Seduced in the Dark (19 page)

“Are you alright, Miss Ruiz?” Matthew asked.
His erection was finally starting to wane and he could focus on his
questions.

The girl finally blinked and swiped at the
fat tears sliding down her cheeks as a result. “I’m fine, Reed.
It’s just…never mind.” She looked up at him and tried to smile, but
it was a weak effort and they both knew it.

“Tell me. I know I’m not Sloan, but I have
been around, Miss Ruiz.” Matthew smiled when she finally let her
smile reach her eyes.

“Sloan. I don’t know what her deal is. She’s
always so nice to me, but it annoys me for some reason. I don’t
think she’s disingenuous, but I just know there’s more to her than
she lets on. I mean, she works for the FBI, like you. Only, she’s
not like
you,
at all.”

“Oh? And what am I like?” Matthew said.

She rolled her eyes, “You’re a jerk, Agent
Reed.”

“You’re kind of a jerk, too, Miss Ruiz,”
Matthew said dryly. She laughed.

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Olivia said,
slightly mocking but she laughed again, unrestrained, almost like a
girl without any problems.

“So, you don’t like Sloan,” he rephrased.
“Why?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like her, Reed.
You’re always putting words in my mouth,” she admonished. “Don’t
think I didn’t notice you implied Caleb kidnapped Kid and Nancy. He
couldn’t have, he was with me, remember?”

Matthew smiled wryly and shook his head, “I
didn’t imply it, Miss Ruiz. I asked the question. That’s my job.
Also, we both know he did. Maybe he didn’t do it himself, but he
was there and he ordered it. Regardless, adding more kidnapping to
the list of charges against him is hardly going to make a
difference.” Olivia was quiet for a long time after that, thinking,
Matthew assumed.

“You keep talking about him like he’s alive,
Reed, and I told you…he’s not.” Her eyes were filled with unshed
tears again and it was difficult for Matthew to remain unaffected
by them. No matter what he thought of Caleb, Olivia obviously felt
very deeply for him.

“Why do you care about him so much, Miss
Ruiz?” he demanded. He just didn’t get it and it pissed him off,
more than it should. “He was terrible to you. The things he
did
to you
. Don’t tell me you wanted those things. I
can’t believe you could have.”

Olivia was staring off into space again, but
she spoke through her tears, “A lot of bad things happened to him
too, Reed. His back was covered in whip marks and he told me he was
very young when someone did that to him.” Matthew couldn’t hold
back a scoff, and Olivia blinked and scowled at him. “I’m not
stupid, Reed. I know the shit he did to me was awful, I fucking
lived it. But I’m telling you, monsters aren’t born, they’re made,
and someone made Caleb. Someone beat him, someone did horrible
things to him, and the only person who helped him, Rafiq, made him
into a killer. He didn’t have someone like you, or Sloan, or the
goddamn FBI to help him. He had to survive all by himself and even
though I can’t forgive him, I understand him.”

“Are you trying to tell me he’s the monster
with a heart of gold?” he said, disbelieving, “Come on, Miss Ruiz.
Really?”

Anger flashed on her face. “There isn’t a
permanent mark on me, Reed, not one. And you don’t know how many
times he was there to hold me together when I was sure I was going
to fall apart. He’s a monster,” she sobbed, “I know he is. I know,
and…it doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

Crying women left him bereft of action. They
reminded him too much of his birth mother lying on the couch,
shaking and begging him to find a way to score more drugs for her.
He’d panic at times like that, knowing if Greg came home and found
her, he’d beat her and then turn his rage on him. He’d only been
seven, but he knew how to get lost for a while. He would grab his
coat, kiss his mother, promise her he’d be back with her medicine
and then he’d leave. There was an older lady, Mrs. Kavanaugh, who
lived a few blocks away. When things got bad, he would stay at her
house, eating cookies and watching game shows until his mom, or
Greg, came looking for him.

His mother had been a weak woman, a drug
addict that cared more about being loved by an abusive man than she
did her own son. Matthew had tried for years to help his mother get
clean, but in the end, she couldn’t stop using. One night, she was
too high to defend herself, and Greg beat her to death. Matthew
hadn’t been home, he’d been out with his friends, and when he’d
arrived at home he’d found her: cold and still.

Matthew was thirteen and he went to live
with Mrs. Kavanaugh’s daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Richard
Reed. Greg committed suicide in lieu of going to jail for murder,
and Matthew had never gotten over the injustice of it, despite the
fact his life had improved drastically after that. Margaret and
Richard were his real mother and father as far as he was concerned.
He tried not to think of those other people.

“Horrible things happen to a lot of people,
Miss Ruiz. Not everyone becomes a monster,” he said.

“No, but the world is full of people who do.
It’s like those kids in Africa that get taught how to use machine
guns and kill. Some of them can barely lift the guns, but they’re
killers. What about them, Reed? Do you hold them responsible? Would
you lock them away or put them down?” She wiped her eyes.

“That’s different, and you know it. The
entire continent is rife with civil unrest and it’s people like
Muhammad Rafiq, Felipe Villanueva, and yes, even Caleb, that get
those kids hooked on cocaine and then teach them how to kill. I
hold those people responsible.”

“What about the one’s that grow up? What
about the one’s that survive long enough to become adults? Can you
blame them for doing the only thing they know how?” She had to stop
and breathe, her anger making her shake. He could see it on her
face. She wanted to hit him. “Do you think that ten or twenty years
from now, I’m going to feel normal or be normal or have a normal
life,
like you
?”

Matthew let out an exasperated sigh, “I
don’t know, Miss Ruiz. I don’t have those kinds of answers for you.
It’s wrong, what happens to those kids, but it doesn’t give them
free license as adults to rape and murder just because they’ve been
doing it since they were young. Nor does it justify their actions
because they had a fucked up childhood.”

“So…what? Fuck ‘em?” she challenged, her
eyes wild. “Is that the best you can do?”

Matthew shrugged, “I don’t see the
comparison, Miss Ruiz. Even if I did, are you telling me if one of
those kids pointed a gun at you, if one of them raped you, you’d be
willing to forgive them? Because I don’t think I have that much
compassion. Anyone who points a weapon at me is going to get
brought down. I don’t care if it’s a fucking Girl Scout.”

Olivia laughed without humor, “You’re
fucking wrong, Reed. That’s exactly what Caleb would say.” She
regarded him for a moment. “You are different from Sloan; she would
never say anything like that.”

Matthew shrugged, trying to find his calm.
The conversation had gotten out of control, and really, it just
wasn’t necessary. “I tell it like it is and believe me, you’re not
the first person to find it annoying.”

“Speaking of…why would you tell Sloan I
kissed you?”

“Because you did. Dr. Sloan would have asked
and it’s irrelevant to me but important for her to know.”

She rolled her eyes again, “I just wanted to
distract you. You wouldn’t give me Caleb’s fucking picture and I
wanted it. Now, Sloan thinks I’m some kind of sexual deviant who
tries to seduce asshole FBI agents that want to shoot Girl
Scouts.”

Matthew smiled in spite of himself, “Well,
aren’t you?”

“
Tell
me
, you’re joking.” She
stared at him, a startled, even comical expression on her face. “No
one is that self-absorbed.”

“I’m joking. And I
am
that
self-absorbed.” They both laughed amiably, but the conversation was
far from over and it was up to Matthew to bring it back around, but
he wanted to give Livvie the time to get there. “You still haven’t
answered the question: Why do you care so much about Caleb?”

She sighed at that, her focus seemingly far
away. When she spoke, her tone was soft and somewhat wistful. “He
used to talk to me at night. It was almost like the dark gave us
permission to be ourselves, to put aside the fact he was my
kidnapper, and the man responsible for all the terrible things that
happened to me during the day. But you have to understand, for all
the bad Caleb did, he protected me too, in his own ways. It could
have been so much worse for me without Caleb.”

“That night, after Celia had whipped Kid in
front of everyone, Rafiq had tried to separate us. He wanted me to
stay in his room and I was terrified Caleb would let it happen. I’d
seen what Rafiq had done to Nancy. I could still hear her screams
in my ears and feel her hands grabbing for me. I didn’t want to end
up like her.

“Caleb refused. He said I would scream for
hours on end if I were separated from him. He said I was a danger
to myself and Rafiq didn’t know me well enough to know what I
needed. He’d said it all in English and the moment Rafiq reached
for me I started screaming bloody murder until Caleb lifted me into
his arms. I even threw in some feverish gibberish, clutching at him
and begging him not to let me go. I didn’t have to work hard to be
panicked. I
was
panicked.

“Caleb stroked my hair and I slowly relaxed
into his arms, going so far as to ‘faint’. Maybe it was a little
over the top, but it worked. Felipe had begged Caleb’s forgiveness
for not offering to have him shown to his room sooner and called
the butler over to take us to Caleb’s room.” Livvie chuckled softly
as she recounted the story and Matthew had to wonder if her sense
of humor had always been so dark or if it was an aftereffect of her
time spent in ruthless company.

“Oh!” Olivia suddenly exclaimed, “I remember
something. Felipe told Rafiq the boat would be arriving in four
days and he asked if Rafiq would be leaving to meet it, or if he
planned to stay and have someone else handle it.”

Matthew leaned forward, pen poised over his
notepad, “He said this in front of you?”

“He thought I was passed out. I don’t know
if it’s important. It was months ago, so the boat has obviously
already come and gone, but I do remember it because I wondered if
we were near water and if I was going to be on that fucking
boat.”

“Obviously, that didn’t happen,” Matthew
said, stating the obvious.

“No, but you didn’t ask me if it happened.
You told me to tell you everything I remember,” she said.

“So what happened?”

“I don’t know, but Rafiq was gone a few days
later, so I assume he went to meet the boat and whoever or whatever
was on it.”

Probably drugs, Matthew thought, and he made
a note to look into locations near water and cross-reference them
with his list of military installations in Pakistan. He would also
have to call the Federal Investigation Agency in Pakistan. The FIA
likely knew something; it was getting them to admit it and tell
him. “Anything else that might be useful?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of right now. Besides,
I was telling you about me and Caleb.”

Matthew rolled his eyes. “Fine. It seems to
be helping you remember things, but please, try to keep the sex
stuff to a minimum. I really don’t need to hear the
blow-by-blow.”

Olivia smiled, “Was that a pun, Reed?”

“Hardly, just a poor choice of words,” he
acknowledged. The image he’d manufactured of Celia thrusting that
dildo into Kid’s mouth once again assaulted him. He shook his head
and it dissipated. He wished he’d never heard that story. It wasn’t
the act he guiltily found intriguing, but the authority behind it.
Matthew didn’t care for weak women, but he certainly had a thing
for domineering ones. And in the darkest recesses of Matthew’s
mind, he knew why.

“Are you really going to listen? Will you at
least try to see things the way I do?” she requested earnestly.

Matthew’s stomach did a strange flip-like
thing at the sound of her begging tone. This was always the part of
the job he hated. He liked solving the puzzle, putting the case
facts together and tracking down the criminals, but this part,
dealing with the victims and their myriad personalities and
experiences, most of them tragic, he couldn’t stand. He could stand
Olivia more than some other people he’d interviewed. Now that she
wasn’t so much of a basket case, she seemed made of much stronger
stuff, but she was still in a strange limbo of victim and
suspect.

Still. “I don’t know if that’s a promise I
can make, Miss Ruiz. I can promise I’ll listen. I can promise I’ll
do my job. I can even promise to help you as much as I am able. But
I can’t promise you I’ll ever see things the way you do.”

His refusal really seemed to upset her.
Olivia’s shoulders slumped but she nodded for far longer than she
needed to, lost in space again. When she spoke, she seemed to be
talking to the room with Matthew as a set piece. Her words weren’t
for him and they both knew that. “I figured you might say that. It
makes sense I guess. It’s just…. I don’t think anyone is ever going
to see it the way I do, Reed. No one is ever going to understand.
If it ever comes out, everyone’s just going to think I’m crazy.
That I’m young and I don’t know what I’m talking about. That I’m a
victim and my feelings are all a result of my trauma. I think
that’s what hurts the most

“I lived through all of it. I saw and felt
and experienced more in one Summer than I think most people
experience their entire lives, but in the end? I’m just a girl who
no one will ever understand. There’s so much about me that will
never be the same.