by William Mark
“No, don’t ignore me. You killed those men in cold blood. I knew we should have just waited and followed the girls out and then grabbed them later. But No! You just had to go in guns a blazin’.”
Beth shook her head. “Hell, you practically executed them as if you were judge, jury, and executioner, but you have to pay the consequences. Alexis is on her way, and she is not happy.”
“What do you want me to say, Beth?” Curt said wearily, his shoulders were sagging from fatigue.
“I think you wanted to kill those men. There would’ve been plenty of opportunities to grab those girls without confrontation, but you went in without even considering the alternatives.” Beth was steaming. “You are dangerous, Curt. You can’t go around killing anyone who crosses your path—it won’t bring your son back!”
Curt had enough. He threw down his luggage with authority and snapped to Beth, mere inches from her face.
“Listen, you little shit! In case you didn’t notice the beating those assholes gave Rachel, which she got before they dragged her downstairs and held a gun to her fucking head, they were going to KILL her. Not be mean to her and call her names or put her in timeout or whatever else your fucked up little liberal mind thinks was going to happen. They were going to kill her! But, do you know why?”
Beth and Melinda had been separated from Rachel after everything went down and hadn’t actually seen her condition as Curt described. She got the run down from Louis which obviously lacked the full picture of the truth. She shook her head at Curt, no.
“Exactly…because true evil exists in this world, and people like those men do not care what’s right and wrong. They only do what they want, and at that moment, it was to kill Rachel because she was trying to help those girls escape. So I stopped that from happening. Get off your self-righteous ass, and grow the fuck up!”
“Killing is still wrong Curt; we could’ve tried to talk with them…tried something before you went in and shot them!”
Curt shook his head in annoyance. It was clear he wasn’t going to convince her that he had no choice, no matter how the scenario played out. He needed to get away from her before he did something to cause her harm, so he left and headed for the bar. This way he could only harm himself, and the alcohol wouldn’t pass judgment.
Beth let out a groan of frustration at Curt’s unwillingness to listen to reason and stormed back into the hotel lobby and up to her room.
Rachel had walked up behind the heated conversation between Beth and Curt and overheard the justification for his actions. From her view point, he was spot on and completely justified, but she could see Beth’s point. She was never a proponent of violence, but the thought of those girls trapped in that house and forced to perform sex acts on complete strangers for a meager existence sent a wave of hate through her body and down to her very core. She wanted those men to pay for what they’d done and was glad they were dead. She wanted them to be held accountable for the terror they caused, unlike the man responsible for her abduction who got away with his evil. She turned and watched Curt walk into the hotel and sit at the bar alone, still furious.
“Hey?” She followed him to the bar and spoke softly.
He looked over; the bruises were taking form on her cheek. “Hey.”
She slid onto the stool next to Curt and ordered a club soda with a lime. After the bartender set down the drink, he refilled the whiskey for Curt and walked over to the far side of the bar to talk to another hotel employee. She looked around the bar and restaurant area. It was empty except for them and the two employees.
“I wanted to tell you thank you, Curt. Thank you for saving my life.” Rachel spoke with a soft genuineness that awoke something inside of Curt, something that had been dormant for a long time.
He exhaled and lowered his head in acceptance. It was nice to hear those words. Until she said them, he hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear them. She reached over and put her arm around him, hugging him tight as a purposeful emphasis of her sincere thanks. The warm touch of a woman resonated through his body. It had been too long since the last time he experienced that feeling. He closed his eyes accepting the embrace and the connection to another human being. After which, he opened his eyes and looked over at her. They locked eyes.
“You’re welcome,” he said softly with his own brand of sincerity. As he held her stare, he was reminded of her beauty.
“In that moment, when you came through the door, when he had me on the floor and a gun to my head….” She looked over at the bartender to make sure he was out of earshot, “I wanted nothing more than for you to kill them. Not just for what they’d done to me but for what they’d done to those girls. I’m glad they are dead. I’m glad you killed them.”
Curt leaned upon the bar with his elbows propped up on the counter. He turned and looked over his hunched shoulders at Rachel. He could see she was being honest, but it came with a hidden restraint.
“Tell me about your son,” she requested bluntly, taking the opportunity of the moment to get to know the man she felt drawn to. He had just saved her life hours before, and there—now—a bond existed between them. It was a closeness that was foreign but intriguing. She wanted to know more about him.
He drained the last of the whiskey and crunched an ice cube in his teeth as he let the request simmer. He looked over at the pretty woman next to him with a thought behind it.
“You first; tell me why you were an alcoholic?”
Shocked at the accuracy of his assessment, she withdrew from Curt. She immediately questioned whether it was worth having this conversation with Curt in exchange for the knowledge she sought. But she realized they now shared a rare bond in this world, so she let down her guard. She wanted to know, but she also wanted Curt to know about her.
“How did you know that? Louis?”
“No. I don’t make a habit of looking everyone up on the internet.” Curt turned in his seat and looked straight at Rachel. “You ordered a club soda that first time at the bar, and I noticed you carry just a little bit of extra weight, like the alcohol was a substitute for food, and now with no alcohol, the weight has come back.”
Rachel felt exasperated and fought through the embarrassingly insulting words only because they were the truth and a hidden secret he was able to find, but his tone implied he wasn’t prejudging anything. He wanted to know, good or bad, and she realized this.
Curt continued, “Maybe you were plagued by an eating disorder? You are very pretty and carry a confident sexuality about you, but it’s distant…like you purposefully keep that part of yourself hidden.”
“Oh…I do?” Rachel took a sip of the club soda to try and hide her growing discomfort.
“Yeah, it shows with the way you look at me. But also, I can see a lot of self-hatred in your eyes, or at least there was at one point. My guess is whatever it is that drives you was probably something pretty damn terrible, and it led you to alcohol and some questionable sex habits. But that’s your past, not who you are now.”
Rachel held a look, the look of exasperation. Was she really that easy to read, or was he really that gifted at looking into people’s souls? Not even the people she considered close friends knew that much about her.
“Am I close?”
“Uh, yeah. Close enough,” she said with a dose of humiliation.
She shook off the initial shock from the direct hit Curt landed and explained he was right. She told him of the evil that had stolen her innocence as well as her sister’s. Rachel explained the disgust she held for herself as she fought for the reasoning behind why her abductor preferred Rhonda over her, and how that eventually led to a dangerous life of intoxication and loveless, sexual encounters that were too numerous to remember. Rachel talked a lot about her younger sister, Rhonda, whom she feared was dead. Rachel relived her epiphany in the hospital years later and how she vowed to honor her sister by helping others.
Rachel watched Curt’s facial expressions as she described the painful episodes in h
er life which led most people to judge her as weak or a whore, or both. But he simply listened. He didn’t pass judgment as was the usual scenario when she opened up about her dark past. Curt was different; she found it easy to talk about her dark secrets as he himself was unfortunately no stranger to the darkness. He knew that when evil entered our lives, it was hard to adjust and deal with it. Most people would fail to overcome its aftermath. But there are a few who make it, and of those who crawl out of the abyss, a black stain remains forever branded on their souls and is nearly impossible to erase. Curt knew this all too well.
“So you joined DCF? To try and help children who needed it?”
“Yeah, and I loved my job. But as you know, they have a lot of internal problems and no teeth to really make a difference. So when Alexis asked me to join, at first I was skeptical, but after seeing you guys rescue Charlotte, I was a believer.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Curt ordered another drink and a club soda for Rachel. She looked for hints of judgment and repulsion to come as an afterthought but found none. He was right; it defined her motivation, not who she was.
“So?” she said coyly, taking an exaggerated sip of club soda. “You think I’m pretty?”
Curt couldn’t help but smile at the question. It was followed by a quick laugh at the way she asked with feigned innocence, and he nearly choked on his drink.
“Yeah, I do.” The smile disappeared, and again they held each other’s stare. He was no longer looking into her soul. He was looking at her. She was beautiful, and he could see so much strength in her character that was built from such a horrendous tragedy and followed by the reckless period of her life. It gave her balance to move forward and fight true evil as they saw it.
Rachel was first to look away. She set her drink down and turned in her seat to face him directly. Her legs brushed up against his. Both noticed the touch, but neither pulled away.
“So…your turn.”
He downed his whiskey as he lowered his own guard to share his pain with Rachel. He crunched on another piece of ice as he thought about where to start. He hadn’t told anyone his story in years. He hated reliving it. He knew that the team knew most of the facts of Josh’s disappearance as it was well chronicled in the Tallahassee Democrat. It made a hit in some national media outlets as well. A cop’s son going missing was sensational news, no matter the geographical location.
Curt told Rachel of that awful night at the softball complex when Josh was with him one minute and gone the next. He explained that he had been working a case that required him to stay late and away from his family for the weeks prior, so he was looking forward to the recreational getaway with his son who enjoyed being the batboy. He was deluged with the emotions of that night as they came flooding back, and he relived the total devastation only a parent can experience from the loss of a child. Rachel didn’t have any children but remembered the animosity between herself and her mother that was caused by how she dealt with the loss of Rhonda. She could only imagine the complete helplessness a parent would experience in that situation, but for a police officer, that would have amplified the helplessness.
“You were wearing that trench coat that night?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“So that’s why you keep it on all the time?”
“Huh? Oh yeah.” He looked down at his coat. “I want him to recognize me when I find him.”
Rachel nodded her head in agreement with the sweet gesture. For his sake, she hoped that Josh would recognize him no matter what, because even though it had been over twenty years, she knew she would instantly recognize Rhonda, even if it were only for a split second.
“Do you have a picture of him?” she asked tenderly. “I’d like to see it.”
Curt swirled the remnants of the amber liquor in his glass as he considered the request. He set down the glass and reached inside his coat to pull out the well-worn picture he kept on the dash of the Crown Vic. He held it up as if to inspect it again and then held it out for Rachel. She carefully took the picture and looked at it. It was folded in half, but the front half was of an adorable brown-headed boy smiling at the camera with a toothy grin and dimples accenting the corners of his face. He was cute, happy, and appeared to be full of life. Her heart sank at the thought that he was gone. She looked over at Curt. He hadn’t bothered to watch her reaction to the picture. He had seen it so many times in the faces of all the people he canvassed that night and in the days following Josh’s disappearance. He was tired of seeing sympathy, because sympathy wasn’t getting him any closer to his son.
Rachel unfolded the picture to reveal the rest of the photograph. It was of Curt and a woman whom she assumed was his wife. Both were equally as happy as Josh in the picture. It was a nice portrait of the Walker family. Rachel regretted her intrusion and noticed that Curt was much heavier and rotund in the picture, at least forty or fifty pounds extra. She folded the picture back and handed it to him just as carefully as she took it and wondered if he lost the weight because of stress or not eating, or perhaps a page from her past, being anorexic.
“You’ve lost some weight?” she asked probingly.
Curt looked down at his loose fitting clothes and then figured she had looked at the rest of the picture and made the comparison. “Yeah, a little,” he said, without explanation.
Rachel suddenly recalled the image of Curt walking through the hotel lobby just two days before with sweat dripping off his very athletic and attractive body. “From running?”
“Yeah, it helps with the stress of everything, but I could care less about the weight; I was running for something else.”
“What?”
“Nothing…it’s stupid.”
“No, c’mon tell me. We’re bonding here, in case you didn’t notice. It’s not stupid. I’m sure.”
“Bonding, huh?” Curt smiled.
“Yeah, c’mon.” She scooted over to the edge of her stool and shoulder bumped Curt playfully to coax his answer out of him.
“I’ve imagined finding Josh a thousand different ways, but my fear…,” Curt paused, “my greatest fear is that I will find him, but he’ll be just out of my reach. I had nightmares after he was taken that I was chasing the man who took him but couldn’t catch him. He was always just out of my reach, and I was too tired to go on and was forced to give up. The next morning, I started running. There’s no way I’ll ever stop chasing after him. I can’t.”
She was amazed at the dedication Curt put in place for finding his son. She saw the determination in his eyes and believed that he wouldn’t stop until he found Josh. She wanted to know.
“Do you talk to your wife much?” She glanced down at the gold ring on his left hand.
He turned on his stool, looking across the bar at the selection of liquors, seemingly avoiding the issue surrounding his relationship with his wife. He stalled for a moment but felt compelled to answer. He looked down at his left hand and thought about his wife, Tracy.
“Every so often she calls, just to check in, but otherwise not much.” He explained. “She’ll never say it, but I know she blames me for Josh’s disappearance. I could see it in her eyes when she arrived at the park that night. It was blame and disgust, like ‘how could you let this happen?’”
“Does she know what you’re doing, exactly? You know, with the team and everything?”
“Not really. But she knows I had to do something. I couldn’t just go back to our life without him, like nothing happened.”
“I can imagine that sort of thing takes a toll.”
Rachel could see the pain in his eyes as he relived his own hell. But unlike hers, his was on-going, and he lived it with each and every passing day. Her heart ached for him. She reached up and rubbed his back, consoling him. He looked back at her with gratitude in his eyes. He turned back to the whiskey and downed the rest of the alcohol in a big gulp, holding half in his mouth to savor the burn. He could feel the effects taking hold already.
“Yo
u know that’s not the answer, right?”
He looked back at the empty glass and smirked.
“Yep.”
“So why continue?”
“It helps me sleep. It gets me through the times when I feel completely helpless.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means, my kid is out there lost with some faceless monster that I hope I have the pleasure of coming across in a dark alley one day, but until I do, I have no idea where to look. What am I supposed to do? Stop looking?”
Rachel shook her head. His tone turned angry. This notion was clearly the motivation for all those destructive nights when hotel rooms were left in shambles.
“No. How does a parent ever stop looking? So that’s why I joined this…” He searched for the words to define the group but settled sarcastically on, “team.”
“What if he’s…you know?”
“Dead?”
She nodded, trying to tread lightly.
“Do you think Rhonda is dead?” he asked bluntly.
She was taken aback for a moment at his question, thinking he was mocking her but realized he was trying to make a point. No one had ever asked her that before, and it gave her pause. She thought about it, leaving her own sadness and anger aside.
“Yes, unfortunately I do.”
“Is that because you feel that way in your heart?” Curt had twisted around in his seat and faced Rachel, waiting anxiously for an answer.
“Yes, it is.” She hated to admit it out loud.
“Well, I feel in my heart that he is still alive, and I have to hold on to that sliver of hope or else I will fall apart and completely let go. I know the only reason I haven’t hurled myself off a cliff or jumped in front of a train is that I truly believe he is alive. I have to. I would give anything to see him for just one moment and to know he was alive and safe, and that it was not just some feeling. It’s the not knowing if I’ll ever get the chance that keeps me in this hell.”
“I hope you do find him one day.”
He smiled back at her, wishing his instincts were right and Josh was alive. Her support surprisingly meant a lot to him in that moment as he felt the connection grow. He wanted to stay in that moment with Rachel, but the bartender reminded them the bar was closing. He wanted to order another but looked at Rachel instead. She saw the battle waging inside of him and knew the feeling well. She remained silent, knowing he had to make that decision for himself.