CHAPTER 40 - SEARCHING THE PAST
"Safety precautions." He replied as he took his hand
and searched our bodies for weapons. He then set down his.
"What do you want Victor?" I asked, getting
straight to the point.
"Well seeing as Kaylee here has made it so you don't have a
job, I now want you to ditch lover boy. Then get the hell
out of New York." He winked at me. It was as
simple as that to him.
"Why all of this? Why should I give up my life for no
reason at all?" I questioned.
"No reason at all?" He spat, almost laughing.
I nodded.
"My brother lost his life because of you, he was young and
innocent and now you have to pay for what you've done," his
eyes grew even darker, he was getting angry now.
"It was an accident, don't you understand? It was
God's will, I don't understand why you don't get
that!" I yelled.
He picked up the gun and put it against my forehead. I
closed my eyes as my heart jumped out of my chest.
"SHUT UP! I'm talking here," he yelled.
Kaylee snickered.
"And you!? What the hell are you laughing
at?" He replied as he pulled the gun from me and put
it to her.
"What do you want with me? I helped you find
her," she muttered.
"You!?" I yelled.
"Yeah well, Felicia and I," she snickered.
"Felicia?" I mumbled.
"Don't you see Kate?" She yelled as he took the
gun from her head. "You've ruined too many
lives. You should pay for what you've done!"
Kaylee yelled.
"Shut up Kaylee, I'm talking!" Victor hissed as
he pointed the gun at me.
"So you say you won't give up Nick or your
career?" He asked.
I shook my head ‘no.'
"Well then you should die," he muttered as I heard him
lock the gun into place. The cold revolver was now against
my head again as I swallowed hard.
"Put the gun down, now," I heard a voice from behind
me.
"Who the fuck are you?" Victor cackled.
"Your worst nightmare, now put the fucking gun
DOWN!" The voice yelled again.
I knew that voice.
"You heard the man, put it down," another voice echoed.
"I can shoot every one of you."
"It’s not going to bring your brother back," I
muttered.
"Shut up bitch!" He spit in my face.
"DON'T CALL HER A BITCH!" A.J. yelled as he
stepped closer. "Now put the gun down or me and my
friends here are gonna have to hurt you."
Victor put up his hands after setting down the gun.
I turned around and ran to Nick's arms.
"How'd you guys get guns?" I whispered.
"The security guards, well ours, we knocked them out with
some sleeping stuff, don't worry," he smiled at me.
Kevin spoke on his cell phone to the police and before we knew
it, they were there, taking Victor off in handcuffs under the
charges of attempted murder, illegal trespassing and some sort of
violation of privacy for stalking the Boys.
"You okay?" Nick asked as we got into my car.
"I guess. I feel like this nightmare is closing
slowly. I still have Kaylee and Felicia to deal with,"
I muttered.
"Why what's up with Felicia?" Nick asked.
"She plays all innocent, but I think she's really trying to
get at me Nick."
"You really think so?" He asked.
"I know so. Now, tomorrow morning I'm going to do some
research and after I bring Kaylee and Felicia down, I want us to
take a long vacation, okay?"
He looked at me softly.
"Off the record?" He teased.
"If you're good," I smiled back at him lovingly.
~THE NEXT MORNING~
I stared at the screen through my glasses. I was at the
Times at five in the morning before Kaylee, Amanda or Felicia had
a chance to be there. Luckily I was still considered an
employee, so I could use my badge to get in.
I read through some microfiche of some old articles we'd
published. I was looking for an article that talked about
Kaylee's rape. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for;
I knew that when I found something it would pop out at me.
I still didn't know what to do about Felicia. I was
treading through dangerous waters because she was now back with
Brian. Brian and I were friends, I guess you can say, and
so were he and Nick. I was risking a lot trying to bring
her down because Brian would only see it as that. Is that
what everyone saw me as? Kaylee said I ruined everyone's
life. To me it looked like sheer accident the things that
happened, but here was three breathing people, Kaylee, Felicia
and Victor, that believed I'd ruined their lives. It was a
powerful thought, one I didn't like at all. What could I do
to change the past? Or could I?
I'd spent what seemed like hours in front of that screen and
finally, the last slide I put in had the newspaper article from
Kaylee's attack. It was small, saying "Local Girl
Raped" as the headline. When I was about to print the
article I heard voices in the corridor.
"Shit," I muttered as I quickly slipped the slide into
my bag and shut off the machine.
I peered around the corridor to see Kaylee and Felicia.
"What in the hell are they doing here?" I asked
myself. I looked down at my watch, it was now 6:30, I had
been here much longer than I anticipated.
"No, Kate was scared as hell, serves her right that stupid
bitch," Kaylee chuckled as Felicia laughed along with her.
"Hey why is the microfiche out?" Felicia asked as
they turned the corner. I quickly slid down the hall and
into one of the photo department rooms.
"I dunno, that's really strange," Kaylee looked through
the folder and saw the date on it.
"Oh shit," she muttered.
"What's wrong?" Felicia asked.
"This file has info on me in it," she slammed it down
as she looked curiously around the dim office.
"Kate was here," she muttered as she began to walk down
the corridor. Luckily the room I was in was on the first
floor, so I slid out the window and ran as fast as I could down
the vacant street to where I had parked my car.
Kaylee huffed as she looked in every room that was unlocked.
"Damn," she said as she stopped in the hall.
Felicia ran up to her.
"She's not down there anywhere," she reported.
"She's being too nosy, I'll have to have a talk with
her," Kaylee stated as she walked off.
~ONE HOUR LATER~
I held sat at a desk in the library and studied the newspaper
articles about the rape. So far nothing stuck out until I
read some of the information from the police report that had been
entered into the file.
"Police say the young man was known by the victim."
The words echoed through my head.
They did have a suspect for the rape. But why had I never
heard about this?
Brandon Ridgeway.
My mouth hung low.
"Brandon? He'd only died a few months after this rape
in the car accident with me," I muttered, tears filling my
eyes.
"What the hell is going on here?" I asked,
staring at the screen.