Haunted(35)

“Fucker has balls, doesn’t he?” I shuffled through more pictures.

“Yes sir, he does,” Chief Moses agreed.

One picture showed a knife on Beth’s nipple, and I saw one where he laid his hard penis on her cheek.

On her cheek!

I threw my head back wondering how the hell she hadn’t waken up from this. I threw down the pictures.

“Mr. Reed, you need to look at the last two.”

I grabbed the stack of photos again. There were two more pictures of Andrew’s hand grabbing Beth’s breast, and right beside her I saw myself, sleeping.

“Mother f*cker son of a bitch!” I was f*cking there and slept right through it. I felt furious! I jammed the photos back into the bag and went for bag three. Panties. I wasn’t shocked anymore. My head cocked back and I stared at images on the ceiling. This was my own personal hell.

“Mr. Reed, please be careful with the evidence. There is evidence on the underwear. Actually there are five more pair just like this. I didn’t think you’d need to see all of them.”

“You have to be f*cking kidding me. Why did a bunch of rapists kidnap me and Beth?”

“Mr. Reed, you have to understand that when these criminal types get together, rape is not an uncommon thing. It did not appear that Andrew wanted to rape your wife because frankly he had plenty of opportunity to do so. He looked more like a voyeur.”

“Yeah, that’s not making me feel much better right now.”

“Oh, but it should. Between you and me, I don’t know if Mrs. Reed could have handled another violation. I am amazed at how well she looks now.”

The guy had a point. Part of me wondered that if I hadn’t been such an ass to her this morning, would she have looked a lot better?

“Is that all he left behind in the attic?” I didn’t know if I could take any more.

“That’s all the sensitive evidence that we have.” Then he opened a notebook and read. “The other evidence was three knives, four dolls, three masks, two dildos, six pair of ladies’ underwear, one roll of duct tape, rope, a jar of urine, a bottle of ether, and two piles of feces, a bag of Cheetos, three magazines, headphones, a flashlight, and, ironically, an Nintendo DS with the name Joey on the back with permanent marker.”

“Wow, just wow!” I said shaking my head in disbelief.

“Mr. Reed, since you and Mrs. Lowe got married, I’m going to leave it up to you if you want to tell her what we found. I am sure that it will come out in the trial, but why worry her now? It is totally up to you. By the way, congratulations on your wedding, I am actually very happy for the two of you. To find something good in all this is truly a blessing.”

I removed the purple gloves and threw them in the trash. I shook the chief’s hand.

“Chief Moses, thank you for showing me this and not showing her. I love her more than life itself. I don’t want to make her worry needlessly. Actually, knowing Beth, she would be more upset about her son’s Nintendo DS.”

“She sounds like a great mom.” He smiled at me.

Chief Moses and I stood outside of Conference Room One for two minutes before Beth walked out. When I looked at her, I was reminded how lucky I am that she wasn’t hurt. I was actually grateful that she would never have to know what happened while she was asleep. But I didn’t think I was ever going to let her out of my sight again. If I had to kill Andrew again, that was fine. But this time, it would take!

I was so pissed and then I looked at Beth. Without her makeup and wearing Berg’s ball cap, she looked too damn cute to stay mad.

I would keep her safe. I promised and so far I had failed. Not anymore! Step one: secure home with gates to keep horny f*cking voyeurs out. Step two: security 24/7 until Andrew was caught. Step three: Joey needed to go to a private school with great security and two bodyguards to boot. I would keep her safe. This time I would not fail!

“Hey, babe, let’s go buy you a new house.”

She looked at me and held out her hand, which I gladly accepted.

We walked out to the vehicle and I opened the door for her. I felt extremely lucky to have Beth, safe and sound, with me. I’d acted like a dick yesterday and this morning. I turned to face her.

“Beth, do you have any idea how much I love you?” I looked directly into her eyes as I spoke the words.

“I hope it is half as much as I love you!”

We both leaned in as I put my hands to her face, my thumb pads tracing her cheekbones.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I said. “We just got married. Yeah, we had a couple of shitty days, but let’s try to put that behind us. You want to know something weird?”

“Yeah?” She smiled at me.

“I am still happier with all this shit going on than not being with you. I’m still happier fighting with you than being on the road without you. Beth, you are everything to me and I love you so damn much!”

“Oh, Roman…” She leaned over and pulled my head to hers. Then she kissed me hard.

Shit! When she handled me rough, it turned me on. I started to get hard in my sweatpants, and the next thing I knew, I felt a hand encase me.

“Let’s go back to the hotel. Aren’t we technically still on our honeymoon? I feel the need to start practicing making that baby that we’ve talked about.” Then I leaned in and kissed the woman I loved. She giggled into my mouth. Finally, we were back to being us.