Everything comes into focus and my mouth drops open.
“This week on News in Current with Lisa Swanson, kidnapping survivor Katherine Watts speaks for the first time in eight years about her harrowing ordeal.”
I stare¸ completely frozen, as Katherine’s image fills my TV screen. Her hair is a little darker, but still that same honey-golden blond. She looks older—which makes sense because come the fuck on, it’s been eight years, just like the announcer said, and we’ve all changed a lot in the past eight years.
A lot.
“I had fun that morning,” she says, her soft, sweet voice filling the room, filling my head, making it spin. She sounds the same yet different. Older.
Fun that morning. I’m sure she did. The boardwalk is a fun place to be when you’re twelve. I loved it, too. Still do.
But I don’t have bad memories that taint the place like she does.
“He was so nice at first,” she continues, her voice fading as she drops her head and sinks her teeth into her lower lip. I recognize that look. I guess she hasn’t changed that much in eight years, or at least her tells haven’t.
She’s feeling unsure. Hesitant.
Electricity buzzes through my veins as I watch her, listen to her, savor the sound of her familiar yet different voice. She sounds so composed, so articulate, her words measured, the tone strong. She looks good, too. Pretty with the long blond hair, the big blue eyes, the mouth . . .
I close my eyes for a brief moment and swallow hard. All the memories come at me, one after another, blazing over me like wildfire, and I grip the edge of the counter. The memories are unwanted. I’d banished them from my mind, fought those demons long ago and won. They represent an old part of my life, another part I try my best to forget even happened.
Yet just like that, seeing her, hearing her, I’m the old me again, cracked so wide open it makes my heart hurt.
“Seemingly harmless?” Lisa asks in that no-nonsense tone of hers that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I’ve had that voice directed at me more than once. When I was a kid and scared out of my mind and I didn’t know what to say.
I hate Lisa Swanson.
A new image appears on the screen. Katherine at the time she was found, her tear-filled gaze aimed directly at the camera, distress written all over her young face. She’s wearing baggy sweats and her hair is in a sloppy ponytail. A uniformed policeman and woman stand on either side of her, escorting her into the hospital.
Katie. When I see her like that, it all comes rushing back at me, memory upon memory, word after word, promise after promise. My legs feel weak and I grip the edge of the countertop.
You can’t be scared, Katie. You have to be brave. You have to come with me.
What if he finds us? What will he do?
He won’t do anything to you. I won’t let him.
You promise?
I promise.
“Has he ever tried to reach out to you?”
Lisa’s back on the screen, her eyes narrowed, head tilted like she’s concentrating hard. Like she cares.
Snorting out loud, I shake my head. She cares all right. About her ratings and her money and the next big interview she can snag.
I can’t believe Katherine is talking to her.
Katie.
My Katie.
It’s been so long since I referenced her like that it sounds foreign. But she was mine. For a tiny bit of time I took care of her, was responsible for her safety. She called me her guardian angel and though I denied it, deep down inside, it felt good, her calling me that. Thinking of me in a good way. A positive way.
Without hesitation I did what was right. I had to. I couldn’t let him keep her. He would’ve . . .
I can’t even imagine what he would have done to her.
Not only was I her guardian angel, she called me her hero. She said that to me right before we approached the police station. I can hear her voice, clear as day, ringing in my head.
You saved me from him. You’re my hero. Like an angel from heaven.
I didn’t believe in God and angels but at that moment, I wanted to. Badly.
“Contact me? No,” Katherine says vehemently, shaking her head. “Never.”
“Really?” Lisa arches a brow. Yet another image flashes on the screen, a photo of a letter. I recognize that handwriting, and my fingers curl so tight around the counter’s edge I feel like it could crumble in my hands.
The next shot is of Katherine, lips parting, eyes going wide. Whatever the fuck Lisa just showed her can’t be good.
I know it.
And then his face is there. A photo in black and white, his jaw jutting out stubbornly, mouth drawn into a thin line, eyes blank and dark. His expression is cold, his hair shorn to nothing, and I swear there’s a giant tattoo on the side of his neck. Of course.
He is in prison after all. He’s had to adapt to the prisoner lifestyle as much as possible or they’d string him up by his dick. Child molester. Rapist. Killer.
My father.
“Get in here.”
I went still at the sound of his voice bellowing from his bedroom, the threatening edge to it. He was drunk. Again. He was always drunk lately and most of the time he ignored me, but not tonight.
Fuck.
I shuffled into his bedroom, my nose wrinkling in disgust at the smell that hit me. I couldn’t describe it, not fully. Musty. Stale. Sweat. Booze. Sex.
“Where have you been?” he asked when I stopped in front of his bed. He was laid out on it in his grungy white boxer briefs and nothing else, his skin pale, the hair on his chest stark against the white of his flesh. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was wild, sticking up all around his head.