The Sheriff's Daughter

As soon as he left, she’d hook up her computer—she’d been planning to, anyway. And then she’d do what she’d never allowed herself to do before and begin to dredge up the past. She’d find the articles Ryan had found—articles that, until he’d told her about the small town news archives, she’d never even considered having at her disposal. She’d read about the night that had stolen away her childhood. It had taken an unfaithful husband, meeting her son for the first time, the shock of a quick divorce, but she was finally ready to rock the boat she’d been floating in precariously ever since that horrible night.

However, there was at least one thing she wouldn’t find in old newspaper articles.

And she had the chief investigator right here.

“Aside from the…incident…with me, was there anything else unusual about the party? Any fights? Or evidence of misconduct?”

“Other than littering?” her father asked. “No. By all accounts, and believe me I heard them all, the goal was to get trashed. It was the week before finals and they’d brought cases of whiskey, beer and wine to drown themselves. They put their car keys in a can, buried it and drank until they puked. Repeatedly, judging by what we saw at the party site the next day.”

“Were they smoking pot?”

John shook his head. “We found cigarette butts, but no drug paraphernalia of any kind.”

“Was anyone tested for drugs?”

“No. There was nothing to indicate drug use.”

“What about the fact that at least a few of us couldn’t remember anything the next day?” Ryan’s doubts confused an already blurry situation.

“You reeked of alcohol and were obviously passed out, drunk. With the number of empty bottles, divided by the number of people at the party, added to the fact that you’d mixed beer, wine and whiskey, we were more concerned with getting you awake and sober.”

And dealing with the rape. Sara filled in the blanks her father’s expression left hanging there.

“And you have no doubt that nothing else happened there that night?”

“Honey, I know the details of that party so well I could have been there myself.”

She wanted to believe him.

CHAPTER FIVE

OTHER THAN GOING to work on Monday and Tuesday, Sara devoted the next two days to searching. The archived articles provided surprisingly little information. They were frustratingly vague and she saw her father’s influence in that. Just as he’d kept news of her pregnancy out of the papers—and out of the trial. The young men might have gotten longer than five years, if evidence of the hardship she’d suffered had been presented at sentencing; but then she’d have had to be there, to testify before the jury. Her parents wouldn’t allow it.

John was busy on Wednesday, the Fourth of July, riding in the back of a convertible in Maricopa’s annual parade and helping the Fraternal Order of Police with their sausage booth at the festival that followed. He’d invited Sara to attend with him—as he’d done each of the five years since her mother’s death.

This year she’d declined, claiming a load of unpacking still to be done. And she did have a large amount of unpacking to do. She hadn’t done any since he’d left on Sunday.

Picking up the phone that morning, hoping that if Ryan was going to be celebrating with friends and family it would happen later in the day, she dialed her son’s number.

And this time she held on while the rings sounded on the line.

“Hello?”

“Ryan?”

“Sara?” She was thrilled that he recognized her voice, until it dawned on her that he’d have caller ID.

Whoa, girl, she cautioned herself. Hang on to the emotion here. You can’t afford not to.

“Are you busy?” It was the polite thing to ask. And at least now she knew what he was going to call her—Sara. As if they were friends.

Of course, the people who worked for her called her that, as well.

It meant nothing. Except that she wasn’t mother. Or Mom. Or Ma. Or even Aunt something.

“I just finished having my cereal and I’m heading to bed.”

“You were on duty last night?”

Did he know it wasn’t healthy to eat right before bed?

“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.”

“Do you sleep the other days, too, to stay on schedule?”

“Nah, I stay up on Saturday, so I can be on schedule with the rest of the world when I’m off.”

He’d be working that night, when the rest of the city had been partying all day and many people would be shooting off illegal fireworks—after drinking.

There’d be drunks on the road. Fights. Car accidents.

“Do you wear a vest?” Her father rarely had.

“Yeah. They’re mandatory.”

“And you call for backup before you get out of your car?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She was ma’am, now. Sara paced her small study, glancing out the window at a backyard in need of mowing.

She’d chosen the house for the white picket fence and flower garden that took up one corner and most of the back of the lawn. The colorful blooms were magnificent. And they needed weeding.

Her son needed to get some rest.

“I’ve been reading those articles you told me about.”

“And?”

“I… Is there anything we can do, I can do, to help find out if anything else happened that night?”

She’d been stripped of dignity, of an ability to love openly, of confidence in a sexuality that still hadn’t blossomed. She’d spent more than twenty years tormented with guilt over the possibility that three young men had gone to prison instead of college because she’d lied about her age. If she’d been a willing participant in what had happened…

The idea that there might have been another cause for what had happened that night than just alcohol, reckless choices by a stupid, recalcitrant, rebellious girl and male violence was one she couldn’t let go of.

“You could talk to your father. He was the investigating officer.”

“I already have.”