Nancy Grace - The Eleventh Victim

She had to be wrong. It couldn’t be Cruise. He was in prison. On death row.

Her mother’s voice echoed back…something she’d said when they were talking on the phone one night.

“They’re saying he’s still trying to appeal, but the Georgia courts would never let that happen.”

They wouldn’t…would they?

Surely she would know, though, if Cruise had won his appeal by some miracle and been released. Surely she would have been warned…

By whom, though?

She picked up the telephone and dialed her parents.

“You’ve reached Mac and Elizabeth Dean. We’re not home right now, but leave us a message and we’ll get back with you.”

No, Hailey realized with a sinking heart, they wouldn’t. They were on Cumberland.

And Fincher was on the other side of the world in Iraq.

Heart pounding Hailey fired up her computer and went to the Georgia Corrections Web site.

Clint Burrell Cruise.

She had long railed against a system that didn’t warn victims of violent crime when perps were paroled. She’d even testified before the Georgia Senate to demand a change in the law as part of the Victims’ Bill of Rights. Since a large percentage of the Georgia Legislature was made up of defense attorneys, it failed. Victims of rape, robbery, assault, even murder victims’ families were never warned…much less former prosecutors who had left the job and moved hundreds of miles away. And any press about it would have been local. How often did headlines in the morning papers deal with parole releases from another state? Never. Nothing within the law required that she be notified. And victims and their families had no rights under the Constitution. She’d learned that when Will was murdered.

Within seconds, her worst fears had been confirmed.

He was out.

St. Simons Island, Georgia

WHEN VIRGINIA’S HEAD FINALLY CLEARED, SHE WAS LYING ON her back on her own bed. She opened her eyes slowly, prepared to see the two no-necks towering over her. Instead, she looked directly into the eyes of Larry.

It was clear he’d been crying.

“My God, V.G., what happened to you? Who did this?”

She was alive. Lying in her own bed. With Sidney, wagging his furry little stub of a tail. And Larry was here.

She was alive.

Her throat aching from an earlier blow near her trachea that sliced under her chin, she struggled to speak.

“V.G., say something. Anything. Just let me know you’re okay.”

“Get the vodka. And Diet Coke. On ice. Hurry.”

Larry stood up and turned. Just as he turned through the bedroom door into the hall, she added, “And the cigarettes.”

She was alive all right.

Hours later, Virginia sat propped on one of the kitchen bar stools, the hushed group of eco-guerrillas gathered around.

No chips and dip, no cheese and crackers today. No whirring blender churning mushy frozen drinks. No stereo playing Nina Simone on low in the background. No theorizing or pontificating.

Virginia finished telling the story exactly as she remembered it, in detail, right down to the Diet Coke and vodka-which she sipped as she spoke. This was no time for her usual Amaretto. This was an emergency.

The guerrillas couldn’t drag their eyes away from her face and she knew it wasn’t a pretty sight. She’d accidentally glimpsed herself in the bathroom mirror.

Her eye was black and some of the blood from her mouth was still dried where it had trickled near her right ear, even after she rinsed her face at the sink. Along the bottom of her jaw, the skin was just beginning to bruise. Her gums were bloody and her arm was in a makeshift sling made of a cut-out section of fitted bedsheet, the elastic pucker still showing on one side. Her nails were torn down to the quick on one hand. Her wrists were both ringed with red welts that were beginning to turn deep blue in little dots across the red.

But she didn’t dare go to the hospital, as Larry wanted her to do.

“That would mean cops,” she told him. “And we don’t want that. ”

Larry didn’t want to leave her there for even a second, but she sent him to the liquor store for more booze. She didn’t want to scare the group with talk of hospitals and police. Plus, it was going to be a long night.

The rest sat unmoving when he left through the sliding glass door and Virginia was met with stone silence now as the guerrillas either stared down at their Birkenstocks or gave her the “blink,” staring fixedly away while blinking rapidly. The silence spoke volumes.

They were scared shitless…and they should be.

“So do you really think this was because of what we did?” Dottie asked, unable to drag her eyes off the bloody quicks of Virginia’s fingernails.

The tiny group was having a hard time accepting the truth…Virginia’s beating was because of Palmetto Dunes. Hell, it was just digging up wooden markers and plucking off orange plastic ties…just ripping out a little string…string that had been tied meticulously from marker to marker across hundreds of square feet of dunes, dunes flattened by giant industrial machine rollers. In fact, up until now, they hadn’t truly been convinced anyone had really noticed the late-night vandalism they’d taken such joy in.

Virginia took stock of her ragtag warriors, all too meek to retort to nasty customers or refuse unreasonable shift demands. Teachers intimidated by pushy parents and school principals. Clerks who gave money returns to “customers” they knew had shoplifted. No receipt? No problem!

They let soccer moms swipe parking spots they’d trolled for thirty minutes at Wal-Mart. They stood speechless when mall rats cut in front of them at Cinnabon. They endured protracted conversations with telemarketers at dinnertime. Sometimes, it was just easier to consolidate their debts or sign up for a new phone plan than argue into the phone or, God forbid, hang up.

They were the tormented souls who were never chosen for the basketball team or cheerleading squad, football being totally out of the question. The last ones standing awkwardly between two schoolyard teams, the ones who walked away pretending they’d really rather stand on the sidelines. The ones who always got zonked first playing dodgeball.

And now they were facing the prospect of physical pain in exchange for continued vandalism of somebody else’s beachfront property.

This was not what they’d signed up for…but they all shrunk under Virginia’s gaze or, in the alternative, looked the other way.

While Virginia hadn’t expected them to lead the battle like Eisenhower, she hadn’t expected this either-total silence and fear when faced with adversity. Virginia had given it her best, egging them on with a rousing pep talk. During the silence, she glanced over at the sofas gathered around the fireplace, the light pouring into the den. Even the wieners lie there lifeless, draped wheezing on the sofas and floor, like they, too, were too drained to fight the good fight any longer.

Virginia cleared her throat, making the only sound other than nervous breathing coming from Kenny, who sounded extremely stopped-up. Head cold.

She lit a cigarette and took a long, deep drag, exhaling through narrowed eyes to avoid her own smoke. “Okay, guys, you think about it and we’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Fine…good…that’s a plan…okay…see you tomorrow…” They all murmured at once, blending soft voices nervously together into one low, quiet buzz while adroitly grabbing their things and shuffling past the wieners to the door.

Virginia sat still on the bar stool until she heard the last of the cars crank up, twist in the gravel driveway, and motor off.