Page 44 of Secrets Within Us

I hadn’t been ready to unbox their memories from where I’d kept them locked up in my heart for so long, because that would mean they were really gone and that they were a part of my past, not my present or my future.

But I could see how it would be okay. They made me the man I had become when I was their father and Hadley was with me now that they weren’t, to make me live true to what they’d made me, to hold me accountable and responsible for my actions. Which I’d tried doing after I realized I’d acted harshly and unjustly to her out of anger and pain. But by then she was slipping through my fingers as her own memories and past threatened to swallow her whole.

She didn’t know it, but she had stopped directly in front of me on the other side of the mirror when she’d stared at her reflection, and having her so close yet so far from me and the protection of my arms, nearly killed me. I’d wanted to reach through the window and hold her and be her strength through it all.

Even if I was speculative about his relationship with her, I was glad she had Tim with her.

There was one thing I had learned during my brief time with Hadley.

To know her was to love her.

I knew he cherished her, even if it was just in an endearing friendship way. But I was glad for his friendship with her.

She collapsed to the floor after giving all she had left to give, and Tim called for it to be enough for today. I wanted to burst through the door and pick her up into my arms and carry her the entire way back to my house and take care of her.

But she stopped us all in our tracks.

“That’s enough of my story. But if I don’t keep going, who’s going to tell the stories of the other girls?”

What?

Other girls?

The agent asked what we all wondered. “What are you talking about? What other girls?” Harvey said as she walked over closer and squatted down to be eye level with her like being closer would give her a better understanding.

Tim looked from her back to Hadley, trying to figure it out too. My sweet bambina just opened her eyes slowly. “The other girls he kidnapped, raped, murdered, and buried. The girls from homeless shelters across the country where he graciously volunteered.” She said bitterly, “The other girls like me that had no one to report them missing or care if they were ever heard from again. The ones that had no one in the entire world to care. What about them?”

Harvey shook her head in disbelief as her mouth hung open, speechless as to what to say.

“You never found the cell, did you?” Hadley asked.

Harvey just shook her head in question again, still speechless.

Hadley’s eyebrows pinched together in disbelief. “The room in the basement where he kept us. One at a time over the years. The one with the iron cell in the corner and all of the sick tools he used to torture us with. The one where he videoed all the pain he inflicted on us with a camera just like that one.” She jutted her chin towards the camera mounted in the room’s corner, recording her interrogation.

“We never found a basement entrance. W-we turned that place upside down.” Harvey stuttered in disbelief. Sheriff Boyd stood up and walked closer as well.

“It’s in the wall behind the bookshelf. Like in some mystery movie, the secret passageway in the bookshelf.” Hadley said as she rolled her eyes at the memory. “He was so proud of his little secret lair beneath his home. He mocked me about entertaining church members and community leaders upstairs and breaking little girls downstairs.”

“Will you show us?” Agent Harvey asked even though her face and tone gave away the fact that it was above and beyond what Hadley needed to do. They had already treated her like a prisoner and then interrogated her, forcing her to re-experience the hell she had survived.

“What?” Hadley gasped in astonishment.

I had heard enough; I needed to get to her. Leaving the room, ignoring the warnings of the agents in there with me, I opened the door to the interrogation room without knocking.

Everyone turned to look at me, not expecting someone to just barge in. But they obviously didn’t know me or understand what I’d do for the scared and injured woman in the corner on the floor.

“Hell no, she won’t go with you there,” I answered for her as I maneuvered through the people milling around to get to my girl.

“I don’t want to go back there, Kip.” Hadley cried, looking up at me from the floor where she was still curled around herself, and I could see the fear in her fiery green eyes as tears still pooled in them. “They can’t make me go back. Please.” She begged hauntingly.

“You don’t have to go back, baby. Not a chance in hell are you going back to that place.” I squatted down in front of her, pulled her tiny body into my arms, and breathed her in. She clung to me like a lifeline and I reveled in having her in my arms again. She was safe in my arms.

“Hadley, I’d like for you to reconsider. Beyond helping us get every piece of evidence that we obviously missed, it could be therapeutic for you to put it all to rest. Knowing that we discovered and told every single thing that happened to you at the hands of Peter Daniels - even validated it. It might help you heal.” Agent Harvey prodded from behind me, her tone gentle but firm.

As Hadley pulled back from my arms, her gaze locked with mine, searching for something. I tried to relax my features when I saw the trepidation on hers. She searched my face for an answer, but I didn’t want to make her do something one way or another. It had to be her decision.

“I need some air.” She whispered to me. I nodded quickly before standing, helping her to her feet with my arms still wrapped around her.

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