Page 52 of What Rough Beast

“Hello?” I say, trying to keep my tone measured as I pull the office chair over.

“A-a-a-v-a?” My name is a stuttered question, the broken voice of a wounded animal.

“Becca, what’s wrong?” I sit up straight, fear surging, drowning resentment. “Where are you? Are you okay? Do you need me to come get you?”

“I’m okay, I think.” She laughs, a harsh jagged sound. “I mean I’m not, but I got myself home . . . after.”

The surge turns into a sinking feeling, everything inside me changing direction. “Becca, what happened?”

“Murphy’s phone,” she says, taking a deep breath. “I was at his place, and he was taking a shower—”

I cringe, not really wanting to know the sequence of events that led up to that.

“And I heard a ping, like he got a message, but it came from his closet, which I thought was weird, right? So, I went over to his closet, and he . . . he . . . he . . . had his phone like on a stand, and he was, he had—”

“He recorded you having sex,” I finish for her, anger a lead weight in my chest.

“Yeah,” Becca sniffs. “But . . . it gets worse.”

“How?” I ask, stunned.

“So, the text that came in, it was from Blake Peery. It said, Did you get it yet? And then he sent a pic of himself holding his dick, and I think he was waiting f-f-for Murph to send him the video so he could, he could—”

“Do you think he’s done this before?”

“That’s what I was worried about,” Becca says, gaining speed. “So I went into his photos and it wasn’t just me. It was a lot of girls. Meredith and Carrie for sure, some of them didn’t have faces . . . and I was scrolling fast. I didn’t know when he was going to get out of the—”

“He had sex with all of them?” I ask.

“No, it was pics. Like they sent them. His whole photo roll was just”—she sniffs—“skin.”

“Were there more videos of you that he took?”

“Yeah,” she says, voice going flat again. “Four or five. I deleted them, got out of there, left his phone lying on the bed. He’s already texted me like twenty times and called a bunch. I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t—”

“Block him,” I say, matter-of-factly. “It’s his turn to freak the fuck out. Let him sweat.”

“Okay,” she says, and I hear a ping, probably another text from Murphy. “He’s blocked. Now what?”

“Now what?” I repeat, surprised. “Becca, I don’t—”

“Tell me what to do, okay?” she asks, voice peaking with emotion again. “I know you went to the police, but—”

“Yeah, I went to the police,” I say, acid forming on my tongue. “And what happened?”

“Because I’ve got evidence,” she says.

“No, you don’t,” I tell her calmly. “You deleted it. And you can be damn sure he wiped his phone after you left and told Blake and anybody else he’s shared with to do the same thing.”

“But . . . but . . .” She’s desperate, lost, looking for a place where she’s still safe, or can at least get justice. “But surely the police could get a warrant—”

“Becca,” I say, trying to keep sharpness out of my tone. “I had a rape drug in my system. I was bleeding. I woke up with my pants around my ankles at a party with a bunch of underage drinking, and nobody did a goddamn thing.”

“But . . .” Her voice is small, hesitant. “You didn’t have proof. Your test didn’t—”

“And neither do you,” I interrupt her. “If you go to the cops telling them you want a search warrant for the phone of the hometown baseball hero who might make it into the major leagues, what do you think is going to happen?”

There’s a silence. It’s long.