Retribution

Chapter: 9

“Now,” Kate began. “Let me take you back…..” She walked over to a drawer and pulled out an old newspaper. She found the relevant page and held it up for Grissom to see. The headline….
“Shooting outside courthouse after CSI’s testimony puts nail in coffin.”
He saw a picture of himself, wearing dark shades standing outside the courthouse building. He frowned.
“What does this have to do with anything?” He managed to mumble, his hand agonising. He began to feel nauseous and light headed.
Kate paced around the room, making him more nervous, if that were possible.
Kate continued summing up the article…..”The police were quick to act yesterday after an unnamed female opened fire in the car park of the Las Vegas Courthouse. Quickly drawing fire after she had only managed to fire two shots, taking her down with a bullet to the abdomen. It is suspected that she was aiming for CSI Gil Grissom, although this is unconfirmed as yet. The CSI, after giving his evidence for the prosecution earlier that day had returned for the verdict of the accused: John Barton, a local doctor, on trial for the rape and murder of a 35 year old female in Vegas’s red light district last month. It is yet unconfirmed as to what the motive behind the shooting was but the shooter is said to be in a stable condition under police guard at Dessert Palm hospital, awaiting questioning. Luckily no one was hurt during the shooting. Both Dr Grissom and the police have declined to comment on the matter.”
Grissom was confused, still.
Kate moved back in front of him. “No bell’s ringing yet?” Her tone had changed. Snappy.
“That…was a long..time ago,” he struggled to say. “Nothing ever came of it…the shooter wouldn’t tell the police anything…” He grimaced at the pain again, gritting his teeth. “They thought it was just….a random shooting, no intended victim…“
Kate laughed sarcastically. “No intended victim!" Now her eyes turned dark and fierce.
“Do you happen to remember the name of the shooter Grissom?” She asked coldly.
Grissom shook his head quickly. “Look..what does?…,” he began but stopped as he saw Kate grip the bottom of her blouse and lift it to show her stomach.
His mouth dropped as he saw a bullet scar on her abdomen. DING DONG!!
“Yyyou….were the shooter?” He stuttered putting two and two together.
“Bingo!” She hollered.
“Why….?”
Kate dropped her blouse quickly. Her blood began to boil.
“Why?” She screamed “Fucking why? Because of you my father was found guilty of killing a fucking Las Vegas Whore! A fucking whore Grissom! You sent my father to death row for a god damn prostitute!”
Grissom shook his head not understanding. “But he only had 2 sons…”
Kate span around quickly and grabbed a knife from the table, she launched it at Grissom’s throat. He tensed, his eyes bulging out of his head as he felt the cool steel press into his skin. She could feel him shaking.
Kate calmed a little and carefully ran the blade across his throat, from left to right and vice versa. Watching the fear on his face made her grin, enjoying every second of his tourment. She stopped and pointed the tip of the blade upwards into the centre of his throat just under his chin. Slightly puncturing the skin, causing him to inhale sharply and wince.
“He also had a daughter…,” she said steadying her breathing, trying to calm herself. “That would be me..”
Grissom didn’t move. Said nothing, did nothing. He dare not. He’d realised that every comment he made seem to agitate her more. So he remained silent, not wanting to entice her any further. He’d lifted his head the tiny bit he could under his bonds to try and get a little relief from the blade in this throat.
Kate sighed a little composing herself. She removed the knife from his throat and pulled a chair over that was sitting next to the table, sitting slowly, staring into his eyes.
She began her story…….
“ I’d only known him for two months before you took him away from me…..” Grissom watched her intently. Listening to every word, doing nothing to infuriate her again.
“…I remember being happy at first, my mother, my father and my little sister was born was I was 4 years old….”, Grissom noticed a serious change in Kate’s tone now. Kind of happy, but spookily so. Reminiscence could be a good thing but his gut told him this wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“….But then things changed. I think I was 6 or 7 years old when he first laid into me. I hurt for weeks after. The bruises. He worked, my mother worked just to keep the family alive. They were not well paid. My mother didn’t have a clue what was happening, and I couldn’t tell her. It would have destroyed her.”
“I noticed a serious change in my “fathers” behaviour not long after he first started hitting me“…. Grissom noticed the emphasis on the word father…
“ He drank a lot and then he started touching me.”, Kate’s tone now changed, bitterness sweeping through the room.
“This continued well into high school. I was 14 when I met Bobby. He was so sweet.” Grissom noticed as she seemed to drift off, a small smile illuminating across her lips. “He was a bad boy, always in trouble but he seemed to love everything about me. He fell for me big time, said I was the only person to look at him like I really cared. I tamed him a little. He lived in a bad foster home and had many unpleasant experiences himself but the day I confided in him about what my father was doing to me…..well, that probably made me who I am right now. I can still hear his faint gargling cry as I stood watching Bobby holding his head under the water while he splashed around in the bath tub, intoxicated from the amount of alcohol he’d consumed earlier. I didn’t even try and stop him. The police put it down to accidental death, and Bobby had saved me from a monster. 8 years of torture. I can still feel Bobby holding me just after, telling me he wouldn’t ever allow anyone to hurt me again, and he would always be there for me, forever. I loved him and he loved me and we spent as much time together as we could. 2 years later we were engaged. Things were hard, but we did our best. My mother had been sick for a while. Then we found out why. She had cancer. She’d been given 6 months when she told me about my real father. My mother had left him when she was pregnant. He didn’t even know I existed. The beast who had abused me for so long was not my real father. I was so bitter, but in a way relieved. I now had the chance to find my real dad and possibly a future for us away from the hell hole we were in.”
Grissom breathed deeply. He knew there was no happy ending approaching.
“I decided to track him down. I can’t deny I was nervous. If he rejected me, I didn’t know if I’d be able to cope with that. He worked for a local Las Vegas practice. A Doctor, and he stood in very high regard. He was married and had 2 sons. I remember shaking when I first walked into his surgery. But I can feel the tight hug he gave me after I’d told him. It was strange, but it felt so good. He actually wanted to know me. All about me. It was like he’d been given a new lease of life. But he said we had to keep it a secret, for the time being. There were complications with his family and his reputation. He said we should take it slow and break the news when the time was right, when he could find the right moment. I was happy with that.” She clicked out of her happy moment and Grissom saw her eyes turn dark once more…
“ We had only a little time together before he was arrested, before you took him from me,” her voice raised slightly. “On trail for the rape and murder of a hooker. I went to visit him and he opened his heart to me….his life was lie, he worked for his wife’s father. She was the rich one and his wife controlled everything that he did. He couldn’t even take a pee without her say so. She controlled all the money and the children took precedence over him every time. They got everything, he got nothing. He worked to eat but that’s about all he got. Including in the bedroom. So…he started to look elsewhere. But the god damn whore he had got to know decided she wanted a bit more of the pie and said she would tell his wife everything unless he started giving her money and lots of it. He told me he didn’t mean to do it, but he just snapped one night and….well”, she looked down at Grissom with a fierce piercing look, “you found out the rest.”
She looked back down at Grissom’s hand.
“I think it’s time I stopped that bleeding for you honey, we‘ll have to finish the rest of the story later.”
Grissom looked down, the blood pool on the floor had grown and was still growing.
Kate stood and went to the table. Grissom watched as Kate picked up an object, it looked like a blow torch. As she lit it and the blue fiery flame appeared Grissom knew he was in trouble. She placed a thick glove on her hand and picked up a piece of metal. Similar to a cattle prod but with no branding, just a flat part of metal on the end about an inch square. She held it in the flame until it glowed red, smouldering.
“Oh shit!”, Grissom mumbled, he knew what coming……