Chapter 9

"From the beginning?" Jackie repeated. "You want me to talk about it like it's a fairy tale or something. Like I'm at a campfire and I'm telling a ghost story?" she asked sarcastically.

"No," Olivia corrected. "I just need to know what happened so that we can catch the man who did this to you… I know this might be hard for you to do, but I promise you," the woman paused and eyed her niece sincerely. "I will find him."

Jackie hesitated before speaking, "I can't remember everything."

"That's okay," Olivia assured her. "You don't have to. I don't expect you to. You were unconscious when they found you, so that's completely understandable. Anything you can remember, even if you think it's something small, something you don't think is important. It just might be… So tell me? Do you remember what he looked like?"

Jason took a seat on the other side of the hospital bed and Jackie glanced down at her hands which were folded on her lap. The teen sighed. "I don't know. He looked like all the rest of them. They all start to look the same after a while. I got into his car."

"The Camaro?" Olivia asked, remembering what Jason had told her earlier.

"Yeah, it was red. He seemed normal...nice, even."

"What color was his skin?"

"He was white."

"And his hair?"

"Brown, I think."

"Do you remember him having any tattoos? Piercings?"

"He had a tattoo of a spider on the inside of his wrist. It was black. A tarantula maybe? I'm sorry," Jackie apologized. "I don't know a lot about spiders."

"That's okay," Olivia tried to assure her. "Do you remember were you at the time? What street you were when he picked you up?"

"22nd I think."

"That's good," Olivia told her. "You're doing great... Now, can you tell me what happened when you got into the car."

Jackie took a deep breath before answering. "He locked the door right away. I remember thinking it was weird but didn't say anything... He started talking about how cold it was. He asked me if I wanted him to turn the heat up in the car. I remember thinking that was nice, but I said I was okay..."

"And then what happened?"

"He started driving. I wasn't sure where he was going but I usually don't ask any questions about that. The guys usually pick the spot anyway. He started talking about how cute I looked. And how he wished his wife dressed more like me... I hate when they start talking about their wives and shit… It makes the whole thing more weirder than it has to be. I guess he could tell that I was uncomfortable so he apologized for bringing her up. I told him it wasn't a big deal... We drove in silence for a few minutes, until we got into an alleyway. It was really dark. There weren't any streetlights and he shut off the headlights of his car. Then, he opened the door and got out."

"He got out of the car?" Liv repeated. "Where did he go?"

"He walked around to my side and opened my car door. I couldn't see what he was doing. Then, he told me to get out."

"He wanted you to get out of the car?" Liv asked.

"I thought he was kicking me out. That he changed his mind or something. So I got out of the car and just as I was about to walk away he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me back."

Jackie felt tears forming in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't even know why I'm crying. I told myself I wouldn't cry," she said angrily. "I'm so stupid."

"No," Olivia corrected. "You're not. You went through something very traumatic. It's okay to feel certain emotions. It's okay to cry."

Jackie fought her tears back. She tried to sit up straighter and appear more stable than she really was. "It's not okay. Not for people like me."

"You're still a human being," Olivia assured her as she placed her hand on the girl's shoulder in order to comfort her. "Nothing you've done in the past or nothing that happened can change that. You're still allowed to feel."

The teen stared at the woman and wanted to believe her. For some reason, she felt safe speaking to the cop and she couldn't understand why. "Anyway," she tried to change the subject to what she knew the lieutenant really wanted to know. "…I remember being really confused. Then, he grabbed me by my other wrist and put them both behind my back, so that he could put handcuffs on me. I tried to tell him no. That I didn't do… that. But he just pressed the cuffs tighter. I screamed but he placed his hand over my mouth and opened the back door of his car before throwing me in. He let go and I kept screaming but he put duct tape over my mouth so there were only muffled noises no matter how loud I tried to be. I just thought he was going to have sex with me but…"

"But what?" Olivia pressed.

"It was like a switch went off in his brain or something. He turned me over and I could see the cold look in his eyes. Out of nowhere, he just began punching me in the ribs hard," Jackie tried to cover her abdomen as if she were still reliving it. "And then on my chest." Her arms moved upward as she tried to cover herself. "He called me a stupid whore and he said I deserved this."

"You didn't," Olivia reminded her. "No one deserves that. Men like him, they prey on women. They do what they do because they have so much hate for them. It's not your fault."

The teen tried to ignore her. She had put herself in that position in the first place. Of course, this was her fault.

"I tried to bring my wrists around to the front of me to defend myself, but he was laying on top of me and with his weight, I couldn't. When he was done punching me I thought it was over but then he grabbed a knife from the floor of the backseat and placed it on my neck. It was like he planned everything out."

"He probably did. He's already done this to other girls. But you're the only one that's alive to tell us what happened. It's very brave of you."

How does that make me brave? She wondered. The entire situation made her stupid. Not brave.

"He told me that if I kept making it difficult for him, he was going to kill me. I tried not to move but I felt the knife sticking into my skin anyway. When he finally removed the knife, he used it to cut off my shirt from the top downward. I tried to kick him with my legs but he grabbed them and then laughed. It was a creepy laugh and the look on his face," Jackie closed her eyes tightly as if she were still there.

"Hey, hey," Liv said in a soft tone when she could tell her niece was reliving the experience. "Jackie, you're not there anymore. It's me, Olivia. You're not there anymore," she repeated.

The girl opened her eyes and saw the woman staring back at her with a worried expression on her face.

She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She was almost done telling the story. She couldn't fall apart now. "He unbuttoned my pants and pulled them off of me. Then he cut off my underwear with the knife and placed the blade against my throat again. Then, he... had sex with me."

"He raped you," Olivia corrected.

"What? No. You can't rape someone like me."

"Jackie, you just described a brutal attack. He beat you. He cut you with a knife. You said no. That's rape and assault with a deadly weapon."

"I got in his car," Jackie reminded her.

"None of that matters. It doesn't matter that you got in his car or what you do. He had no right to do what he did."

"Sure," Jackie answered nonchalantly. She didn't want to argue with the woman anymore. She was now willing to say whatever to get her off her back.

Olivia could tell that her niece didn't believe her but wanted to continue asking her questions. She was afraid that if she kept trying to convince her that what happened wasn't her fault, she would end up shutting down.

"What happened after?" the Lieutenant asked.

"After he was done, he dragged me out of the car by my legs. My head must've hit the ground hard because that's all I remember."

Olivia tried to keep her emotions in check during the interrogation, but it was getting hard not to show them in her eyes. This girl was her niece. And after she heard about what she had to endure, it made her feel worse. Not better as she had originally thought it would.

"Okay," Liv said trying to hold back the tears that wanted to form in her eyes. She tried to remind herself to pretend as if this were any other case for now. "You did great."

Jackie still didn't feel great about telling the woman what happened.

"Can I go now?" Jackie asked her.

Olivia opened her mouth slightly before responding, "Uhh, no sweetie. I'm sorry but that's not exactly an option."

"But I told you what happened to me. And I feel fine now," the girl argued.

"Jackie, you just overdosed on oxycodone. And you need to stay here until the doctor's think you're ready to go."

Jason budded in, "Jackie, I think you should stay too."

Jackie stared at him with pleading eyes, "But how-" she stopped when she didn't want to finish the rest of the sentence in front of the cop.

Jason knew exactly what she was worried about. "I got it covered."

Olivia furrowed her eyebrows in confusion but chose not to intervene any more than she already had.

"Jackie," Liv began. "You just need to get some rest for now. I'll come back to check up on you later. Please, don't leave from here," the woman begged.

The teen nodded in agreement even though she didn't really think she could keep that promise.