Page 29 of Savior
Glancing down at her, I’m struck by how small she seems. She’s wearing a sweater and a pair of jeans tucked into dark boots. She may be tall for a woman, but at six-two, I still tower over her.
I look away. “I hate bringing you here.”
Two uniformed officers guide Hayley to a secluded conference room. She keeps her eyes on her shoes to avoid the inevitable stares the entire way.
Sofie puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be,” she says. “The way I look at it is that I get to help people the way I wish I’d been helped.”
When Sofie was younger, just a teenager, she was attacked and raped by someone she considered a friend. She never told anyone—not even her boyfriend, who happens to be her now husband, Jack. For ten years, she could barely stand to come back to Nassau, let alone confront what happened to her. When her mother died, leaving her two brothers, Donnie and Rafe orphaned, she moved back to take care of them. In doing so, she also had to face the man who brutalized her.
I kiss her hair. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, you know that, right?”
She smiles up at me. A couple years ago, I would have been hard pressed to think she could be so happy when she’d always been so haunted. “Quite the compliment coming from you.”
“Are you sure you won’t leave Jack and run away with me?”
Laughter dances in her eyes. “You’d better be glad he’s deployed or you’d have to take that up with him.”
“How is he doing?”
“Happiest he’s ever been, I think. You’ve talked to him. He missed it.”
I think back to my time in the Marines as a sniper. Most of my job involved waiting, lots of it, and the rest was choosing whether or not the target on the other end of my scope was going to die on that particular day. Unlike Jack, when my second tour was up and my marriage crashed and burned, I was ready to get out. Ready for a change. Being a cop is the best thing to ever happen to me. I get to help save lives instead of taking them.
One of the officers comes out to greet us. Sofie shakes his hand and then looks to me. “Ready?”
The conference room isn’t cozy, but we do what we can to make Ms. Gallagher feel comfortable. Sofie takes a seat next to her and I offer her a cup of water.
“Thank you for coming in today,” I tell her as I take a seat in front of her.
She nods and the smile she sends my way is wobbly and doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m going to keep this as to the point as possible. I know Sofie has explained the process to you. Do you have any questions?”
Ms. Gallagher nods after a quick glance at Sofie for reassurance. “N-no, thank you. She was very clear. I just want to get this over with.”
“I won’t take up much of your time. Why don’t you start with what you were doing yesterday evening?”
She takes a sip from the paper cup and wipes her lips with trembling fingers. “Uh, it was a Tuesday, so I had an evening class—bio. I didn’t get out until eight or so.”
“At the community college?” At her nod, I note it down on my pad and look back up at her. I don’t want to pester her with questions and I’ve found it best to let them retell the events in their own words. It helps with recall and allows for greater detail than a question by question interview.
“My car was parked on the other side of campus, and it’s easier to cut through the park. Faster. So I was walking through the main sidewalk there when this guy comes up to me.”
“Was there anyone around?”
She bites her lip, looks down at her hands. “Um, maybe? A lot of people choose to take that shortcut, so there should have been. I wasn’t paying much attention. I have a Spanish exam Friday and I was studying flash cards on my phone. I should have been paying attention. It was so stupid.”
Sofie places a hand on Ms. Gallagher’s. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“He came at me from behind, surprised me. At first he—I mean, he was nice. He was cute.” She buries her face in her hands. “I wasflattered. I can’t remember what he said because he hit me.” Her fingers probe the bandaged area on her head. “Then I was in the woods and I couldn’t see anyone.”
I make another note to contact her class and others who may have been walking on the same trail. She may not have seen them, but there could have been a witness.
As I write, she continues, “I know I should have fought, should have called out for help, but I was just so scared.”
“I know this is hard, but every detail may help catch the man who did this to you.”
She nods and wipes her eyes. “The more scared I got, the more he...liked it. Jesus.” Sofie makes a sound of encouragement. “There was a sound, there must have been something that spooked him because he turned back like he heard something. I didn’t even think about it, I just pushed him and he lost his balance. I got away. I just ran. I could barely see, couldn’t even recognize where I was.”