Unreal 2 Cold Illusion - Winter's Chill: (Adult Suspense Thriller) Read online

  Only to be forgotten by Connie Morales.

  She heard a deadbolt clicking open, and Leo squeezed her arm.

  “Focus, Connie,” Leo said.

  The door opened, and they were face-to-face with Amanda Beyer. There was a new light in her eyes, but the woman’s body still sagged under the weight of what had happened, and Morales knew instantly that she wanted them gone.

  “Mrs. Beyer---”

  “You… people,” Amanda said. “Why are you---?”

  A million flashbulbs hit the air, and Morales turned to scream into the light when an unfamiliar voice hit the air.

  “Go away! Leave us alone!”

  Turning her head back, Morales saw a girl that looked like she had survived a death camp. Her red hair was clumsily shorn, and she was nearly emaciated. She recalled Julie’s stories of how the girls had only been fed enough to survive, to perform, but wherever Kim had been, wherever she had come from, she had obviously been given much less. How had the girl escaped much less survived?

  All that time having to submit to someone else’s whims, and here she was in virtually the same place from which she had escaped.

  “How are you holding up, Kim?” the blonde reported asked.

  “Tell us were you were?”

  “Have you been in contact with Julie Edwards?”

  Leo tried to ease the Beyer women back into the house. Amanda was a mass of sobs, but Leo whispered that time was of the essence, and they had to talk to Kim. Now. Morales watched Kim stare at the reporters. Her eyes were like an impossible anime figure as they brimmed over hollowed cheeks. Morales had to get her inside, away from another assault, and she pressed her hand to Kim’s back.

  “Come inside, Miss---”

  “Get bent!” Kim screamed at the reporters. Flying towards them, her jagged nails scraped the blonde reporter’s face, and when Morales saw the blood spurting from her cheek, she imagined the man ready to cry assault after all that Kim had already suffered.

  Not happening. Not on my watch.

  “Inside!” Morales screamed. “Now!”

  They fell into the house. Struggling to catch her breath, Morales fell into a wall and scanned the surroundings .There was a mirror dotted with a white floral pattern as soon as she focused on the space just above her swimming head, a tiny table with red legs where Kim had probably tossed her keys before the Kim and Julie made their way to her room. Strangest of all was the simple yet strange presence of the girl, alive and liberated from captivity.

  “Kim, honey…”

  Amanda Beyer tried to touch her daughter, but Kim pushed her away and glared from Morales to Leo and back again.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Kim demanded.

  “Miss Beyer, I’m with the district attorney’s office, and Detective Morales has been investigating your abduction.”

  Kim broke into wild laughter as she ran her hands through her ragged hair. Pushing past Leo, she glared down at Morales.

  “So why didn’t you find me?” Kim screamed. “You fucking bitch!”

  Morales was nearly on her feet when Kim started slugging her with bony fists. As Morales endured the blows, she tried to corral Kim’s hands. Not because she was afraid of getting hurt. Her greater concern was that Kim’s fingers would snap like twigs if they struck her too hard.

  “Kim!” Amanda pleaded. “Calm down.”

  The girl ignored her mother’s voice and backed the cop into the mirror. Morales felt her head slam into the glass and she let out a small sigh of relief when the glass did not shatter in her hair. Beyond the withered flesh, she could see the remnants of all matter of bruises across the girl’s cheeks. Who had hurt her? It couldn’t have been Geoffrey Troxel or Carter McCord. Not this time. So there was someone else. Someone they had yet to identify as a suspect.

  How many bad men did these good girls have to meet?

  “Why?” Kim asked again. “Why didn’t you help me?”

  Leo held Amanda back as Morales watched Kim pushing her deeper into the mirror. And in that instant, her mind turned to Julie. Even as Kim had suffered things that the detective could see were real but did not want to believe, she pictured the girl that pinned her to the glass wondering about her friend. Did she know that Julie was free? Morales couldn’t see Amanda sharing that most wonderful piece of news, and Morales needed to take hold of it now.

  “I’m sorry,” Morales said. “But Julie is safe. He…”

  Come on, Connie.

  Whatever else he was, Ethan still deserved the credit for that.

  “Julie got away.”

  Kim halted her attack and looked over Morales’ shoulder at her reflection. As the cop craned her eyes towards the girl and her image, she could almost feel Kim trying to still be the bubbly friend that Julie had endlessly described. Now she was barely confined in the space her paper thin flesh. When Kim touched the mirror and shook her head, Morales knew that she was onto something, and she took advantage of Kim’s weakening hold and gently grabbed the lost girl’s arms.

  “And we’re been trying to help her,” Morales said. “And Julie… Julie wanted to help you.”

  Morales relinquished some of her hold and held her breath as Kim lifted an emaciated hand to her face. When Kim’s hands touched her skin, Morales couldn’t help but flinch at the feel of the girl’s bones barely shrouded in flesh. The cop wanted to return her touch, wanted to hold this poor thing close to be sure that she was real if nothing else. But Kim looked as if she might shatter if Morales simply drew another breath, so she just bit down on her lip and waited.

  “Jules?” Kim said.

  For the first time in forever, the nickname was back where it belonged, and Morales gingerly took Kim’s hand.

  “Yes, Kimmy,” Morales said.

  It was a manipulation. No question. But maybe if Kim knew that Morales was a kind of friend to Julie, she would open up in ways that no one attached to the trial ever could have imagined only a few hours ago.

  “We don’t want you here!”

  Amanda Beyer’s voice pierced through the connection. Like a mama bear desperate to guard her cub, she moved away from Leo and started to push Morales back towards the door.

  “Mrs. Beyer---”

  “I don’t want that girl’s name in my house!” Amanda screamed. “She’s a curse!”

  As Morales tried to protest, she felt her back slam into the doorknob, and she groaned at the impact. Peering past Amanda, she saw Kim placidly considering the scene for what felt like the longest of moments. Did Kim believe that her best friend was a curse? Something to be tossed to the curb and forgotten forever? Maybe she had only granted them entrance to stave off the reporters and spit her own brand of her mother’s bile.

  Don’t let that be true, Kimmy. Jules needs you now. Maybe more than ever.

  Leo stepped forward and touched Amanda’s arm.

  “Now Mrs. Beyer---”

  “I said get out!”

  Amanda smacked Leo’s face, and he winced. On instinct, Morales was on her feet and nearly drew her gun. Not that she wanted to scare them or cause them further harm. But even when she was pissed at him, Morales didn’t want to see Leo hurt.

  Damn you, Leo.

  The mama bear became a cat trying to swipe her claws in the direction of Leo’s swiftly departing form. To his credit, Leo held up his arms, waved a figurative white flag, but he did not strike back. When Amanda struck his face again, he took it like a man, like a real man, not like the men that had hurt Julie for a summer and Kim for so much longer. Morales did not pull out her weapon; she simply watched Kim contemplate the situation, and she braced herself for the moment when Kim would speak again.

  And it was now.

  “Mom, cool it.”

  At the sound of Kim’s weary voice, her tormented mother ceased her attack, and Leo wiped a small stream of blood from his mouth. Morales could do nothing but look at Kim and wait, and again Kim looked at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t start or cover her eyes at
the sight. It was as if she didn’t recognize who this was and that it was her even ash she had to long for who she used to be. Kim simply absorbed the image and touched the ragged space at the back of her neck where her long red hair had been sawed off to create this new version of the missing girl. Were Julie hear now, her eyes would swell with tears at the memory of her friend’s former hair, luscious and copper and flowing without a care. But it was still Kim. Kim altered in ways that the girl’s own mother could not stand to envision. But Morales knew all too well that vacant stare and what it would mean if she didn’t have someone to lean on. Her mind drifted back to Ethan being there for Julie, but just as quickly she pushed the sound of his voice and the picture of his face aside. Despite saving her, he had failed. And while this was Kim, a kind of Kim, she had obviously paid the price for his misstep.

  “Kimmy?” Morales said, speaking now for both girls. “You’re home. Hang onto that. You’re finally home.”

  Kim left the mirror and nodded sadly. Forgetting Amanda and the fragility of her flesh, Morales moved forward and took Kim into her arms. Instantly she took note of the fact that her arms were more than enough to surround Kim’s too slim waist but still the cop rested her head to Kim’s shoulder stroked her shorn hair.

  “Home,” Morales said. “It’s like a miracle.”

  And Morales didn’t believe in miracles.

  Reporters’ fists still pounded at the door. Amanda applied the chain before opening the door ever so slightly and screaming into the throng.

  “Go away!” she yelled. “Go---”

  Leo took charge and disobeyed his own order.

  “You will have a comment when we’re done here,” Leo said. “Now move back!”

  With all the strength that he could summon, the door closed again, and he raised his eyebrows at Morales. She felt as if he was saying that she was the only one who do could this, and she shot him a soft smile. Nodding, she took Kim’s fragile hand and asked if they go someplace quiet to just talk.

  “Kim,” Amanda started, “you don’t have to---”

  “Maybe… maybe I do mom.”

  Tears rolled down Kim’s shrunken cheeks, and Morales placed her arm around her shoulders as they walked deeper into the house. As Morales moved down a small hallway, she saw other versions of Kim. She was a strawberry blonde toddler, blossoming preteen running through a sprinkler in a bright yellow bathing suit. And then there was the high school graduation photo, Kim at the height of her perfection. Amanda Beyer had released that image to the media in the hope that someone would spot Kim. But the picture and girl now under Morales’ arms was not the same person.

  So how the hell were we supposed to find her?

  “How about here?” Morales asked. “Okay?”

  Kim sank into a light blue sofa, and without waiting for an answer one way or the other, Morales was at her side. Leo, his lip still bubbling blood, entered the room. And Amanda Beyer was at his heels.

  “If you’re actually going to do this---”

  “We are, Mrs. Beyer,” Leo said. “We have to.”

  The lost girl trembled, and Morales held her closer as Leo dealt with her mother.

  “We need to compare notes,” Leo said. “And… we need to know where she was. Please…”

  Leo coughed and wiped his lips on his sleeve before finishing his thought.

  “Please let us try to get some justice for them.”

  Careful, Leo.

  “You think I care about that other girl?” Amanda asked. “She’s why---”

  “Mrs. Beyer---”

  “She should be in a cell right alongside them.”

  “Mom!”

  Suddenly Kim raised a ravaged hand towards her mother and tensed under Morales’ arms.

  “It’s okay,” Kim whispered. “I… I want to talk to them.”

  Her mother still hesitated, but then Morales patted Kim’s hand and smiled into the girl’s eyes.

  “And we want to listen,” Morales said. “For as long as it takes.”

  Kim’s battered body relaxed into the cushions, and she held her face in her wasted hands. No one spoke, no one breathed until Kim revealed her eyes again and looked to Morales.

  “You sure?” Kim asked. “There’s… there’s a lot to tell.”

  Morales nodded, and Kim eased her body to the edge of her seat. As small as she was, she looked like she had seen and knew more than the others could ever imagine or understand. But Kim was ready to enlighten them, and when her mother tried to object, Kim gave her a glare.

  “I have to do this, Mom.”

  Amanda hesitated for a second. Morales got it. Here was her only child returned from the dead, and she wanted to shield her from further harm. But could words compare to what she had already endured? And didn’t she deserve the chance to fight back?

  Finally, Amanda shrank back.

  “I’ll… I’ll just be in the other room. If you need me.”

  Kim smiled faintly through her tears.

  “Oh I’m gonna need you, Mom. But let me do this first.”

  And with that, Amanda was gone.

  Morales stayed at her side as Leo settled on the coffee table and looked at the women. Looked and waited.

  “So, Kim,” he started. “Julie’s told us a lot of things, horrible things.”

  “That’s the word,” Kim whispered. “No.”

  Morales and Leo moved closer as they watched her lips slip into a new sentence.

  “No. There isn’t a word for what happened,” Kim said.

  Taking her hand again, Morales felt her breaking towards the truth, but she couldn’t quite get there.

  Leave it to Leo to help her along too fast.

  We… we thought that you were dead.”

  Kim shuddered, and Morales held her closer as she ran her hands down the girl’s back.

  “Thank God you’re not,” she said.

  Kim looked deeply into her eyes, the cop’s gaze stating to register a kind of horror that Morales longed to erase. She touched the girl’s hollowed cheeks and smiled, but Kim just stared hard.

  “Is… is my mother… kind of right?”

  “What do you mean?” Morales asked.

  “Is… is Jules a curse?”

  Morales started to shake her head. It was better to spare her the whole truth until she was totally home and ready to hear what had happened.

  “Not Julie,” Leo said. “But Greg Heller…”

  Kim’s eyes went wide at the mention of the man’s name.

  “What about Greg?” Kim asked.

  What the hell, Leo?

  “That can wait,” Morales said as she kept her eyes on Kim. “First---”

  “But my mom said he set this up.”

  Kim looked at her with scared, pleading eyes. Maybe Leo pressed the point, but Amanda had set the table.

  “Is she right?” Kim asked.

  Hanging her head, Morales resigned herself to the impossibility of subject. And maybe Kim had a right to know. Julie had survived the truth, so why not her?

  “Greg--- Greg Heller did this to you,” Morales said. “He set you up to fall into their hands so that they could… so that…”

  Her mind filled with Julie’s statements. Hands tied behind backs as legs were forced wide and Pete pointed the way to what he called the promised land, and to hear Julie tell it, she had no way to conceal her open sex as she was taken by a line of men that never seemed to stop.

  Kim had a right to know.

  “So… so Greg knew Matt and Pete?” Kim asked.

  Morales nodded and closed her eyes at the sound of Kim’s sobs.

  “I hated them,” Kim whispered. “They took us. They hurt us… they…”

  Kim took Morales’ hand again, her eyes full of questions.

  “I… I tried to get to her,” Kim said.

  “What---?”

  “They had me tied down, and then I saw her, Jules. I knew that she wouldn’t want her first time to be like that…”


  Morales couldn’t help but he touched by the fact that Kim had only thought of her friend when her own body was at stake. These girls had been trapped in the same place. They wanted nothing more than to get back to each other and the road home.

  “But then I didn’t see her,” Kim whispered. “For a long time. I thought… I thought she was tied in the back of… of a van with me. We… we went so many places. Without… without wanting to.”

  So far, the stories matched up. The friends had both been denied the one thing that might have brought them some comfort in that awful space. Morales imagined them finding one another, actually seeing each other when the cruel hands stopped hurting them so that they could just hold each other until day turned to night and the nightmare began again.

  “But I… I saw someone else,” Kim whispered. “Someone different. And he…”

  For Julie, Morales pounced on the moment and spoke quickly.

  “You… you saw Ethan?” Julie asked.

  Kim’s face exploded into tears at the sound of the name, and she rested her shorn head tp Morales’ heaving breast.

  “He… he wasn’t like them,” Kim whispered. “I… I thought that he might be someone that could help me. But then he was gone.”

  Morales knew the story. Pete had brought Ethan to Julie after he saw Kim. To hear Julie tell it, Ethan’s voice had to be the only kind thing that she had heard in months, so she latched onto it and felt hope for the first time in forever when he promised that he would find a way to help her.

  But what happened after he had left Kim?

  “Ethan Graff… he told us that you were dead. Why---?”

  “I’d like to know that myself.”

  Both women glared at Leo, and he slipped away from them as Kim fought to form her words.

  “He… he probably said that because… because I nearly was.”

  Hanging from the ceiling, Kim tensed as she choked on the stench of Geoffrey Troxel’s sweaty sock. Her body registered blow after blow from the old man, and when her form finally went limp, she could not fight as he pushed her thighs apart and slammed his cock into her.

  “You feel so nice, bitch,” Geoffrey said. “Here.”

  Geoffrey lifted her legs from the ground and wound them around his waist. As Kim hung off the ground, she could do nothing but cling to his cock in order to keep from crashing to the floor. Kim let Geoffrey Troxel use her body until he was satisfied, and then she hung again with her toes barely touching the floor as Geoffrey asked for a scotch, and Matt filled his glass.