The Price You Pay
As Kara wobbled from the tavern, she reflected that being drunk wasn’t nearly as much fun as she remembered.
It’d been nearly two years since she’d had even a sip of alcohol.
That wasn’t in response to any problem—not unless you considered getting pregnant a problem.
Kara certainly did not. Having Melody was the best thing that ever happened to her.
Given her life so far, the bar of comparison wasn’t set very high, but still, motherhood was amazing, and well worth a few years of sobriety.
“Which way’s the car?” Ingrid slurred beside her.
“Over there.” Kara pointed to the taxi stand. “It’s that yellow vehicle, with the nice man who will take us home.”
“I’m not leaving my car here overnight.”
“Yes, you are, because I promised Gavin you wouldn’t drive.”
Ingrid rolled her blue eyes. “When did you get so old?”
When Kara didn’t answer, Ingrid’s voice took on a hint of a whine. “I need to move my car. It’s brand new and a lease, and if they tow it, they’ll scratch it. I’ll have to pay—”
“Where are you going to move it to?”
Ingrid pointed an unsteady finger toward a sign advertising all-night parking for $100. Kara presumed it really said $10, despite what the blurry numerals suggested.
Damn, why’d she let Ingrid talk her into this?
Because you’ve been letting her talk you into crazy shit for almost twenty years.
True. They’d met in preschool, and had been inseparable for most of their lives. Eighteen months ago, Kara married Gavin and moved to Seattle. Then Ingrid came west and stayed. So they were together again, getting in trouble again.
Kara hadn’t wanted to come out drinking, but Ingrid had insisted.
It was Kara’s twenty-first birthday and time for her first drinking party.
First legal drinking party, that is. She’d taken her first drink at thirteen.
Got drunk for the first time at fourteen.
Not surprisingly, Ingrid had been there both times.
“Go move the car,” Kara said.
“Come with.”
“I’ll walk and meet you over there.”
Ingrid giggled. “You can barely stand, Kare-Bear. It’s a hundred feet. Come on.”
Kara sighed and followed Ingrid to the car. They got in. Ingrid pulled onto the road and shot away from the paid lot.
“Hey!” Kara said.
“I’m looking for a cheaper one. I don’t have ten bucks.”
Kara slapped a twenty on the console.
“You need that for diapers and shit. Stop being such an old lady and let me drive you home. It’s all country roads anyway. Nothing to hit.”
“Except deer, coyotes, bears, the occasional hitchhiker…”
“I’ll avoid the animals. If the hitchhiker is cute, I’ll pick him up.” She grinned over at Kara. “Give you a proper birthday party.”
Kara flipped her the finger and fastened her seat belt.
“Yep, it’s an engine,” Kara peered under the car hood.
At least she was no longer seeing double.
She was also, unfortunately, not seeing the problem that had them pulled over on an empty wooded road.
“I have no idea what’s wrong, but Gavin will be here in fifteen minutes.
If he can’t fix it, he’ll give you a lift. Gavin—”
“Gavin, Gavin, Gavin,” Ingrid huffed. “Do you know how sick I am of hearing his name? How many times have you brought him up tonight?”
“Um, twice? First when I said you shouldn’t drive and second when you proved it, leaving us stranded by the side of a very creepy road.”
“The car left us stranded.”
“I thought you said it was new?”
“It is. This is the first problem I’ve had with it, unlike that rust bucket you’re stuck with because you married Gavin.”
“I like my car just fine.” Kara slammed the hood shut and perched on it. “And my husband.”
Ingrid sniffed. “He’s not your husband, he’s your jailer. He’ll get here and be all, ‘I told you not to go out.’ I’m surprised he let you.”
“Actually, he’s the one who talked me into it. He thought I could use the break, and he knows you’re going through a rough time—”
Ingrid’s head snapped up. “You told him about the phone calls?”
“I don’t keep secrets from my husband, but no, since you’re the only one getting them, I haven’t told him. I just said you’ve been having a rough time adjusting to the new job and new state—”
“You still don’t believe me about the calls, do you?”
Kara exhaled and leaned back on her hands. “Why just call you? Why not me, too? He thinks we both did it.”
“But only one of us has a hulking construction worker for a husband. The other lives alone in a crappy apartment with zero security and a so-called best friend who won’t take the threat seriously and let her move in—”
Kara hopped off the car. “Bring me proof and you can move in.”
“Proof? I’m your best friend, and I’m telling you we’re both in danger. Serious danger. He’s going to make us pay—”
“We already did.” Kara walked toward the forest. “It’ll be another ten minutes before the-guy-I-dare-not-name gets here. I need to pee.”
“Now?”
“Wait in the car and lock the doors. I’ll be back in—”
“You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“Story of my life,” Kara muttered under her breath and waved for Ingrid to follow.
Kara walked about fifty yards into the forest. Ingrid stopped after twenty and began whining about why Kara had to go so far. Because she wanted a clearing, so she didn’t get a sapling up her ass when she squatted. She didn’t tell Ingrid that. It wouldn’t stop her complaining. Nothing did.
As Kara crouched, Ingrid’s mutterings tapered off. Then her friend gasped, the sound sudden and harsh in the silent forest. Kara leaped up, yanking her jeans over her hips.
“Ingrid?”
No answer.
Kara spun. Hands grabbed her from behind. Strong hands. She opened her mouth. A cloth slapped over her mouth and nose, a damp cloth, stinking of chemicals, and she crumpled, unconscious to the ground.
Kara woke to music, playing so softly it sounded like a voice whispering in her ear, and she scrambled to sit up, thinking it was Gavin and—
She felt something cold and hard under her legs, and her brain stuttered, throwing her back five years, waking on a cold metal slab of a bed, no mattress, no sheets, no pillow.
She shivered convulsively, her brain screaming no, that that was over, long over, that she’d paid the price, paid the goddamn price.
Her hands clenched, fingers pressing not into a metal bed frame but against cold cement. She opened her eyes—
My eyes are already open. But I can’t see anything. Oh my God, I can’t see—
Then she made out the shadow of her knee. She was lying on a cement floor. She moved one leg. Metal scraped against the concrete. She reached down and touched iron on her ankle, and it all rushed back, and she doubled over, stomach clenching.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. That’ll only make it worse. You’re okay. It’ll be okay. Just stay calm.
She took a deep breath. The clogging scent of must and mildew filled her nostrils. Stale air, chill and damp. A basement. She was in a basement.
That’s when she heard the music again, the faint strains wafting around her.
I know that song.
She closed her eyes and focused, and the voice and words came clear. Leonard Cohen. Everybody Knows.
Her gut clenched and she tried to leap up, the chain yanking tight, iron band digging into her ankle.
Across the room, a door creaked open. The figure of a man filled it. Kara crawled back as far as the chain would allow, her back brushing a cold wall as the man advanced. He bent in front of her. A balaclava covered his face, only brown eyes and pale lips visible.
“Not everybody knows, Kara,” he said. “But I do.”
She opened her mouth to scream. And that’s when the beating began.
April 30, 2006
Two days before Kara’s fifteenth birthday, and life was perfect.
Her mother was happy, having found a new job and a new boyfriend, the latter working at the former.
When Mom was happy, life was good, but it was more than that.
For the first time in Kara’s life, her teachers weren’t chiding her with “we know you can do better,” because she was getting straight Bs and even a few As.
She’d made the volleyball team, and while it wasn’t as good as the cheerleading squad, Ingrid had promised to keep training her until she made that, too.
To be honest, Kara wasn’t that keen on cheerleading. But it would make Mom and Ingrid happy, so she’d do it. Mom said Eddie might also like it if she was a cheerleader, though when Kara suggested that, he said he’d rather date a volleyball player any day.
Eddie Molloy. Fifteen. Football player. Second-string, but she’d told him she’d rather date a second-stringer any day, and he’d laughed. Laughed and kissed her.
Eddie Molloy. Her first boyfriend. They’d been going together for five months.
Five wonderful months. He was nice and cute and funny and everything she’d dreamed of in a boyfriend, and now, two days before her birthday, they were sitting in the abandoned treehouse behind her apartment complex, kissing.
That’s all they’d done so far, kissing, and he never pushed her to do more, even though Ingrid insisted he would, warning he was only going slow until Kara lowered her guard.
“They’re all like that,” Ingrid would say with a knowing roll of her eyes. “Boys.”
“Not Eddie.”
A bigger eye roll. “How would you know? He’s your first boyfriend.”
Maybe the boys Ingrid dated were like that, but Eddie was different. He was wonderful, and after everything that had happened in her life, Kara felt she deserved a little bit of wonderful. Now she sat in the treehouse, kissing him and thinking how lucky she was.
“Kara?” It was Ingrid, her distant voice odd—squeaky and breathless at the same time. “Kara!”
Eddie sighed.
“I know,” Kara said. “Sorry. Let me get rid of her.”