Page 71 of What We May Be

Chapter Nineteen

Bound and gagged, Craig Rowan sat shaking on a starting block in HU’s natatorium. Moonlight streamed through the ceiling windows of the huge building, reflecting off the water in the pool and giving the shadows a life of their own. It had been close to nine when he’d left the gym, needing to get in a good work out after being cooped up in protective custody. Given the position of the moon overhead now, he guessed it was past midnight. He’d been out for several hours.

Sweat soaked his gray gym shirt, staining his collar and running down his back, a by-product of his agitation and the humidity of the room, but his limbs weren’t slick enough to slip out of the ropes binding his wrists and ankles. All he’d managed to do since waking an hour ago was scrape his skin raw and add the stench of his blood to the heavy chlorine-scented air.

Even if he managed to loosen the bindings, they weren’t the only things holding him in place. Thicker, heavier-duty ropes circled his waist and neck, and tied to their ends, sitting on his knees, were two giant cinder blocks. Struggle or shake too much and one or both cinder blocks would fall. And so would he. Into the deep end of the pool below him.

He couldn’t believe this. The officer who’d been his shadow for the past two days, ever since that bitch Charlotte Henby had dressed him down in front of the entire HPD and an FBI agent, had told him the threat had passed. They’d caught their prime suspect. So either they had the wrong person in custody, or this was something else. Someone jerking his chain, out for a good laugh, he hoped. Or someone trying to force his hand or seeking retribution, he feared.

In either event, he couldn’t say with certainty what for. The potential list was a long one. He was no saint, and he hadn’t hesitated to use his family name or city hall to get what he wanted. That’s the way his father had done it and his father before him. One of the perks of being a Rowan. He was pretty sure, though, that neither his dad nor his granddad had ever found themselves in this kind of situation.

A shadow moved, drawing his gaze from the blocks on his knees to the corner of the room. When the shadow took form and stalked the end of the building closest to him, Craig reared back, almost knocking off a block.

“Careful, Craig,” the figure spoke, voice disguised by a modulator. “I need you to send a message for me before you die.”

Die?

Fear shot through him, causing his heart to pound and his vision to blur. This was not some prank.

“I’m going to ungag you now, and you’re not going to scream. If you scream, I’ll knock those blocks off your knees. Nod if you understand.”

He nodded carefully as beads of sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He blinked furiously to clear his vision. Maybe if he recognized his kidnapper, if it was someone he knew, he could use his connections to plead his case. His hopes died, though, when his kidnapper approached from behind, untying the gag and removing it from his mouth. The cloth made a small splash in the water.

Hearing a click to his right, he scanned the shadows again and found the unmistakable red dot of a camera. He was being recorded. Before he had time to contemplate further, his attacker spoke again.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

He licked his lips and stretched his jaw, forcing his mouth to function again after being gagged. “No,” he croaked. He cleared his throat and started again. “No, I have no idea.”

“You’re guilty, Craig.”

“Guilty?”

“You were a star back then, weren’t you? Captain and starting tailback for the Raiders. I bet you thought you could have any girl you wanted.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, distracted. He’d begun working again at the bindings behind his back.

“And if a girl didn’t want you, you’d just slip a little something into her drink.”

His fingers froze. “I never did that.”

“No?” It wasn’t so much a question as thinly veiled outrage. The pacing behind him stopped. “You never took Charlotte Henby to a party her senior year of high school, plied her with a roofied wine cooler, and pressured her to have sex with you?”

It took everything in him not to move, to suppress the bile that rocketed up his throat and stung his nostrils. The struggle only intensified as the kidnapper carried on with the litany of his sins.

“And Trevor Caldwell never broke your nose when he came to rescue her. You never returned the favor. Your best friend, Thomas Teller, never pulled Trevor off you and threatened to tell his father, the HU Pirate’s baseball coach, what Trevor had done so he’d lose his scholarship. You never threatened to press assault charges if he or Charlie reported what you’d done. You never did any of those things, did you, Craig?”

“H-h-how did you know all that?”

Footsteps grew louder, charging up behind him, and he closed his eyes, forcing himself not to rock forward at the force of the person’s words or the spittle flying onto the side of his face. “You ruined a good family that night. Then you grew up to cover the same crimes you committed. Anyone who’s lived in Hanover a minute can see what a despicable man you are.”

The warm breath retreated, and the names began again, names he’d never forget. “Hannah Meyers, Patricia Gilbert, Meghan Abbott.”

As the assailant’s angry voice filled the cavernous building, Craig had to fight harder to control his shaking, the cinder blocks wobbling precariously on his knees, threatening death at any second.

“Three HU cheerleaders, drugged and raped at an alumni party in Atlanta after the Pirates won their bowl game last New Year’s Eve.”

Shaking only his head, he spouted his practiced response. “HU and Atlanta PD conducted an investigation. They found no evidence connecting any HU players to the events of that night.”

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