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"Can I come over to see you later?" he asked quickly.

"Maybe you had better wait until tomorrow," I said giving him a quick smile and turning.

"I'm sorry you're sick." Harley called after me. "but I'm glad you're here." he added.

I closed my eyes and kept walking with my head down. I didn't look back until I was beside Mommy at the front door. He was still looking our way. Even at this distance. I could feel the suspicion in his eyes.

It's not lying that hurts so much. I thought. It's whom you lie to.

"Rain!" Daddy called from the door of the office as soon as we entered the house. Daddy never needed more than a syllable of rage to reveal how angry he was. "You'd better come down here a moment. I've just spoken with Grant."

I started along with Mommy.

"You should go back upstairs. honey," Daddy said.

Mommy paused, looked up at me and then back at Daddy. "No, Austin," she said. "I want her to know it all, everything."

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice fill of admonition.

"Yes," she said firmly. "Never as sure as I am now." she added. and we went down the corridor together to join him in the office.

.

Mommy wheeled herself up in front of the desk. and I sat quickly beside her. Daddy was at the window, his hands behind his back. He shook his head and then he returned to the desk and faced us.

"Grant has had a long, frank conversation with the district attorney. Duncan Fields' attorney was at the police station almost minutes after they had brought him down for questioning, and from what Grant says the district attorney tells him. this Duncan Fields was like a seasoned criminal, cocky and well versed on his rights and how to conduct himself. A few phone calls to the right places revealed he has had some other similar incidents, but all of them were quashed."

"He did something at his last music school in France, didn't he, Daddy?" I asked.

"Yes. It seems so. You can just imagine the money that took to settle that one, being it was in a foreign county," he told Mommy,

"So, if he has this record--'' she began. He held up his hand.

"I didn't say he had a record. Rain. All that the district attorney told Grant were things that were offthe-record. There's nothing written down, nothing that would come up in a search for his criminal history.. In short, nothing admissible in a court of law."

Mommy shook her head.

"To get to the heart of this situation." Daddy continued. "Duncan claims that Summer invited him to come to her bedroom window, that she had made the rendezvous arrangements while they were dancing."

"That's a lie, a big fat lie!"

"Of course it is." Daddy said. "I don't think there's anyone, even his own attorney, who believes it, but it's his story. He said you wanted to come out and he told you that you and he would get into trouble, but you practically jumped into his arms. Then you begged him to show you his car. When you got there, you practically raped him, according to his side of the story. He's seventeen, you're sixteen. Both of you are legally minors, so we couldn't go after him on corrupting the morals of a minor."

"What are you saying. Austin?" Mommy asked.

"The short of it is the district attorney doesn't feel he could win a guilty verdict.

"However," Daddy said sitting hard on the desk chair and looking at the desk. "he told Grant he put on the best show he could muster. and he's gotten the Fieldses to agree to send Duncan to psychological counseling for at least a year."

"Psychological counseling," Mommy repeated, spitting it out like a sour apple.

"Grant says that under the circumstances, the way they were described to him, we're lucky to get that. Of course, the school did expel him, but he'll be in some other school within a week or so. Probably pretty far away, maybe in Europe again."

"How disgusting," Mommy muttered.

"There's more." Daddy said. "Haskins called and offered us twenty thousand dollars if we'll let it go and not drag the school into any civil suit. I had Grant call him back because I didn't want to speak to him and they've already raised it to forty-five thousand."

"I don't want to put Summer through any more of this. Austin," Mommy said.