Read What Washes Up for Free Online Page B

across from her and sat down on it. He watched her take a big drink of her own.
    “Tell me,” he said.
    Maggie looked up at him and swallowed hard. It took a moment for her to say it, and Wyatt watched her, frowning.
    “I never should have been on the Gregory Boudreaux case,” she finally said. “And I should have told you that at the scene when you asked me if I knew him.”
    “Okay,” he said cautiously. “So you knew him.”
    “No.”
    Wyatt said nothing, just looked confused. Maggie blew out a breath. “He raped me when I was fifteen.”
    So many different emotions flashed in Wyatt’s eyes at once that she couldn’t identify even one, and she looked away from him, stared at a picture of Sky and Kyle instead. It was one thing to have Boudreaux looking at her, knowing, but Wyatt was something altogether different. She wasn’t ashamed of having been attacked, she was just unaccustomed to it being known.
    “What happened?” Wyatt asked quietly.
    Maggie still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She changed her focus to a lamp instead. “I was fishing on the river. Back in the woods, not too far from here. I have no idea what he was doing there.”
    Wyatt stood up and Maggie turned away from the lamp and watched him walk to the window by the front door. His shoulders were bunched up, and when he reached a palm out to the window frame, he looked like he was going to slap it, then he just leaned on it, the other hand on his hip.
    “You’re angry,” she said. She noticed that her fingers were hurting from holding her wine glass too tightly, and she set it down on the windowsill.
    Wyatt shook his head, then ran a hand through his hair and turned around. “Of course I’m angry,” he said.
    “I know I messed up—”
    “I haven’t even gotten to that part yet,” he said tightly.
    “Then what are you angry about?”
    “What do you mean—I’m angry because it’s you,” he snapped. “I’m angry because he hurt you! I’m angry—”
    He put his hands on his hips and looked down at the floor for a second before looking at her again. “Because you’re my best friend,” he said quietly.
    The honesty in his eyes as they looked at each other made her forget to breathe for a moment, and made her forget that there was a lot more to say.
    “You’re the only best friend I have left,” she said softly.
    “Well, then we’re equally screwed,” he said quietly. Maggie knew he was trying to lighten up a moment that wasn’t going to get any lighter, but she appreciated his effort.
    He walked back to the coffee table and sat down again. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked.
    “Wyatt, I’ve never told anyone,” she said. “I never even told David.”
    He looked down at her hands, then gently took hold of her wrists and rubbed them with his thumbs. Maggie blew out another breath.
    “I’m sorry, but there’s more that I need to tell you.”
    Wyatt looked up at her.
    “Wilmette was there, too,” she said.
    “Oh crap, Maggie,” he said, and he let go of her hands and covered his face. “Holy crap.”
    “Wyatt, I need you to understand, I didn’t even know about it until after I had the case,” she said.
    He took his hands away from his face. “Explain that. Please.”
    “I have flashbacks sometimes. Sometimes I have dreams,” she said.
    “The old lady chasing you on the beach,” he said.
    “How do you know about that?”
    “David. David told me.”
    Tears welled up in Maggie’s eyes and she blinked them away.
    “I know I’ve been keeping things from you. Important things,” she said. “But in almost thirty years, that’s the only thing I ever lied to David about. But he would have killed him. Do you understand?”
    Wyatt nodded at the floor. “Yes. Yes, I do understand.”
    “There’s no old lady,” she said. “It was always just Gregory Boudreaux. But, after I started working his case, I remembered that there was someone else there. I never saw him. But Gregory said