In the end, it's Charlie's fault that she escapes. He gets careless. He thinks that he's succeeded in breaking her.
He is wrong.
He doesn't tie her up when he goes for a pee, and when he comes back, she's not there, and the lone basement window is broken.
Garrett remembers the next several hours in frantic, technicolor bursts. Every sentence he and Charlie throw at each other is laced with curse words.
"Get in the fucking car!"
"She was half - fucking - dead! Where the fuck could she have gone!"
"I don't know why you didn't just fucking kill her and get it over with. It's been God damn DAYS since we took her."
"I needed her to...I was going to get her to...It doesn't fucking matter now. GET IN THE FUCKING CAR."
The Fairfield's summer home is situated on a thin strip of private beach that runs into a public launch site about a quarter mile to the south. If Jane made it that far, she could find people.
People who would help her.
Garrett presses on the gas a little harder, scanning his side of the road for anyone who even resembles Jane. He is just beginning to think that they've gone in the wrong direction, that maybe Jane went North, towards the woods and rocks instead, when Charlie gives a yell.
"There!"
Garrett turns to see where he's pointing and realizes that he's right. That is Jane, walking along the beach with an eerie sort of calm, eyes trained ahead of her as though with a very distinct purpose and destination.
Garrett pulls the car over, feeling his chest flood with relief. They've found her before anyone else has. Everything is going to be okay.
"Fuck," he breathes, pulling the keys from the ignition and popping his car door open. "Fuck, I might not even wait til we get back to the house to finish this chick."
Charlie starts to laugh, but the sound gets caught in his throat. Garrett looks around at him, to ask what is wrong, but he doesn't have to.
There is a man running towards Jane. He's calling out to her repeatedly, but she doesn't seem to hear him. Garrett and Charlie stand side by side, watching as the man gains on their victim, finally overtaking her and placing a hand on her shoulder.
Garrett watches, horror struck, as Jane tries to get away from him, lashes out at him...and he sees her ruined clothing, the cuts all over her shoulders.
Her hands.
There is nothing to do. There is nothing either of them can do but watch as this stranger takes his cell phone out of his pocket with one hand, the other firmly wrapped around Jane's upper arm. They watch as Jane collapses, finally losing consciousness, and the stranger, this...kind, fucking, knight in shining armor guides her gently to the sand, kneeling with her, supporting.
"Who the hell walks the beach in the middle of January?" Charlie says darkly. He glances at Garrett. "We gotta get moving, champ."
Garrett flinches. He hates it when Charlie calls him something a father would call him. And even if he wanted to move at that moment, he wouldn't be able to do it. He is too busy watching as the man with Jane hangs up the phone and bends to say something to the unconscious girl in his lap.
Maybe she'll die before the ambulances arrive.
Maybe when she wakes up, she won't remember who took her.
Maybe he'll just explain. Maybe he'll just say to the police, to the jury...to the papers if he has to.
"What you don't understand is that Grace was so important to me." He'll have tears in his eyes as he's speaking. Some of the reporters might be moved to cry along with him. "What you have to know about her is that she was special. She was so...fucking special. And when that...when that girl came along. It was like she was tarnishing something permanently. Grace was my-
"Hey! Fucking earth to Garrett!" Charlie is shaking his arm. Yanking at it.
"What?" Garrett shakes himself, and finds that he is looking at the arrival of an ambulance and two police cars. "Shit," he swears.
"Yeah right, shit," Charlie agrees. "Can you stop daydreaming about the brains you didn't get to bash in, and can we get the hell out of here?"
Garrett doesn't need to be told again.
He's crossing the quad, fully engrossed in the okcupid app, when he hears a sound the stops him dead in his tracks. He looks up, thinking he must be mistaken, thinking that he is misremembering the sound after so many years, and what he sees will turn out to be some little freshman running after her boyfriend, or a child laughing up at his mother as they hurry down the street.
But he is not wrong.
There, crossing the quad not twenty feet from him, is Jane Rizzoli. Garrett stares at her, his mouth open, and as he watches, she looks down at her companion, and she does the thing again. She makes the sound he thought he'd extinguished for good.
She laughs.
For nearly a full minute, Garrett stands perfectly still, watching the pair's retreating backs and trying to reconcile what he has seen with the detonation of emotions inside his body.
How could that girl be here? How could she be that close to him and not be able to smell the hatred radiating off of him in waves?
Suddenly he is moving, following them towards the highrise freshman dorm, unsure of anything except the desire to keep that dark head in his sights. He watches as they approach the front door of the building, and when Jane pulls the door open for her shorter companion, letting her go in first, he is aware that he makes a noise somewhere between a strangled cough and a growl. She is looking at that younger blonde girl with the same look that she used to use on Grace. She hasn't learned anything at all.
This is what he gets for not keeping tabs on Jane Rizzoli. She appears out of nowhere and upends his perfectly ordered, restructured life.
She splinters it in half.
Garrett stares for a bit longer at the entrance to the freshman dorm, trying to fight the rising tide of helplessness he feels. He fumbles in his pocket for his cellphone, trying to keep his breathing even, trying to remember all of the things he's been taught. He finally tears his eyes away from the building in order to dial the number he knows by heart.
It rings twice, and then the woman picks up, saying his name in her calm, neutral voice.
Garrett feels better instantly.
…
…
"Do you know why you're here?"
Garrett shifts uncomfortably in the big armchair, not making eye contact. "Because I'm not in prison," he says sarcastically.
The doctor looks back at him, unmoved. "That's actually partly correct," she says, with a curt nod. "The court may have found you not guilty, Mr. Fairfield, but I believe that all of this goes much deeper than what was revealed in that trial."
Garrett makes an irritated movement with his shoulders. He blinks, and on the backs of his eyelids he sees Jane, unmoving on his basement floor. He blinks again and there is Charlie Hoyt, being led away in handcuffs, looking back at Garrett over his shoulder.
"Do you know why you didn't go to prison, Mr. Fairfield?"
Garrett feels his lip curling of its own accord. That is a trick question. It must be. But the doctor continues to watch him, and it is impossible to tell what she is thinking.
Fuck it, Garrett thinks. Just fuck it all. "I'm not in prison because my parents bought my way out of it."
This does not seem to surprise the doctor. "How?" she asks simply.
"They paid off the girl. They gave her family a huge sum. And she didn't show."
"And then, your lawyers pinned the kidnapping on Charles Hoyt. Is that correct?"
Garrett blinks at her, wondering how she knows all of this, but beyond really caring. "Yeah," he says dully. "Charlie got the blame."
"Because your parents' money made it so."
Garrett feels himself sneer again. "Because they made it so," he repeats.
The doctor leans back in her seat for a moment. For the first time since his arrival, her expression changes. Garrett has the impression that he is being studied, sized up. He has the feeling that this woman is determining whether or not he is worthy of what she has to offer.
He finds himself hoping that he is.
"Do you know what else your parents bought, Mr. Fairfield?"
Garrett shrugs.
"Me," the doctor says softly. "Your parents have paid me to evaluate you. To see if they did the correct thing by keeping their son out of lock up. They are waiting for me to tell them whether or not you are a sociopath. Whether or not you inflicted even half of Jane Rizzoli's injuries. You flinch, when I say her name. Why?"
Garrett had not been aware that he'd moved at all. The easy frankness of her confession was making him lightheaded. He lifts his hands up off of his lap, and then drops them back down, hopeless.
"You don't know?" The doctor presses, "or you're afraid to share with me?"
"I don't know."
"Do you hate her?"
"Yes," Garrett answers without hesitation.
"Are you sorry?"
"Yes," Garrett says, and again he doesn't hesitate.
The doctor pauses. She taps her pen against the pad of paper idly, examining him again. She leans forward. "Would you do it again?" she asks.
Garrett doesn't have to think about the answer. "Yes."
…
…
Dr. Baumann is his greatest lifeline. She is the thing that pulls him back to reality time and time again. It is because of her that he went back to Juilliard in the spring of his Junior year, fragile, but not completely broken.
She is the reason he stopped trailing Jane Rizzoli around the city.
She is the reason he stopped having the dreams, the reason he stopped writing to Charlie Hoyt in Prison. The reason he started dating again.
Now, the doctor talks him down over the phone, her voice just as calm and as comforting as it's always been.
"What was she doing?" Dr. Baumann asks. "Garrett, don't tell me what you think you saw. Tell me what Jane was really doing."
Garrett tries to think back. "Um...she was...she was walking across the quad with a girl. She laughed." The memory of Jane laughing springs back into his mind, setting off a domino line of thoughts that all end in fury.
"She was fucking laughing," he says, a little louder now. "Like she didn't have a care in the world. And with another girl! I would never have gotten over Grace that fast. I'm not-" he stops himself abruptly, breathing hard. He realizes that Dr. Baumann has been saying his name repeatedly. She is not raising her voice, and she doesn't sound concerned, but her voice is firm and unwavering on the other end of the line.
"Do you remember what I told you about your relationship with your sister?" she asks when she is sure she has his attention.
Garrett shuts his eyes. "Yes," he answers, though he can't bring himself to say it.
Dr. Baumann doesn't make him. She changes course. "You knew she was coming. We talked about it this Summer. You knew her hands had healed enough that she'd be able to return if she wanted to."
Garrett nods, and then remembers that she can't see him. "Yeah," he mumbles.
"What is your rage level?" Dr. Baumann asks.
"Seven," he says. "Maybe eight."
"Can we bring it down? What can you do that will distract you from the idea that Jane is mocking you?" Dr. Baumann takes a breath. "Garrett? That idea that Jane is mocking you? That is an incorrect idea. Do you understand?"
Garrett takes a deep breath. "I understand," he says.
"Jane has never been mocking you."
"She stole-"
"There was nothing to steal," Dr. Baumann says firmly. And every time she says it, it is as though it is the first time he's heard it. The doctor never sounds like she is tired of repeating herself. She never sounds as though she would judge him for his feelings.
"Garrett."
"I'm here."
"Are you?"
He breathes again. "Yes."
"Listen to me very carefully, then," she says, and when he doesn't answer, she continues. "We knew that this would be a difficult thing. We knew that there was the possibility of seeing her again. Of feeling some of the things you felt when you took her. But we also now know how to control them. We now know the very limits of your control, and we know that those boundaries have gotten smaller since the death of your sister."
"She killed-"
"Grace killed herself, Garrett. And when we are face to face, in a session, you are able to admit to me why you think that is."
Tears burn the backs of Garrett's eyes. No one but this doctor could get away with talking to him like this.
His doctor.
"You are a very talented, very intelligent, very wealthy young man," Dr. Baumann continues. "But you have pushed all three of those virtues nearly as far as they can go. Do not continue to test them."
One more deep breath. "I understand," Garrett says. "I get it."
"Shall we keep talking then?"
Garrett turns away from the freshman dorm, obediently trying to think of something that will distract him from this unfortunate incident. "No," he says. "No. I'm fine."
"Answer the big three," Dr. Baumann says. It is the way they end every session. Garrett has come to find some comfort in the routine.
"Ask them," he says, as usual.
"Do you hate her?"
"Yes."
"Are you sorry?"
"Yes. Today I am. Yes."
"Would you do it again?"
Garrett doesn't even have to consider. He nods, though he knows the doctor can't see him.
"Yes."
…
…
He stays in the back of the car when they pull into the parking lot. His mother and father in the front seat, they keep trading dark looks as the sun sinks lower and lower.
"You said five?"
"He gets off work at five. Give him time to get here."
Garrett doesn't ask what they are doing or who they are talking about. He has given up talking to his parents about anything at all since the investigation started. When he does try to talk to them they tell him they don't want to know.
"Jesus, Garrett, isn't it enough, son?" That is what his father says, no matter the topic. His mother does not say much of anything. Usually, when Garrett speaks to her, she wells up before he can even finish the sentence. The one time he'd pressed on, trying to explain how he'd done what he'd done for Grace, his mother had looked at him with wide, tearful eyes.
"For your sister!" she'd yelled. "For Grace?"
And then she'd burst into tears.
So now he just does what they tell him. They told him to get in the car, so he did. He did not ask any questions.
The grey pick-up that pulls up next to the Fairfields Bentley is missing a muffler. It rumbles to a stop in the fading light, and the man who climbs out is immediately recognizable.
"Father?" Garrett is too alarmed to hold to his 'no questions' rule. "What is Frank Rizzoli doing here?"
His father turns all the way around in his seat to point a finger at his son.
"You stay here, and you keep your mouth shut, do you understand? We're doing this for your God damned future, or what's left of it. You don't screw this up."
Garrett pushes back against the seat, folding his arms, biting back the curse words he'd like to unleash on his father.
His mother doesn't look around at him at all.
He watches as both his parents pull on matching pairs of fur lined leather gloves. His mother reaches between her legs and pulls out a small traveling suitcase. Garrett recognizes it as the one his mother had won at the last silent auction she'd attended with her daughter.
His parents share one last dark look before they get out of the car.
…
…
It goes wrong.
Garrett returns to his room, still trying to follow Dr. Baumann's order. He is to distract himself.
He needs to distract himself.
He'd told the doctor that his rage was a seven, eight at the worst, but as he looks around his room, he can feel it rising like mercury, obscuring every mantra he'd ever sought to teach himself.
He sits down at his desk, and balls his fists on the surface, casting his eyes around for something to take his mind off of Jane Rizzoli's smile. He's almost given it up as a lost cause when the edge of a piece of paper sticking out from under his bed catches his eye.
Garrett leans over and slides what turns out to be a greeting card from under his bed. It is from his father. The only piece of mail he has received from home since beginning his senior year.
Congratulations on Senior Showcase. We received your announcement, but will have to send our regrets as work here has gotten rather busy just before the Holiday.
Your mother sends her regards.
M.F.
"Yeah. Motherfucker," Garrett mumbles. But down below this note, he catches sight of a hastily scrawled postscript that he hadn't noticed before, too caught up in the disappointment and hurt of being discarded by his own parents.
P.S. My former business partner's daughter, Maura Isles, has begun her freshman year at Juilliard. She is also a dance major, and from what Richard tells me, quite talented. Please call on her to wish her well at your earliest convenience.
There it is! His distraction!
Garrett throws down the card, feeling triumphant. Dr. Baumann was right, all he needed was something to take his mind off of fucking Jane Rizzoli and her fucking laugh in the middle of the quad.
Garrett leaves his room. He jogs down the stairs and out into the Quad, heading for the cafeteria where he knows a lot of freshman eat.
When he gets there, he asks a sour looking freshman dancer if she can point out Maura Isles.
The girl makes a face like she's just sucked a lemon. "Why is everyone so obsessed with Ms. Perfect," the girl says. She points to a table. "She's over there. In the social reject bin."
And Garrett looks where she's pointing. And he sees just who is at the table with Distraction Maura Isles.
And it goes wrong.