Stolen (18 page)

Three
years ago . . .

My eyes are trying to open despite my efforts to keep
them closed. The pain is unbearable.

There’s pain in my head.

Pain in my arms.

Pain in my belly.

Pain in my throat.

For so many reasons, two, forefront in my mind at the
present moment, I wish my heart would stop thumping against my chest, one being
the nauseating wave of pain it brings, the second being that I wish I were
dead.

Speaking of pain, why am I in so much of it? Where am
I?

“Oh good, you’re awake,” a voice says in the distance.
“You’ve been asleep for a while now. I was beginning to worry,” he says in a tone
that almost suggests it’s my fault I slept so long.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I try for answers.

“Where you are is of no importance. As for who I am,
I’m disappointed you don’t know,” he answers with frustration. “I’ve been with
you for so long I thought sure you would recognize me.”

“Maybe I would if I could see you,” I suggest. 

“That’s probably true.”

I wait for him to show himself, propping myself up on
the bare mattress I’m on to get a better view.

“But I think it would be more fun for you to guess.
Don’t you?” he questions from somewhere dark and hidden from my view.

I have to guess? How am I supposed to do that?

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you some clues,” he declares
excitedly, as if we’re playing a game.  

“Let’s see. A clue.” He trails off, apparently
thinking. “Oh, I got it! Who do you turn to when times are hard, when you need
to talk because you’ve had such a bad day?”

Who do I turn to? I always turned to Rogan, or mom, or
Cass, but I doubt they’re the answer to this riddle. So, who do I turn to? Who
else is in my life, or has been in my life. Think, Jess! Think!

Silence drags on; I still have no answer. Rogan is the
only person I can think of, so I say his name. I know this is a ridiculously
stupid response, which I more than likely will be killed for, but I would
rather die with Rogan’s name on my lips than a lie of appeasement to a monster.

Nothing happens. Time continues and still, nothing.
Maybe he left. Maybe I’m alone.

“I see,” his voice echoes from somewhere in the
distance of the room we’re in.

He’s farther from me than he was before. Did my answer
anger him? Is he going to leave me behind now? I hear rustling; it’s getting
louder, closer, louder, closer. He’s coming, coming for me. Emotion after
emotion roll through me, eliciting thoughts, some happy, some not so much, as
they pass.

Love, pain, excitement, desire, want, joy, happiness,
fear all rush through me, centering mostly around Rogan, with mom and Cass
woven in in equal importance. Is this what they mean when they say your life
passes before your eyes right before you die? Am I dying?

Hands are around my throat, knees driving into my
abdomen, indiscernible words being shouted. What’s happening? Screams are
trapped in my throat, their release forbidden. Kicking and punching, I try to
free myself from the force holding me down. With every ounce of effort I exert,
a pound of energy is drained, and to no avail; the force isn’t slackening. When
my nails catch flesh, I leech on. The hold loosens for a quick moment, teasing
me with the breath of air I suck in. A small whimper escapes my lips, further
angering whoever is on top of me.

“All you had to do was be mine!” he shouts. “I would
have given you anything! Everything! Yet all you can think of is
him
!
I’m the one who loves you, the one who’s always loved you. I made it so we
could be together and still you run to him. Why? Answer me!” he demands while
shaking me, my head bouncing repeatedly off the hard mattress, incoherent
thoughts replacing logical ones.

Tears stream down my cheeks of their own accord; I
have no more control over them than I do the man on top of me. I feel swimmy in
my head, weightless all over. I feel free. Death isn’t so bad. Soon this will
be done and maybe a place exists where Rogan and me can be together once more.

Peace floods my body. Fear, terror, pain, all replaced
by indescribably beautiful feelings there are no words for; my body hums with
anticipation.

“Get the fuck off her!”

Peace is gone.

The heavy weight that was on top me is gone, a chill
from the vacancy taking its place. Rolling onto my side, I gasp for air. I want
to scream, but my voice is too hoarse for anything more than a pathetic grumble
to leave my chapped lips.

The sounds flooding the room break through the ringing
in my ears. It sounds like someone is dying. With the last of my strength, I
sit up, my arm propping me upright on the mattress. One leg, heavy and painful,
slams onto the floor. Second leg follows suit. Pulling both hands into one
another, I take a moment to calm my dizzying head, doing everything I can to
keep from vomiting.  

 “What did you do to her? Answer me, you piece of
shit!”

Standing slowly on my unsteady legs, I let my body
catch up with my brain.

“I’ll kill you! I swear to God I will!”

Turning toward the shouting, I see Bruce. He found me!
He came for me!

“I swear, if you touched one hair on her head!”

“Bruce.” I choke on his name, nearly collapsing onto
the mattress from my weakened state.

“Jesus Christ, Jess! I thought you were dead! I didn’t
think I would ever find you!” he exclaims, pulling me tight into his chest.
“Are you okay?” he asks.

 Nodding, I curl into him, savoring his warmth
and protection. I was okay with dying. I can’t deny I had given up, but now
he’s here, I’m here, because he saved me. I’m so exhausted, but I can’t sleep,
not before I know who did this.

Attempting to move out of Bruce’s hold proves
pointless as his arms tighten around me the more I try. “Bruce, I have to see
him. I have to know who did this,” I plea in barely a whisper of a voice.
“Please.”

“You’ll see him soon enough, just not now. How he
looks right now isn’t what he normally looks like, so it wouldn’t do much for
you to see him like this,” he states with no room for challenging him.

“I’ll see him soon, though, right?”

“Sure.”

“Bruce, I have to see him, you know I have to. I won’t
be able to sleep knowing I was this close to finally facing the bastard.”

“I know, and you will. Let’s get you out of here for
now and we’ll deal with that later, okay?”

Stopping him from moving, I have to ask the one
nagging question I need answered now. “Do I know him?”

“Yeah,” he drawls out, a growl emanating from his
chest.

“It’s that bad, huh?” I push.

“Let’s get out of here, okay?” he says as a question,
though there’s only one answer he’ll accept.

We walk up a flight of stairs of a basement lit with a
single hanging bulb as police officers pass us going in the opposite direction.
No one stops us as Bruce all but drags me up the remaining stairs. Passing
through a kitchen, a family room, finally the garage, we don’t stop until we’re
in Bruce’s SUV.

Looking at the house in front of me, everything
muddied by fear, solidifies with clarity. I was held in the basement of this
normal looking house. I don’t recognize it, but it could be anyone’s. It’s a
white two-story house with green shutters, nothing exceptional about it, yet
inside it housed a monster who invaded my life, stole everything that meant
anything from me; a monster that almost killed me.

Lights, sirens, booming voices competing to be heard
over the chaos are filling the night sky with an eerie aura. Bruce starts the
engine after looking at me, reading my silent plea to be taken away from here.
Soon we’re on the highway. I know the car is silent, but with all the questions
in my head, it feels anything but. What just happened? Who was that person? How
did he get into my house? How did Bruce find me?

“How did you find me?” I ask, twisting in my seat to
see him clearly, needing an answer to at least one of my questions.

His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I-I
well, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, but I had put a small
tracker in your arm while you were sleeping after you had found out about
Rogan. It’s a simple device, completely removable; it just enabled me to track
you. I was afraid you might run or, honestly, I was afraid something like
this,” he says while waving his hand up and down my tormented body, “would
happen. I know you’re probably upset, and I don’t blame you. I would be, too,
but had I not, I never would have found you. As it was, it took longer than it
should have. There was a problem with the frequency between the device and the
software used to track it.”

Looking at the man who saved me, I can’t find it in me
to feel anything but gratitude. He did what he knew was best for me, even if I
may not like the idea of being monitored by a computer somewhere. It did save
me.

“Thank you,” I say as I turn back around in my seat,
looking ahead into the darkness of the night, wondering what will happen next.

After a subtle nod of recognition to my gratitude,
Bruce rests his hand on my knee for the remainder of the ride. I don’t flinch
from his touch as you may expect, but then, it’s Bruce; he’s the exception to
every rule.

When we pull into the driveway of my house I’m
relieved to be home and not at the police station like I had assumed we would
be. Looking at the front door, it feels as if it’s moving farther and farther
away from me. How am I going to walk that far without collapsing? 

Looking anxiously to Bruce, he quiets my fear by
telling me he’ll carry me inside if that’s okay with me. Without hesitation I
agree; I know I can’t do it myself.

Lights blind me when my door opens. I scream. I don’t
know why I pick this time to scream. Maybe it’s just because I have had enough.
Maybe it’s because I’m ready to snap and this is going to be the thing to do
it.

“Get away from her!” Bruce shouts to someone, or maybe
everyone, snapping shot after shot of me sitting in the car.

I feel stupid having him carry me now that we have an
audience, but the fact hasn’t changed that I still won’t be able to make it on
my own, as much as I despise that.

“Hold on to my neck and just keep your head down,
okay?” he instructs in a hushed voice so the reporters won’t hear him.

“Okay,” I say as I hold tightly to his neck.

Lights flash, voices blur together with questions, and
the reality of it all hits me. Forcing myself not to break in front of all
these strangers, I hold it together for the distance from the car to the front door.
As soon as the door closes and locks behind me, it all comes out in tormented
cries, wails, screams, sounds I didn’t know I could make, filling the house
with a vocal rendition of the reality I just lived through.

Mom is running to me, tears streaking her face. Bruce
carries me to the family room, sitting down with me in his lap on one of the
couches. Mom sits beside us stroking my hair, thanking God for bringing me home
safely while continuing to cry.

“I love you so much, honey. I’ve been so worried. Are
you okay? I mean, I know you’re not, but are you kind of okay?” she stutters.
“I mean, that didn’t sound right. I just meant were you hurt? Oh, God, I missed
you! I love you so much!” she reiterates through her hysterics.

I know she needs me to be okay. She needs me to tell
her I’ll be fine, but will I? How do I get over this? I don’t have the strength
to deal with her right now. Burying my head into Bruce’s chest, I close my
eyes. I know it’s useless, but I do everything I can to forget what happened.

This is where I fall asleep, in Bruce’s arms with mom
still crying beside me.

Three
Years Ago . . .

“Jess? Jess, you have to wake up now,” a male voice
coaxes me from my anything but restful sleep.

A male voice? No! No! He found me again! I’m back in
that basement! “Get away from me!” I scream, slashing my hands through the air,
hoping to hit him before he takes me away again. I scream louder. Someone will
hear me. Someone will come save me!

Arms close in on me from behind, just like when he
took me before. He has me. Whether it’s from exhaustion or fear, I can’t say,
but tears are streaming down my face, burning a path from where they begin to
where they fall. The arms tighten. I kick my feet back in hope of hitting his
knees and knocking him down, but the hold only tightens.

“Jess, stop!” he shouts exhaustedly. “It’s me. It’s
Bruce. I’m not going to hurt you. Please, just calm down.”

Bruce? No! He’s messing with me, playing games with my
head. Bruce would never hurt me, never restrain me like this. “You’re not
Bruce!” I scream at the liar behind me. “Now let me go before he finds you
again and kills your ass!”

I hear a chuckle from behind me. “That’s quite the
threat. I know I’d be afraid if I thought someone like me was coming after . .
. me?” he questions, seemingly confused on which pronoun to use.

I’m confused. Why is he taking my threat so lightly?
Why is he saying Bruce would be coming after Bruce? Unless, unless this really
is Bruce. “Bruce?” I ask, hoping it’s truly him.

“That’s who I’ve been trying to tell you I am. I’m not
going to hurt you. So, will you stop kicking me long enough for me to let you
go?”

“Fine,” I deadpan.

“That’s not very convincing, but I’m going to hope for
the best, if only for my shins sake,” he says, while loosening his grasp on me.

Whipping around, relief overflows from me. It is
Bruce! I jump into his arms, wrapping my arms so tight around his neck I hear
him gasp for air. “Sorry,” I say, while loosening the grip, but not letting go.

“You’ve got quite the fight in you,” he says proudly.
“I was scared of you for a while there. You’re pretty strong, for a girl, that
is,” he says jokingly.

“Hey, don’t be an ass!” I pinch him on the arm,
although he probably didn’t feel it through all his muscle. I forget how strong
he really is, making me happy in this moment that I’ll never be on the
receiving end of that strength. “I could take you,” I declare, though both of
us know that’s a ridiculous threat.

“Oh really?” he says in a challenging tone. “I’d love
to see that.”

Forgetting for a moment why I’m in his arms, my mood
lightens until he tries to set me down, then I remember. My hold tightens and
tears fall once more, following the trail of the now dried tears from before.

“Okay,” he says soothingly. “I’ve got you. No one will
hurt you again.”

He takes a seat back on the couch, cradling me in his
lap all the while. This is where I feel safe. This is where I’m not so scared.

“Shh. You’re okay. I’m here,” he says as a mantra
while stroking my hair away from my face. “I’ve got you.”

I cry, for hours, it seems, and he lets me. He never
tells me to stop, that there’s nothing to cry over, that I’m fine so no tears
are needed. I don’t know if anyone would say that to me, but being paranoid
someone would is enough to make me want to cry more.

I feel so alone, only safe when I’m in Bruce’s arms.
Mom is gone. I don’t know where she runs off to, but as soon as Bruce is here,
she leaves. I don’t know where Cass is. She hasn’t come to see me once since
I’ve been home, though I was asleep so maybe she did and I just don’t know it.

Rogan is gone. He’ll never hold me again like Bruce is
holding me now. I’ll never see the goofy picture he took last summer of him
lying in the front lawn, pouting after I had told him I wouldn’t go to the
theater to watch one of his terrible movie choices, come up as his picture when
he texted me. Just seeing that picture could make any day better, even before I
read his message. I’ll never ride in his car again, never kiss him again, and
never make love to him again. I thought we would marry and have tons of little
Rogans, but that won’t happen either. My future is a blank canvas, and I don’t
even have the paint to paint a new future.

“Jess? Can we talk for a minute?” Bruce asks, a while
after my tears have dried up.

“Sure,” I answer him, knowing this had to happen
eventually. I shift off his lap so I can see his face as he speaks.

“This story has somehow made national headlines. I
don’t know how that happened, or quite frankly why it happened, but it did.
I’ve been able to keep the reporters at bay so far, but it won’t last forever.
At some point you’re going to want to leave this house. Rogan’s funeral is the
day after next.”

I suck in a sharp breath. Rogan’s
funeral
is in
two days, not decades from now as I had expected it to be. Smoothing the
sleeves of my shirt, running a hand through my hair, finally wringing my hands
together in my lap to stop their fidgeting, I return my focus to Bruce’s
words. 

Continuing, without calling out my near meltdown, he
adds, “I think it would be best if we talk to them before then. I don’t want
them hounding you at the funeral. At least this way they should be satisfied
enough to leave you alone until after that.”

They would do that; disrespect the dead just to get
their story? As much as I don’t want to, I’ll do whatever I have to if it will
keep them from all but spitting on Rogan’s grave with their callous behavior.
“Tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it,” I state emotionlessly.

With sorrow in his eyes Bruce says, “I think a press
conference would be the easiest way to do this. I don’t want you to have to go
through this one by one. We’ll just get it done in one swoop. Does that sound
okay? Do you think you can do that?”

Can I do that? Hell no! For Rogan, though, I’ll do my
best. “Do I have a choice?” I ask angrily.

“I know this is terrible, but I just don’t see a
better way to handle this. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for their horrible behavior. They
should be ashamed of putting people through any of this just for a story.”

“Yeah, I know. Even after so many years in this
business, I’ve never been able to understand how they justify subjecting people
to opening up about something that’s obviously traumatic to them. Sadly, this
is the way of the world. This is why I always push a press conference. It gives
them what they want, but in a single shot. I’ll set it up for tomorrow morning,
then you’ll be done for a while.”

“A while?” I repeat.

Shifting uncomfortably, he says, “Well, honestly, I
doubt this will be the end of it. Someone will want a personal interview. We’ll
be able to keep them at bay, I’m sure, but they’ll probably be around until
something new and shiny draws their attention away from this story. This should
at least help keep them away from the funeral. That’s my only concern at the
moment, as I’m assuming it’s yours, too?”

“Of course it is,” I answer sharply. “When will I have
to talk to the police about what happened?” I ask, having forgotten that I
haven’t done that yet.

“I thought what we could do is I’ll take your
statement here, give it to the police, then after the funeral we’ll go in and
do it all formally.”

After the funeral? In two days I’m going to have the
longest day of my life; bury the love of my life, then tell the police about
the man who killed him and nearly me. I don’t think this is exactly normal. I
can’t feel sorry for myself. I’m alive. I’ve survived this far, barely, but
survived nonetheless. I have to get through this.

“Bruce?” My mind is suddenly racing with questions.

“Yeah.”

“I can kinda get why the reporters are after me now,
but they were here the day Rogan died, asking if I knew who was after him, why
someone would be after him. Why would they have been asking questions like
that? I hadn’t been kidnapped yet, so why questions like that? I mean, you said
the EMTs thought it was a suicide, but once you got there you knew it wasn’t.
Did you tell them that? I don’t get how it quickly turned from a suicide to a
murder? And I don’t get the correlation between his murder and me. Was someone
after him? Is there something you’re not telling me?” I feel so stupid; why
hadn’t I asked any of these questions before? Reporters seem to know more than
I do, and I lived through most of it!

“We don’t need to get into that right now. Why don’t
you go rest, maybe take a hot shower, and just unwind from all of this,” he
says, clearly trying to placate me.

“No way, Bruce! Don’t you dare treat me like I’m a
pathetic, naive, child! Tell me what you know! Now!” I demand franticly, my body
shaking with nerves. How dare he!

Standing abruptly, he paces the family room, running
his hands back and forth through his short hair, mumbling something incoherent
to me. I want to shake him, yell at him to dish before I start hitting him
uncontrollably again.

Finally.

“Fine! You want to know? I’ll tell you, but don’t say
I didn’t warn you that you wouldn’t want to know this right now!” He stops
pacing. Sitting nervously on the sofa across from me, not beside me like
normal, he begins. “Rogan was being stalked, too.”

What? How is that possible? Before I can ask, Bruce
continues.

“I heard through a friend who knew about your case
that a boy in a similar situation had reported receiving a letter and a picture
from an unknown person. I took a look at the evidence and everything about it
matched up to yours.

“His letter mentioned you, instructing him to stay
away from you, that he would kill you if he didn’t. The picture was a close-up
of you in a hallway at school. Naturally, the police thought it was a fellow
student or maybe a teacher, but they couldn’t find a link to anyone there.

“Rogan was so afraid someone was coming after you he
was hysterical, demanding someone watch over you so no one could get to you. I
introduced myself, not telling him I already knew you or anything about your
case. He kept demanding I send someone to watch you at all times. I reassured
him I would put someone on it right away. Since I was already on your case,
already protecting you, I wasn’t lying to him, which I think helped convince
him I was telling the truth.

“So, anyway, I talked to him about everything that had
happened to him. He told me he had come home from school when he saw a manila
envelope on his front porch. It had his name on it in black permanent marker,
just like yours. He thought it might have been from you, hoping you wanted to
get back together but didn’t know what to say to his face, so instead wrote it
in a letter. He said you like to write, so he was optimistic it was from you.
‘Who else would write a letter?’ he had asked. When he opened it, a picture of
you fell out. Again, he thought it was still from you, that you had sent him a
‘selfie,’ I think he called it.

“I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know what that was.
He explained that it’s pretty much what it sounds like, a picture you take of
yourself and post to your Facebook account or through texting, or Snapchat, or
whatever else you kids do now. I guess I don’t need to explain that to you,
though, do I?” he asks rhetorically.

“He thought it was kinda cool that you were doing it
with a real camera, not your phone. That was before he read the letter,
realizing it wasn’t from you at all.

“I’m paraphrasing here, but it basically said
he,
whoever
he
is, was watching him. That he knew you had broken up with Rogan and
that he had helped push you to do that, that if Rogan wasn’t careful, that if
he didn’t stay away from you, he would kill you.

He was much blunter in his letter to Rogan than he had
been in yours. Rogan was terrified for you; he believed that whoever this was
might kill you, even if he did stay away from you. The letter ended with a
threat to Rogan that he had better watch his own back, that sometimes things
need to happen to prove a point.

“I tried to warn Rogan that this was a serious threat
against his own life, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept pushing that you be taken
care of. I was working out the details in assigning someone to be permanently
on his case, like I am yours. This was three days before he was killed.

“This comes back to your question of why the reporters
thought someone was after him. I’m thinking someone leaked the information on
the letter he received, which led to your name, which led to them hounding you
with those questions. They probably believed you knew about the letter he
received, therefore had some ideas on who was behind it.

“As far as the murder declaration, I think that also
came from someone on the force. I didn’t say anything to anyone at the scene,
but everyone saw the note. By the time the EMTs got to the morgue, everyone was
buzzing with this being a murder, that a stalker killed him, threatened his
girlfriend’s life. There was no way anyone should have known any of that. I
still don’t know who leaked the information, but I swear to God, when I find
out, I’m going to bash his skull in,” he says with full sincerity. Again, I’m
happy
not
to
be on his bad side.