In the Night (Darkness Falls Book 1)

by Melissa Sinclair

  “But why would they do that?”

  “To hide the fact that I was raped. They wanted the media and the public to believe I was only kidnapped and held for ransom. They didn’t want anyone to know that I had been soiled.”

  “But...”

  “Believe me or not, but that’s the case. I heard it from their own mouths when they visited me in the hospital when they were trying to bribe the doctors not to say anything to the police. Dr. Brenner and Dr. Chiglo are consummate professionals and didn’t take the money and told them to get bent. They had to hand over the evidence of my rape.”

  Ethan looked shocked by the statement and at a loss for words. He just stared at his sister for a moment. “Is that why you left?”

  “It wasn’t the catalyst. Trust me, they are not good people. It was just one of the many straws that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. But we are not here to discuss that. We’re here to discuss what happened while I was held.” Her voice had once again grown cold and distant.

  Caleb knew there was so much more to the story than met the eye. There was some kind of deep-seated hatred for her parents that she wasn’t willing to share with anyone. At least, not yet. Which made him wonder what they could have possibly done to make her hate them so much. He knew one thing for sure: he intended to find out what it was.

  Kara took a deep breath. She had to control her temper; she wanted to shield Ethan as much as possible from what her parents had done. They didn’t deserve it, but she just felt like she needed to protect him. Granted, he knew they weren’t perfect people, but he had no idea what they were capable of. She cleared her throat and her mind and decided it was time to get this whole story over with, and the faster, the better. There was somewhere she needed to be, and it wasn’t at the police station reliving her messed up past.

  “So, everyone is pretty much aware when I was kidnapped and all the logistics, as far as how I was kidnapped and for how long. What most people don’t know are the details of the kidnapping. Which was fine with me, but if it can give some clue into identifying this person, then I’ll talk.”

  She looked down at her hands, uncomfortable, but forged forward.

  “For those who don’t know every detail, I’ll start from the beginning,” she said pointedly, looking at Caleb. She had hoped she’d never tell anyone this—especially not the man she was interested in. But what had to be done, must be. A small part of her wanted to tell him. The question was, did she want to tell him in hopes of scaring him off or to see if he did have staying power? Maybe a little of both.

  "It’s just simpler to start from the very beginning, so we’re all on the same page. Ten years ago, I was at home studying for my finals. My father and mother were at a fundraising event for his bid for the governor’s seat. I was brooding over my parents telling me I couldn’t go to the big end-of-the-year party that was going on that night. I was having an internal war about whether I should stay home and be the dutiful daughter, or disobey and go to the party. It was storming. I remember so vividly the way the sky looked, and how the air smelled heavy with the promise of rain. My window was open, and the curtains had knocked over a very expensive and rather flamboyant vase. I determined that I was going to go to the party, and I picked up all the glass and was going to throw it in the garbage on my way out, to delay Mother from finding out it had been broken. When I got to the base of the stairs, I found Devon Bristol hiding in the shadows.

  "He had a look in his eyes I’d never seen before, and it terrified me. I backed away from him but backed into the stairs and stumbled, sending the glass flying, and he was on me fast. Fast enough that I had no time to react. I landed hard on my arm, and I tried to get away, but he injected me with something, and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in the trunk of his car, bound and gagged. I woke up just around the time we left the main road and turned onto a bumpy gravel road. We turned down another dirt road and then we were there.

  “I made sure to remember as much as possible, so when I got away, I would know which way to go. When we got to the cabin, he dragged me inside.” She paused and swallowed.

  "Inside, the cabin was old and unkempt. There was a large bed in the middle of the cabin. It looked brand new. It was huge and had a princess canopy over the top. I tried to convince him that Father would pay well for my release. It angered him. He called me a lot of names and accused me of being a cocktease. I tried a different tact by telling him he was right, and if he let me go, we could explore his feelings. And it was like I had thrown a match on the fire. That was the first time he raped me. It was brutal and earth-shattering to me. Until then, I had been a virgin. But I survived it, and I decided in that moment, I would make it out of there. I just didn't know how. I thought the worst had happened. But I learned over the next four days that much worse things could happen." Pausing again, she reached for the glass of water on the table in front of her and took a long drink.

  "I went into what must have been survival mode and tried hard to block out everything. He liked to strangle me while he was raping me until I would pass out. Then he would revive me and do it again. At first, I was terrified, then I was numb, and finally, I was resigned to my fate. Which was, in my opinion, to die. The belief and determination that I would make it out alive faded until I didn’t care that I would die. I just wanted the pain to be over. It was around day three or four that I gave up. I had been raped more times than I cared to count. He had cut me and beat me. He liked to cut me and tie me up outside in the heat to let the bugs come feast on me. Sometimes he would douse me in water and hang me outside in the middle of the night. Sometimes I was tied upside down, and other times, he strung me from my hands. He’d play mind games by telling me I could go home if I complied. He was very sadistic. I passed out from the pain often, and when I woke, he was always there, but sometimes he was different."

  “Why do you say that?” Caleb asked, leaning forward as if something she had said piqued his interest.

  “I don’t know. He was always scary, but sometimes he was completely evil. There were times he would rape me while he choked me and that was all. That was the mild version. And then there was the evil version that liked to do other things to me. That was the version that cut me and hung me outside. That was the version that had all the toys to use on me.” Once again, she paused, not wanting to say what other things he had done.

  “Was there anything else that made you think he was different?” Bob asked softly as if to say that those details weren’t pertinent, and at the same time, encouraging her to continue.

  "I'm not sure. Like I said, he was always mean. But sometimes he was crazy, bona fide insane. It was like no light bulbs were on; that was the man I saw the night I was abducted. I was kept pretty drugged, so I didn’t usually know which version I was going to get until he started playing with me."

  "These other times, do you think it was a dissociative disorder? Forgive me if I use the wrong word, but could it have been another personality?" Gloria pushed.

  "If I had to categorize it, I would say one version was sociopathic. No remorse. When I woke up to that version, I would be petrified. I could handle the crazy version, the version that swore undying love, but I never felt threatened by him when he was like that to the point that I was in fear for my life. The other version liked to use foreign objects, and he was clinical about it. Like he was experimenting. No matter what version showed up, I was instructed to say he was the only one for me. He would force me to say things to him, and I was only allowed to call him ‘Master.’ He was cold. I knew when he was like that, he could kill me in a second. He had a table of things next to the bed I was tied to that he used on me. Pincers, scalpels, a shocker, among many other things. Like I said, he was clinical about it all. I think he was experimenting to see how far he could take it before I died, but my death would not have been intentional at his hands; it would have been part of the process he was putting me through. He took notes throughout.”

  Kara paused to regai
n her composure. She’d been staring at the table with her hands folded in her lap. As if Caleb had sensed her need to find a power source, he found her hand under the table and held it in his. It was all she needed to get her back on track. If she just told it like it was fiction, maybe she could get through it.

  "Maybe Gloria is right about the dissociative disorder?" Ethan pondered out loud.

  "I thought of that, even did some research on it. It just didn't seem to fit, but it isn’t my area of expertise, so it was certainly possible. With him being dead, we’ll never know; but, Ethan, you know I have always thought he didn’t work alone. Maybe the two personalities were two different men, and I was just too drugged and in shock to realize they were not the same person. It’s what I’ve always thought, what I tried to tell the police after all the drugs wore off. They told me I was mistaken."

  “I don’t think you were mistaken. It fits with how he’s still actively killing. I think it makes a lot of sense that Devon had a partner,” Caleb said.

  Kara couldn’t stop herself from shuddering.

  “Kara, if I had known this, I would have fought for them to investigate it further. I am so sorry I didn’t listen to you.” Ethan looked down to hide the pain on his face from her. After what she deemed a successful attempt, he glanced up. “Are you ready to tell me how you got away?" Ethan asked. Kara knew he’d wanted to know all those years ago, and she had refused to tell him. She had refused to tell him anything back then. She was fine with telling the police, but for some reason, she couldn’t get the words to come out for Ethan. But even with the police, she sanitized the details. Now was different. Now he was the police, and she would tell all the necessary information.

  "He never rested; I wondered how he managed on no sleep. If it was two people, I guess I would have missed when they switched shifts, because of the drugs. I was never alone. When I woke up, he was always there. Most of the time, he was the one waking me up with some new method of torture. On the fourth evening, whimpers woke me up after a particularly brutal session. I looked around and saw he was sleeping. It was the only time I had been left with an opportunity to escape. And I was going to do everything in my power to get away. I knew I would rather die trying than spend one more second there. And it was like God had left me a present. There was a scalpel within reach of my hands. I was able to grab it, but I couldn’t use it at first, then I realized the ropes were looser, and I was able to put the scalpel in my mouth and saw through my restraints. I nicked myself once because I could feel the blood run down my arm."

  "That was the wound that had caused all the blood loss. They wondered if it was self-inflicted," Ethan said quietly.

  "They thought I tried to kill myself."

  The room fell silent at her statement. Little did they know, she had wanted to.

  14

  "The doctors weren't sure what to think. They weren't sure if you’d done it intentionally, or if Devon had done it, or if it was a wound from your escape. I defended you and told them you wouldn’t have tried to kill yourself; if so, why were you found naked and running down the road? And you weren't talking to me about it."

  "I bet Mother and Father were willing to accept that I would kill myself. I bet they secretly wished I would have done exactly that. That bit of the conversation makes sense now,” she whispered, and then, shaking her head, she said, “Never mind about that. I apologize for not talking to you, but I just couldn’t share the details with you. I was willing to with the police. Hell, I went to them. But with you, I had to pretend it never happened. It was the only way for me.

  “Anyway, I’m not sure how I was able to cut myself loose; it just should not have been feasible, and I don’t know how I managed to sneak past him. But somehow, it all worked to my favor. The car had been locked, and I wasn’t about to try to find the keys. I ran until I didn't think I could run anymore and that was when I heard the car behind me. I thought for sure it was Devon."

  "But it was Henry. It was amazing you had been able to run that far. I remember hearing the police tell Father that they found the cabin by following your blood trail; you ran a mile before you collapsed. Henry saw you just as you fell and watched you crawl another hundred yards to the middle of that dirt road before he was able to get to you," Ethan said quietly, pride etched on his face.

  "Adrenaline does an amazing thing. When I woke up, I was at the hospital, and you were there. Noticeably absent were Mother and Father. Did you ever wonder why?" Kara asked, looking at Ethan.

  "I did."

  "So did I. I mean, sure, they weren’t loving parents, but, where were they? Later, I saw in the papers and on the television repeatedly where they were. They were too busy playing up to the media to come to my room. Mother’s crocodile tears and Father’s arm wrapped around her. The most contact I’d seen between them in years. It was all too much, and I decided there was something off. So, I tried to look into it. As you can imagine, I was blocked at every turn."

  "What caused the fallout between you and our parents?"

  "I'm not sure if it’s relevant to this case. And without evidence, it doesn’t matter. Our parents’ behavior was not normal after I was found. They were more secretive than ever and very interested in sweeping everything under the covers.”

  "Other than their behavior, what makes you think they were involved?" Ethan asked.

  "Father with the file wasn’t normal. I know a man with his power can get what he wants, and he may have just wanted to view the file. But then I overheard him talking to someone about whether it was done."

  "Done?" Bob asked.

  Kara had almost forgotten he was in the room. She wasn't sure she wanted to disclose everything about those days leading up to her moving out of her parents’ house; in the back of her mind, she knew her parents were hiding something from her abduction. Kara just didn’t know what it would be and how she would be able to find out or convince anyone else once she did find out. For now, she would hold back a little bit of information—until she was sure it was relevant that they know. Kara wasn't dumb. She knew she needed to share the information, but she wasn’t going to go after her parents until she had irrefutable proof. It would be an impossible battle to win if she didn’t have evidence against them. For now, she would present the information, only leaving out one key element.

  "I think Father has something to do with that folder only having one sheet of paper in it. But like I said, he could just say he was viewing the file." Or he could be the exact reason it is all missing.

  "But who would have helped him?" Ethan asked sharply.

  "Are you sure? You realize what you are saying, right?" Bob asked.

  "Father has a number of people on his payroll that are ‘off the books.’ Is it really that much of a stretch to believe? There have been whispers for a while about how ‘clean’ my father’s hands are—or rather, aren’t. Do you find this so hard to believe?"

  "He definitely isn’t the kind of person Cal Vincent is, so I guess not," Bob said. "Shit, this has the potential to blow up in our faces."

  "You’re telling me," Kara added.

  "This means that we might not just be trying to find out who murdered Andrea Vincent. We also might have other people coming after you. People who are scared you’ll talk, people who are scared you might know they’re beholden to your father. That, coupled with the fact that someone might be copying your case or that there was an accomplice after all, means we have our work cut out for us," Caleb said, squeezing her hand.

  Kara looked both Ethan and Caleb in the eye, lingering on Caleb’s longer than she had intended. In his eyes, she saw worry and frustration, but there was something else that she saw in Caleb's eyes that had her anger melting on the spot. It was the same look that she’d seen earlier in the day. A look that was all consuming, it was almost too powerful to comprehend. With one look, Kara knew that she wanted everything he was promising in his eyes.

  Caleb wasn't sure what he had expected to hear, but he knew that wasn't it.
It was not without reason that her father would be able to bribe someone to destroy evidence. But why would he destroy the evidence of an open-and-shut case pertaining to his own daughter?

  Caleb didn’t just suspect there was something she was holding back. He knew there was much more to the story. However, he let it be. He knew she would tell when the time was right; he just hoped it wasn’t too late when she finally decided it was time. It was obvious that she was aware of the dangers of holding back. Therefore, he knew that the risks of telling were also a danger to her safety. Every person in that room knew there was more to this story, but because it was involving a sitting governor, they would have to tread lightly. Which is why Kara was holding back. Caleb’s suspicion was she was holding out until she could have concrete evidence to present, which scared the ever-living shit out of him.

  Without a doubt, she was aware of whom her father had paid off. Down deep, he knew that wasn’t all that was going on, that there was a much bigger secret she was hiding. For now, he would go with it, because he had no choice and he trusted her judgment.

  "I’m not sure if any of this helped. The man who hurt me is supposed to be dead, so I’m at a loss to who is doing this now. Clearly, someone wants to finish what was started. Maybe it was their plan all along. Maybe they’re taking advantage of my coming home. I only know that my coming home was not part of their plan. I didn’t even know I would be coming home, and I only hope that we can figure out who it is and what his agenda is before anyone else is hurt."

  "We all do. We’re operating under the assumption that this unsub is an anniversary killer. He’s very ritualistic, and that means we should have until next year before he strikes. But your coming home seems to have changed his agenda. His fixation has been on you all this time if we’re interpreting the notes right. If there was an accomplice, you’re the one that got away—his greatest challenge. This means we shouldn’t assume anything; he’s become unpredictable," Bob said matter-of-factly.