Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

newleads, if they are any closer to finding the man who raped me, and they ask if I’ve remembered anything to aid them in their search. The answer is the same in both cases: no.
    The police promise to stay in touch, and I hang up the phone. I don’t want to be touched.
    Something is happening on the street. An altercation between two young men. I point my binoculars at them, watch as a fistfight erupts and the people around them scatter. No one interferes, which is probably smart. How many times have I read of good Samaritans being killed while trying to break up a fight?
    Was someone watching the night I was attacked? I wonder, not for the first time. Did anyone see what was happening and choose not to intervene out of fear for their own safety? Was there someone who saw or heard something that could be helpful in identifying the man who raped me, someone who knows something but isn’t telling?
    According to the police, who claim to have questioned everyone who lives in the vicinity of where the attack took place, the answer is no. Of course, I know from professional experience that the police aren’t always as thorough as they claim and that witnesses to crimes aren’t necessarily as truthful or forthcoming as they should be. Not because they’re bad people. Not because they don’t care. They just don’t want their own lives disrupted. If they can maintain a safe distance, they will choose to stay safe.
    I don’t judge them. Nor do I blame them. There is safety in distance, I have come to believe.
    The phone rings, and I jump. Seems I spoke too soon about it being a quiet day. I move to it quickly, not wanting to risk a repeat of what happened yesterday. “Hello, Miss Carpenter. It’s Finn at the concierge desk.”
    My heart starts pounding at the sound of the disembodied male voice speaking in my ear. I feel my rapist leaning toward me.
Tell me you love me
, he says. I calm myself by remembering that Finn always identifies himself in this manner—It’s Finn,
at the concierge desk
—as if I know a plethora of Finns, and that I used to find it amusing. “Your brother is here to see you,” he says.
    I wonder why he is telling me this. Everyone who works here knows Heath. They know to just send him up.
    “Not Heath,” Finn says, as if I have voiced this thought out loud.
    Another man interjects. “Let me have that. Bailey,” he says in his best assistant state’s attorney’s voice. “It’s Gene. Tell this clown to let me up.”
    Oh, God, I think, as my head falls toward my chest. I haven’t seen Gene—more formally, Eugene, my father’s first-born son and namesake—since our dad’s funeral. I haven’t talked to him since the launch of his lawsuit. I don’t have the strength for his bluster and bullshit now.
    “I’m kind of tired,” I say.
    “Don’t make me have to call in the troops.”
    While I’m not sure exactly what troops he means, I know he won’t leave until I’ve agreed to see him. “Send him up,” I tell Finn. I return the phone to its charger, lay my binoculars down on the nightstand beside it and head for the door. Gene is already waiting on the other side by the time I get there.
    “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were raped?” he demands even before I’ve fully opened the door.
    I stand back to let him enter, then immediately close the door and double-lock it.
    “It’s not something I choose to broadcast,” I hear myself say, hating the quiver in my voice.
    “I’m your brother.”
    “You’re suing me,” I remind him.
    “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
    I find myself marveling at his ability to compartmentalize. Was this how he was able to investigate his own father for fraud? “Would you like something to drink?” I ask, not sure what else to say, not sure whether I have anything to offer him.
    “I had to hear about it from the police, weeks after the fact.”
    “I’m sorry. I guess I should have.…”
    “Yes, you should have. I’m