Cleo shoved the barrel of her gun into his temple. “How stupid are you? Do you think I would have removed the tape if there was anyone else around?” She shook her head.
His eyes met Harper’s. “Help me.”
His eyes were rimmed with red. Fresh haircut, newly shaved, red shirt and black shorts that matched his black sneakers and red shoelaces. This wasn’t the only time she’d seen firsthand that no one should try to judge a book by its cover.
“Please,” he said.
He blinked, focused on her wig, then looked past Harper, his gaze moving from Lily to Psycho. “The Black Wigs,” he said. His head jerked back so he could see Cleo. “Lena,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Cleo’s eyes narrowed. “Say that name again and I’ll shove the barrel of this gun right down your throat.”
“I’m sorry for everything I did. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought of you. If I could turn back time, it never would have happened.”
Cleo laughed. “Did you hear that, you guys? It was a mistake. An accident. He wants to turn back time and take it all back.”
Silence.
“Let me go,” he pleaded. “I beg of you.”
“Begging, huh? Do you remember me crying out, begging for someone, anyone at all, to help me?”
He wouldn’t or couldn’t stop crying, and Harper found herself ping-ponging between feeling sorry for him and wanting to scream at him. Bottom line was that he had done this to himself. For every choice there was a consequence. “It would be nice to be able to stop and take a breath, wouldn’t it?” Harper interrupted, her voice cutting.
His head jerked back Harper’s way and shook up and down like one of those bobbleheads. “I feel sick to my stomach,” he told her as if she might help him. “It’s hard for me to believe I could have ever done what I did to Le—your friend.”
“You’re right. It is hard to believe,” Harper said. “Being tied up and bound, trapped, unable to move your arms and legs, and having no control over your situation is difficult, isn’t it? How does it make you feel?”
He couldn’t stop crying long enough to answer.
“He’s a fucking pansy-ass baby, who’s only sorry because we caught him,” Cleo said. “If he felt so bad about what he did to me, why didn’t he try to find me and tell me how sorry he was?”
When Eddie Carter gained control of his emotions, he inhaled, his breath shaky. “I tried to find you.”
Cleo laughed.
“I did. I swear.”
“You swear?” Cleo repeated with much exaggeration. “Did everyone hear that? He tried to find me. He swears!”
“I’m married,” he said between sniffles, his voice rough and raw. “I have two daughters who need me.”
“Cry me a river,” Cleo said. “It must be tough to know you might never see them again.”
Harper swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat.
Cleo shoved her gun into her back pocket, then leaned over him to grab a bottle of water sitting between the front seats, unscrewed the cap, and gulped down every last drop. “Instead of thinking about your family, Eddie, I want you to stop and calm down for a moment.”
He was hiccuping and couldn’t seem to stop.
Cleo sighed. “I’ll wait. We have plenty of time.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Seriously? Do you want me to start from the beginning?”
“No. No. Please. I’m sorry.”
“Let’s not think about you or your family,” Cleo said. “Let’s forget about poor Eddie Carter for a minute and go back all those years ago to that fateful night at the fraternity house.”
He was whimpering again. Snot bubbled out of his nostrils.
Cleo’s brows turned downward. “For God’s sake.” She marched to the back door, flung it open, and stretched across the back seat. She returned with a small oily towel that she tossed at his face. “Wipe your nose.”
Harper glanced around and saw that Psycho had disappeared. Bored, Lily picked at her chipped dark-green nail polish.
Eddie Carter’s wrists were duct-taped together, which made wiping his nose awkward.
“Better,” Cleo snapped. “Close your eyes if you have to, and go back to that moment when you were hooting and hollering with the guys while you rode me like a Brahman bull.”
He cringed.
Cleo pulled a knife from her bootstrap and used it to unfasten the tremendous amount of tape she’d used to fasten him to the car seat.
As she worked, Eddie Carter begged for Cleo to listen, telling her he’d had numerous shots of tequila that fateful night. He’d been hammered and almost blacked out.
Harper had never seen Cleo so angry. Nostrils flared, Cleo said, “Shut up, Eddie. Shut up and listen. You weren’t drunk in the courtroom when you told everyone I was a slut.”
When Cleo reached down and removed the rest of the duct tape, Eddie Carter took everyone by surprise. He pushed Cleo so hard she stumbled backward onto the ground. Then he took off, heading across the gravel drive before making a sharp left straight down a steep, rocky hill.
Before Harper could yell for help, or do anything at all for that matter, Psycho ran past the car in a blur. Eddie Carter appeared to be in good shape, and he was fast.
But Psycho was faster.
Lithe and long, when she got close enough, she lunged for him, brought him to the ground. They rolled a few feet farther down the hill, dirt clods and dust flying about until Cleo caught up to them.
As Harper drew closer to the action, she saw Cleo straddling the man just as she had straddled Myles Davenport weeks before. She used her fists to pummel him, her knuckles making contact with every bit of his face. It wasn’t until Harper drew closer that she saw blood. Lots of blood.
Psycho stood, her chest heaving from exertion.
“Stop!” Harper cried out when she saw Cleo pull a knife from her bootstrap, raise it above her head, and stab the man.
Harper attempted to pull Cleo off Eddie Carter, but rage had made Cleo into the Hulk.
“Put the knife down!”
Cleo tossed the knife aside and instead used her fists to beat him again. “You fucker,” she said over and over. “You deserve to die.”
Harper clamped a hand around Cleo’s shoulder. “That’s enough.”
Cleo’s shoulders slumped forward before she looked from Harper to Psycho. “I was seventeen,” she said. “I liked boys. But I was a virgin.” Cleo placed her hands on both sides of Eddie’s face, her thumbs flat against his eyelids. “You have no idea how many nights I dreamed of putting my hands on your face, digging my fingers into your sockets, and plucking out your eyes.”
His eyes remained shut even after Cleo pulled her hands away.
“Open your eyes, god damn it!” Spittle flew from Cleo’s mouth when she shouted.
He did as she said.
Lily walked toward them, stopping a few feet away.
“My parents and I never talked about the incident after you and your friends were released, free to go live your lives.” Cleo was crying now. “I wanted to forget, and maybe I could have if I hadn’t started showing. I was pregnant.”