Unreal Part 3 - FREE AND DISGUISED: (THRILLER ROMANCE AND MYSTERY) Page 5

  “That’s why I’m here, right?” Kim said.

  There was still no getting her to spill the full story on Troxel and McCord. Kim stuck to the script. They had come back for her; Greg Heller hadn’t and he was the one who had put her in their line of sight. How convenient for her to show up in the flesh when there was a real chance that the scum would go down for her murder.

  Something else was going on. It had to be.

  But Kimberly Beyer was not giving up the ghost.

  “You have to blame them, too,” Morales pressed. “They’re the ones that… that touched you.”

  Kim shifted in her seat and ran a hand across her alabaster face. Her cheeks were far less sunken in, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been backed off with the dull edge of a handsaw. Kim’s eyes drifted towards the window, and when her face hit the light, Morales could see the memories racing through her brain, the time with the filth, the horrors after they were home and charged. Not that she wanted to see the girl break down, but Morales knew that she needed to erupt. Choking it down would only eat her out from the inside in the end, and the cop was trained to counsel, to hold her if she cried and screamed and promise justice. A conviction for murder was no longer an option, but if Kim broke, they could get them for rape, assault. Something. She knew that Leo would take another shot at them if her story turned the right or wrong way around.

  “Maybe a part of me does,” Kim sighed as she looked back, her face shrouded in a shadow. It had to be a trick of the light, but a small smile crossed her lips for the slightest of seconds, and she spoke through the gray.

  “But this is my light at the end of the tunnel,” Kim whispered. “They’ll get theirs. One way or another.”

  Morales shuddered. The girl was so smooth that is was scary. She wanted to shake her and tell her that she needed to forget the endgame and look at the light or lack thereof all around her. Shadows. Dwelling for a year in dark, dank places that hurt to contemplate. Had it been her, the cop would have wanted every one of them dead. Let them suffer first with bloated tongues and singed flesh. But they had to die in the end. But Kim didn’t seem to want or need to be the one to wield the weapon.

  “Easy, Detective,” Kim said with a strange smile. “I really am okay.”

  The girl’s hands were warm and firm as they surrounded hers, and Morales blinked in confusion when Kim’s finger curled under her cuff and pressed down. It felt like a lover’s touch, and she looked up to see Kim lost in what seemed like a sweet memory. A small sigh passed through her lips, and Morales moved to hold her face, thinking only that this would be the chance to get the girl talking.

  “Was Julie like this?” Kim asked.

  The change in topic startled Morales, and she stumbled over her words.

  “Julie? What do you mean?”

  “Was she calm?” Kim continued. She looked into Morales dark eyes with a dead stare. “Or did she fall apart?’

  “Why are you asking?”

  Abandoning her chair, Kim paced around the room and cracked her knuckles behind her short hair.

  “Just because I know her,” Kim said. “I love Jules, you know? But she was always such a mouse. Can’t even begin to think how it would have played out if we switched places.”

  There was rancor in her words, but when their eyes met again, Kim appeared to blink back tears as she hugged herself close.

  “I know you helped her,” Kim said. “Helped my friend. I’m glad she had you.”

  Morales pictured Julie, shaking as she urged her to testify. She never would have been able to do it if it hadn’t been for Ethan Graff, and as much as Morales would have liked to take all the credit, that would be a lie.

  “It wasn’t all me,” Morales confessed.

  “Of course,” Kim said as she took her hand, her hold tighter and suddenly more demanding without pain.

  “But she was scared?” Kim asked. “She was, right?”

  Kim seemed almost too eager for the right answer, but Morales could not lie.

  “Terrified,” she said. “Broken.”

  Looking towards her empty chair, Kim lifted her chin to the air and a strange expression that could only be a smirk flashed across her face.

  “I can see it,” Kim said. “Didn’t even like to talk about sex.”

  The girl’s smirk seemed to intensify at the idea of Julie raped, but before Morales could ask her what she was getting at, her lips dropped into a frown and she met her eyes.

  “Better that she got out first,” Kim said softly through faint tears. “I don’t think that she could have survived as long as I did.”

  She might be onto something. Julie Edwards would probably be catatonic if she had to endure Kim’s version of hell. But lucky for Julie, she didn’t have to make her way through the blackness alone.

  “Ethan took care of her,” Morales said.

  “I know. I finally met him a few nights ago. Seems nice.”

  Kim sighed and resumed her seat as she held her head in her hands. Now her shoulders shook, and Morales knelt at her side and took her arms.

  “What is it, Kim?” Morales asked.

  Keeping her face hidden in her hands, Kim spoke through muffled sobs.

  “I got drunk,” she confessed. “I made a complete ass of myself.”

  Forgetting any doubts, Morales gathered her into her embrace, and it was almost a relief when Kim clung to her and wept into her chest.

  “I’m sure that he doesn’t think that,” Morales said as she smoothed her hands through the girl’s short hair.

  “Of course he does,” Kim sobbed. “I hurt Julie. And he’s all about keeping her safe. Isn’t he?”

  That was Ethan Graff. But the man had blanched and grown pale at the thought that he had left Kim behind, and as Morales held the sobbing girl closer, she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Just reveal the bare bones and calm Kim down? Or maybe she should tell her that he was tormented by her fate?

  “He’s one of the good guys, right?”

  Kim’s face was far less damp than Morales expected as she lifted her eyes, but she still patted Kim’s face and smiled.

  “Absolutely,” Morales said.

  “He helps her sleep at night?” Kim asked.”

  “Julie has a hero in him.”

  As soon as the words left her lips, Morales wanted to take them back. Where was Kim’s champion? Not in the woods; that much was clear. But then she remembered the skinny boy that had brought her to Leo’s office, and she turned Kim’s face to hers.

  “Your friend,” she said. “He seems nice, too.”

  Kim wiped away what there was of her tears and sighed heavily.

  “Brian’s kind,” Kim said. “Does whatever I ask him to do.”

  “Then there you have it, Kim.”

  If she had someone that cared about her enough to follow orders and not shoot down her needs, then she was luckier than she looked. The door creaked open, and Morales prepared to smile at Brian.

  But it was Leo’s figure resting in the doorframe, his neck tightening as soon as he saw her.

  “Morales,” he said in a clipped tone.

  Not Connie. Of course she was used to that at work. But he hadn’t called her Connie in weeks. It was of her choosing, but not hearing it still hurt. When he saw Kimberly Beyer cowering in her arms, Leo started to move forward. Probably just to touch the abused girl, and Morales didn’t dream of grazing her own nails against his kind palm.

  But she felt nothing when he passed them both by and settled behind his desk.

  “How are we today, Miss Beyer?” he asked as he straightened his tie.

  Kim sniffled and shot up straight in her seat, her smile brighter when she finally faced him.

  “I know, I know,” she said. “I look like hell on a bad day.”

  Leo shook his head and spoke in level tones.

  “It’s to be expected.”

  God damn, Leo! Try to be nice, can’t you?

  “So we’re just going to review t
he facts and see that you stick to them, okay?”

  He pulled a leather bound notebook from his drawer and clicked a pen to attention as he briefly looked into Morales’ eyes, sadness in her stare, before turning his entire stare back to Kim.

  “Of course, sir,” Kim murmured. “I only want to help.”

  Forgetting Leo for a second, Morales watched Kim’s face shift into a hungry cry for someone else’s hold. It seemed as if she wanted someone to clasp her close and promise that everything was going to be alright. She was about to tell her that Leo would never be Ethan Graff, that she’d do better with the kid hanging in the hall outside when Kim recovered all of her composure and smiled as she patted her cheeks.

  “Fire away,” Kim said.

  It was all cursory. Greg Heller gave Julie the money for the trip. During the graduation party, he seemed a little too curious as to their intended route. Beyond that, there was enough evidence to fill in the blanks, and when Leo seemed satisfied, he told Kim that he’d see her at trial. Morales moved to walk her out of the building when Leo grunted from his chair and asked her to stay.

  “Just a minute of your time,” he said.

  Morales gave Kim back to Brian, and the boy was quick to push her under his arms as they walked away. No question that Brian wasn’t Ethan Graff, far less sure as they turned the corner. But Kim wasn’t Julie either. Just before she slipped away, she tapped his cheek with a soft smirk. The girl was either too confused to testify or working an angle that Morales had yet to uncover.

  “Connie, please.”

  Morales slipped back into the office and closed the door. Leo was right there, trying to hold her, and Morales nearly fell into his arms.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “I’ve missed us.”

  As her head rested against his shoulder, Morales started to grab his back and bring him closer. But she couldn’t shake the many faces of Kimberly Beyer. Calm then cunning then playful. There was no way that the girl as in league with her captors, but what if she had been through too much to move from one moment to the next as if it made any kind of sense. Was she the perfect witness or a ticking time bomb?

  “I… I really wanted to talk about---”

  “We can wait, Leo.”

  He frowned as he pushed away from her and sagged as he returned to his desk.

  “But there’s still an us?” he asked.

  Morales didn’t know. She missed him in the night, and if there weren’t all these other people swirling between them, there wouldn’t even be a question. She would leap over the desk and tear his suit from his bones and moan as soon as he was back inside her. But there was Julie and Kim and too many dark things to ignore.

  And those were the only things that she could focus on.

  “Did you see her, Leo?” she asked.

  He pressed his fingers together as he nodded.

  “She’ll make one hell of a witness,” he said.

  “You so sure?”

  “Greg Heller won’t know what hit him.”

  And neither did Morales. Sad and scared as Julie Edwards was, she was the kind of victim that made sense, shaking and sobbing and flinching at every little thing. The girl would have gone to pieces without Ethan Graff. But Kimberly Beyer was different. She was shifting roles like she was changing socks. And the fact that she could do that with such ease suggested that the girl was more unstable than either one of them suspected.

  “She might flip out at trial,” Morales said. “I don’t trust her.”

  Leo sighed and started to stretch out of his seat.

  “Just don’t,” she said. “That’s the last thing I need.”

  And that was a lie, but she was ready to open the door, only held back by the sound of his voice.

  “I fucked up with the others,” he said... Morales had to look back, and she saw him shaking as he stepped towards her, the mistrial in all its horror weighing him down. He wanted this win, needed it at any cost, and her body sagged when he cupped her face in his hands.

  She nearly kissed him when he pressed his lips to her ear.

  “Miss me?” he asked.

  Morales had no choice as she nodded into her eyes. He kissed her cheeks. His hands were everything, and she didn’t care that the door was unlocked as he lifted her up and sat her on the desk.

  “I’ve missed you,” Leo said.

  He started to kiss up her slacks, and as he lowered her fly, he planted his hand between her thighs and teased her tender flesh. Leo reached inside her, and she fell back with a groan, thought that she would fall into the wood when Leo took her back into his arms and held her close to his chest.

  “I’ve got you,” he said.

  Peering into his eyes, she remembered all the ways in times when he was her hero, when he made her forget the day-to-day as she slipped into his arms.

  And she finally smiled.

  Grabbing his face, Morales kissed him hard, and she grinned as cleaned off his desk with one swipe of his hand and laid her out. She had missed him, too, and as long as they stayed silent they could just be together and---

  “I need you, Connie.”

  His lips swirled around hers, and she was on the precipice of forgetting everything lurking in the wings when he spoke again.

  “I need us to win this one---”

  Before he could finish his thought, Morales flattened her palm and slapped his face hard. Leo drew back and she charged towards the doorway with a hiss.

  “I need something more than that.”

  7

  The woods were dark and deep. But Kim knew the way as she pushed through the trees. It was as if every shadow was leading her home. Back to Colleen. Of course she wasn’t there. She was floating somewhere above the clouds. If Kim was selfish, she would just open a vein and join her. But there were other things to do first. And a promise to keep. She kept moving as she remembered Boone’s final whisper.

  If you ever find your way back around these parts, help me make more money.

  Every john wanted to fuck her. She trembled and cried out for mercy. Then she grew lascivious and asked for more. Boone liked to kick her as he asked what had turned her around, and Kim always hung her head and stayed silent. She remained quiet until she was back in Colleen’s arms, and her new best friend always held her when she was off the clock.

  “I know that it hurts,” she said. “I know that better than anyone.”

  Kim licked her lips and rejoiced at the feel of cold water crossing her tongue. Colleen stroked her face and smiled.

  “When you’ve been here as long as I have…”

  How long? How long had she been shackled when the party was over? Had there been a time when she had remembered boyfriends and best friends and hoped for freedom? Maybe there was a time when she stopped struggling and came to rest around her shackles. Kim was there now, fighting hard to break free even as her bruised thighs chafed together. She whined and winced with each pass of flesh, and Colleen jangled her chains as she held her.

  “Longer,” Colleen continued as she smoothed Kim’s hair from her face and kissed her cheek. “You want to die. I used to dream of nothing else.”

  “And now?” Kim asked.

  “Different dreams,” she crooned. “Easier to sleep with you right here.”

  “Kim!”

  Brian screamed and hung behind her when he saw the light poking through the trees. There it was. The house of horrors, but Kim would get back there and make the next step.

  “Come on.”

  Taking Brian’s hand, Kim reached the door and knocked. She heard someone shuffling and groaning from behind the closed door, and she held her ground until the door swung open and Boone was in her eyes.

  “Look who’s back!” he chirped.

  Like her, he had to remember every angle from which she’d been taken. Some had mounted her from the front and drilled her body until it was on the verge of breaking. But then they turned her to her stomach and took her from behind. Every john whispered that sh
e felt sweeter there, tighter there, and still they took her as she pleaded for their vile thrusts to cease. Soon Kim lost any hope of rescue and just submitted. Heels and toes kicked her and when the pain became t much to bear, even as she tried to keep calm, sometimes she flew into a rage and smacked the air. One time she found a face, and she slapped hard. The man drew back, and Kim felt like she had done something right. Maybe she could even get away and---

  “No!”

  Fists crashed into her sides, and she was still raped, again, her body was busted to a point where she was no good to anyone for days. If she couldn’t fuck, Boone would sell what he could.

  That was the night when he took sharp scissors to her hair.

  “Leave her alone, Boone!” Colleen cried. “Don’t you fucking cut her!”

  Boone sneered through his yellow teeth, and he waved the pair of blades in Colleen’s direction. Backing away, obviously fearing that he would slice into her own flesh, Colleen cowered in one of the dungeon’s many corners, but she didn’t hide her face in her hands. Watching with gritted teeth, Colleen just waited as the other girls whined through their chains.

  “This’ll earn your keep until you’re tight again.”

  Cutting without cause, he sliced the hair from her head in clumsy hunks. As Kim watched lock after auburn lock fall to the stone floor, she cried silent tears. Her hair was the last thing, the only thing, that nearly made her pretty in this horrible place. Even if someone, even if Julie managed to find her now, who would ever recognize her?

  “Now that should fetch a fair price,” Boone hissed.

  Bringing the scissors close to her eyes, Kim gasped at her narrow reflection. It was all uneven, and the lack of hair only accentuated her sunken cheeks. Boone dropped her to the ground like a sack of flour, and Kim’s tears were fresh as Colleen crawled to her side.

  “It’s okay, Kim,” she promised. “It’ll grow back.”

  She let Colleen cradle her close, and she cried into her battered breasts. How could this be her life? A slave to brutal men who would only abuse her day after day after day? She couldn’t stand another second. She…

  “I want to die!”