by E. E. Borton
After finishing the notes in Chief and Grey’s files, he selected two others from the stack on the table. One had a recent photo of Abby on the cover, and the other was of Evan. He stroked the photo of Abby before opening her file along with a bottle of wine. Inside were more photos, several pages of handwritten notes, and numerous documents chronicling her life over the past several years. If anything she did created a piece of paper or electronic record, he owned it. He whispered to himself after emptying his glass.
“I can’t wait to get my hands on you, pretty lady.”
25
Homecoming
FROM THE BALCONY ON THE third floor of the house, Chief had a bird’s-eye view of the entire front yard and into the neighboring properties. An eight foot wall separated Kate’s new home from the rest of the world. The high walls were only a symbolic gesture of the real security of the fortress. Propped up against the rail of the balcony beside Chief was a high-powered automatic rifle.
Grey and an FBI agent were posted outside of the main gate awaiting the arrival of Kate, Abby, Evan, and her parents. They’d be traveling in a van configured to hold a wheelchair. Even though Kate didn’t require it for movement, it was the fastest way to remove her from a bad situation.
Both Grey and Chief doubted the unsub would try to kill her in broad daylight with such a high level of security around her, but they weren’t ready to take any chances. The entire route from the center to the front gate was being covered by an FBI SWAT team. It was quite a spectacle for the neighbors to watch the convoy of black SUVs pull up to the gate and spill out a dozen heavily armed agents.
Grey manually opened the gate, allowing the van to enter the property. The SWAT team remounted their vehicles and left the area as quickly as they arrived. Chief remained at his post on the balcony while Grey walked the fifty yards to where the van was parked in front of the house. The FBI agent remained at the front gate and would be there for the remainder of his twelve-hour shift. Grey approached the van as the electric motor hummed, lowering Kate to the ground in her chair.
“If anything, you’re thorough, Mr. Collins,” said Kate, anxious to touch down and get out of her chair.
“I wanted you to feel special,” said Grey, keeping his eyes on everything but her. “Let’s get you inside before Chief falls off the balcony.”
“Only if you let me walk into my new home instead of roll.”
Grey turned his attention from the perimeter to her. Even with an eye patch and horrific scars on her face, she still managed to disarm him with a beautiful smile. He appreciated her desire to walk through the front door of her new life and slung the rifle over his shoulder. He helped her stand from the chair, handed her the cane, and let her go. He knew she wanted to walk on her own.
“Thank you, sir,” said Kate. “You are my knight in shining armor.”
He found himself in another battle with the lump in his throat. In spite of circumstances that would leave anyone else catatonic in the corner of a rubber room, she was defiant, focused, and getting stronger every day. He had a new respect for his longtime friend who was determined to beat the odds and battle through each agonizing day of her recovery. He thought about how terribly alone she would feel walking up the steps to her home without her baby and her husband. Grey decided to abandon his post and walk beside her.
“This place is amazing,” said Grey. “It’s much nicer than my office in Atlanta.”
“I want you to feel like you’re at home too, Grey,” said Kate. “I know what you’ve given up to be here for me. It means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
“I’m just glad you’re already calling it home,” said Grey, taking her hand. “And it should feel that way with Abby and your parents living here with you.”
“My parents are leaving in a couple of days,” replied Kate. “There really is no reason for them to stay. And to be honest, I don’t want to have to worry about them becoming a target or poking around in our business.”
“He wouldn’t go after them anyway, Kate,” said Grey. “But it’s actually a very good idea that they don’t stick around.”
“I know he won’t go after them,” said Kate. “He knows they wouldn’t turn on me like Dr. Singer did. He won’t go after Abby or you either.”
Grey was startled by her understanding that Evan, Chief, and the FBI agents who volunteered to protect her were the most likely options of manipulation from the killer. In that moment, Grey was convinced of her resolve to find the monster that destroyed her family. Her ability to follow through with destroying him was still a question in Grey’s mind. He knew it would be until the moment she was standing face to face with him.
“After you get settled in, we need to talk about a few of the ground rules as soon as possible,” said Grey. “Rules everyone needs to follow with no exception; my rules, Kate.”
“My dad said there was an amazing view of the bay from the boat dock,” said Kate. “Take me there now. I know there are things you want to discuss with me alone.”
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” asked Grey.
“I am.”
Kate excused herself from everyone in the house and continued to walk through with Grey. He made eye contact with Abby and could see her displeasure. She knew he was about to confront her sister, but didn’t want to cross him as soon as Kate arrived. She made up her mind to deal with Grey later.
“She didn’t look very happy with you,” chuckled Kate as Grey helped her down the stairs leading to the backyard walkway.
“Normally she isn’t,” he replied. “But I think she’s warming up to me.”
“She has some pretty thick armor.”
“One sister at a time, please.”
“Good plan,” said Kate. “He’s probably watching us now, isn’t he?” she asked, startling him again.
“Yes,” replied Grey, wanting to remain honest with her. “This will be your first and last visit to your own backyard until we find him. I don’t want to make it easy for him to know your condition or that you’re here on the property.”
“I agree, but I really hope he’s watching me now,” said Kate, looking across the water. “I hope it’s tearing into his gut knowing I’m still here. I hope it’s driving him crazy knowing I’m so close, but he can’t touch me.”
Grey helped her into a chair at the end of the boat dock. The cool breeze off the water was welcomed relief from the hot and humid South Florida summer. He took the seat beside her and waited a moment before speaking. He could tell she was preoccupied with letting the sun warm her face. He realized every day in the sun was a gift to her. He became even more impressed with her will to not only fight, but to fight back.
“You’ll be safe here,” said Grey.
“No, I won’t,” replied Kate. “But I do feel safer with you here. The day I feel truly safe will be the day he’s gone.”
“Kate, I’m going to speak freely here. I have no idea what’s going on in your head. You seem to have a firm grasp on how vulnerable you are, but your actions show me otherwise. This place could have fifty-foot walls, but he’ll find a way inside. He’s going to find a way to get to you, and it’s going to be through someone who you never thought would betray you. That’s what he does.”
“You won’t betray me,” said Kate. “As long as I have you with me, he won’t make his move.”
“He has an advantage over us,” said Grey. “He gets to choose which direction he wants to take. We have to look at every direction and figure out which one it is.”
“Let me stop you here, Grey. There’s nothing you can say that will convince me more that I’m in trouble; I know that. My own doctor came millimeters away from killing me. I know he’s not going away, and he’s going to dictate the rest of my life for as long as I have it.”
“It’s more than that,” said Grey. “Your entire family is at risk.”
“Let me finish,” said Kate with a stern look. “He’s done scaring me. He took my baby and husband from me.
Yes, I’m worried about Abby. Yes, I’m worried about you and everyone else. But the only way I’m going to find peace is to find him. Do you agree?”
“Of course I agree –”
“Good,” said Kate, not allowing him to finish. “Then we agree we have to find him. We both know we’re not going to get any help from the police who are supposedly looking for him. I don’t know why they’re not and neither do you, but it doesn’t matter. We’re looking for him now. That’s all that matters.”
“God knows I’m with you, Kate. He also knows what I want to do to him when he’s in my grasp, but you don’t need to have those thoughts. All you need to do is get well and focus on living the rest of your life. Let me do this.”
She leaned in closer to him and smiled. “It’s the only thing that keeps me going, Grey.”
“What does?”
“Knowing at some point in the near future, we’re going to make him hurt as much as Caleb and Paul did.”
Grey leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He knew she was holding back on giving him information until she was convinced he was onboard with her plans. He also knew if he didn’t agree to help her, she would find someone else who would.
“Tell me what you know, Kate.”
“Tell me you’ll bring him to me.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Now, tell me.”
“Paul was thinking about keeping the company and not selling,” said Kate. “There were six people who knew that, and I was one of them. That leaves five.”
“How would that start all this?”
“The other five that knew stood to make millions on the sale,” explained Kate. “There are people who were with him since the beginning. They helped him build the company and also helped broker the deal to sell. If he didn’t sell, they’d have to wait longer for the big payoff. As soon as he told me he wanted to keep the business for a few more years, my first thought was about them. I knew some of them would be furious.”
“Why?” asked Grey. “If they were that high up in the food chain, weren’t they making a killing as well?”
“They were,” said Kate. “These guys started at the same time Paul did. They were all working somewhere else, but he convinced them to abandon the security of their stable jobs and take a chance with him. These guys went from making $30,000 to $130,000 in less than three years.”
“So if he sold the company, how much would they make off the deal?”
“All five would walk away with at least two million. A couple of them stood to make more.”
“Kate, do you know who attacked you? Be honest with me.”
“I’ve met all of them, and I know what they look like. They didn’t do this to me,” said Kate, pointing to her face. “I was telling you the truth when I said I don’t know who it was. But I knew you’d be looking for that connection, Grey. I knew you would be since the day I woke up.”
“You’ve been planning this since then, haven’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“You seem pretty sure one of them is behind this.”
“And I think you will too when you meet them.”
“When?”
“I’ve invited all five to the house. They’ll be here day after tomorrow.”
26
Beautiful
KATE SAT ON THE EDGE of her bed in the palatial master suite. She was exhausted after finishing her second round of rehab exercises and was looking forward to a long hot bath. She rubbed the back of her tense neck in the quiet solitude of her room. When the images of Caleb entered her mind, she stood and walked into the bathroom. Sitting still wasn’t an option. If she did, he would always come to her.
She turned the knobs and began filling the tub with steaming hot water. Her new bathroom was the size of most apartments. She entered one of three walk-in closets and reached out for a wall while she undressed. At the end of the day, she would become dizzy from the intense regimen of physical therapy and exercise. Even the simple act of raising her arms to remove a sweatshirt could cause her to lose her balance and buckle.
Most of the injuries to her face were superficial, but the loss of her left eye brought on bouts of vertigo that would cause her to reach for the ground for stability. On more than one occasion, she would sink to the floor and wait for the episode to pass. When it did, she would resume her therapy with little more than a few minutes of rest. Her determination was inspiring, and sometimes frightening, to anyone witnessing the event. There was never a need for anyone to motivate her. At the rehab center, when she could move under her own power, Kate was always the first to arrive in the activity room and the last to leave. Even if no one was around, she’d work just as hard.
She slid her favorite silk robe off the hanger, but didn’t wrap it around her. She draped it over her arm and walked to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. It was the most difficult, but also the most necessary, part of her day. It’s when she reminded herself of why she wanted to survive. But more importantly, why she needed to get stronger.
As always, it took her a minute to build up the courage to face herself. Her head hung low, and she kept her remaining eye shut for a moment while she took several deep breaths. When she was ready, she opened her eye to begin the inspection.
Standing naked in front of the mirror, she would limit her field of vision from her toes to her upper thighs. There were no injuries below her knees, and for a brief moment she remembered what it looked like to be whole. The memory disappeared when she saw the first scars a few inches above her knees. There were three horizontal wounds ascending each thigh like rungs on a ladder, ending just below her pelvis. They were several inches across, but not deep. She took a long time examining them because Caleb had the same wounds on his legs. When the intruder started his physical torture, he would go back and forth from one to the other, giving them both the same pain.
Kate’s abdomen resembled a railroad yard. There were four stab wounds below her navel and a large scar surrounding them where the surgeons gained access to repair her organs. Above her navel to her rib cage were two more wounds. One punctured her stomach and was repaired with ease. The other destroyed her spleen, which had to be removed during the first surgery.
Many considered it a miracle the four stabs wounds to her chest missed her heart and the large arteries. Two of the thrusts punctured and collapsed her left lung, but the right lung was uninjured. The other two wounds were less severe, but damaged her diaphragm.
There was a round wound the size of a nickel centered at the base of her neck where the surgeons performed a tracheotomy. It was two inches below a superficial wound that started below one ear and traversed the entire front side of her neck to the other. Her attacker knew the slash wouldn’t kill her. He did it to raise the level of terror being felt by both mother and son.
As she looked over every inch of her mauled body in the mirror, she remembered a few more details of the vicious attack. Since the first day when she gathered up enough courage to look at herself, she began to remember more. It was the reason why she repeated the exercise every evening before bed. She wasn’t ready to forget anything about that night. And she wouldn’t forget until the ones responsible were standing in front of her.
She paused for a moment before finishing the ritual. It was the most difficult part of the process. It was the time when Kate would remove her patch and stare into the horrific wound with her remaining healthy eye.
Before inflicting the powerful slash that ruptured the soft globe, he took his time carving on her face. In the killer’s mind, each cut was erasing Kate’s beauty. He thought the damage to her skin would send her into an animalistic rage. He thought it would be the moment she would fight the hardest. But instead, Kate remained motionless and eerily stoic. When he was focused on her, she knew he wasn’t hurting Caleb.
Even through the excruciating pain, Kate never stopped thinking about how to keep Caleb ali
ve. If she tried to fight while bound to the bed, she thought he would just cut her throat and be done with her. It would leave Caleb alone with him. As he cut deeper into her, she closed her eyes and imagined Paul coming to their rescue. When the monster took a step back to admire his work, she opened her remaining eye and stared at him. She had no idea that singular act would enrage him the most. He cursed at her and walked behind Caleb. With no warning, he ended his life.
As she continued to stare at her sunken and deformed eyelid covering an empty space, she forced herself to relive the bloody encounter. It only took a few images to bring her back to the numbing rage of helplessly watching Caleb gasp for air while bleeding to death. She remembered drawing on strength she never knew she possessed when she sheared one of the thick wooden bedposts from its base. Her freedom was brief.
Her attacker lunged for her as she fumbled to release her other hand. As she reached for the strap, he brought the large blade down on her. The force of the blow caused her to fall back into the bed. Her recollection of the attack ended after he stabbed her in the chest and abdomen, leaving her unconscious and near death.
Kate reached up and followed the path of the scars on her face with her fingers. She then touched the wounds down her neck, chest, abdomen, and legs. It would take many months for them to heal to the point of some type of concealment, but she was in no hurry for them to fade. It’s what fueled her resolve.
Many of the evenings when she forced herself to remember the event, streams of tears followed. Not for the physical pain inflicted, but for the inability to protect Caleb from the attack. The instant he died, she no longer felt she deserved to be called a mother. In her eyes, she was a failure.
The familiar rage began to grow inside her. She allowed herself to remember the images of Caleb’s final moments tied to his little plastic chair. The tears falling to the floor weren’t from sadness; they were from unbridled anger. She gave up trying to understand how another human being could be capable of such evil. She only knew that he was, and that she would never give up trying to put a name to that face. Because when she had a name, she would be closer to putting that face back in front of hers. When it happened, she wanted to be the one inflicting the inconceivable pain; she wanted be the one taking everything from him.