Screaming in the Silence

by Lydia Kelly

  “Hey,” I said quietly. “It’s just you and me now. We’ll be all right.”

  Kaden stared at me. Did he not believe me? Did he not want that anymore? It had only been a day since he had made the promise to want me forever. Certainly he hadn’t changed his mind so quickly. Eventually he nodded toward the teller and I turned around, my mood dropping faster than a brick in water.

  “Miss Winters, how would you like the balance?”

  I answered quickly. “Large bills.”

  The teller nodded and excused herself, mumbling something about finding a manager to get an approval. I turned back to Kaden who was still staring at me.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  He looked hurt and apologetic. “I don’t mean to be.”

  “This is what you want, isn’t it? For you and me to be together?”

  “It is. You will always be what I want.”

  “So why are you staring at me like you will never see me again?”

  “Do you forgive me?” He ignored my question and countered with his own.

  “For what?” For everything? I knew I could never forgive him for everything he had done to me. But I loved him enough to move past it.

  “For hurting you.”

  “Yes. I thought we got over this last night.”

  “Did we? You never gave me an answer.”

  “Kaden,” I could feel that my voice was rising. “I forgive you���”

  “You don’t look like it,” Kaden interrupted me and his face looked like stone.

  “I may not look like it, but I’m telling you right now that I forgive you. I want to be with you, I want you to take me away from here and we can disappear together.”

  “Disappear? Is that really what you want to do?”

  “Yes,” I gave him a definite answer. “I left home to disappear and I found you. And now, you’re all I want.”

  “There won’t be anyone or anything you’ll miss once I take you away?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying.”

  I inhaled. He knew me so well yet I couldn’t understand why he was questioning me now. I turned around and crossed my arms, waiting for the teller to return. She walked slowly back to the counter, a stack of bills in her grasp. It amazed me that twenty five thousand dollars fit so easily in her hand. It looked like such a small sum.

  “Would you like a bag for this?”

  “Yes, please,” I answered meekly. Nothing seemed right about this. I didn’t even know if I wanted to do this anymore.

  The teller reached somewhere under the counter and pulled out a wide yellow envelope, put the bills inside and sealed it shut. The contents were placed into a plastic bag and pushed toward me.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

  “That’s it. Thank you.” I took the bag and walked away from the teller. I knew Kaden was behind me, but I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see what he was thinking, or not thinking. I stepped outside and looked around. People were starting to populate the square and the sidewalk outside the bank, their daily routines just beginning. People. It didn’t even seem real that I was surrounded by them again. I had seen three faces for two months, not including my own reflection. I should have been in awe at the sight of strangers. I looked for Ray and Marshal in the parked car.

  Kaden’s hands turned me around so I faced him. I gripped the bag tight in my fist and I stared up at him. His fingers found my face and traced my jaw and cheek. His touch was so gentle, so loving.

  “Do you really forgive me?” He asked, his eyes unreadable.

  “Yes,” I told him again, trying to sound as soft and convincing as possible.

  “Would you forgive me one last time, then?”

  “Yes,” I answered smiling at him. “I don’t even know what you did this time, but yes. I forgive you.”

  He smiled back and bent his head to kiss me. His lips were soft, his hand wandering to my back and he pulled me closer. My anxiety starting to melt away when suddenly his kiss intensified and he crushed me against him. His lip started to quiver but his arms held me strong.

  He pulled away and I opened my eyes. His expression had changed, his eyes were so sad and I couldn’t figure out why until I saw the reflection of red and blue flashing lights in the windows of the bank. The lights were everywhere, surrounding us on all sides. For one moment, the people on the sidewalk disappeared and it was just the two of us, standing alone in each other’s arms.

  “What did you do?” I looked up at him, my heart racing and my head spinning.

  “I had to, Raleigh,” he explained slowly. “I had to make things right so you would forgive me.”

  “Kaden, I forgive you!” I nearly screamed at him.

  “No,” he disagreed with me. “You might think you do now, but running away with me would only allow you to keep everything inside, suppress it until it consumed you. I couldn’t do that to you. You deserve to be happy again.”

  “I’m happy when I’m with you.”

  “Liar,” he grinned and kissed me one last time.

  “Goodbye, Raleigh.” He smiled again, his genuine smile, the one that melted my heart. He released me and placed my bag over my shoulder, stepping away and raising his arms in the air. His eyes stayed locked with mine. I knew there was nothing more I could do as police started to rush toward us. My body felt like stone. Kaden was more malleable. A large officer pulled Kaden’s arms behind his back and pushed him forcefully to the ground. His head twisted and we broke eye contact.

  I turned to find Marshal. Ray had attempted to drive away but police cruisers blocked the path. Marshall and Ray were screaming from inside the car, their hands raised at gunpoint.

  A strong hand pulled me away. I glanced back at Kaden. He was still lying on the ground and he had managed to crane his neck around so that he could look at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You are my everything.”

  “Kaden?” I screamed. The hand tugged at my arm. I started to struggle against whoever was pulling me.

  “Kaden!”

  “Go, Raleigh. You’ll be all right.”

  No. I wouldn’t be all right. I didn’t know if I would ever be all right. What would happen to me if Kaden was gone? Who would protect me? Who would keep me safe? Who would keep me sane? My eyes flooded with tears. We were being torn apart. I might never see him again. With that thought, I could feel it happening - I was falling through the ground. I was falling into the nothingness that dwelled beneath the surface of my existence and I would never be seen again.

  I closed my eyes and screamed for him. My arms reached out and my body strained to break free from the person whose arms were wrapped around my waist, forcing me away. It was over. My life as I had come to know it, my life as I had been forced to become accustomed to, was over. Nothing would ever be the way I wanted it. Kaden wouldn’t be with me and I would be lost without him.

  Chapter 20

  The ride to the police station felt like being driven to purgatory. My mind and body hung in limbo between the sins Kaden had committed and the purification my freedom would bring. Nobody spoke to me, no one looked at me though I felt as if I were being judged. Judged for loving a man who had committed a crime, judged for loving a man who had taken my life from me, judged for loving a man who had deceived his best friends. Did they have a right to judge, these men who had just been following orders? Of course they had a right. Who was I to deny anyone their rights?

  So there I sat, perfectly quiet, perfectly shocked, in the back of a police cruiser. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been in one before. I had been caught red handed drinking and smoking pot and vandalizing my father’s re-election posters. Back then, I knew I wouldn’t find myself in any serious trouble. Sure, the newspapers would report it, my credit cards would be taken away until my father couldn’t stand to see me mulling about the house any longer, but my future would in no way be jeopardized. My morals and judgment would remain t
he same.

  But this ride would change everything. This day would, with or without my acceptance, change the entire course of my life. Would the paparazzi discover me and snap photos of my low hanging head as I spoke with the sheriff? I seriously doubted this town had ever seen a celebrity, much less a senator’s daughter or a fame hungry photographer. My credit cards had already been taken from me and I felt no great need to reclaim them. But my judgment had changed. My morals, my entire mindset were altered because of what I had done, because of what he had done. I no longer knew right from wrong.

  The sheriff was waiting for me at the door of the station when I arrived. He was overweight and out of breath and in need of a trip to the dentist. But he smiled from behind his handlebar mustache and ushered me through the lobby as if I were someone special. I knew I wasn’t. Not to him. Not yet anyway.

  He led me through a cluster of the desks cluttered with case files and evidence to a small office at the far end of the building. This room had thick glass walls and inexpensive furniture. An ergonomic chair was behind the desk and two arm chairs sat in front of it. A love seat was awkwardly placed in one corner and an old bookshelf stood ominously to the side. He gave a friendly wave of his hand to encourage me to sit in one of the armchairs. I took the offer and waited for his questions to begin.

  “Miss Winters, my name is Sherman Michaels and I’m the sheriff of this town.” I could tell from the way his lips moved, his accent was thick, his drawl exaggerated.

  I nodded my head. “Nice to meet you.”

  He smiled sympathetically and continued. “I don’t want this to take any longer than necessary, but I do need to ask you some questions.”

  I nodded again.

  “First, is there someone who you would like to call? Someone who can come get you?”

  I froze. My brain flipped through all my friends and acquaintances like pages in a book and I eventually settled on the one person who would take this news worse than anybody. The one person who this small-town sheriff most likely didn’t want to deal with.

  “My father.”

  A phone was pushed in my direction and the sheriff stood up to leave. “I imagine you would like some privacy.”

  Privacy? Yes. I would love some privacy as I called my father and requested that he came down to North Carolina to retrieve me. I would love some privacy as I was forced to answer the questions I knew were coming. I would love some privacy as I began to cry, realizing that my relationship with my father was so strained that he hadn’t realized I had been missing for nearly two months. But that wasn’t an option.

  “Sheriff, you’ll have to speak for him. This phone is useless to me.”

  Sheriff Michaels suddenly turned red and his face immediately begged my forgiveness. It was now my turn to smile sympathetically at him.

  “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I’m guessing you don’t have to deal with this sort of situation often.”

  “I had a dog that was deaf.”

  I blinked.

  “Couldn’t hear a damn thing. But he could sniff out a thief better than any dog on our team.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say but luckily the sheriff didn’t look like he expected an answer. He sat back down and lifted the receiver.

  “What number am I dialing?”

  I told him my father’s cell phone number, the number that only a select few had the privilege of knowing. It was the only number I had memorized.

  Sheriff Michaels held the receiver to his ear and then smiled at me. “It’s ringing.”

  I smiled back but only out of courtesy. To be honest, I was terrified of what was about to happen. Would my father even pick up? If he did, what would he say? What would he do? And if he didn’t, where would I go? I had twenty five thousand dollars still clutched in my hand and no agenda. I could disappear again.

  “Hello?” The sheriff spoke slowly.

  “Sir, this is Sheriff Sherman Michaels of the Onslow County Police Department. I have your daughter with me and she asked me to call you.”

  There was a brief pause and Sheriff Michaels stared at the receiver with a strange look.

  “No, sir. She’s done nothing wrong.”

  There was another pause and then he put his hand over the receiver and looked at me. “He wants to know why you are having me call him.”

  I sighed. “Can you put him on speaker phone, please?”

  The sheriff nodded and pressed a button on his phone then lightly returned the receiver to its cradle.

  I leaned toward the speaker. “Hi, Christopher. It’s me.”

  I looked up and waited for the sheriff to say something. “He wants to know what you are doing in Onslow County.”

  I looked around the room and then out one of the large windows. Nothing helped me come up with a good answer. “I was hitchhiking.”

  We both waited, Sheriff Michaels watching the phone, me watching Sheriff Michaels. “No, sir. She hasn’t been arrested for hitchhiking.”

  “Dad,” I started to say before another explanation was offered. “I never meant to���I didn’t want to stay.” But that sounded like a lie. “I wasn’t allowed to leave.” That sounded more like the truth. And the truth hurt, a throbbing pain that radiated from my heart and ended in my head. “They took me.”

  “He wants to know who took you.”

  Did he want their names? Their physical appearance? A general explanation? “Three men. They hit me with their car and were going to ransom me when they found out who you were.”

  Sheriff Michaels gave me a curious glance. I shook my head, letting him know I would fill him in on everything later.

  “He wants to know if you are okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m safe and I’m���fine.” But I wasn’t, of course. I wasn’t fine because my emotions hadn’t fully caught up with my situation. I wasn’t safe from the memories of Kaden and his house, the nightmare of Ray.

  Sheriff Michaels looked me up and down. He had clearly recognized the lie I told. “He says he’s going to come get you.”

  I nodded, blinking back some tears. “Thank you.”

  Sheriff Michaels gave my father the address of the police station. He could catch a flight out of Dover and be in North Carolina within a few hours. The thought of seeing my father wasn’t at all reassuring. Nothing, aside from Kaden’s release would have reassured me at the moment. But I knew that wouldn’t happen. I would have months, probably years to think about it and right now I needed to just make it through the day.

  Sheriff Michaels ended the call with my father. He sat back in his chair and we stared at each other for a minute. He didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t know what to do with him. Begging for my kidnapper’s unconditional release seemed like a stretch.

  “Your father is a United States Senator?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll be damned. Those boys caught themselves the wrong fish.” My heart sank for Kaden. He didn’t say anything for another minute. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said and took out a pen from his desk drawer. He flipped open a note pad and dated the top of the page. “How did you find yourself with the three men?”

  “I was hitchhiking and they hit me with their car. They thought I was dead and put me in the trunk with my friend���”

  “Julie Walters?”

  I nodded.

  “Shit,” the sheriff swore. “So you are the girl who she was traveling with.”

  I nodded again.

  “We found her body weeks ago. Just a few days later, some kids came forward and told us they had given you two a ride. We only got a vague description of you.”

  I waited for him to give me more information.

  “We all kind of assumed you moved on, found another ride.”

  “No.”

  “Who was driving the car that night they hit you?”

  “I believe it was Ray.”

  “When did they discover you were still alive?”
<
br />   “Sometime after they hit us. They put us both in the trunk and when I woke up I guess I made enough noise for them to hear me.”

  “What did they do with her body?”

  I closed my eyes and saw Ray and Marshal throwing her from the cliffs. “They threw her into the ocean.”

  “Why didn’t they do the same to you?”

  It didn’t look like Sheriff Michaels really wanted or expected me to answer that question. It was more of a contemplative thought, something he probably shouldn’t have said out loud.

  “They thought they could ransom me,” I quickly offered. I knew now that Kaden had wanted me for himself, that the money had meant nothing to him. But telling this man all of the intimate details of my relationship with Kaden didn’t seem like it would help either of us. I glanced down at the sheriff’s hands. He had no wedding ring. Had this man ever loved a woman? Had he ever been loved in return? Call me critical, but I didn’t think him capable of understanding the dynamics of our relationship. He didn’t have the desire to understand it, the cruel knowledge that was necessary to fully comprehend it.

  “How long have you been with them?”

  “Since September 2.”

  His head shook in disbelief. “Where did they keep you?”

  “The basement.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  He looked like a father asking his child if they were being bullied at school. Did they hurt me? Such a simple question with such a multitude of complicated answers.

  “Yes.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  I sighed. I could elaborate. But I didn’t necessarily want to. “They hit me with their car. I’m pretty sure one of my ribs was broken. They kept me locked in the basement without much food. Ray hit me once.”

  “But none of them tried anything else?”

  Suddenly I was shaking all over. “Yes.” Sheriff Michaels must have sensed my discomfort.

  “Would you prefer to talk to a female officer about this?”

  I let out a small sob. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay.” I think he wished I would have agreed to his offer. “You don’t have to go into detail. I’m just going to ask you questions and you can answer yes or no.”