“No, you couldn’t have stopped it,” Lori says while she looks down at her hands. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
“Lori,” Jackson starts, “I’m going to be the one asking you questions, unless you don’t feel comfortable with me.”
“No, it’s okay. Everyone is going to know anyway, right?” she asks us. “I mean, everyone working on the case will read all about it anyway, won’t they?” She looks at me, waiting for the answer.
“Yeah, Lori. Everyone working on this case will read the file.”
Marissa sits next to her, holding her hand, both of their hands white from gripping each other so tightly. I walk to the other side of her bed to stand there. She reaches her hand out to me, and I take it in mine.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” she tells us, trying to look brave.
I give her hand a squeeze, and she squeezes my hand tight back.
“Okay, tell us how this started. From the very beginning, and please don’t leave anything out. No detail is too small or insignificant, okay?”
“I met this guy at the mall. Name was Ryan. He came over to talk with me when I was alone, waiting for Rachel to come back from trying on clothes. We sat down and talked about school and stuff. He said he went to Centennial, and well, that was how it started. We exchanged numbers, and we started texting each other. We kept talking. Nothing big at first, though. You know, just talking about friends, school, and home, stuff like that.”
Jackson scribbles in his notebook. “Okay, when and how did it change?”
Lori looks at her mother then down at her lap. “I got into a fight with Mom. I went over my cell phone data. It was an extra fifty dollars, and she was pissed. Really pissed. I told Ryan about it.” She sucks in a deep breath. “He said I should come meet him, that he would cheer me up. So I, um, just left. Mom was leaving for work. I knew she’d be home later. So I ran out. I didn’t even say goodbye.” She lets go of my hand to wipe her tears away, and my eyes shift to Marissa, who is looking down at their hands.
“Okay, Lori, doing well. Where did he take you?” Jackson asks.
I know he hates this just as much as we do.
“I met him at the mall and then he said we should go for a ride, so I went with him. We drove around a bit, listening to music. Then we parked near a park. We made out for a bit, and he started getting a little too handsy, if you know what I mean. He offered me some water, and I started sipping it and then I remember my head started to get woozy.” Her hands start to tremble now. “I need water, please,” she asks, and Chris brings her a water bottle, but she doesn’t want to take it. “It’s sealed. You can trust me.” She nods her head at him and opens the bottle, listening to the click of the bottle opening.
After taking a couple of sips she continues, “I looked at him and told him I didn’t feel well and to take me home. He laughed. I still remember that laugh, like it was evil, snickering. I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew I woke up in the motel room. My clothes stripped off and Adam lying next to me.” She looks down, and I just know she is feeling ashamed.
I take her chin in my hand gently, raising it to look at me. “You didn’t want that,” I tell her. “Just remember that. Don’t you feel shame for something that happened to you that you didn’t want or ask for.”
She just nods at me.
“Adam was naked next to me. He was breathing heavy. He looked over at me and said that he loved fucking virgins.” She stops talking to take another sip of water.
My body is shaking with anger. I look at Jackson, who just shakes his head. If Adam wasn’t already dead, this would be him signing his own death certificate. I hear the sound of the door opening and closing, and I look around to see that Chris has stepped outside.
“Did you try to leave?” Jackson asks her.
“I tried to get up the minute he said that, slowly because my head was spinning, but I didn’t even get all the way up when I noticed the chains on my feet. I was chained to the bed. I asked who he was. I asked him where Ryan was, and all he did was laugh. He got up after that and went into the bathroom. I looked around the room for something, anything that could help me. But there was nothing. No phone, no weapons, not even a lamp I could hit him with. I looked back at him in the bathroom. The door was open, and I saw him shoot up.” She takes a deep breath and continues, “He was sitting on the toilet, his head against the wall. There was a needle in his arm, and he closed his eyes and moaned. Then the door opened and Chuck came in the room. I didn’t know who he was till Adam stumbled out of the bathroom. Chuck called him a junkie and then introduced himself, telling me he was my new boss. I didn’t understand what he meant till he opened the door and another strange man came in. He was old, maybe sixty. He was gross. His clothes were dirty. He was almost bald on the top of his head, white stringy on the sides. His teeth were yellow, and he stank like beer and sweat. He was my first customer that night. I begged,” she sobbed. “I pleaded with him not to do it.” She looks at Marissa then back at Jackson. “I said no, over and over again. He didn’t care. He just did what he wanted to do.”
My mind is going a million miles a minute. I’m trying to think of any person that I could have met with that description. I know I won’t stop till I find him.
“What happened next?” Jackson asks.
“It went on for I don’t know how long. The hours turned into days, days turned into weeks. Till someone complained that I was like fucking a corpse. Chuck was pissed. He smacked me right across the face with his fist. The next thing I knew Adam was sticking me with one of his needles. It burned so bad at first. I begged them not to drug me. After that I don’t know how long I was out for.”
The shaking of the bed draws my attention to Marissa, who is crying openly now. I move to her side of the bed, sit next to her, and curl my arm around her, pulling her into me.
“Do you remember when the other girls came?”
“No. I had no idea what time or day it was. I would come down from my high, they would feed me some crackers, then shoot me up again. The next thing I knew I was chained to the wall while I watched another girl go through the steps. They kept rotating us. Depending on the guys. Some of the guys would come in and choose one of us. We would be untied and then retied to the bed.”
I look at her and the tears are gone, her shoulders squared.
“I begged to die. I begged them to kill me. For someone to kill me.”
Marissa’s body stills against mine.
“I always hoped they would give me too much, that they’d overdose me. The days all ran together. Everything was so foggy. The next thing I knew, there were three of us. We tried to help the other one. Two of us were always high while one of us was straight. One time Adam didn’t show up for days. Chuck didn’t either, and he had no idea that Adam wasn’t there. For days, we detoxed and sat there, chained to the wall, with the shakes, with the shivers, with fevers, shitting, and pissing ourselves.” The tone of her voice switches from sadness to anger the more she dives into her ordeal.
“Where did Adam go?” Jackson asks.
Lori shrugs her shoulders. “No idea, but when he came back he was all beaten up and bruised.” The pen in Jackson’s hand snaps. He gets up and walks out the door. Lori looks at me questioningly.
“Okay, I think we need a five-minute breather,” Thomas says while he walks out into the hallway. I get up, kissing Marissa on the head and doing the same to Lori before following Thomas and Jackson outside.
I take in my team. Chris is squatted in front of the door, his eyes void of emotion. Thomas is standing by him, hands in his pockets, looking at the floor, and Jackson is standing with his back to the wall, his head back and his eyes closed.
“That was when he was in the hospital. He left them in that room to fucking rot,” Jackson says with his teeth gritted together.
Chris looks up at him with question in his eyes. I nod at him to wait.
“Fuck me. That girl lived in his fucking motel room cha
ined to a bed and wall while he pimped her out. I hope he is rotting in hell. I hope worse than that.”
“You want me to finish?” Thomas asks, knowing that Jackson is battling his own guilt.
Jackson sighs a deep breath. “No. I have to do this.”
“Guys, I hate to rush you, but I want this over. She wants this over.”
We all look at each other before I address Chris. “Are you going to be okay?”
He shakes his head no.
“I’m going to get up. I’m going to walk back into the room so she doesn’t think I can’t stand to look at her. I’m going to pretend I’m okay with it all. I’m going to pretend that it’s not killing me, then tonight I’m going to get so drunk I’m hoping to burn the images from my head,” Chris says while he gets up and puts on his face, but his eyes tell you that he just died inside a bit. It’s a look that he would kill to protect her. It’s a look that a man who is caught under a spell looks like. I know because I have the same look except mine is for both of them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Marissa
As a mother, you always wonder a couple of things. Milestones we call them. Her first word, her first step, first day of school. The first time she gets her heart broken, the first kiss. Never in a million years did I think I would sit down and have to hear about the first time my daughter got raped. Not only raped but her virginity stolen from her.
Sitting there listening to the hell she went through was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Being unable to do anything to help her is like living in your worst nightmare and not being able to open your eyes.
Her strength, her determination, her courage is something you could only imagine your child to be. But seeing it with my eyes, I know that it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be the hardest time in her life, but she will prevail. There is no doubt in my mind.
“Mom.”
I finally snap out of my daydream. “Yeah, honey.”
“Mick is right, you should go home, get a shower.” She looks at me. Only twenty-four hours ago, she laid out her nightmare for us all to hear and she survived.
“Babe, you need to shower.” He looks at me with a smirk.
I shake my head no when there is a knock at the door.
“Can we come in?” Bella sticks her head in.
We don’t have time to answer before her daughter, Lilah, pushes the door open.
“I bwing pwesnts, Ukle Mick!” she says, running in, holding a bag bigger than herself. She jumps up into his lap, and he leans forward to blow kisses in her neck. I look at them, at the softness he has with her. Look at the way his hands hold her.
“Hi, sorry to interrupt, but I’m Jackson’s girlfriend, Bella, and this is my daughter, Lilah,” Bella says while reaching out her hand to shake Lori’s. “We wanted to just stop and see if you need anything,” she says softly, looking at Lori, tears in her eyes.
“Ukle Mick, you spit on my neck.” She giggles. “I got pwesnts but not for you, for Looriii.” She looks at him and gets close to his face and whispers, “She’s the bwavest.”
“Oh, I know that, Lilah chinchilla, go give her the present. Do you want me to carry it for you?” he asks.
“No, I strong, look,” she says while trying to put her arms up and flex.
“Lilah, don’t do that.” Bella shakes her head. “I told Jackson to stop teaching her these things.” She laughs.
“Hi,” Lilah says while she climbs on the bed. “I’m Lilah and I’m four,” she says, holding out her five fingers.
“Hi, Lilah, I’m Lori.” She smiles at her and ruffles her hair.
“I bwing you something.” She lifts the bag on the bed. She looks at her mom and then back at Lori, whispering, “If you need help I can unwap it for you.”
Lori bends even further into Lilah. “My hands really hurt. Can you open it for me?”
Lilah’s eyes almost bulge out of her sockets. “Mama, I open pwesnts for Looori.”
She rips the tissue paper apart, pulling out a small pink teddy bear with a white heart in the middle. “I chose that.” She points to her. “Smell the belly. Strawberry.” She leans forward and smells it. “See, berry.” She smiles at Lori and then opens the next one, which is pink pjs. “Mamma chose that. They’s boring.” She holds the teddy bear, smelling it again.
“These are my favorite pjs in the whole world. I’m going to change into them right now,” Lori says, getting up and going into the washroom.
“Thank you so much.” I grab Bella’s hand and squeeze it.
She looks at me with tears in her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”
We don’t say much else because Lori comes out of the bathroom wearing the pjs. The pants have hearts all over them and there, in the middle of the top, is written ‘You’re a whole lot of lovely’.
“You so beautiful. Hey, Ukle Mick?” Lilah asks.
“Yes, she is, baby, she is really, really beautiful.”
Lori just smiles at them and then walks back to the bed.
“Okay, Lilah, time to go. Say goodbye, love,” Bella says to Lilah.
“Bye, Looori.” She bounces on her bum and then Mick reaches out to help her off the bed. “Bye, Ms. Marissa.” She grabs Mick’s face between her hands. “Bye, Ukle Mick.” She kisses his cheek and tries to whisper in his ear, but her whisper isn’t low. “You got candy?”
It makes Mick throw his head back and laugh at her. “No, baby girl, I don’t have any, but next time I’ll bring double.”
She settles with that and wiggles herself down to grab her mother’s hand, turning around and waving before walking out, telling Bella that Jackson said she could have ice cream before dinner.
“She was there,” Lori says quietly from her bed. “I remember her.”
I look at Mick, who starts, “Yeah, she was there. Adam kidnapped her. It was because of her we found you guys early. She had her phone on her.”
Lori shakes her head, wiping tears from her face. “I want to go see her and Lilah when I get better.”
I nod my head yes.
There is another knock on the door.
“Jesus, it’s like a revolving door around here,” Mick says.
The doctor walks in with the chart and the nurse. “Hey there, Lori, how are we doing today?”
“I’m okay.”
“How are we doing with the urges to get high?” he asks.
“Sometimes I think about it. More so my body wonders. I start having the shakes and my stomach aches.”
“That is a perfectly normal thing to go through. I’m going to set you up with a doctor for therapy as well as get you a sponsor to talk things through. I know that you said you didn’t want to go into rehab, but I will leave you these pamphlets for you to think about and weigh your options.” He drops them on the bed between us. “I’m also going to give you happy news. You can go home. There is no reason to keep you here anymore. But if you get home and have any symptoms of relapsing or your fever gets high or the shakes are uncontrollable, I suggest coming back.”
“We can go home?” Lori says with tears in her eyes.
“You can go home, Lori.” The doctor nods at Mick and then at me before walking out.
“Mom, we get to go home,” she says with a smile. “I get to sleep in my bed.”
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” I tell her, getting up, looking at Mick, who is still sitting down in the chair, his feet bouncing on the floor. “What’s wrong?”
“Promise not to freak out?” he says with worry on his face.
“What happened?” I ask, my heart pounding, my hands getting clammy.
“There is no way to say this, so I’ll just say it. I moved you guys out of your apartment.”
My mouth opens and closes, no words coming out.
“Okay, before you freak out just listen. Jackson’s mom is moving into his house and out of hers. She was looking to rent it out,” he says.
“You moved us into a house?” Lori asks.
“The rent is the same as the apartment, so there isn’t anything extra.”
“I can’t afford that. I have so much debt, and I had a deal on that rent because I owed him the extra.” I start picking up the tissue paper that has been torn all over the place by Lilah.
“It’s finished,” he says, and I look up at him. “It’s over. You’re free.”
I don’t think it registers right away till Lori starts sobbing in her bed.
“Mom, you’re free.”
“What?” I look at him. “How?”
“Finished. Over. You owe him nothing.”
I sit on the bed, my heart beating so hard into my chest I hear it echo in my ears.
“I offered him a deal that he couldn’t refuse.”
“Oh my God, he totally just God Fathered that. Mick, I thought you were badass before, but now, now you are legit a badass,” Lori says while she packs the tissues into the bag. “Mom, we get to live in a house. No more crack addicts blocking the door. No more gunshots in the middle of the night. No more creepy neighbor trying to show us his dick.”
I’m still in shock. “You paid off my debt,” I whisper to him while he nods his head yes.
I get up, walk over to him, and grab his face into my hands. “I love you.” I kiss him. “I know it’s been maybe seven days that we’ve been together, but no one, no one has ever done what you do. You take care of me. You brought my baby home and now you make us safe.” I kiss him again while squeezing his face. “Right down to my soul, Mick.”
He starts to say something, but I put my finger on his lips. “You don’t get to take this moment away from me.”
He smiles under my finger.
“Thank you.”
“Mom, can you stop making out with Mick so he can bring us home?” she says, throwing the magazine in a bag, clearing out the room.
“Let me bring you home, angel,” is all he says.
I grab his hand and let him lead me home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mick
It’s been three days since I drove Marissa and Lori to their new home. Three days of sitting down and having meals with them, sharing my day with them. It hasn’t been all smooth sailings. There have also been three nights of nightmares, nausea, sweating.
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