Gillian was being heroic, trying to keep everyone busy and acting normal in the midst of chaos, to distract students from the tension and keep everyone’s spirits up.
“Where did we hire her from?” Taylor said to Nicole at the end of a particularly harrowing afternoon. “We should have hired two of her, and five of you,” he said gratefully. Nicole had been remarkable at sharing the load with him, and he didn’t know what he would have done without her, and Charity’s discreet support at night, while he tried to catch up on work, and she corrected history and Latin homework sitting in his office.
* * *
—
Detective Brendan had called to report to Taylor that the remaining three boys had been questioned in the presence of the attorneys their parents had hired, which had mostly amounted to a lot of fancy legal footwork to block any of the relevant questions that he and Detective Martin needed to ask them.
“We pretty much got nowhere,” he told Taylor. “Chase Morgan’s attorney was semi-reasonable, although he’s a superstar and has defended damn near every athlete and movie star who ever got arrested for a felony. The Russo kid’s lawyer is lucky Detective Martin didn’t shoot him. He is the biggest sexist I’ve ever met, and treated us like dirt. And Jamie Watts’s lawyer made everything as difficult as he possibly could, which I guess is what Jamie’s father paid him for. It doesn’t make the case any easier. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of this, we’re not trying to persecute them.”
“I’m really sorry,” Taylor apologized. “Fortunately, the boys are a lot easier to deal with than their fathers, although the Morgans are very reasonable people.”
“But the kids won’t talk to us without the attorneys their fathers hire. We’ll get there, it just slows us down a little.” They’d been driving Gwen Martin crazy for the past two days, trying to block the investigation at every turn.
* * *
—
Vivienne and her family were having their own dramas. Vivienne had made it clear to her mother that she wanted to go back to California with her father as soon as she got out of the hospital. They were keeping her there to rest, get counseling, and avoid the press. Nancy looked hurt when Vivienne said it. She had already arranged to take time off so she could be with her, and had set up an appointment with a trauma therapist in New York who was supposed to be excellent, and specialized in rape victims.
“I want to go home, Mom,” Vivienne said firmly, sitting in her hospital bed. And home to her was still L.A. They wanted her to stay for the rest of the week, and then they were planning to release her. She wanted to fly straight to L.A. with her father.
“Home is where we live, Viv,” Nancy said sadly. The move to New York had not been a success from Vivienne’s point of view. Especially after this. She would always remember with horror her first school experience in the East after they moved.
“Home is our old house and Dad’s still living there,” she said stubbornly.
“And what about…” Nancy glanced at Chris, she didn’t want to mention Kimberly’s name in front of Vivienne, although she knew he’d been seeing someone, she just didn’t know it had been going on for almost three years, and that it was why they’d left and her mother was divorcing him. He had refused to stop seeing Kimberly. Nancy would have taken him back even after finding him in bed with her, but he had said he wasn’t ready to give her up. So Nancy had filed for divorce and moved to New York. Out of respect for Chris as Vivienne’s father, Nancy had never told her any of it, and Vivienne blamed her mother for the divorce since she filed it.
“I’ve taken care of it, for the time being,” Chris said cryptically, and Nancy nodded.
“I’m not five for heaven’s sake,” Vivienne said to both of them. “I know you’re dating someone. I want to meet her.” He wasn’t just dating her, they were living together. But he had rented a furnished apartment for her so Vivienne could come back to L.A. with him and recover at their home. He didn’t want Kimberly living in the house while Viv was there. Kimberly wasn’t pleased about it, but she’d agreed, and the apartment he’d rented for her was fabulous. She could hang out at the house with him when Viv was busy with her friends, and more once she and Vivienne got to know each other. He was hoping they’d become friends.
“And what about school?” her mother asked her. “Do you know what you want to do?”
“I’m done here.” Both her parents nodded. They didn’t disagree. It would have been too depressing and even traumatic to stay at Saint Ambrose now with the memories she had there. “I don’t want to go back to school for a while. I can catch up in January. I think I want to go back to my old school,” although she hadn’t contacted any of her L.A. friends and didn’t want to. She didn’t want them to know what had happened at Saint Ambrose.
“And stay in L.A.?” Her mother looked disappointed when she nodded. It was a victory for Chris, and what he had wanted in the first place, for Vivienne to stay in L.A. with him until she graduated. And she wanted to apply to college in the West, USC, UCLA, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara.
“I’m sure they’ll make allowances for what she’s just been through, if she gets behind in her work,” he said. To him, it was a done deal. He and Vivienne had been talking about it for the last few days, without her mother present. She wanted Nancy to send her favorite things to L.A., which meant she wasn’t planning to come back. It cut Nancy to the core, but she wanted what was best for her, especially now.
“Do they have to know what happened at my old school?” Vivienne asked her father, looking upset.
“Maybe not,” her father said vaguely, although he thought they should, so they’d accommodate her, if she was disoriented at first, or her grades fell, which wouldn’t be surprising.
“I want you to see a therapist who works with this kind of thing,” Nancy said firmly and looked pointedly at Chris. He wasn’t good about following up on psychological issues. Nancy was. And the therapist in New York had said that Vivienne needed to deal with it while it was fresh, not let it sit and fester, and let the nightmares she was having grow steadily worse. “You need to keep up with some school work when you feel up to it, and get all your applications in, or you’ll wind up missing your first year of college and have to defer it,” her mother warned her, always the unwelcome voice of reason, to her and Chris.
“Maybe she should defer it,” Chris suggested, and Nancy glared at him. She could see that he was planning to indulge her and let her sit around the house. With what had happened, Vivienne might get depressed. Her old friends in L.A. would be in school, and she didn’t want her to give up college next year by default, by not sending her applications in on time. She needed structure and a routine to follow.