The Price You Pay #3
“No!” Kara heard a scrabbling noise and imagined Ingrid getting to her feet. “I swear, I never told them you had anything to do with Eddie.”
Liar.
Kara squeezed her eyes shut, rage whipping through her as she remembered Eddie’s death. Ingrid swearing he’d raped her, then making Kara help her cover it up, as she’d done with Bill.
“If you tell anyone about Eddie, I’ll tell them you killed Bill.”
“I didn’t—!”
“But that’s what I’ll tell them, and they’ll believe me, because you had reason to kill him.
I didn’t.” Ingrid’s voice softened and she stroked Kara’s hair.
“But that’s not going to happen because you know I did the right thing.
With Bill and with Eddie. I saved you, Kare-Bear.
Two times I saved you. Now you owe me. You have to pay the price. ”
And she had. They both had. No one ever realized Bill’s death wasn’t an accident. Eddie was different. The police eventually figured it out and arrested both girls, and Kara did as Ingrid told her. She said Eddie raped Ingrid, but that’s all she knew, and she had no idea who shot him.
What had Ingrid said? Kara never found out. The whole experience was a blur of shock and confusion and terror. The case never went to trial. Their public defender struck a deal, and both girls were sentenced to separate juvenile detention facilities until their eighteenth birthdays.
That was the price Kara had paid for being Ingrid’s friend.
Kara lay on the floor after that, too exhausted for anger.
It hurt even to breathe. He didn’t need to beat her so badly.
There was little purpose to it except his own enjoyment, and she’d seen that glittering in his eyes.
The beatings wouldn’t stop until she escaped, and right now, she couldn’t even think about doing that.
Just staying awake was too much effort, and soon she lost that battle.
She tumbled into restless sleep and a nightmare, this one straight from life.
November 16, 2011
Kara sat on the park bench, holding Melody on her lap so the baby could watch the big kids.
“Do you want to go play?” Kara laughed when Melody’s feet drummed against her leg. “I bet you do. I bet—”
“Hello, Kara.”
Kara jumped. No one called her that anymore. She was Kerry these days. Kara Snow—murderess—died in Ohio. Kerry Martin—mother and wife—lived in Seattle.
Her arms clenched around her daughter so tightly that Melody let out a squawk of surprise.
“Shhh.” Kara pressed her lips against the baby’s ear, arms wrapped around her. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she whispered, the words as much for own comfort as for her daughter’s.
“Hello, Ingrid.” Kara didn’t look up. Just kept clutching Melody as her childhood friend sat beside her.
“That’s some welcome,” Ingrid said. “Five years, and I don’t even get a hug?”
Kara looked over at her, and all the rage of those years welled up.
Six years of telling herself Eddie must have attacked Ingrid.
Five years of refusing to consider the possibility her friend had cut a deal implicating Kara in his murder.
Four years in that horrible place, with those horrible girls.
Three years since she’d gotten out to discover her mother wanted nothing to do with her.
Two years since she’d fled to Seattle with Gavin to become someone else. All because of Ingrid.
“How did you find me?” Kara asked.
“Gavin Martin.”
Kara cringed. She’d met Gavin in an outreach program after her release.
He’d recently been released himself, from a minimum-security prison where he’d served time after his own so-called friend talked him into a convenience store holdup.
That kind of record wouldn’t stop him from getting a construction job, so he’d made no attempt to hide his identity as they’d moved west. Anyone who knew she’d been dating Gavin could just ask his family where they’d gone.
“I have a new life now,” Kara said.
“So I see. What a cutie. Can I hold her?”
Kara’s arms tightened again around Melody. She paused, and as hard as she tried to hold onto her anger, when she heard Ingrid’s voice and looked over and saw her old friend there, she felt…guilty. Some-damned-how she felt guilty.
“She isn’t used to strangers,” Kara said.
“Shy, like her momma.” Ingrid looked at Kara and her pretty face softened. “I’m sorry, Kare-Bear. I know I have a lot to be sorry for, and I really am. I’ve changed, and I wanted to tell you that.”
“You came all the way to Seattle to tell me that?”
Ingrid’s smile sparked, as bright as ever. “Sure. You’re my best friend. I’d go anywhere for you. Now, how about we get this little girl’s momma a nice hot coffee. It’s freezing out here.”
And so it began. Kara didn’t just roll over and play best friend again. But… Yes, ultimately she let Ingrid back into her life. She didn’t have a choice.
“I know who you really are,” Ingrid had told her, a week later, when Ingrid announced she had a new job in Seattle and wasn’t leaving. “That’s just our little secret, though, right?”
“If you mean Gavin, he already knows—”
“Of course he does. But I’m sure you don’t go around telling people here that you spent three years in jail for murder.”
“No.” Kara looked her in the eye. “And if you’re threatening to tell—”
Ingrid hugged her. “Of course not. I mean, they don’t know so they can’t understand you the way I do. You need me, Kara. That’s all.”
That was not all, and Kara knew it.
Kara had been lying on the basement floor for what felt like hours.
Every now and then Ingrid would call her name.
When Kara ignored her, she started to moan about the pain, that she thought their captor had broken her arm, that she felt feverish.
When Kara still didn’t answer, she started to cry, soft sobs at first, then rising, begging forgiveness from God and Eddie’s brother and every person she’d ever wronged.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” she sobbed.
“Even me?” Kara said.
Silence, then, “Kara?”
Kara rose to sit, chain scraping the floor, metal digging in where she’d yanked against it, trying to escape the beating, knowing it would do no good. The price she’d had to pay, apparently. There was always a price. And Kara was always paying it.
“You’re asking everyone to forgive you, but those people aren’t here. Even Eddie’s brother can’t hear you down here. The only one listening is the person you owe the biggest apology to. But I don’t hear you giving it.”
“If you mean Eddie—”
“Yes, let’s talk about Eddie.” Kara wrapped her arms around her knees, wincing as pain knifed through them.
“He is the person you wronged most, isn’t he?
That’s why he came to mind first. Which he shouldn’t, if he did what you claimed.
I don’t know if rape deserves death, but I don’t feel the least bit bad about Bill, so I guess I’d accept the punishment as just.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“But I do. I always have, I think. I just couldn’t let myself.
I felt disloyal thinking it, believing my boyfriend over my best friend.
Worse, if I believed he didn’t rape you, that meant you murdered him in cold blood.
Murdered an innocent boy. Who would do that?
Not a human being. That’s the act of a monster.
The sort of person who’d let her friend go to jail, even when it didn’t clear her own name.
Was accusing me supposed to clear your name, Inge?
Or did you just want to ruin my life along with yours? ”
“If someone said I accused you—”
“No, but even if you didn’t, a confession from you would have set me free.”
“I thought we’d be together.” Ingrid hurried on. “Not that I accused you, but I didn’t take the blame, and I should have. I see that now. But I thought we’d be together. We’d look after each other. You owed me that.”
“I owed you? For killing a sweet kid who never did anything but treat me like I was special?”
“I treated you special.” Ingrid’s voice rose and her own chain clanked as if she was getting to her feet. “I treated you like gold, Kara, and what did you do? Threw me over for a second-string football player.”
“Who never laid a finger on you.”
A pause, too long. “What? No. Eddie attacked me. I was in shock and I thought he was going to hurt you, so I shot him. For you. It was all for you.”
“Bill, too?”
“Of course,” Ingrid snarled. “You know that. I killed him for you, and you were grateful for it, and now you dare accuse me of—”
“Of murdering Eddie for no reason. You say you treated me like gold, but he—”
“Don’t you fucking compare me to that boy!
” Ingrid’s voice went shrill. “He barely knew you. We’ve been together since we were three.
Three fucking years old! But there was always someone else.
Some guy trying to get between us. To take you away.
First Bill and then Eddie and now that Neanderthal you married.
Gavin, Gavin, Gavin. Can I tell you what I’d like to do to fucking Gavin, Kara? ”
Kara heard Ingrid’s door creak open. “Sure, Ingrid. Tell us what you’d like to do to me.”
“What?” Ingrid said. “It’s you? You sick son of a—”
A thump and a screech as Gavin hit Ingrid.
“Kara?!” Ingrid screamed between blows. “It’s Gavin. It’s all—”
“All me,” Gavin said. “It’s always been me. Looking out for my wife. You aren’t going to hurt her anymore, Ingrid. I’m here to make sure of that.”
The beating continued, Ingrid screaming for help, screaming for Kara and, finally, screaming for mercy, screaming for her life. That’s when Kara realized what Gavin meant to do. Stop her. Permanently.
Kara fumbled in the near dark with her leg iron. It was supposed to be latched, but not locked, just as it had been earlier. But now when she tugged, it wouldn’t open. She yanked harder, heart pounding as Ingrid’s screams took on the terrible edge of something no longer quite human.
“Gavin!” Kara shouted. “Stop! That’s enough! Please, stop!”