* * *
—
Steve Babson and Rick Russo came to Jamie’s dorm room after class that afternoon, and he looked shocked to see them.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “Together.”
“We just had to see you,” Steve said miserably. “I’ve been on academic probation for three years. If our prints turn up if they find the bottle, I’ll be kicked out in five minutes, for the alcohol rule, if nothing else.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jamie said in a low voice with a look of anguish. “You won’t have to get expelled. We’ll all go to prison, for what Rick did and our knowing about it and not reporting it. We’re all accessories. And maybe we deserve to go to prison,” Jamie said, thinking of Vivienne. But they had promised Rick not to give him up, and all felt honor-bound to stick by him, out of loyalty and friendship, even if what he did was wrong. But there was risk in it for them too.
“My father won’t let that happen,” Rick said more confidently than he felt. “He’d get us out of it somehow. He says money always wins the day in the end. Why the fuck didn’t any of us remember to take the bottle with us?” It bothered Jamie that Rick was showing no signs of remorse, only terror for himself.
“We were out of our minds that night, and we panicked,” Jamie said about the bottle. Chase heard them from next door then, and came to see who was visiting Jamie, and looked angry as soon as he saw them.
“What are you idiots doing here? We agreed to stay away from each other,” he whispered.
“They have our prints now,” Steve reminded him. “If they found the bottle, they’ll know we were drinking with her.”
“It’s not our prints we should be worried about,” Chase said with a dark look. He had been tortured since it happened, and looked like he’d lost five pounds in two days, and probably had. None of them looked well. They felt sick and hadn’t been sleeping, thinking of Vivienne. And Chase was tormented by what Vivienne must be going through, and so was Jamie, but they didn’t talk to each other about it. They couldn’t. Some kind of absurd male rivalry had suddenly exploded between them, and the match to the dynamite fuse was the tequila.
“They’ve got to have the bottle by now,” Steve said anxiously.
“Fuck the bottle,” Chase reminded them, “they’ve got Viv. If she talks, we’re dead. And she has every right to blame us, and Rick.”
“I don’t think she will,” Jamie said quietly.
“They have Tommy’s violin case,” Rick told them. “I saw him yesterday. He forgot it there, but that doesn’t prove anything either. That’s circumstantial evidence. It wouldn’t hold up in court.” But it wasn’t good news either. Tommy was afraid to come near any of them, and was staying well away from all of them. He had his own terror to deal with. “He told the police it was stolen when he went into the haunted house. He says they believed him.”
“Who knows what they really believe,” Chase said cynically. “You guys should go. We just have to wait and see what happens with the fingerprints they took today. Have you talked to your parents yet?” Steve shook his head, that was the last thing he wanted to do, in his case. Talking to the police was easier.
“Have you?” Steve asked him, and Chase shook his head too. They were still on location.
“I have,” Jamie spoke up. “I called my dad, he had a fit that they were going to fingerprint us. He called Houghton about it. He said everyone on campus is being fingerprinted, the girls too, staff, faculty. My dad said he couldn’t stop him.”
“My dad called him too, Houghton told him the same thing,” Rick added.
Rick and Steve shuffled toward the door, and the four of them looked at each other, wondering how it had ever happened. None of them could stop thinking of Vivienne and how she had looked when they left her. No matter how drunk they were, some of the worst memories of that night were still vivid, especially when they realized Rick had raped her, while Jamie and Chase were fighting.
“See you guys,” Rick said as they left, and he and Steve parted company outside the dorm.
* * *
—
Adrian Stone was in the infirmary at that exact moment with his second severe asthma attack in two days, and Betty the school nurse had just called the doctor. His inhaler no longer seemed to be working.
Chapter 7
After Steve and Rick left, Jamie wandered into Chase’s room. The two boys looked at each other, and Chase pointed to his bed, if Jamie wanted to sit down. Chase was sitting at his computer. Both boys were silent for a long time.
Jamie spoke first. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“We could go to prison if they find out. We probably would, as accessories,” Chase said soberly. “We were there and we couldn’t stop him. And now we’re not cooperating with the police.”
“Do you think we should confess to what happened that night?” Jamie whispered. He had closed the door on the way in. It felt good to talk to someone. He had been going round and round in his head for two days, trying to figure out what had happened, why, and what to do next. He still couldn’t understand what madness had gotten into Rick.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question, but they’ll send Rick to prison for sure then. I don’t feel like I have a right to take everyone down, but we owe Vivienne something too. I wish I could talk to my dad about it,” Chase admitted, “but there’s no cell service where he is, he’s on some remote mountain filming, and they can only reach him by radio in an emergency. I can’t tell him this over a radio. I have to wait till he’s back.” He looked at Jamie seriously then. “I’m sorry I fought with you that night. It was crazy. I think she likes both of us. She’s a terrific girl. I didn’t want you to have her.” He looked morbidly depressed over it and so did Jamie. “I feel so stupid about it now. And if we hadn’t been fighting and drunk, we’d have seen Rick and been able to stop him. It makes me sick thinking about it. I want to kick his ass every time I see him.”
“Me too. None of it would have happened if we weren’t drunk,” Jamie commented.
“I brought the fucking tequila,” Chase said mournfully, consumed with regret as he brushed a tear off his cheek. “Shit, I wish I could take it back and do it all again. I wish we hadn’t partied that night. It sounded like fun at the time. Rick took it to another level.” A level none of them could take back now and they’d all pay a price for.
“I think if we go to the police now, it will only make it worse,” Jamie said. “We have to ride it out. And we promised Rick. He’ll go to prison for sure if we talk. And she’s not talking so she must not want the police to know what happened either.”