Lucas by Emily Jane Trent

Author:Emily Jane Trent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Camden Lee Press, LLC
Published: 2021-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

As darkness descended over the shoreline, Haylee huddled next to Lucas on the sand. She stared at the ocean and watched the tide come in, any feeling of safety gone. She had figured that Kuzmin would be released at some point, but she had stopped thinking about it long ago.

The horrific incident had devastated her at the time, but she had matured since then. It was in her past, something she wanted to forget. Only Kuzmin wouldn’t let her; he had reappeared in her life. It didn’t seem real. He had been gone for so many years. She never dreamed that he would return.

Lucas took her hand. “Are you okay, honey?”

Haylee looked at him. They had shed the glasses and hats, since it was too dark for anyone to recognize her. In the last glow of sunlight, she clung to the sight of Lucas, a friendly face amid the horror.

“I’m shaken,” Haylee said. “I don’t know what I feel—hatred, fear…both?”

“We have his name now,” Lucas said. “The team will track him down, in coordination with the police.”

“What can the police do?” Haylee said. “He hasn’t committed a crime yet.”

“Stalking is a crime.”

“Yes, but you have to prove it,” Haylee said. “It’s not as though the police are going to pick him up for attending my concerts.”

“I realize this is hard for you,” Lucas said. “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

Haylee hugged her bent knees, wishing that she was anywhere else—that she was anyone else. “If I tell you then you won’t see me the same. I don’t want that to happen.”

“It won’t change a thing,” Lucas said. “There is not one thing you could say that would change what I think of you. And attempted rape was that asshole’s crime, not something you should feel guilty about.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Haylee said. “I felt like I allowed it somehow, that I should have stayed away sooner. That—”

“Tell me what happened.”

Haylee thought back to that dreadful moment and her eyes filled with tears. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took a breath. “It was a nightmare. Thirteen years ago, Denton Scott Kuzmin was a key figure in the music industry.”

Lucas listened, giving her a chance to gather her thoughts.

“I was only twenty years old,” Haylee said, “and new to the entertainment business. It was my dream to succeed, but it wasn’t easy. I was naïve when I went off to Los Angeles.”

Lucas moved closer but didn’t interrupt.

“You have to understand,” Haylee said. “Kuzmin was a producer and he was putting me in situations that I had dreamed of. I was in the studio with stars I had idolized. I would see famous people stop by to see Kuzmin, so I told myself that he was okay—even if a little creepy.”

“What did he do that was creepy?”

“One night at a bar, he groped me,” Haylee said. “Stuff like that, but I put it aside. I just thought that I was in the right place; I just had to dodge the bullet, maneuver around his creepiness.

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