Broken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 2)

  Broken by Love

  Book Two of The Basin Lake Series

  Stephanie Vercier

  Contents

  Newsletter

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Broken by Love

  A Basin Lake Novel

  Copyright © 2016 by Stephanie Vercier

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For my beautiful Mother

  CHAPTER ONE

  EMMA

  Seattle, Washington —Two and a Half Years Ago — December

  “You can tell us anything,” the woman sitting across the table said to me.

  She looked to be in her mid 40s with her brown hair pulled back so tightly that it had to hurt, and yet her face was relaxed, pleasant even. If she were my teacher or a friend of my mother’s, I think I’d have smiled at her, gone out of my way to be nice, perhaps even wondered if she had someone at home to keep her company. But stuck in the back room of the police station in downtown Seattle, I felt no such inclination.

  “I don’t…” I mumbled, stopped short of finishing my sentence, and then sighed. I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t even want to be here, sitting across from two detectives while my mom and Mrs. Carrington, my English teacher, sat on the sidelines. They’d been instructed by the detectives to please be quiet and let me talk.

  “Detective Marshall has been very patient with you,” the man sitting next to her said. He was losing his hair and his entire forehead reddened as he spoke, looking at me like I’d be in deep shit if I didn’t start talking. “But I’m getting a little tired of this, and do you want to know why, Ms. Chambers?” He paused, waiting for me to respond.

  I wasn’t used to being called “miss” anything. It was always just Emma. But regardless of his choice of words, I shook my head.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. But I’ll tell you. While you sit here, quietly defending that man, there are other girls, perhaps younger than you, girls who might not come out of this as well as you have. Do you really want him to be able to victimize someone else? Do you, Miss Chambers?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I don’t.” But he’d never hurt anyone. He hadn’t even hurt me.

  “Then tell us, please,” he insisted.

  Even in their silence, I could feel the eyes of my mother, of Mrs. Carrington, and of the woman, Detective Marshall, burning into me. If my dad was here, and not on vacation in California with Liz, my stepmother, he’d probably already be out of the room and on the hunt for my teacher… Matthew Thatcher.

  I could have started at the beginning, but I had no desire to waste my memories of him on them. And would they understand how I’d fallen in love with him or just tell me I was too young and too stupid to understand what that word even meant?

  But I did know. I felt it inside of me, a feeling that had grown from the first day of my sophomore year when I hadn’t noticed him at all. He was just my science teacher, and that’s all I saw. My mind had been far too occupied with my mother who had just started drinking again after forty-three days of sobriety—yes, I was absolutely counting—and the fact that my father had cancelled our once a month visit for the second time in a row because something more important always seemed to come up. Maybe Mr. Thatcher noticed the overall gloominess in me that day and had wanted to help from day one.

  When I first walked into what I assumed was some kind of interrogation room this morning, everyone—the detectives, my mother and Mrs. Carrington—said he preyed upon me, that I was his victim. But I didn’t feel like a victim. If anything, I’d been grateful to him.

  “We are very patiently waiting for you to tell us,” the man said, “but I can assure you, Miss Chambers, that that patience wears awfully thin.”

  I sighed, realizing I wasn’t going to get out of this room until I told them something, and I knew that if I found the right words, then maybe I could make them understand.

  “It happened three times,” I said, unable to look the man or anyone else in the eyes. Instead, I focused on my lap and my clasped hands, damp and clammy, wishing more than anything I didn’t have to be here.

  “What happened?” he prodded, this male detective whose name I had completely forgotten.

  “We… made love,” I said, only ashamed and looking down because they couldn’t understand. “If you have to know, that’s what happened.”

  “He raped you then?” the man asked with an intense scrutiny in his voice.

  I shook my head. “It was never rape. He never forced me… he’s not a predator.”

  I could swear the man laughed, as if I were stupid. “Actually, in the State of Washington, it is rape. You were sixteen. He was… how old?”

  “Thirty-two,” Detective Marshall answered without hesitation.

  “But I’m old enough to consent,” I argued. “I looked it up. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Semantics,” the man said. “He was in a position of authority, and that, young lady, is rape.”

  “But he didn’t…” I trailed off.

  They most definitely wouldn’t understand. Everyone liked Mr. Thatcher. He was funny and youthful and kind. When he’d told me his real age, I hadn’t believed him. He didn’t look a day over twenty-five, boyish with glasses and short cropped hair that had reminded me of this nerdy cute guy I’d crushed on in the eighth grade. Mr. Thatcher put me at ease. Two weeks into the first semester, I’d felt comfortable enough with him to stop at his desk after class and apologize for falling behind and not turning the last two assignments in.

  “I’ll do better,” I’d said. “It’s just been a rough two weeks.”

  “Oh? Do you want to talk about it?” He seemed more curious than anything, and even though I declined his offer that day—afraid I’d be stepping over a line if I told him my mother was drinking again and how abandoned I felt by my father—I changed my mind a week later.

  He’d pulled up a chair for me, right next to his desk, and sat back and listened. He was so easy to talk to, so easy to tell things to that I hadn’t told anyone, not even my best friend, Jennifer.

&n
bsp; And somehow, someway, three weeks after that, after I’d begun to see him as handsome and intriguing and protective, I’d gone to a hotel room with him. It was my first time, but I wasn’t afraid. Mr. Thatcher… Matthew… said he loved me, said what we were doing was “making love.” He said he and his wife were getting a divorce. I believed him, and I loved him back. I loved him enough to be with him two more times, times that I’d never wanted to end, times that I’d just wanted to remain in his arms and feel safe and protected.

  I couldn’t hide my feelings for him back at school, and I supposed he had a difficult time too. He’d hugged me close to him in the hall once when people were around, and he’d even sought me out at my locker one afternoon when I was late meeting him outside the cafeteria. Maybe other people noticed these things, some shift in my behavior, but Mrs. Carrington was the only one that said something about it.

  “There’s such a change in you,” she’d said to me one day before class. “And I’m not sure it’s good, Emma.” That’s what she’d said, and I remember thinking she knew. She had to know.

  “I don’t want him to get in trouble,” I said, finally looking back up to Detective Marshall and the man next to her. “It wasn’t rape, no matter what you say. I’m sixteen, and I gave him permission. We love each other.”

  “Oh, god!” My mom practically shrieked from her place against the wall, and when I looked over, her face was buried in her hands. Mrs. Carrington had her arm around her.

  “Emma,” Detective Marshall said softly. “I’m sorry we’ve had to put you through this, but you see, sometimes it’s important to get a victim to tell us their version of how a crime transpired even if other evidence exists.”

  I nodded, thinking I understood, that all of this was just protocol. I imagined that once I’d given my statement, assured them that Matthew hadn’t raped me, that he wouldn’t get in any real trouble regardless of what they said about it being a crime.

  This self-assurance put me at ease momentarily until Detective Marshall’s words echoed once more in my head.

  Other evidence exists.

  What other evidence?

  “Evidence?” I asked. I could think only of a confession Mr. Thatcher may have given and my corroborating word, but what beyond that could it have been?

  Detective Marshall and her partner looked at one another, both with raised eyebrows, like they were trying to determine which one of them should answer me. I turned to my mom, her head still buried in her hands, but even without seeing her eyes, I could see she must have known more than I did.

  “There was a recording,” Detective Marshall said after getting a nod from her male counterpart. “Several recordings actually. He took video of the times… when you and he were together.”

  I heard the words crystal clear.

  Recordings.

  He took video.

  When you and he were together.

  For a brief moment, I didn’t care if he’d done it. He could have done anything, and I’d have still loved him. But in the next second, my stomach clenched, and my throat started to burn, bile rising like a volcano that had just been awoken.

  “No,” I said, clearing my throat and swallowing down my disgust. “It’s not possible. You’re lying.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true, Emma,” Detective Marshall said. “Matthew Thatcher recorded you and he having sex. You obviously had no idea, did you?”

  I wanted to tell her again that it couldn’t be true, but my mouth didn’t seem to be working, and I could only shake my head. When I started to cry, it was Mrs. Carrington, not my mother, who came to my side and held me against her.

  “It can’t be,” I got out among my sobs. “Please tell me they’re lying… please tell me…”

  “I wish I could,” she said, holding me closer.

  “But you have to,” I wanted to say. I wanted her to tell me they were lying because how could the man that I loved do that to me? How could he record us… record me without telling me? That’s what perverts and voyeurs and men who wanted to upload things to porn sites did.

  Had he done that?

  “What did he do with them?” I cried out, the reality that at least the two detectives in this room had seen the videos dawning on me, not to mention whoever else they might have leaked to.

  “Nothing, not as far as we can tell,” I heard Detective Marshall say as I cried into Mrs. Carrington. “And we won’t let them get out, Emma. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  But I would worry, with a sense of dread so heavy in me that I felt as though it could pull me to the ground and keep me there, a prisoner of what the man I loved had done. But I didn’t love him anymore, not now, not after that. That too hit me like a bat aimed right at my gut.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EMMA

  Seattle, Washington — Present Day — August

  Angela is late. It’s not rare. In fact, being late is pretty much expected of the only female friend I currently have. There’s no telling how late she’ll actually be, though—it could be twenty minutes or two hours. So I sit and stare at myself in the mirror, the one attached to the makeup table in my very small room, jumbled up with all of the other furniture that resides inside these four walls, half of it from the house Mom, Dad and I used to have in North Seattle.

  “I can’t part with it… not yet,” Mom had said when we’d moved to this condo downtown, after she’d said she couldn’t stand living in our old neighborhood and having everyone know what had happened between me and Mr. Thatcher. “They look at me funny at the store,” she’d said to me the night before the house went up for sale. “It’s unbearable.”

  It was the summer after Mr. Thatcher’s arrest, and I’d been under the impression we’d survived it, if only barely. My name had been kept out of the media due to my age, but of course everyone at school knew I was the reason Mr. Thatcher was in jail awaiting trial, that I was the girl he’d had sexual contact with—it had been obvious. Yes, people talked, gossiped, and whispered behind my back—boys could be especially nasty. But much of that harassment had lessened over time, and Jennifer, whom I’d met in middle school, had remained my best friend. She and her family made sure I knew that none of it was my fault.

  My feelings for Mr. Thatcher, for Matthew, had ebbed and flowed with the hours of each day, times I loved him and times I hated him. Occasionally, I had felt sorry for him being stuck in jail, felt sorry for his wife who I wanted to apologize to but could never quite figure out what the right words would be. It had been uncomfortable, all of it, but I’d felt mostly safe and supported at my school, among my real friends, among the people who were still there for me even after what had happened.

  Mom had other ideas of course, and once we moved to her boyfriend’s condo in downtown Seattle late that summer, I figured maybe she was right, maybe it was for the best to have a fresh start. But with the move and the new school, I’d been plagued by nightmares and a constant, gnawing worry. A fear burrowed deep inside of me that made me think those videos Mr. Thatcher had taken of us would somehow get out and be released to the world, and all those kids in my new school would see them.

  I try not to think about it, but it’s hard sitting here and waiting for Angela, staring at my reflection and wondering what I’d look like on film, wondering how awkward it would be to see myself naked, see my virginity taken by a man I trusted. The thought of it makes my stomach twist and turn.

  The knock at the door startles me. For a moment I think that it might be Angela, but she never comes up to the condo. She’ll text me when she’s outside my building, her car running, double-parked on the busy downtown street below.

  “Can I come in?” Mom says, having already pushed my door inward.

  “Sure,” I say, eyeing her reflection in the mirror, the dark bags under her eyes, her tangle of hair that she’s tried to throw up into a bun, and the old robe she seems to wear every weekend.

  She sits on my bed and sighs. “You’re going out?”


  “Just waiting for Angela.” It’s Saturday night, and I’m in a short black dress that barely covers my thighs, my chestnut hair expertly straightened and my makeup perfectly covering up any possible blemish on my creamy white skin. It’s the same every weekend, going out Friday, Saturday and sometimes half the nights in between. Yet Mom still seems surprised, seems to think I should sit home like she does and drink her weekends away in this apartment.

  “It gets so lonely,” Mom says, not even trying to look at me in the mirror. Her eyes cast downward, as if she’s searching for something in the carpet.

  “Why don’t you go somewhere with Aiden?” I ask. He’s supposed to be her boyfriend, and this is his condo, but he’s hardly ever here. I can’t even remember the last time I’d seen him.

  She waves the suggestion away. “He’s in New York. Business. And when he’s here, he just wants to sleep.” She makes a cutting sound and then adds. “It’s as if he’s ashamed of me now… told me I needed to be freshened up.” Then she laughs awkwardly.

  “He’s not very nice. I don’t see why we don’t just move out.”

  I’ve never particularly liked Aiden. He’s older than Mom by ten years, older than my father by five. He has the nerve to tell Mom she needs freshening up when he’s got a gut and pale skin that is usually tinged with red from his drinking. But like Mom, he’s a functioning alcoholic, with a job in marketing just like her, and he owns this condo with a view of Elliot Bay and the rapidly changing city around us. Mom says he’s stable.

  “To where?” She laughs. “Besides, it would take ages to pack all this stuff up.” She looks around my cramped room, at the things tying us to the past she wanted to move on from.