A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

“They lied. I tried to talk to them but they shut me out.” Jane’s eyelashes flutter. “I was never part of your core group. I wasn’t best friends with them like you were. But I thought I was good enough friends—especially with Jenna—to find out what was going on. They blew me off. Sent their parents’ household staff to handle any call I made. I even tried to go to Jenna’s house. They wouldn’t let me past the gates. Her household manager told me if I tried again, they’d file a restraining order against me for stalking.”

 

My turn for my jaw to drop.

 

“What? That’s not Jenna!”

 

“None of this makes sense, Lindsay. But the shit they said about you...” Jane’s not one to throw around curse words.

 

The full impact of my nightmare is starting to hit me. I thought I’d come home to re-integrate after being abused. I’ve carried rage for four years because the men who did this to me were never prosecuted. No charges were filed. I assumed Daddy didn’t press charges because he wanted to protect his precious political career. But now...

 

“No charges were filed,” I choke out.

 

She shakes her head sadly. “Mandy, Jenna and Tara all gave statements to the District Attorney. Quietly, of course. Once your dad knew about that, he said keeping this a private family matter was best.”

 

“Oh, God.” My body feels like I’m hurtling through the air, falling from the sky without a parachute. My skin burns from the rush of free fall. No one is there to catch me. I’m about to break every emotional bone in my body and I’m helpless to stop it.

 

I am powerless.

 

“Lindsay!” Jane’s voice snaps me back, a little, to reality. “You look green. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

 

“No, no,” I say faintly. “It’s fine.”

 

“It’s anything but fine.”

 

“More of the pieces make sense now,” I whisper. “Why Mandy, Jenna and Tara never wrote letters. You did. You always did.” I feel my voice tear in two. I can hear it, too, in the way I say my words. “You did until they sent a letter that blacked out a sentence. After that, your letters stopped.”

 

She tilts her head in surprise. “Blacked out a sentence?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What sentence?’ She shakes her head fast. “Never mind. Of course you don’t know what sentence they blacked it out. Geez, Lindsay, what was that place? A prison?”

 

I shrug.

 

“Oh.”

 

“A very, very nice prison. With every drug and therapy you could imagine. No contact with the outside world except letters and net-nannied Internet access. I could watch all the Disney movies and 1930s classics I wanted, but heaven forbid I asked to see Buzzfeed.”

 

“You’ve been treated like a nine-year-old all these years?”

 

“Something like that. They let me finish my bachelor’s degree online. Someone sat with me the entire time, watching every move. Every mouse click.”

 

“How did you manage?”

 

“I spent a lot of time online entering stupid contests and writing book reviews.”

 

She gives me a very strange laugh, her mouth twisting in a grimace.

 

I shrug.

 

Jane lets out a low whistle, then looks at her empty cup. “I need another round for this.”

 

“I need something stronger.”

 

Her face spreads with a smile. “There’s a bar next door. Quiet, with booths. No one will bother us.”

 

“But what about ID?”

 

She laughs. “ID? Lindsay! We’re twenty-three.”

 

In more ways than one, I’m still nineteen inside.

 

“Right. let’s go.”

 

Mickey’s Bar is about as classic Irish dive bar as you can get, with green Boston Celtics jerseys and signs everywhere. The bartender gives us a wave and we sit down in a booth. Jane orders for me, because I am apparently too stupid to know how to do this, and a plate of fried bar food arrives along with two mixed drinks.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“Cheesy french fries with bacon,” she jokes, pulling one fry off the pile of fat and dairy fun, the cheese stretching out in a long string she finally has to break with her fingers.

 

“Ha ha. I meant the drink.”

 

“It’s a Cosmo. Cranberry juice and vodka. Give it a try.”

 

I haven’t had alcohol in four years. I don’t confess that to her. I just take a sip.

 

It transports me, instantly, back to that night.

 

Fighting the shaking fear inside me that can’t distinguish between the past and the present, I chew my food. It tastes like gravel. Bacon and cheese-covered gravel. I swallow, then take another sip of the drink.

 

Jane is about to open her mouth and say something when she frowns, then looks to the side.

 

“Is that the same guy from the coffee shop? Is he following us?”

 

I turn to look.

 

“Don’t look! Don’t make it obvious.”

 

But I know exactly who she’s talking about, and I don’t care if it’s obvious.

 

“That’s Silas. My ‘chauffeur.’” I use finger quotes.

 

Jane looks at him overtly now. She lets out a sound of admiration. “He can drive me any time.”