Screaming in the Silence (17 page)

He led me through a cluster of the desks cluttered with case files and evidence to a small office at the far end of the building. This room had thick glass walls and inexpensive furniture. An ergonomic chair was behind the desk and two arm chairs sat in front of it. A love seat was awkwardly placed in one corner and an old bookshelf stood ominously to the side. He gave a friendly wave of his hand to encourage me to sit in one of the armchairs. I took the offer and waited for his questions to begin.

"Miss Winters, my name is Sherman Michaels and I'm the sheriff of this town." I could tell from the way his lips moved, his accent was thick, his drawl exaggerated.

I nodded my head. "Nice to meet you."

He smiled sympathetically and continued. "I don't want this to take any longer than necessary, but I do need to ask you some questions."

I nodded again.

"First, is there someone who you would like to call? Someone who can come get you?"

I froze. My brain flipped through all my friends and acquaintances like pages in a book and I eventually settled on the one person who would take this news worse than anybody. The one person who this small-town sheriff most likely didn't want to deal with.

"My father."

A phone was pushed in my direction and the sheriff stood up to leave. "I imagine you would like some privacy."

Privacy? Yes. I would love some privacy as I called my father and requested that he came down to North Carolina to retrieve me. I would love some privacy as I was forced to answer the questions I knew were coming. I would love some privacy as I began to cry, realizing that my relationship with my father was so strained that he hadn't realized I had been missing for nearly two months. But that wasn't an option.

"Sheriff, you'll have to speak for him. This phone is useless to me."

Sheriff Michaels suddenly turned red and his face immediately begged my forgiveness. It was now my turn to smile sympathetically at him.

"Of course. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I'm guessing you don't have to deal with this sort of situation often."

"I had a dog that was deaf."

I blinked.

"Couldn't hear a damn thing. But he could sniff out a thief better than any dog on our team."

I didn't quite know what to say but luckily the sheriff didn't look like he expected an answer. He sat back down and lifted the receiver.

"What number am I dialing?"

I told him my father's cell phone number, the number that only a select few had the privilege of knowing. It was the only number I had memorized.

Sheriff Michaels held the receiver to his ear and then smiled at me. "It's ringing."

I smiled back but only out of courtesy. To be honest, I was terrified of what was about to happen. Would my father even pick up? If he did, what would he say? What would he do? And if he didn't, where would I go? I had twenty five thousand dollars still clutched in my hand and no agenda. I could disappear again.

"Hello?" The sheriff spoke slowly.

"Sir, this is Sheriff Sherman Michaels of the Onslow County Police Department. I have your daughter with me and she asked me to call you."

There was a brief pause and Sheriff Michaels stared at the receiver with a strange look.

"No, sir. She's done nothing wrong."

There was another pause and then he put his hand over the receiver and looked at me. "He wants to know why you are having me call him."

I sighed. "Can you put him on speaker phone, please?"

The sheriff nodded and pressed a button on his phone then lightly returned the receiver to its cradle.

I leaned toward the speaker. "Hi, Christopher. It's me."

I looked up and waited for the sheriff to say something. "He wants to know what you are doing in Onslow County."

I looked around the room and then out one of the large windows. Nothing helped me come up with a good answer. "I was hitchhiking."

We both waited, Sheriff Michaels watching the phone, me watching Sheriff Michaels. "No, sir. She hasn't been arrested for hitchhiking."

"Dad," I started to say before another explanation was offered. "I never meant to…I didn't want to stay." But that sounded like a lie. "I wasn't allowed to leave." That sounded more like the truth. And the truth hurt, a throbbing pain that radiated from my heart and ended in my head. "They took me."

"He wants to know who took you."

Did he want their names? Their physical appearance? A general explanation? "Three men. They hit me with their car and were going to ransom me when they found out who you were."

Sheriff Michaels gave me a curious glance. I shook my head, letting him know I would fill him in on everything later.

"He wants to know if you are okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm safe and I'm…fine." But I wasn't, of course. I wasn't fine because my emotions hadn't fully caught up with my situation. I wasn't safe from the memories of Kaden and his house, the nightmare of Ray.

Sheriff Michaels looked me up and down. He had clearly recognized the lie I told. "He says he's going to come get you."

I nodded, blinking back some tears. "Thank you."

Sheriff Michaels gave my father the address of the police station. He could catch a flight out of Dover and be in North Carolina within a few hours. The thought of seeing my father wasn't at all reassuring. Nothing, aside from Kaden's release would have reassured me at the moment. But I knew that wouldn't happen. I would have months, probably years to think about it and right now I needed to just make it through the day.

Sheriff Michaels ended the call with my father. He sat back in his chair and we stared at each other for a minute. He didn't know what to do with me. I didn't know what to do with him. Begging for my kidnapper's unconditional release seemed like a stretch.

"Your father is a United States Senator?"

I nodded.

"I'll be damned. Those boys caught themselves the wrong fish." My heart sank for Kaden. He didn't say anything for another minute. "Let's start at the beginning," he said and took out a pen from his desk drawer. He flipped open a note pad and dated the top of the page. "How did you find yourself with the three men?"

"I was hitchhiking and they hit me with their car. They thought I was dead and put me in the trunk with my friend…"

"Julie Walters?"

I nodded.

"Shit," the sheriff swore. "So you are the girl who she was traveling with."

I nodded again.

"We found her body weeks ago. Just a few days later, some kids came forward and told us they had given you two a ride. We only got a vague description of you."

I waited for him to give me more information.

"We all kind of assumed you moved on, found another ride."

"No."

"Who was driving the car that night they hit you?"

"I believe it was Ray."

"When did they discover you were still alive?"

"Sometime after they hit us. They put us both in the trunk and when I woke up I guess I made enough noise for them to hear me."

"What did they do with her body?"

I closed my eyes and saw Ray and Marshal throwing her from the cliffs. "They threw her into the ocean."

"Why didn't they do the same to you?"

It didn't look like Sheriff Michaels really wanted or expected me to answer that question. It was more of a contemplative thought, something he probably shouldn't have said out loud.

"They thought they could ransom me," I quickly offered. I knew now that Kaden had wanted me for himself, that the money had meant nothing to him. But telling this man all of the intimate details of my relationship with Kaden didn't seem like it would help either of us. I glanced down at the sheriff's hands. He had no wedding ring. Had this man ever loved a woman? Had he ever been loved in return? Call me critical, but I didn't think him capable of understanding the dynamics of our relationship. He didn't have the desire to understand it, the cruel knowledge that was necessary to fully comprehend it.

"How long have you been with them?"

"Since September 2."

His head shook in disbelief. "Where did they keep you?"

"The basement."

"Did they hurt you?"

He looked like a father asking his child if they were being bullied at school. Did they hurt me? Such a simple question with such a multitude of complicated answers.

"Yes."

"Could you elaborate?"

I sighed. I could elaborate. But I didn't necessarily want to. "They hit me with their car. I'm pretty sure one of my ribs was broken. They kept me locked in the basement without much food. Ray hit me once."

"But none of them tried anything else?"

Suddenly I was shaking all over. "Yes." Sheriff Michaels must have sensed my discomfort.

"Would you prefer to talk to a female officer about this?"

I let out a small sob. "It really doesn't matter."

"Okay." I think he wished I would have agreed to his offer. "You don't have to go into detail. I'm just going to ask you questions and you can answer yes or no."

I nodded, tears falling from my eyes like rain against a window pane.

"Did these men force you to have sexual intercourse with them?"

"Yes."

"All three?" Sheriff Michaels looked disgusted at his own question.

"No," I managed to choke out.

"Just one?"

"Yes."

"Was it Ray?" The sheriff looked as if he had known all along.

"No." My crying only got worse.

"His brother?"

"It wasn't Marshal."

"It was Kaden?" Now he was looking at me as if he didn't believe me. Did he know Kaden personally? Did he know him like I knew him? Maybe they had met at town meetings? Maybe Kaden had been an upstanding citizen of this small town? Maybe everything Sheriff Michaels thought he knew had just come crashing down around him?

"It was Kaden," I confirmed.

"I don't believe it."

"I don't want it to be true."

Sheriff Michaels looked shocked by my reply. He clearly didn't know what to make of it. I didn't know why I had said it.

"We didn't quite know what to make of his call this morning," the sheriff admitted. "I knew he was in some kind of trouble but this…I just can't begin to understand."

"Sheriff? What's going to happen to them?" He gave me what he believed to be a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure they won't see the outside of the jail until they have their day in court."

I blinked through my tears and the first person I thought of behind bars was Marshal. He must be so scared, so confused. In my mind, he didn't deserve anything that was about to happen to him. I didn't know what they were going to accuse him of. But in my head I could picture him in his jail cell, curled against the wall, tears in his eyes. The image was nearly heartbreaking.

Was it right to separate the three men? Were they not all guilty of the same thing? To some degree, I suppose they were. But Kaden had confessed. Marshal had very nearly saved my life by standing up to his brother. But their characters were not the reason they were all behind bars. It was their actions and, try as I might, I couldn't justify what they had done. Not to myself, at least at the present moment, and certainly not the Onslow County Police Department.

I took a deep breath and accepted my new fate. I would answer Sheriff Michael's questions as honestly and plainly as I could. I would let my father collect me from the police station like he had done numerous times in the past. And I would count the days until I could see Kaden again.

My father entered the police station like a man with a purpose. His grey hair looked white under the florescent lights and the lines on his face, which had once looked dignified, now looked determined. It took him a moment to recognize me, his eyes passing over the emaciated girl sitting in the waiting room. I stood up, half expecting him to slap me, half expecting him to hug me. It was the latter, of course, and as my father's arms wound around my frail shoulders, I found myself remembering how much I had been comforted by his touch when I was a small girl - the way he would hold my hand when we were in crowded places; the way he would sit me on his knee and tell me stories; the way he would let me cry in his arms if I had fallen and scraped a knee. It all came rushing back to me and I accepted his embrace as any loving daughter would.

We held each other for a long moment before he pulled away.

What were you thinking?

I had to smile. He was yelling at me but he didn't want to cause a scene. I doubted anyone in the police station would know sign language so I responded without hesitation.

I wanted to run away.

My father inhaled sharply.
You could have been killed.

I know. I'm sorry.

And then there wasn't anything left to say. Most parents would be relieved to find their child alive after a two month absence. My father felt relief mixed with guilt and a delayed sense of panic. He hadn't known I was in trouble. He hadn't realized my absence wasn't by choice.

"Let's go. We have a lot to talk about."

My father reached for my hand. I felt silly, a twenty six year old woman holding her father's hand, but I supposed it was what he needed - to know that I was still his little girl.

His security team led us through the station and out into the early evening air. I had spent hours answering all of Sheriff Michael's questions. I knew they had been necessary though I couldn't understand what good they were going to do him. Kaden had turned them in. He was clearly ready to confess. I wanted to ask about what the three men had told the police but I didn't think it wise. What were they asking Kaden?

My father's car was parked across the street and he continued to hold my hand until we were safely behind the tinted windows. Our driver and my father's aid sat in the front of the limo comparing notes and chatting about where we were going next.

"Are we going home?"

"Yes. Tomorrow morning."

I didn't react to his answer. It wouldn't have mattered to me if we had left for Delaware that very second. The fact that I was returning home in the near future seemed unreal.