Lust and Lies 04 - Pretty Maids in a Row

arms and for a moment they were all silent. Then Viv sniffled and Holly felt her mother's chest tremble as she tried not to cry aloud.
    Suddenly the anguish broke through Holly's wall of stoicism and the tears that had not come forth at the time trickled down her cheeks.
    Minutes passed before they could all dry their eyes and sit back down at the table. Then her father said the kindest words he could.
    "I understand why it took you so long to talk about this. Time doesn't always lessen the horror or the need for revenge. I am completely serious now, baby. If you want me to punish them for you, I'd take a great amount of pleasure in it."
    Holly shook her head. "Doing anything now could backfire—on all of us. I didn't have the nerve to report the rape that morning like I should have. I would have had to admit how stupid and vulnerable I was to begin with. The whole situation seemed too unbelievable for words. I guess I was in a state of shock afterward, but somehow I managed to get cleaned up and went to class, as if nothing unusual had happened."
    "By that afternoon, half the campus was gossiping about the bet and how the two guys had settled it by sharing me in a wild ménage a trois. Reporting it after that would have sounded like I was only trying to save my damaged reputation. Instead, I crawled home to the two of you."
    They talked well into the night and eventually Holly had to have "a little something" to eat before they could all retire.
    She didn't know if it was the power of April's suggestion or if the confession really had made a difference, but when she boarded the plane the next morning to return to Washington, she felt considerably lighter in spirit.
    Since discovering that she was not alone and sharing her story with loved ones had both helped so much, she felt compelled to consider the comment Erica had made about retribution being part of the healing process. Her father had implied the same thing but she didn't want him involved.
    With that in mind, she took the Jerry Frampton file out of her briefcase and opened it. Inside were a number of reports issued over the last ten years from various private investigative agencies, a few computer printouts and several sheets of notes with the initials "R.G." or "B.R." on the bottom.
    During the next hour she learned more about Jerry Frampton than she knew about her own father, but only a portion of the information was relevant to her.
    Jerry Frampton graduated from Dominion nineteen years ago. As a first-round draft choice of the prior season's champion football team, he received an exorbitant bonus and was to be paid one of the highest salaries offered that year. In the third game of the season the ligaments in his right shoulder were torn so badly that even after two operations and a year of recuperation, he was unable to regain the strength in his valuable throwing arm. By the next year he permanently retired from the game.
    This much would have been well publicized at the time, but Holly had purposely avoided reading the sports section of the newspaper and closed her ears to any conversation in which his name might have been mentioned.
    The year after his formal retirement, Frampton set up a small publishing company in Fort Lauderdale, apparently using the money he had earned in football. Six months later the first issue of Jock, a men's magazine devoted primarily to sports articles and photographs of nude women in ludicrous poses, was printed. Within the next five years, circulation of Jock skyrocketed.
    Holly was aware of what career he had gone into after football, but since that wasn't a magazine she ever needed to look at, she was able to ignore its existence as she did its owner's.
    The reports and notes in the file written during the years of his climb up the publishing ladder indicated his handsome face and charisma attracted a kaleidoscopic array of female companions and his showmanship and questionable morals attracted the press.
    Despite continuous rumors of lewd behavior, he had never been charged with any offense. He was only made more interesting by the tales of private parties where cocaine was served from a punch bowl and group sex was rumored to include animals. Even if every one of the Little Sisters came forward and told their story, it would probably only enhance the wicked reputation that served him so well.
    The IRS reports supplied by Bobbi Renquist contained similar information. He was a sleazy character, undoubtedly guilty of