by Riley Moreno
“So sweet, right?” Matt asked.
Kim tried to cough the sock from her lips, but every breath seemed to drive the fabric deeper into her throat. Not wanting to gag, not wanting to die, Kim stopped moving and watched the men clink glasses.
“I love these new toys,” Geoffrey said. “So much fun.”
“Toys?”
Morales understood what had happened even as she asked the question. But still she desperately looked to Kim.
“How could they hurt us like that?” Kim whispered. “What’s wrong with them?”
She burst into tears, and Morales took her into her arms. As she held the shattered girl close, it fell to Leo to try to set the conversation back on track
“Miss Beyer?” he asked. “Can you tell us what happened next?”
Kim stayed in Morales’ arms for many moments, but then she finally lifted her shorn heard and found her voice.
“It’s not pretty,” Kim said.
Morales nodded sadly.
“I’m sure it’s not,” the detective said. “But can you?”
She wrapped her arm around Kim’s shoulder and silently urged her to keep talking.
And Kim obeyed.
“I’m not sure about your new guy,” Matt said as he made his way back into the room.
“What do you mean?” Geoffrey asked.
Matt tweaked Kim’s nipples and seemed to relish in her muffled cries as he kept talking.
“Don’t know,” Matt said. “Just seems kind of weak.”
“He’s a friend,” Geoffrey said. “One of us.”
Kim struggled to breathe through her rapist’s sock as she remembered the man that they were now talking about. Who was he? Not like them. Never like them. He had seemed as scared as she was when he saw what was happening, and Kim prayed that he would find his way back to her. She clung to the hope that he would remove her gag and grant her the chance to speak.
I’ll tell him that we were taken. He’ll help me. Finally someone will.
It had been so long. Kim had looked into an endless line of cold eyes, and she had tried to tell them that she was being held against her will. Sometimes she was able to speak. To start to speak. But then a fist crashed into her jaw, and she was back to wishing for death as cruel men took her again and again.
Always, her first priority was to get away.
Next was to get to Julie. In those moments when Kim hung and cried, her body dripping with her own blood and their semen, she thought of her friend. Julie wasn’t ready for this. And if it was happening to her, she had to be beyond terrified.
I’m getting out. And I’m taking my friend with me, you pricks!
Kim played it like she was willing, just waiting for the moment when they could get out.
Pete reappeared with the hazel eyed boy. He was called Carter, and he was always with Geoffrey. Despite everything that was happening to her, to her body, Kim was glad that he didn’t want her. She saw such evil in his eyes, and she trembled whenever he just touched her hair.
Like now.
“Where’s our new arrival?” Matt asked.
Carter laughed and lit a cigarette.
“Ethan’s introducing himself,” Carter said. “Thought he deserved a taste of the best.”
Jules…
Her friend. Her best friend. Kim had told her that they should take off and see the country. And now she was being… she had been raped. Even by the man whose eyes seemed to hold a kind of sanity when everything else was crazy.
Let me be right about him. Let him help her. And then let him help me. Please.
Carter snuffed out his cigarette on her neck. Kim screamed in agony as he forced her eyes to him.
“Never been one for redhead,” Carter said. “But that was some scream. Think she can do more?”
Her eyes grew wide with terror as Carter looked to the others, and when they were too quick to nod, she tried to break through her bonds her new assailant formed a fist and slammed it into her stomach. Kim screamed into her gag, and her body buckled as a new blow made its way to her cheek. Blood burst from her lips, and before she could try to spit it out, she felt Carter’s hands around her neck. Kim struggled against the feel of his hands, and she nearly had the sock out of her mouth when he pinched her fingers about her nose and watched the life start to leave her eyes.
“Now that’s hot,” Carter hissed. “Maybe I’ll see what else you can…”
“Kim?”
Morales saw the girl returned to the present, and she dared to take her hand again. Kim pulled away and looked down at her fingers. Leo looked to Morales before their returned victim was able to speak again.
“I thought that he would help us,” Kim whispered.
Were we wrong about him? Was I wrong?
“Kim,” Morales continued. “Ethan Graff saved Julie. But… but even Peter Bowen said---”
Kim glared at Morales.
“And you believed him?”
Kim awoke to the feel of being dragged through the woods, the branches and stones digging into her knees. As soon as she felt the air of the night on her back, Kim tried to struggle, and Carter quickly took note.
“Shit, Geoff!” Carter screamed. “Bitch has nine lives.”
Carter lifted a rock from the ground and nearly brought it down on her head. Kim braced for the blow when she saw Geoffrey’s hand catch hold of Carter’s wrist. At the force of the older man’s touch, the rock slipped to her side and barely battered his body. Kim’s bare abdomen contracted again and again as she looked up at the men and listened.
“What the fuck?” Carter said. “Let’s just waste her and be done.”
He reached for the rock again, but Geoffrey stopped him , and again the rock fell to Kim’s side.
“Be smart,” Geoffrey said. “Like you weren’t with your new friend.”
“What the hell does Ethan----?”
Geoffrey slapped the younger man, and Carter fell back to the dirt. Looking up, Kim felt him shaking, but she didn’t move. She just fixed her eyes on Geoffrey.
“You called it wrong,” Geoffrey said. “And now your whore is on the run with him.
Kim blinked back tears. Ethan, whoever he could have saved them both. Now Kim was more a captive than ever. She would probably die soon. But at least Julie was safe. It was something to cling to as she approached her own grave.
“Kim?”
Morales watched the girl turn her head from the memory, and she nodded as Morales asked another question.
“So you knew that Julie got out?” Morales asked.
“I got that,” Kim said.
“With Ethan?”
Again Kim nodded, and Morales waited for the other shoe to fall. Had he really not known that she was still alive? Had Ethan preferred Julie to Kim?
“At least he got one of us out,” Kim whispered. ‘”I want to see Julie get everything that she deserves.”
Ethan Graff. Guess I was wrong about him.
Leo cleared his throat.
“Miss Beyer, the rest… the rest can wait. But… but we need to know who held you. And… and how you escaped.”
Kim sighed before she spoke.
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured.
Exchanging a quick glance with Leo, Morales dared to touch the girl’s cropped hair. Kim cringed at her touch, and Morales drew back. In some ways it didn’t matter. Varying hands and faces aside, hell was hell. Maybe it was better to focus on the fact that she was simply here, alive.
But how?
“Kim, we have to ask---”
“Look,” she started as she stretched to her feet and started to pace the room. “I just got away from them, okay?”
Leo raised a questioning eyebrow.
“On that night?” he asked. “In your condition?”
“Guess it was a night for miracles,” she spat. “But Julie’s stuck.”
“What are you saying?” Morales asked.
The corners of Kim’s mouth curled into a sad smi
rk.
“You meet all kinds of people in the woods,” she said.
“So you---?”
“Yeah,” Kim said. “Fell in with another crowd. A lot worse than Pete and Matt. And I was trapped all over again.”
Morales shuddered in horror at what she was saying. She had survived one brush with evil only to meet another when her flesh so torn, her body so broken.
No, God doesn’t exist.
And why the hell hadn’t they found her? Morales’ first instinct was to apologize, but what was the point? It wouldn’t erase the sight of the walking skeleton in her midst.
Leo attacked the moment.
“Still kidnapping. And how did you get away from these other---?”
Kim snorted and cracked her skinny knuckles.
“Geoffrey Troxel,” she said. “He came back for me. And now I’m home. Thanks to him.”
Morales twisted her head at the idea that Kim was grateful for anything that Geoffrey had done for her.
“But… but he put you there,” Morales said. “And… and just because he got you out---”
Kim charged forward, her blue eyes growing even wider below her shorn hair, and she formed flimsy fists as she stared hard at the pair of them.
“Devil could have got me out,” Kim spat. “I’m here. Not there. And they did not kill me. So… so that kind of blows your fucking case out of the water.”
Morales stood and tried to process what Kimberly Beyer was saying. How could she not want them to pay? And if Geoffrey Troxel had known where she was all this time, why go through the trial at all?
Leo gave voice to her thoughts and pressed the point, but suddenly Amanda reappeared and pulled her daughter close.
“That’s enough,” she said. “This is our home, and you’re trespassing.
“But Mrs. Beyer---” Leo started.
“No more!”
It was Kim’s voice that cut off his demand. Morales thought of the pictures of the smiling Kim, the long haired Kim, and she feared that that girl was gone forever. Before she could protest, Kim approached her and smiled sadly.
“Look I… just want this over,” Kim said. “It was Matt. It was Pete. The others… they didn’t take us.”
“But they did things---”
“And now they’re not. And… and I want to see Jules.”
Morales looked to Leo and saw him defeated as he nodded and arranged to make the girl’s wish happen as soon as possible. With that, they braved the gauntlet of reporters again and returned to the car. Once they were hidden inside, Morales clutched the frozen wheel and cried into the horn.
“Connie?” he asked.
“If… if she’s not dead… and if she won’t point a finger…”
Over and over again she had promised Julie that justice was at hand. She had told her to do this for Kim, and while she was glad that the girl was home, her very presence was about to eradicate any hope of real charges for Troxel and McCord. Even kidnapping seemed a Hail Mary to hear Kimberly Beyer tell it. Something had happened, but Matt was dead, and Pete was still going away.
Case closed.
“They’re going to get off easy,” Morales whispered into the wheel. Leo reached for her shoulder, but she shook off his touch.
“Admit it!” she demanded. “We… we put Julie through all this…”
It wasn’t just the testimony. It was the picture that they had painted of Ethan Graff. As she shivered behind the wheel, Morales realized that he hadn’t killed, he hadn’t done anything but try to help Julie, and they had shattered that because they just hadn’t looked hard enough.
“I screwed up, Leo,” she said.
With a sigh, he covered both of her hands with his gloves and gently kissed her brow.
“Plenty of blame to go around, Connie,” he said. “We can still get Greg Heller.”
And what would that mean? Another trial? Another round of testimony that Julie shouldn’t have to endure? And now Kim was back in the mix. How could she get back to normal if she had to go up against her best friend?
“Leo, least we can do is get those girls in a room. They… they need each other right now.”
He patted her cheek and nodded.
“So let’s do that,” he said.
Morales sighed as she turned the key in the ignition. The way home seemed as long, and if Morales was certain of anything, she knew that she didn’t want to be alone tonight.
“Leo?”
He placed his firm hand on her quivering thigh.
“What is it, Connie?”
Biting her lip through her tears, Morales spoke softly.
“Can I… can I stay at your place tonight?”
Leo wrapped his arms around her shoulders and breathed into her neck.
“Always, Connie. And don’t worry. We’ll all live to fight another day.”
18
Julie sat in Leo’s office, wringing her hands together. The news was one thing. Danielle’s observations were another. But when Morales called and swore to her that she had seen Kim in the flesh, Julie’s knees buckled, and she fell to a flowered floor.
“Julie?” Danielle said. “Calm down. It’ll be okay.”
Julie couldn’t speak as she tried to wrap her head around a new truth. It was everything that she had ever longed to hear and wished for even when it seemed impossible. Somehow, Kim was alive. It was a miracle. Morales’ voice had explained all the ways in which their reunion was inevitable. But as soon as Julie pressed the call into silence, she sobbed aloud, and Danielle gathered her into her arms.
“Shhh,” Danielle said. “This is a good thing, right? Your friend is back.”
She sank into Danielle’s dark hair and cried until her tears were spent. As relieved as she was, Julie wanted to share this moment with Ethan. But she had pushed him way as soon as she heard the simple suggestion, the rumor, that Kim had returned to the land of the living. Now that it was real, now that Kim could connect the dots, would she ever be able to look at Ethan again?
Julie pushed those thoughts aside as she waited for Kim.
Morales appeared first. Julie started to rise at the sight of her, but Morales beckoned her to stay in her chair as she slipped to her knees. The detective’s hands seized hold of Julie’s, and her jaw was set like steel as he whispered behind the closed door.
“Listen to me, Julie. It’s a mistrial.”
“What do you mean?”
Morales clutched her hands tighter.
“I mean it’s not murder anymore. Because…”
“Because Kim really is alive?” Julie asked, her voice full of hope.
“Yes,” Morales said. “We can still get them on solicitation. Maybe the kidnapping charge will stick. But it doesn’t look like we can hit them up for anything more---”
“Where’s Kim now?”
Julie didn’t care about convictions or sentences. If there was justice, it would allow her to see Kim, to hold her close and try to forget that summer.
“Julie---”
“Where is---?”
The creak of the door answered her question along with Leo Barber’s face. Even as he smiled, Julie could see the defeat, the frustration curling around his eyes. Julie wasn’t sure if she should blast him for losing the fight or apologize because this was a man who lived for victory.
“Right this way,” Leo said.
He gestured to someone still hidden in the shadows, and Julie was on her feet as a ghost stepped over the threshold.
Kim?
Despite the bright floral dress, Julie gasped at the sight of her friend’s shredded frame and her shortened hair. It was and wasn’t Kim. But just the idea of some version of Kim, any version, was enough to force a small sob from her chest, and when Kim started to speak, Julie paused where she stood.
“Hey, Jules.”
For so long, the nickname had been a taunt, a violation of everything that they were to one another. But now, here, on her lips, it sounded like the worst had never happened. Coul
d it be this easy to wash it all away?
“Long time, Jules,” Kim whispered under eyes brimming with tears. She touched her hollowed cheeks and shuffled her feet.
“You look different,” Kim said.
A hot blush formed around Julie’s scar, and there was no denying that the worst had come. But the way back seemed easier when Kim extended her skinny arms. Without a second thought, Julie fell into her bony chest, and Kim folded her close. She relaxed into the feel of her friend’s breath buzzing against her ear. When Kim caressed her hair and laughed lightly, it almost felt normal. Julie clung to that as she looked up into her friend’s face.
“Kimmy?” she said, desperate for it to be real.
“I’m home, Jules.”
“Kimmy, I… I am so sorry…”
Shaking her head and pressing her finger under Julie’s chin, a heavy sigh left Kim’s lips.
“It wasn’t your fault, Jules,” she said. “I wanted to take the trip.”
Julie choked on a sob before she spoke.
“Don’t do that,” she begged. “You didn’t think… you didn’t know…”
Taking her hand, Julie gasped at the feel of Kim’s bony fingers piercing her healthy palm. Not knowing how her friend was here much less standing, Julie started to spill the story.
“It was Greg,” Julie said. “He---”
“She knows that, Julie.”
Her head whipped around to see Morales on the far side of the room. Wanting to lay into her, to yell at to her shut the hell up, Julie was struck by another change. While the cop wasn’t withered and wasted, Morales seemed smaller, and her new appearance tugged at Julie’s battered heart.
“Something wrong, detective?” Julie asked.
Morales sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Tears and silence wasn’t like her, and when she left the room without another word, Julie wanted to know why she was broken in her own way. Leo gave her hair a fleeting stroke before she was gone, and then he seized the doorknob in his hand.