Page 34 of Sinful Memory

“Are you saying she was addicted to her medications?” I ask. I bring her attention to me and away from my partner. “Addicted to Oxy?”

“I’m saying I would be surprised if she was not.” Mathers picks up her tea and takes a sip. “Anna was a child of trauma, Detectives. She was sexually assaulted when she was only twelve, and regularly active by the time she was fourteen. These partners were often adults who took advantage, but she never saw it as rape. Therefore, nothing was reported to the authorities.”

Setting her teacup back in its little saucer, she brings her attention up and looks into my eyes. “When young men lavish time and attention on a teenage girl whose parents only paid attention to the dollar signs, then what you and I could consider grooming, Anna might’ve thought to be love. I know she was particularly surprised during one of our sessions when the wordsstatutory rapewere brought up.”

Just fourteen. Sleeping with adults.

It wasn’t nonconsensual, and yet, she was just a child. Too young to give consent.

“Does the same ring true for boys?” My lips move before the thought even truly registers in my mind. I study Ever’s knowing gaze, and swallow. “If he knows he wants to have sex. If he knows it feels good. If… if he never truly had a childhood, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be making adult choices with adult partners. Statutory rape?”

“Yes.” She relaxes back in her chair with a soft smile. “Consent cannot be given before a certain age. Therefore, any sexual encounters that boy took part in were, at the very base of things, nonconsensual.”

“Even if he liked it?”

“Even if he liked it,” she confirms. “If a young man wishes to explore his sexual desires, typically, he would do so with a young woman of a similar age. Teens having sex at all is never entirely ideal, but at the very least, we can assume neither are being coerced into the act. If he’s having sex with a grown man or woman, then that act is nonconsensual, purely because one party is an adult and the other, legally unable to give consent.”

She inches forward on her chair and gently places her tea on the small table between us, then stretching to her left, she pulls a business card from a small silver cardholder. “If you wish to speak to someone,” she offers it with a sweet smile. “I’ll take your call, Detective.”

“Not for me.” Stunned by her assumption, I take the card and shove it into my back pocket. “I wasn’t asking for myself.”

Fletch stares at me from my right, his glare warming the side of my face, while Mathers watches me front-on. Her unimposing smile, like a boiling anvil to my forehead.

“Tell us about Anna.” I clear my throat and ignore the loaded gazes burning me where I sit. “Who was she dating most recently?”

Ever sits back again and breathes out a soft laugh. “I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?” Fletch counters. “You were herDear Diary. Why wouldn’t she confide in you, especially if you’d already discussed sex in the past?”

“We discussed her relationship,” Mathers concedes. “But I do not know a name.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell you a name?” I ask. “Why the secrecy from the one person on the planet she could trust to keep things confidential?”

“Confidential?” She raises a questioning brow. “Like right now, how I’m betraying her confidence to two men she never even knew?” She shakes her head and purses her lips. “Nothing is ever truly safe, Detectives. She knew that just as well as I did. I warned her as such.”

“Warned her about what?” I press. “What isn’t safe?”

“This.” She gestures to the space between us. “Therapy. It’s a common phrase, isn’t it, that therapy is protected from prying eyes and ears. But a judge can override such privacy with a single flick of their wrist and a signature on paper. She was paraded through a sexual assault court case when she was nineteen years old, Detectives. A fan grabbed her at a show. It was not a gentle brushing as they passed, but a grotesque groping that left her body bruised and her sleep fractured. The people-pleaser in her wanted to ignore it. Make it go away. But the woman she was growing into, the one who was an idol for young women all over the world, couldn’t sit by and do nothing. So she pressed charges and followed it all the way to trial.”

Mathers’ lips are a little thin, but as she presses them into a firm line, I get the distinct impression she cared for Anna too. Just like Heenan. Just like the maid.

“The issue with these proceedings, gentlemen, is that the opposing party can seek leave to subpoena notes, such as the things she and I discussed in this very room. The lawyers who represented an abuser got to read all about Anna’s childhood trauma, and there was nothing she or I could do to stop it. Though I tried,” she huffs. “I stalled as long and as hard as the law would allow. But in the end, the opposing counsel read about her first sexual encounter. They read of her multiple sexual partners, the list growing exponentially longer from her fourteenth birthday. They read of her fears and her dislikes, but also, the things she liked, and the reasons she sought validation in sex.”

She brings her gaze back to me. “She was a child, but many times, she liked what she was doing with these men. Or, she liked how they made her feel. Lawyers pored over those notes the way buzzards swarm a rotting carcass. And when inside that courtroom, they used those things against her.That man didn’t grope her uninvited, they said.He did nothing without her first asking for it.She touched him first, they claimed. In fact, they counter-sued for the sexual assault he alleged back.”

“Fucking animals,” Fletch grits out. “She wanted to stand up to an injustice, so they came back harder and made her regret ever reporting the assault.”

Mathers only scoffs. “Is that not what all perpetrators do? Attack. They question the victim’s mental state, or their sexual proclivity. They say she wasn’t wearing enough clothes, or she was walking alone at night. Or perhaps she consented to him touching some other time, another place, and therefore, she clearly wanted it this time.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I drop my head and run my fingers through my hair. “She learned a hard lesson about privacy.”

“She sure did. She spoke her secrets in a space that was supposed to be safe, and in the end, those very secrets became ammunition inside a courtroom. Still, we continued our sessions, and she trusted me with her thoughts. Her actions. So I know she was dating a man, Detectives. I know she’d been seeing him for a while. But it seemed she learned to keep some things to herself, because I do not know his name. Although…”

I lower my hand and bring my gaze up. “‘Although,’ what?”

“I’m led to believe he, too, is a public figure.”

“Famous?” Fletch clarifies. “Music?”

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