutes later, he could hardly contain himself.
“Brandon, please tell me Winston is lying,” he said as Brandon shut the bedroom door behind him.
The way Brandon looked at him made his heart fall.
“What did he tell you?” Brandon asked.
“That I...that we...” Nicholas shook his head. “I couldn’t have Brandon!”
“Okay, what’s the last thing you remember?” he said after a few moments. “When was the last time you remember seeing Winston and me?”
Nicholas thought about it.
“I remember we came home for summer, and were talking about pulling off one more major prank. We threw around some ideas, like planting a dildo in an embarrassing place on some girl, or cutting off all her hair. Faking her out on a kidnapping I remember Winston suggesting. But we didn’t go with any of those—not that I remember.”
Brandon nodded, then sighed.
“You’re right,” he began. “That’s how it started. The Pink Peer Prank—remember that? That was the original name.” He half-smiled but Nicholas was in no mood for reminiscence.
“So anyway, what we later dubbed Final Project began as the fake kidnapping idea. It was pretty
harmless—the girls would just be getting a big scare. But Winston,” he sighed again, “Winston took it further. He tried it out first, wanted to see how easy or hard kidnapping would be. It was easy enough I guess, he did it successfully. Except he didn’t stop there. He didn’t tell us this right away—in fact, he only told me some time much later. Anyway, in trying it out, he ended up raping the girl. She begged and pleaded with him to leave her alone, mentioned she was a virgin.” He shook his head. “Final Project ended up writing itself. Winston came to us after he did it and said he had tried out the kidnapping but had a better idea: sleep with a virgin, one way or another. We all accepted, after all, it’s not like assault was the name of the game. We had the rest of the summer to do it, at that point, two months I think. Anyway I got to work on it the traditional way: found a girl and tried to woo her. Winston helped us with that too, locating the virgins. He researched and found out who would be eligible candidates. He found out their romantic status, where they lived, who they lived with, how often they were alone...pretty much any aspect you can think of. We had several options. He had a list made up and the last three were, according to him, most ideal. I checked out the faces of some of the ones who made the cut and kind of liked this cutie with long dark hair who happened to be one of the ideal three. I decided I’d date her, sleep with her and went about trying to achieve it. You know how that turned out.” He smiled a little, touching his face where Maria had left her mark. “As for you—you took forever to take action. Winston offered to help you using the kidnapping method, but you told him you just needed time. So Winston picked Sydney for you. He showed you who she was and you liked what you saw but by the time you had decided to do it the normal, there wasn’t much time left. So Winny got all impatient and decided to help you out because she wasn’t the type who could be wined, dined, and sixty-nined in one week. Winston told you about her patterns, told you how he had watched her, knew the best time to get her. Then he went ahead and planned it for you.”
Nicholas was grabbing at his hair, still trying to remember.
“I’m sorry Nicholas,” Brandon said. “I wish it wasn’t true.” He paused. “Wait—so you mean you still don’t remember anything after all this? Nothing at all? I mean we figured you lost some of your short-term memory, but don’t you even remember being in the hospital?”
Nicholas sat there, trying to sort through the chaos. He eventually stumbled across a memory...
Winston and Brandon waited until the doctor left. Then Winston whispered:
“I saw you got to handle things, saw the condom on the side.”
Nicholas’s head was hurting but he was able to reply: “What are you talking about?”
Winston inexplicably looked impressed, nodding in what looked like approval.
“Good one! Already pretending it didn’t happen.”
Nicholas shook his head.
“Seriously man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Winston and Brandon looked at each other. Then Brandon spoke:
“You mean to tell me that you don’t remember...”
“Don’t say it!” Nicholas shut Brandon up quickly, the effort making his head hurt more, but all he could pay attention to was his sense of dread. “Look guys, I...I feel a bit disoriented. I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but it scares me. I don’t know what we did this time or how I ended up here with my head pounding, but something tells me I don’t want to know.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Please guys, don’t tell me.”