Chapter 31

People always say that bad things come in three’s. I’d never believed that. To me, bad things just always came. My whole life was one bad thing after another. Well, that was the case until I met Patrick. Suddenly there were no bad things anymore, just good. For a year, despite some of my reservations and feelings, I’d been happy.

I should have known that couldn’t last. I should have known that I only drew in any bad or negative energy, no matter how hard I tried to fix any wrongs I’d committed. Now as I stood outside, seeing the night glow in red and blue from the police cars surrounding me I saw that the last year had just been a fluke.

“Could you go over what happened one last time?” Quentin, who was only here investigating because I’d refused to talk to anyone else, asked.

I looked up into the familiar officer’s eyes wishing like hell that we were meeting because I was bailing out another one of my students instead of what I’d found tonight. I nodded and for the third time, I told the story again, starting at the beginning.










“Loxley, come on,” I groaned out in exasperation. Patrick, Dudley, and I stood impatiently on the sidewalk waiting for Lox to finish sniffing some scent he currently found fascinating. “Even the basset hound isn’t sniffing around this much tonight!”

“It’s fine,” Patrick tried to assure me, with a little laugh. I turned and glared at him.

“It’s raining,” I shot back.

We’d just gotten to my complex from spending the weekend at Patrick’s. That had become our routine. During the week we saw each other at night when I was out of work and Patrick didn’t have anything for hockey. On weekends when I wasn’t working, I stayed at his house. On Sunday nights when I had work in the morning, Patrick stayed at my place.

Finally Loxley gave up and trotted towards the entrance to the building. I followed him and led everyone inside, shaking off all the moisture that had collected on my clothes and in my hair. The elevator arrived and we piled on, taking it up to my floor. I didn’t pay attention to where we were walking as I talked to Patrick while we walked down the hall. Suddenly I ran right into Loxley, who had come to a dead stop.

“Lox, what the hell?!” I yelled, wondering what had gotten into my dog tonight.

He still didn’t move, just stayed frozen in place staring straight ahead. I watched in shock as the hair on his back began to stand on end. As if that wasn’t enough, he began to emit a low growl. Before I could tell him to stop, Dudley joined him with a growl of his own, also staring straight ahead.

Wondering what was going on, I glanced up, not immediately seeing anything suspicious. Upon further inspection I noticed a crack of light coming from my doorway. It was partially open and I knew there was no way I’d left it open all weekend. I reached a hand out and grasped onto Patrick’s arm.

“I see it,” he told me. I began to move forward, but he held out an arm to stop me. “Someone might still be in there.” He handed me Dudley’s leash and began walking towards my apartment himself.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go either,” I said. He ignored me and continued on, walking through the door. I only hesitated for a moment before following him, cautiously.

I stepped foot into the apartment and felt the breath leave me when I saw what it now looked like. I could only see a little bit of the apartment, but what I could see was a disaster. My stuff was strewn all over the floor and everything that had been on the walls was now littered all over the floor.

I moved further into the apartment, clinging to the dog leashes like they were my lifeline. I was only met with further chaos and destruction when more of the apartment came into view. Cupboards were open and empty, the contents emptied all over the place. Glass was shattered in places and paintings destroyed. More shockingly, the words ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ were painted on the walls in colors I knew I had in the studio.

“Whoever did this is gone now,” Patrick told me, walking over.

I couldn’t form words as I dropped the leashes to the floor and surveyed what had once been my organized apartment. I made my way over to one of my paintings that was lying on the ground and bent down to pick it up. That was when the frame lying next to it came into view. I reached over and picked up the photo of Patrick and I. The glass had been shattered and I had been defaced in it.

“I’ll call the police,” I heard Patrick say.

I could only nod as I stood up and began to collect all the pictures I’d had in the apartment. All of them had my face destroyed in one way or another while anyone else in the picture was left alone. I began to feel sick as I looked between them to the words painted on my walls and tears built in my eyes.

“They’re on the way,” Patrick told me, taking the pictures from my hands. I heard him curse under his breath when he saw them. “It’ll be okay.”

I let him pull me into his arms and think he was comforting me, when he wasn’t even close to doing so. Eventually I pulled away and began to walk back to look into my studio and bedroom. Patrick caught up to me and took hold of my arm to stop me.

“We shouldn’t walk all over. It might contaminate evidence the police will need,” he said.

It made sense, but I could see in his eyes that there was something else. I nodded and he let go of my arm. He turned to walk out of the apartment figuring I would be behind him, but I wasn’t. I continued on and looked into the studio. It was just as destroyed as the rest of the apartment, but that was it. When I made it to my bedroom doorway I froze in place, my stomach tying itself into knots.

My chest started to tighten, and I struggled to keep oxygen flowing into my lungs. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way this should be happening. I looked in at my bed where the covers had been torn off and blood red paint had been splattered all over the mattress, a knife stabbed right into the center of the stain. My eyes travelled to the wall behind my bed and took in the words written there.

Be seeing you.

“Gabby, come on,” I faintly heard Patrick say.

I vaguely felt him lead me out of the room and my apartment as my head started to spin. I was gasping for breath now as the panic attack hit me with full force. Soon I was sitting on the floor, Patrick in front of me, holding on and trying to coax me out of it. Eventually I was able to breathe again, but I was in a fog.

I hardly noticed when the police arrived. Patrick left me sitting on the floor in the hallway with a neighbor who had come out to help with me. He led the police into the apartment so they could survey the scene. My stomach lurched at the thought. My apartment was now a crime scene.

Feeling like I needed to get out of there, I jumped up and ran towards the stairwell, not wanting to wait for the elevator. I heard someone yelling my name, but I continued to run, all the way down the stairs and until I was out the door. I bent over the bushes lining the walkway and threw up. Then I collapsed down onto the ground, the rain not bothering me at all this time.

“Miss, are you okay?” an officer asked me, following Patrick out the door. I just nodded, but kept my eyes trained on an invisible spot on the ground, fighting the urge to be sick again. “We need to ask you some questions.” I directed my gaze up to him and shook my head.

“Quentin Monahan,” I said. Patrick and the officer looked at me in confusion.

“I’m sorry?” the officer asked.

“Quentin Monahan. I’ll only talk to Officer Monahan,” I explained. I don’t know why I was requesting him, but for some reason I felt I could only talk to him. I heard the officer make a call before he told me Quentin was on his way.

A while later I was sitting in the lobby of the complex, a towel around my shoulders, Patrick beside me holding my hand. I glanced over at him and saw that he looked both worried and angry. Quentin was sitting beside me taking notes on my story. He was called away by another officer who whispered something to him, and Quentin looked grim as he walked back over to me.

“It’s been confirmed. Vince Watts is out of jail and he’s skipped out on his parole officer. They haven’t located him in a month,” Quentin explained. My stomach lurched again, and I closed my eyes, fighting back the sickness.

“How did this happen? I was supposed to be notified when he got out of jail. He beat and raped me! They said they’d tell me!” I yelled, panic beginning to settle in again.

“That’s the thing,” Quentin began. “The police in St. Louis claim they did.”

I was about to argue with him and tell him that I’d never heard anything from them when a new wave of nausea hit me. The phone call I’d received from Kaylen a few months before suddenly popped into my head. They couldn’t have. They just couldn’t have.

“When did he get out?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“I was told he was released back at the very beginning of June,” he responded.

New tears sprung up into my eyes and began to fall down my face. He was released at the same time Kaylen called me. The police had notified my family that Vince had been released and they hadn’t told me. My family knew where I was and they chose not to tell me that the man who had beaten and raped me was free. Even worse was that they hadn’t told the police where I was so they could notify me. Now he was in Chicago and looking for revenge.

“They knew,” I whispered to Patrick.

“Who knew?” he asked.

“My family. They knew and they chose not to tell me. They hate me so much they wouldn’t even warn me,” I choked out.

Patrick wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him. I could hear his voice saying something to me, but I didn’t hear the words. I couldn’t believe that they would do that to me. And yet I shouldn’t have been surprised. They had killed me off after all. Then I remembered something else Kaylen said. She said they had been arguing about what to do. That meant someone had wanted me to know. I couldn’t help but wonder which one of them that was.