by Willow Rose
I could hear someone coming down the stairs inside. The footsteps paused for a few seconds before they continued the rest of the way to the door.
A set of blue eyes landed on me as it swung open.
“Yes?”
“Kristin Holmes?”
She smiled politely. She had pretty eyes that looked up at me with wonder, reminding me of a child.
“It’s Grant now,” she said. “I took my husband’s name when we married last summer. How can I help you?”
I showed her my badge. “Harry Hunter, Miami PD. I wondered if we could have a little chat?”
Seeing the badge made her eyes begin to flicker, and she was suddenly slightly flustered. It wasn’t an unusual reaction when I came to people’s homes like this. They all worried if they could have done something wrong.
“I…I was about to leave…for yoga…” she said and rubbed her neck under the ponytail nervously.
“It won’t take long.”
I walked past her inside, and she closed the door, still slightly worried. “What is this about?”
“Can we sit?” I asked and pointed at her dining room table. She nodded, still fiddling with the small hairs on her neck.
“Sure. Do you want anything? Coffee?”
I smiled politely. “I don’t think we have time for that if you don’t want to miss your yoga class.”
She shrugged. “I can make some real quick.”
“Then I won’t say no to that.”
Kristin disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two cups of coffee. She placed a cup in front of me, spilling a little on the table as she did, then wiping it away with a paper towel and a nervous chuckle.
I sipped my cup. “Wonderful coffee.”
She sat down in the chair next to mine while I opened the case file and showed her a picture of Kate Taylor taken ten years ago, just a few months before she disappeared.
“I believe you know her?”
She swallowed when seeing her friend. “K-Kate? Is that what this is about? But it was so long ago.”
“I know, but the case was never closed,” I said. “I take it you’ve heard about her son, Nick?”
Kristin nodded, warming her hands on the sides of the cup, even though it wasn’t very cold in her house.
“Yes. Awful tragedy. I can’t believe it.”
“Well, it has me wondering too, and that’s why I am here. I was hoping you could shed some light on the family. What would make Nick bring a gun to church and try to shoot his father?”
Chapter 21
“I…I don’t really know much about them,” she started, fiddling with her cup. “I mean, it’s been so many years now, and I hardly knew much even back then. I’m not sure I can be of much help, to be honest.”
I nodded. “I understand. I was just…well, worried that there was something we were missing here.”
She sipped her cup. “Like what, Detective?”
I exhaled and folded my hands on top of the file. “I don’t know. That maybe Nick tried to hurt his father for the simple reason that he knew he had killed his mother?”
Kristin stared at me, her eyes growing big. She shook her head. “Detective, I don’t really think…why would you say that? He was cleared back then. He had an alibi.”
I looked at the papers in the file. “He was at a conference, yes. In Atlanta.”
She nodded and smiled. “Yes, that was it. He was very far away. I don’t really see how he could have…”
“But what if he did?” I asked, deliberately provocative. “What if he somehow managed to kill her anyway? How was their relationship? You said in your statement that she needed to blow off some steam. Both you and your friend, Joan, used that same expression, oddly enough. But what does that even mean?”
Kristin stared up at me, her eyes searching mine, her tongue playing with the inside of her cheek.
“I guess it meant she wasn’t doing very well in her marriage.”
“Why not? Were they fighting a lot?”
“I…I guess. Or maybe she just found him to be extremely boring,” she said.
“And she wanted out? You said she wanted to disappear, right?”
She nodded, sipping more coffee, her lips quivering slightly. “Y-yes. I think she killed herself. I think she got drunk that night then drowned herself.”
I stared at her. Now, it was my turn to scrutinize her. “But why, Kristin? Why would your friend kill herself? Why not just get a divorce?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what I think. I think she was scared of him. No, more than that, she was terrified of her own husband, and she told you this on the trip. She didn’t dare to leave him. And you’re terrified of him too, aren’t you? That’s why you haven’t told anyone that you, too, believe he killed her. Because he has been threatening you, am I right?”
She shook her head. “I…I don’t really…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to. It’s not your job to figure these things out. It’s mine. But if he really killed his wife, then I’m taking him down for it, one way or another, with or without your help.”
I paused and sipped my coffee, not allowing myself to get too agitated. There was nothing worse in my book than a man abusing his wife. And this guy would even let his son go down before he told the truth.
I looked into the case file, then pulled out a piece of paper I had printed before getting here and showed it to her.
“Do you know anything about this?”
She looked at it, then shook her head. “What is this?”
“I found this in Nick’s files. Apparently, the DCF had their eyes on the family. Back when Nick was four years old, his school reported that the boy was engaging in troublesome behavior. He had asked a girl to strip down naked for him in the bathroom, then told her to lick the toilet seat. The DCF investigated the family and found odd bruises on the child, and he told them stories of him being forced to punish himself when he was bad and cut his skin with razor blades, then being forced to spend an entire night in a small bathroom, only allowed to drink from the toilet bowl. The DCF supervised the family for months but found nothing and concluded it was just stories that the boy had made up. The parents had explanations for all the bruises since the boy got them riding his bike or climbing trees, and the cuts were some he had inflicted on himself, they said before they stopped him. DCF ended up believing them and left the family alone. Now, my question to you is this: Did you know, Kristin? Did you know this was happening in their home?”
Kristin was no longer looking at me. She was shaking her head and crying. “I knew the DCF had been on their case. Kate told me about it; she said the boy had told a bunch of lies and that it would all blow over eventually. Andrew was angry about it, and I sensed Kate was scared too, scared of losing the boy, but she just didn’t want to admit it. I don’t know. I just assumed she was right, that it was nothing but a bunch of lies that the boy had come up with.”
“But deep down inside, you knew something was off in that family, didn’t you? When you visited them, the way Kate never wanted to talk about them, how she seemed troubled at times. Did she have bruises too? Did she?”
Kristin swallowed, her head still bent. Then she nodded. “She had these cuts on her arm that looked like they were made by razor blades. I didn’t know what to think. She didn’t want to talk about them, so we just didn’t. There was also the time she had bruises on her upper arms like someone had grabbed her, hard. There were other things too, cuts in strange places, like right on her bikini line when we went to the beach. She had excuses for all of them.”
“And you pretended to believe her because it was easier that way, am I right?” I asked.
Kristin sniffled and nodded. “Yes. You’re right. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth. In the end, we barely noticed anymore. But it definitely got worse and worse.”
“Do you still see each other? You and Joan? Are you still friends?” I ask
ed.
She shook her head. “We haven’t seen one another since…that trip. I heard she was divorced, moved, and got married to some other guy.”
“That explains why it’s been hard to track her down. So, you don’t know where I can find her?”
She shook her head again, grabbed a tissue from a box, and blew her nose. “I’m afraid not.”
I got up and looked at my watch. “All right. Thank you so much, Kristin. You’ve been a great help.”
“You really think he killed her, do you?” she asked once again as I walked toward the door. “Even though he had an alibi?”
I nodded, halfway out the door, then paused. “I do. Somehow, he managed to get away with the perfect murder.”
Chapter 22
“You wanted to see me?”
I walked into Fowler’s office, forgetting to knock. I had just gotten back from my meeting with Kristin Grant and bought a sandwich on my way back that I still hadn’t eaten. I was holding it in my hand as I walked inside.
Fowler looked up at me, then pointed toward the two empty chairs.
“Sit.”
I did. Fowler looked at me from across the mahogany table. He pressed the tips of his fingers against each other.
“I don’t quite know how to tell you this.”
“I’m a big boy,” I said. “I can take it. Is it about last night? Any news about the guy who broke into my house? Have the hospitals called back? Have they found a guy who was shot in the thigh?”
“Easy there, cowboy,” Fowler said, shaking his head. “I have had no luck finding him yet, no. But that doesn’t mean we won’t. He’ll turn up sooner or later. I have a word out to all the stations, and they’ll let me know the names of anyone who didn’t show up for work today. We’ll get him. One way or another.”
I exhaled, annoyed. I had hoped for good news. I had no idea what to tell my family if I went back home and he hadn’t been found. Josie was terrified that he was going to come back. And to be frank, so was I.
“So, what is this about? Why have you called me in?”
“It’s about the boy.”
“Nick?”
“Yes, him. His dad was here earlier. We had told him to bring in Nick’s computer and his phone, so we could go through it all to find out if he had planned to bring the gun to hurt more people, or if he was fascinated by mass shooters and maybe frequented any of the websites where they chat and cheer each other on, you know stuff like that. Well, we didn’t find any of that, but his dad presented us with some pretty damaging material. He said he knew we’d find it anyway, so he might as well show it to us. He had already gone through his son’s social media accounts by himself in anger because he wanted to know what Nick was up to, and that’s when he found all this stuff. He said he thought about deleting it because he wanted to protect Nick, but then decided against it since he believed the boy needed to take the punishment for his actions. It’s about time he learns that his actions have consequences, he said.”
“Really?” I said suspiciously.
“Yes, really. I know you believe your boy here is innocent…”
“I’m not saying he’s innocent,” I interrupted him. “I’m just saying that he shot his dad because he thought there was no other way. And I’m trying to find out why he felt that way. And, actually, I’ve been getting closer…”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he said, “because what we have here is a gamechanger.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “What do you mean?”
Fowler lifted a hand to stop me. He grabbed the phone and dialed a number, then spoke into it.
“Do you have it ready? Can you send me the files?”
There was an answer, and Fowler hung up. “I’ve had the IT guys working on it for the past few hours, and they have the files ready for us now. You might want to eat that sandwich first because after this, you’ll have lost your appetite.”
Chapter 23
A redhaired girl looked into the camera on her phone. She was crying, her narrow, bloodshot eyes looking at us while she was pleading.
“Please,” she said. “Please, don’t make me do this.”
Then she leaned over, placed her tongue on the toilet seat, and started licking, still while crying. Once done, she put her head inside the bowl and flushed while her head was still in it.
Crying, she lifted her head, then cried out: “I’m a worthless whore; please, take care of me, Daddy.”
Clip to the next video. Another girl. This one was blonde. She, too, was crying while filming herself. She filmed herself naked on the floor of the bathroom as she peed into a plastic cup.
Then, she drank it.
The next video showed a girl cutting herself on the arm with a razor blade while crying. The letters she cut were shaping the word:
Whore.
In the last video, we watched a girl as she took a toilet brush. Then—crying heavily—she put it in her mouth.
“Okay, okay,” I said and turned away from Fowler’s computer screen, suddenly pleased I had listened to him and eaten my sandwich before we watched the videos. “I’ve seen enough. What in the world is that?”
“They call it hurtcore,” he said. “Girls, who, against their will, are pressured into humiliating themselves while filming it.”
“And you got these videos from Nick’s computer?”
Fowler nodded. “And his phone. You can see the texts he sent to the girls as well. I made a transcript of one. Look here. You see how he tells her to kneel by the toilet and flush while her head is still inside of it. Then he tells her what to say, to call herself a worthless whore, and she’s pleading with him to stop it. His only answer is that her pleading turns him on. He asks her to film herself while she’s crying, then hit herself and strangle herself and tell herself that she’s just a stupid whore. In one of them, he even asks her to put the toilet brush up inside of her and eat her own feces, but I thought that was a little too much for you to watch.”
“And they do it?” I asked.
Needless to say, I was disgusted—on the verge of throwing up.
He nodded. “Yes. Because they have no choice, or they don’t think they have. He meets them through Skype or messenger or on Instagram or TikTok, wherever he can find them, and they start out as friends. He tells them he likes them and grooms them slowly until they’re ready. Then, he sweet-talks them into sending him nude photos of themselves or even videos. They do it because they have low self-esteem, and because they think he likes them. Then, as soon as he has the video or the photos, he starts pressuring them. He tells them he’ll send the video or the pictures to her family and her friends. He threatens to post it on social media, so everyone will see, and that’s when the humiliation begins. They plead with him not to, and then he can persuade them to do anything he’d like to see—humiliating themselves. These are broken girls, Hunter. You’ve got to be really broken down to do something like this. And some of these girls are minors. They’re not much older than Josie, for crying out loud. It’s sick! This guy is a pervert, Hunter. He’s nothing but a predator, and I’ll see to it that he is put away for a very, very long time. Mark my words. You are done trying to save him; do you hear me? Done.”
Chapter 24
I had no idea what to believe. As soon as I was done at Fowler’s office, I ran to the parking lot where I had parked my bike, then got on it and roared into the street. I drove it through town, zigzagging my way through traffic, going through what Fowler had told me in my head.
Could it really be true? Could the boy I had seen really have done those awful things to those girls?
It didn’t seem possible.
Yet, the evidence was there. Right on Fowler’s computer. Video after video extracted from the boy’s computer and phone. Text after text where he degraded them to nothing but objects, dolls he could treat however he wanted.
Fowler was right; it was sick, and there was no way I could explain my way out of this. There were no more excuses.
I parked in front of the detention center and walked up to the back door. The woman behind the glass saw my badge, then called for someone to lead me down the hallway and back into the room with the barren walls and tables that were bolted to the floor.
I waited for about ten minutes until the door opened. Nick had a big bruise on his cheek as he approached me and sat down, his eyes looking at the floor, not at me.
I stared down at him, my nostrils flaring, the images still flickering for my inner eye, images and videos I would never escape.
“Look at me, Nick,” I said, trying to keep calm. “Look at me.”
The boy lifted his eyes.
“You remember me, right? You said so the last time I was here. I tried to help you in church, and I have even tried to help you out there, trying to figure out why on earth a young boy like you would shoot your own dad. And now they tell me you’ve been hurting young women online? What do you have to say for yourself, Nick!”
The boy looked at me, then shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I slammed my fist onto the metal table. “Yes, you do! Don’t lie to me.”
He crumpled down in fear, shaking his head. “No. I don’t. What videos?”
“The ones they found on your computer of the girls humiliating themselves, doing only what you told them to do, what you blackmailed them to do, breaking their poor spirits.”
“I…I don’t understand,” he said.
“They found them on your computer and your phone. Don’t give me that innocent act. Was it because that’s what your dad did to you? Because you went through the same thing in your childhood? And now you’re just repeating it? In some sick vicious circle? Like people becoming molesters because their parents were? Did your dad do those things to you, Nick?”