That had been twenty-three years ago, but Phoebe could still feel an ache in her chest as she stood at the window staring out over the grounds. All the material luxuries of her childhood had never been able to compensate for growing up under the shadow of Reed’s cruel bullying and her father’s scorn.

Something brushed against her leg, and she looked down to see Pooh gazing up at her with adoring eyes. She knelt to pick her up, then gathered her close and carried her over to the sofa, where she sat and stroked her soft white coat. The grandfather clock ticked in the corner. When she was eighteen, that clock had stood in her father’s study. She buried her pink-lacquered fingernails in Pooh’s topknot and remembered that awful August night when her world had come to an end.

Her stepmother Lara had taken two-month-old Molly to visit her mother in Cleveland. Phoebe, eighteen at the time, was home packing for her freshman year at Mount Holyoke. Normally she wouldn’t have been invited to the Northwest Illinois State football team party, but Bert was hosting it at the house so she had been included. At that time Bert hadn’t yet bought the Stars’ franchise, and Northwest football had been his obsession. Reed played on the team, and Bert’s generous contributions to the athletic fund had made him a highly influential alumnus.

She had spent the day both anticipating and dreading that night’s party. Although much of her baby fat had melted away, she was still self-conscious about her figure and wore baggy, shapeless clothing to conceal her full breasts. Her experiences with Reed and her father had left her leery of men, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but daydream that one of the popular jocks would notice her.

She had spent the early hours of the party standing on the fringes trying to look inconspicuous. When Craig Jenkins, who was Reed’s best friend, had walked over to ask her to dance, she had barely been able to nod. Dark-haired and handsome, Craig was Northeast’s star player and not even in her wildest dreams had she imagined that he would notice her, much less put his arm around her shoulders after the music ended. She had begun to relax. They danced again. She flirted a little bit, laughed at his jokes.

And then it had all turned sour. He’d had too much to drink and tried to feel her breasts. Even when she’d told him to stop, he hadn’t listened. He’d grown more aggressive, and she’d run outside in the middle of a thunderstorm to hide in the small metal shed near the pool.

That was where Craig had found her and where, in the thick, hot blackness, he had raped her.

Afterward, she’d made the mistake so many rape victims make. Dazed and bleeding, she had dragged herself to the bathroom, where she’d thrown up and then scrubbed away the signs of his violation in a tub of scalding-hot water.