A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris

Author:Charlaine Harris [Harris, Charlaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Violent crimes, Mystery & Detective, College students, General, Tennessee, Mystery fiction, Women Sleuths, Victims of violent crimes, Fiction, University towns
ISBN: 9780425214534
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Published: 2007-08-06T23:00:00+00:00

IN FACT, WHAT THE TOWN WAS DOING AT THIS time was figuratively holding its breath and waiting for the next rape, though none of us realized it until afterward. Heidi Edmonds had been raped in early August. Barbara had been raped in early September. I had been raped in the latter part of October. And there were the rumors from Cully’s policeman friend, rumors of at least two victims who hadn’t gone to the police. Cully confirmed one rumor on a night when Mimi and I were wondering out loud if the attacks were evenly spaced.

“There was one in late August,” he said, and gave each of us a look to assure our silence.

“He must be counseling her,” Mimi murmured over the after-supper dishes. We would never mention it to Cully again. But among his books I noticed several new ones on rape and the treatment of offenders and victims. So it was true that Barbara, myself, and Heidi Edmonds had an unknown companion or two — or three, or even four.

“We should form a club,” I told Barbara bitterly one day as we sat in damned-together closeness at a table in the noisy student center. “Think how we could narrow down the list!” The count still stood at ten, though we’d rummaged our brains for men we might have forgotten initially.

Barbara didn’t answer. Stan Haskell had just come in, and her eyes were following him with a mixture of anger and grief. He was with a young anthropology professor who had the kind of quiet pleasant looks Barbara had. Stan picked women of a type. Surely the rapist did too? Perhaps Barbara and I should concentrate on what we had in common, what our near-fatal attraction was, rather than on our list. There was a pattern, I was convinced. There had to be a pattern, a reason. But maybe we two were too close to see our similarity. It might take a less involved person to spot it.

As I walked home a few minutes later I was praying, an infrequent activity for me until recently. I was praying that some nice man would ask Barbara out. Then, self-engrossed human that I am, my thoughts shifted to some reading I had to do, and from there to a letter I’d gotten the day before from my mother. She’d hinted heavily that she and Jay Chalmers weren’t getting along too well. And she’d written it sober, I could tell. A couple of months ago, she’d been able to hold off until after church. I had already written her back, the longest letter I’d sent Mother in years. I hoped. I was afraid to hope.

I climbed the stone steps to the front yard, then the wooden steps to the front porch, with an ease and absence of pain that pleased me. Almost well.

“Mimi?” I called. She sometimes came home to lunch, walking for the exercise; so she might be in the house even if her car wasn’t there. I hadn’t glimpsed the bumper from the street, as I could if the car was parked behind the house.

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