Chapter Fifteen

Giulia's Release

 

When Glen finally came to, he saw that Rachel had as well.  She had cut the girl down, helped her get her jeans onto her swollen, bleeding legs and had her wrapped in her jacket.  They sat huddled in a corner, Rachel holding her protectively, like a mother would protect her children.  Tears soaked both their faces.  Glen stood up slowly, rubbing his eyes back into focus.  Miraculously, the girl had survived. 

 

“Stay right here.” he commanded, “Don’t move or do anything.  I’ll be right back.”  Glen scaled the steps, opened the door and entered a large, plush dining room.  The kitchen was straight ahead.  He paused to check his pocket and pulled out a new strip of film.  All the images were of the woman downstairs, enduring horrors that his eyes couldn’t believe.  She had been bound by the wrists and ankles to a large four post bed.  The remainder of the strip showed her completely naked, tied up in various compromising positions as she was repeatedly raped, beaten and sodomized.  Examining the frames more closely, Glen could make out one image of the man’s face, smiling as he sodomized her with the barrel of a shotgun.  His face was gaunt, drawn in with sunken cheeks and a small moustache.  His shoulders were slight, sloping down severely from his long, thin neck.  It was definitely not Kevin Buchanan.  This woman had gone through this before.

 

He stuffed the film back into his pocket and began searching through the kitchen cabinets.  He was quickly able to locate a mop bucket and some dish towels stored below the sink.  He filled the bucket with water and headed back downstairs, determined to clean the woman up before exposing her to the outside.  A hospital would be necessary to treat her wounds and infections, but they could at least wash her enough to give her back some dignity first. 

 

Rachel insisted on washing the blood and excrement from her body, careful not to get any more into the open gashes on her arms, back and legs.  Even the warmth from the water on her body could not stop the woman from shaking.  She was in shock.  Rachel worked quickly, wanting to get her covered again as soon as possible. 

 

“It’ll be OK now, you’re safe now honey.  We’re going to take care of you, get you to a hospital real soon.”  Rachel’s voice was soft, compassionate.  “Can you tell me your name sweetie?”

“Giu…Giulia…Giulia Moretti.” She stammered, lips quivering violently.

“Alright Giulia, you just hang in there a little longer.  Let me get my coat back on you, you’re all cleaned up now.  I’ve got you honey, I’ve got you.”  Rachel embraced her again, trying to warm her as much as she could.  “Help is on the way.  They’ll be here any minute.”

“WHAT?”  Glen glared down at Rachel.  “I thought we agreed that we would take of this without the cops!”

“Not the cops, a rescue squad.” she spat back at him.  He had never seen her angry before.

“But…but the police will be here too.  They’ll think I did this.”

“I’m pretty sure Giulia can set them straight on that.”

 

Sirens screamed into the driveway and Glen ran upstairs to let them in.  He led the EMT’s downstairs to Giulia, who was still trembling and shivering uncontrollably.  They proceeded to wrap her in a foil blanket that would help contain most of her body heat.  While watching the rescue personnel carefully roll her onto a stretcher, Glen could hear more sirens coming from outside.  He ripped the newspaper from the window and peered outside just as Detective Ripley was stepping out of his car.  “S**t” he swore, scratching his head and pacing back and forth.  “I can’t deal with this guy right now.”

 

Tires screeched to a stop outside, and Glen looked back out the window to see Kevin racing to the house.  The door of the Coronet was wide open and the car was still running.  So was Kevin.  He almost fell on his way down to the basement.  “What the f**k is going on here?”  He screamed violently.  “What are all you people doing in my house?” 

 

Ripley, who had apparently followed Kevin downstairs, grabbed him by both shoulders and slammed him into the wall.  “Forget about all the people,” Ripley pointed down toward Giulia, “what the f**k is THAT girl doing in your house?”  Both Kevin and the detective set their eyes on Giulia’s limp body lying on the stretcher. 

 

“I…I can explain that.”  Kevin muttered under his breath.

“Try me.”  Ripley dared him to continue.

“I’m a therapist.  Giulia is a client.”

“A client that you abuse in your basement?”

“I know it looks bad.”  Kevin pleaded, “But please let me explain.”

“Giulia had been kidnapped.  She was physically and sexually abused for twelve days before you guys found her.  Check your files; I’m sure all the paperwork is there.”

Ripley slammed his clenched fist against the wall, inches from Kevin’s ear.  “So you figured you’d do it again.  She hasn’t suffered enough yet?”

“No, no, it’s not that at all.  Giulia is part of a pilot program being tested through my firm.  This is all legitimate.  I have the waivers she signed filed in my office.”

“And what exactly are you piloting, Mr. Buchanan?”

“It’s a radical, experimental treatment called reenactment therapy.  The premise is that by having the subject relive parts of their experience in an environment they know to be safe, they will progress faster toward recovery.  All we want is for Giulia to feel safe again.  To give her back what was stolen from her.”

Giulia, being carried upstairs to the waiting ambulance, softly spoke, “It’s true, everything he’s saying, it’s all true.  I was stupid.  I thought this program would help me cope, to get past what happened to me.  I was stupid.  It’s all just a stupid mistake.  This is my fault, not Dr. Buchanan’s.”

 

Ripley called an officer over to handcuff Kevin anyway.  “What’s going on?” he pleaded, “She told you this was all kosher; it’s part of her therapy.  I can prove that she agreed to take part in this.”

“This, my friend, is you being arrested for vehicular manslaughter, sir.”  Ripley’s tone turned professional, taunting Kevin with its blatant sarcasm.

“What…what are you talking about?”

“Your car, Mr. Buchanan.  You ran a woman off the road, tumbling her over the guardrail, resulting in her death.  You then complicated matters, not only by leaving the scene, but also by trying to cover up the damage to your vehicle.  We had an anonymous witness describe the events to us.”

“I’m not anonymous anymore.”  Rachel spoke up.  “I made that call to 911.  I didn’t realize how bad she was injured.  I should have run down to her, stayed until the ambulance arrived.  Maybe I could have gotten her out, saved her life.  I’ll live with that guilt for the rest of my life.”  Rachel began to cry.

 

Ripley, now staring accusingly at Glen, said “I still can’t figure out what you have to do with any of this, Buxley, how you seem to be everywhere we investigate before we are, but I will.”  Looking at the officer, he commanded “Arrest him too, breaking and entering.  A couple hours of interrogation and I’ll get straight to the bottom of all of this.”

 

Glen peacefully extended his arms, awaiting the handcuffs.  As the officer led him up the stairs and out to the car, he thought to himself, “I guess everybody’s guilty of something."

          

Reviews

[Kinau]

Beautiful read, I really enjoyed it.

[AlleyCat34]

Ok I read the rest of it, my only thing is could you have expanded more? While it was well written and very tense there at the end, Could you have drawn it out more? It felt like a jack in the box ending. If that makes any sense? I did that to my first book, only it was Stan in the box, literally. I ended up rewriting the end and almost tripling the amount of words I used and it turned out beautifully. I think there is much potential for this and I would love to see it grow a bit more. If you want specifics i would be more then happy to work with you on it! Thanks for an awesome read!

[Alexander W. Quinn]

That was definetly not expected. Therapy! The craziest part of it is that this could soooo be true. You hear about shady stuff like this all of the time.
Having Kevin still arrested is a great outcome, kinda 'CSI / Law & Order' meets 'Bones'. But poor Glen! You gotta throw something in there! I can see this as a movie in my head, with the hard a*s detective telling the motley relucant hero something like "i'll be keeping my eye on you" or something like that. Poor guy!
All in all, this was an excellant story, one that could be left as is or easily expanded from short novella to a decent sized novel. With only a little work, I can easily see this sitting a bookstore shelf...and a sequel, oh yeah!
Great read! Thank you for writing it and sharing it. :)