by Jay, Libby
“You watch, bitch,” the voice snarled. “Open your eyes.”
I opened my eyes to see the first of the men climb on top of Kat. And I was forced to watch as one by one, they raped her.
Once the last of them was done, he stood up and pointed a gun at her. Kat looked across at me, and though she was still gagged, I sensed her smile. A loud bang sounded and red blood trickled from a small black spot on Kat’s forehead. Her eyes went vacant. Her face relaxed. Her whimpering had stopped.
Kat was dead.
“It could’ve been you, bitch,” I heard a voice say before my head was covered again. I felt a sharp pain to my head and my body went limp.
I was outside when I woke up again. I was being dragged. I could feel the breeze on my body and I shivered.
I was dropped onto the ground, I felt leaves and twigs beneath me.
“Kneel,” a voice shouted before I felt a kick to my back. “On your knees.”
I tried to kneel up straight, but I lacked the strength. I fell forward, my head hitting the ground.
A few minutes later I heard voices.
“Drop it there and walk back to the tree line,” a voice commanded.
There was a rush of feet, I sensed a lot of movement around me, before there was silence. Then another set of footsteps running toward me.
“Kat,” a voice called.
I shook my head and groaned as the realisation of what was about to happen came to me. My head covering was pulled off and I looked up into the face of Mr. Gold.
“Emily,” he said as his confusion showed on his face. “Where is Kat?” he said.
I shook my head and looked down. The image of Kat lying on the floor came to me. I doubled over in pain and fear and exhaustion and let out a cry. I felt Mr. Gold’s arms hold me as I completely gave in to my terror and I rested lifeless against him.
Chapter Fifteen
My mum was crying when I woke up. She stood in the corner of the hospital room, Terry was holding her.
“Mum,” I moaned. “Mum.”
She quickly came to my side and took my hand, leaning down to kiss me. “Oh, Emily. My girl.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Mum shook her head. “Not now, darling.”
“Where is Fraser?”
“He’s here, he’s talking to the police. He’s refused to leave the hospital.”
Terry smiled and walked toward the door. “I’ll let him know you’re awake.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. I looked back at Mum. “Kat is dead.” I took a deep breath. “I saw it.”
“Darling you don’t have to talk about it now.”
“How long was I gone for?”
“Four days and you’ve been in hospital for two.”
Tears came to my eyes. “Kat is dead. I saw it.”
“Darling,” Mum reached across my bed and pressed a button. “Try not to get upset.”
Fraser came into the room. He looked much how I felt. His eyes were red bordered in dark shadows and he hadn’t shaved.
“Emily,” he said, his relief evident in his voice. He came to my side and took my hand. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
I closed my eyes and let tears spill over. I shook my head. “Kat is dead. I saw it.”
I was sedated. For three days I stared at the ceiling of my hospital room. I had three broken ribs and an array of bruises and cuts. I was dehydrated and was being fed intravenously. I slept a lot because while I was awake, I could see Kat, her body lying on the floor of my room, a small dark dot on the forehead, blood trickling from it.
A trauma psychologist visited me. I told her over and over that Kat was dead. “I saw it,” I said.
Fraser didn’t leave my side. He lived in my hospital room, eating hospital food and showering in my private bathroom.
I had plenty of visitors. The Lewis’, John and Aunty Bree. Mr. and Mrs. Gold also came by, as did their sons. Their visits didn’t last long; I kept telling them that Kat was dead. “I saw it.”
When the police came to speak to me, I told them what I could. I told them about the smells and the noises and the voices. The voices…
“It was Greg,” I said. “Greg was in the warehouse.”
The police nodded their heads. Greg was already in custody, having been arrested at the airport after boarding a plane bound for Italy. His motive was greed, plain and simple. He’d demanded five million dollars for Kat’s release, but refused to comment on why he killed her and chose to let me live.
Kat’s body was found in a warehouse in Port Melbourne. The day of her funeral I was sedated to the hilt, given a bath and was allowed to leave hospital under the strict care of Fraser. I was not to get out of the wheelchair and I was not to be left alone for any reason.
I didn’t cry at Kat’s funeral. Everyone else did. I sat in silence, seeing her dead body lying on the floor of the church.
Once my doctor was happy that I could eat and drink and my pain was manageable with medication, I was sent home under Fraser’s care. He arranged for the trauma psychologist to come by three times a week for me to talk to her. I did speak to her, I spoke a lot. I relived those four days in that warehouse over and over again. Talking about it did help, but nothing could remove the image of those last few terrifying minutes.
My body was healing. I still had a few fading bruises under my breasts where my ribs had been broken, my wrists were still red and would remain scarred where I had pulled against my restraints and where my finger had been cut off, I was left with a stub of flesh.
My mind wasn’t healing so well. I had nightmares every night and I couldn’t be left alone. I was beginning to feel like a burden to Fraser rather than a wife. He had to work from home a lot and when he was forced to go out, he had to arrange for someone to sit with me. Mum came most often, but sometimes Mr. or Mrs. Lewis and sometimes even one of Fraser’s brothers came to sit with me.
That’s all I was capable of doing for those first few weeks after being discharged from hospital. I sat. I stared out at the water from my upstairs bedroom window and didn’t say much at all, other than to reply to people’s enquiries regarding my wellbeing.
I watched the news with interest as the initial hearings took place. I was deemed “unfit” to appear in court, but my written testament was submitted as evidence.
The case was over before it had really begun; the evidence against Greg and his team of criminals was overwhelming. Greg may have been a very good security guard, but he was rotten at being an extortionist. He’d left the drug he’d used to sedate Kat and I in his car, his fingerprints were all over the warehouse and his DNA was found on Kat’s body.
Three months had passed when everything became crystal clear to me. It was sudden and unexpected and even as I said the words, I couldn’t believe I was saying them.
It was a Thursday night. Fraser held me while I stepped into the bath. I didn’t really need his help anymore, but I think he still felt helpless and he wanted to do anything he could to feel needed.
Once I was settled in the bath, Fraser stripped off and joined me, sitting behind me. He reached for a small plastic container and started to wet my hair.
When I looked at the bathroom floor, I saw Kat looking up at me with her vacant eyes. I stared at her while I spoke.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I live here,” Fraser answered.
“Why are you here? I’m broken. I’m messed up.”
“No you’re not.”
Fraser didn’t love me. He never would. If he couldn’t tell me now that he loved me, after all I’d been through, after all we’d been through, he would never love me.
I turned around and looked at Fraser. “Do you love me, Fraser?”
His eyes dropped from mine, staying fixed on the space between us.
“Fraser, would you have paid the ransom for my return?” I’d been informed that my kidnappers never asked for a ransom for my release. Until I showed up in tha
t bushland in place of Kat, no one knew whether or not I was still alive.
He didn’t answer again.
“Fraser, do you love me?”
Again he didn’t answer me.
“I can’t do this. I want to go home.”
“You are at home.”
“No I’m not. Because home is a place where you’re loved. Please let me go.”
Fraser looked up into my eyes. “Is that what you really want?”
“I know I can’t stay here, I can’t be married to someone who doesn’t love me.”
Fraser nodded his head.
“You need to let me go,” I whispered.
Mum picked me up from Fraser’s. I didn’t take anything with me, no clothes or jewellery. I left everything and anything that would remind me of Fraser behind. I went to my old bedroom and cried. And cried and cried and cried, my heart completely broken. My soul shattered. When I could open my eyes without crying, Kat would be lying next to me.
“You did the right thing,” she told me.
*****
I sat at the kitchen table with the large yellow envelope in front of me. Inside the envelope were the divorce papers. I had yet to sign them, but I had read over them a hundred times. I knew the terms inside and out. I knew what Fraser had offered me in the pre-nuptial agreement was overly generous. I knew that by signing these papers, I would put an end to any and all financial concerns I would ever have. But I still couldn’t bring myself to sign them.
I’d had them for three weeks now. I had received three phone calls from Fraser’s lawyers asking when I was going to return the paperwork. I kept telling them that I’d do it tomorrow. Always tomorrow.
The hype surrounding my kidnapping and pending divorce had finally settled. I was no longer hounded by gossip journalists and I could walk through the university campus without people staring at me.
I was studying full time, and on weekends and nights I waited tables at a cafe near home. I was still in therapy; images still came to my mind’s eye of Kat, but she was no longer constantly with me. I could talk about her and what happened without breaking down. Physically I was healed and mentally I was healing.
I was running and swimming every day again. Keeping physically strong kept me mentally strong.
Whenever Fraser came up, either in general conversation or in one of my therapy sessions, my heart ached, but I didn’t cry for him anymore. I’d lost the one man I would ever love and my closest friend. I knew with time I’d be able to move on. I’d fall in love again. But in the meantime, I avoided gossip sites and magazines and kept close to John. He was there for me in every respect. He kept me away from harm and if ever a boy looked at me, John was quick to throw a protective arm around me.
“Are you coming out tonight?” John asked me. He was still living next door with Aunty Bree. We had made plans to go out for dinner and to see a movie, but I had the habit of cancelling my plans with him at the last minute, choosing to stay home.
“Yes, I am. I’m going to go do a few laps at the pool first though.”
John’s eyes went back and forth between me and the envelope. He was desperate for me to put an end to the marriage. He blamed Fraser entirely for my kidnapping. After all, it was his hired staff that had instigated the entire scheme.
“I’ll sign them tomorrow,” I said before I put the envelope down on the table and went to my room to grab my swimming bag.
I was finishing up my laps in the university pool. I wasn’t alone, the swim team was training and although I wasn’t part of the team, they let me use a lane.
I pulled myself up out of the pool and as I looked toward where I had left my towel, I was met with the most unexpected site. Four Lewis brothers stood looking at me. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared, unable to move, unable to breathe.
After what seemed like a lifetime of silence, Fraser stepped toward me, holding my towel. He slowly walked toward me and opened my towel, throwing it around my shoulders.
“The strangest thing happened,” he said, his face void of any expression.
I pulled the towel tighter around me.
“I fell in love,” he said.
My breath hitched as I felt heat rising in me. “You came here to tell me you’ve fallen in love.” I couldn’t help the aggressive tone in my voice.
“No, I haven’t fallen in love, I fell in love. A long time ago.”
I shook my head and bit my lip. “What are you talking about Fraser?”
“When I was fourteen years old, I met a girl. And I fell in love with her. And I’ve loved her every day since then. But I didn’t know, because I fell in love with her the moment I saw her, it was so instant, it felt so normal, like I’d always been in love with her, even before I had met her.
“Then she became my best friend. And I loved her a bit more. But I didn’t realise it because it felt so natural to be in love with her.”
Tears came to my eyes as I realised what he was saying.
“And then she became my wife. And I fell in love with her more, if that was even possible, and nothing had ever felt so right.
“And then I lost her. And I couldn’t understand why it hurt so much. But then I realised I hadn’t just lost a girl or a friend; I’d lost a part of me, the best part of me. The part of me that made me want to be a better person and the part of me that made me want to succeed and the part of me that made me complete.” He stepped toward me and held my face in his hands. He gently wiped the tears that spilled onto my cheeks with his thumbs. “I love you, Emily. I’ve loved you for the longest time. I was just too stupid to realise it.”
I looked up into his eyes and I saw his love for me. And he was right. He had always loved me. That look, it’d always been there.
“I tried to tell you…”
“I know,” he laughed. “And I still didn’t get it.”
I laughed with him. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yes I am.”
“Why are your brothers here?” I asked quietly.
His hands lowered to my shoulders. “Because if you don’t tell me you still love me, they’re going to have to carry me out of here.”
“Oh, well, just as well you brought them.”
Fraser’s hands fell from my shoulders and he stepped back. “I’m too late, you don’t love me,” he said quietly, his posture becoming tense.
I stepped toward him, shaking my head. “I don’t know Fraser. I mean, I like you a lot. You’re my best friend. I love being with you. I love our moments together…”
Fraser relaxed, crossed his arms over his chest and started to laugh. “Very funny Piglet.”
I smiled and held back my laugh. “I need time, please give me time. I know I’ll fall in love…”
Fraser quickly closed the distance between us, holding me firmly; one hand on the back of my head and the other at the small of my back. He pressed his lips to mine and kiss me. We kissed for the longest time, the cheering and whooping around us not distracting us from each other.
“I love you Piglet,” Fraser said between kisses.
“Hmm,” I moaned into his mouth.
Then we were pulled apart and I watched as Fraser was thrown fully clothed into the pool by Ryan.
“Don’t be an Emily hog,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek. “Maybe we can all get some work done now.”
Chris hugged me next. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “We’ve all missed you.”
“I’ve missed you guys too,” I said as I hugged Oliver.
Fraser pulled himself out of the pool and made his way to me, swiftly picking up where we’d left off; his lips pressing against mine and slowly moving.
“Stay with me tonight,” he said. “Let me show you how much I love you.”
I looked up into his eyes. “Always.”
*****
“I’ve signed the divorce papers,” I called out.
“Finally,” Fraser said as he leant down and kissed my cheek. “You’ve just ma
de me the happiest man in the world.”
I laughed and leaned back in my chair, my head pressing against Fraser’s chest. Fraser wasn’t happy just to renew our wedding vows. He wanted a completely fresh start. This time, other than our marriage certificate, there would be no other paperwork involved. No contracts, no pre-nuptial agreements, nothing. Just Fraser and I standing in the garden at his parent’s house with a few of our most loved and treasured family members.
“When are you going to tell your Dad?” I asked.
Fraser smiled against my neck. “I’m not.” He kissed the soft skin below my ear. “You’re going to.”
I started to argue, but Fraser claimed my words with his mouth and for a change of pace, he rendered me completely speechless.
Epilogue
I moved back in with Fraser the following week. Everyone was happy we were back together. I was welcomed back with open arms by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and even though Fraser and I would not be signing anything in triplicate, Mr. Lewis seemed very relaxed and accepting.
“You two always did it your own way anyways,” he sighed.
Fraser and I got married on New Year’s Day the following year. We honeymooned on our own private ocean cruiser on the Mediterranean Sea.
One year after I’d become a fully qualified veterinarian, I became pregnant with our sons, David and Robert. We moved out of our Brighton home and into a five bedroom house, complete with large backyard, gym, pool and tennis court.
And today I found out I’m pregnant again. I’m waiting for Fraser to get home from work before I tell him. If I call him while he’s at work he’ll want to come home to celebrate.
I’m watching the boys play outside with Pooch 2. Poor Pooch.
“He’s not a horse, boys,” I yell through the window. “Don’t ride him.”
Now I own my own practice, I don’t work full time. I have three associates who do most the work for me. I work two days a week in the clinic and I do the odd home visit too. I always thought I wanted to be a vet, but as soon as I became a mum, that became my true love. My boys, they’re my entire life. I rub my tummy.