Don't Make Me Beautiful (44 page)

“And I’ll be right behind you,” says Helen, standing up to move around the table.

“I’ll stay home and bake some cookies,” says Agnes.

Nicole smiles at her neighbor over Helen’s shoulder as Helen takes her into a hard embrace.
 
“Thank you, Helen.
 
I knew you’d understand.”

“Time to kick some ass, sister,” she says.

“Yeah,” Nicole agrees.
 
“Time to kick some serious ass.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

BRIAN IS IN A PATIENT room across the hall from where John is being kept in the hospital.
 
There’s a police guard outside the monster’s door that will remain there until the DA is satisfied that Nicole’s attorney is wrong about the whereabouts of Kitten, and there’s a whole contingent of law enforcement personnel in this room with Brian getting ready to hopefully record John’s confession.
 
The equipment rests on the empty patient bed in the middle of the room.

“So you’re sure this is going to work?” Brian asks Nicole’s attorney.
 
They both have headphones on that are plugged into the recording unit.
 
This equipment will pick up the signal coming from the microphone under Nicole’s shirt.
 
It’s just like the movies, but it’s the first time Brian’s ever felt the very real panic of someone he cares about confronting one of the bad guys.
 
In that way, it’s not like the movies at all.

“Nicole’s affidavit describing her baby’s head after birth and the coroner’s report was enough to get the court order for John’s DNA, but this confession would just nail it,” explains Gary. “At least it would make it a lot easier to put him behind bars and give Nicole some breathing room.”

“So, confession, DNA,
bam
.
 
Done.”
 
Brian nods at the beauty of it.
 
If only the asshole would just tell the truth, Nicole could be home free.

“Yeah, he’s toast.”

“What about entrapment or whatever?
 
Isn’t setting him up like this going to make it impossible to use this stuff in court?”

“You watch too much TV.
 
The only way it’s entrapment is if it’s a police officer in there.
 
Citizens can’t entrap other citizens.”
 
He grins.
 
“I love the law.”

“I can tell,” Brian says, trying not to roll his eyes, but glad the guy knows what he’s talking about.

Brian looks around at the people in the room.
 
There are three uniformed police officers, a couple detectives, Gary, and another attorney from Gary’s firm.
 
He can’t see Helen, but she’s close, standing just outside John’s room as moral support for Nicole.
 
She’s promised everyone she’ll stay out of John’s room, and the guard at the monster’s door makes Brian feel confident she’ll keep that promise.

As soon as Nicole’s voice comes over the wire, the room filled with law enforcement personnel goes silent.
 
The four people with headphones on stare at the recording unit as if it’s the one doing the talking.

“Hello, John.”
 
Nicole is calm.
 
Assured.
 
She sounds totally in control, even though Brian knows inside she must be quaking with fear.
 
This man is the living, breathing embodiment of her worst nightmares.
 
Anyone in her position would be terrified.
 
Brian admires her even more, hearing her be so strong in the face of all of that.

The sound of rustling sheets is her first response.

“Can you hear me?” she asks.

“Who’s that?” a sleepy male voice says.

“It’s me.
 
Nikki.”

“What’re you doing here?” John asks in a slightly less sleepy voice.
 
“Haunting my ass?”
 
He chuckles.

“I just came to ask you about Kitten.
 
I’m not a ghost.
 
I’m real.”

He coughs, and when he speaks, his voice is less blurred.
 
“Kitten?
 
What kitten?”

“Our baby, John.
 
The one you said you buried in the backyard.
 
Remember?”

He sighs and clears his throat but doesn’t answer.
 
The sound of more rustling sheets fills the headphones.

“What did you do with her, John?”

“I already fucking told you, Nikki.
 
She died.
 
I buried her.
 
End of story.”
 
He coughs again.
 
“Fuck, man.
 
My throat is so dry.
 
Get me some water, would ya?”

“I will in a minute.
 
Answer my questions first.”

“I need some pain meds.
 
My leg is fucking killing me.
 
Tell the nurse to give me some meds.”
 
He’s almost whining.

“They cycled you off.
 
They said you aren’t getting anymore.
 
They need you lucid.”
 
She doesn’t tell him why, but Brian knows from what the doctors and the attorney said, if this confession is going to hold up in court, it has to be made not under the influence of drugs.
 
The doctor’s said it wouldn’t hurt him to be off them for a little while.

“They cycled me off for
what?”
 
He spits the words out.

“I think you’re going to get charged with killing her.
 
They can’t find her, John.
 
They think you murdered her and hid the body.”

“Oh, fuuuuck that.
 
No goddamn way are they pinning that on me.”
 
He snorts arrogantly.

“They have evidence.
 
Blood.
 
Tools with blood on them.”

“I never fucking did anything like that and you know it.
 
I have proof.”
 
He mumbles something else, but it’s unintelligible.

Nicole’s voice belies her anger.
 
She’s losing her cool.
 
“I know that you broke eighteen bones in my body,
John
.
 
I counted them in my chart after they x-rayed my whole skeleton.
 
I know you cracked my skull.
 
You broke my ribs and my arm and my ankle.
 
You bruised my kidneys and ruptured one of my lungs.
 
You’re a killer, John, just admit it.”

His voice is louder and clearer.
 
She must be standing closer to him to be picking up his signal this way.
 
“Don’t fucking call me that!
 
I didn’t kill her,
you
did!
 
You killed your chance at being a mother with your own stupidity, you fucking idiot.”

“I didn’t.
 
She was alive when I saw her last.
 
And she had beautiful black hair.”

Brian grits his teeth, pulsing out his jaw, hoping the douchebag will fall for it.

He laughs at her.
 
“You’re so goddamned stupid.
 
I’m glad you don’t have her.
 
You’d make a terrible mother.”

“Why do you say that, John?
 
Because after all this time, and after only seeing her for a few minutes, I still remember every single solitary detail about her?”
 
She’s taunting him.
 
Brian wants to hug her for her genius.

John’s laughing and then moaning with the pain it apparently causes.
 
“No, Nikki.
 
No … that’s not it.
 
I’m laughing because you’re so delusional.”

“I’m not delusional.
 
You
are.”

“Oh yeah?
 
How so?”
 
His voice is deadly calm.

“You deluded yourself for years that I found you attractive.
 
That I stayed because I wanted to, when we both know I stayed because you kept me prisoner and terrorized me.”

“You liked it, you crazy bitch.
 
That’s why you stayed.
 
You liked me forcing you.
 
You liked making me mad.
 
You did it on purpose.
 
Nobody could be as klutzy and sloppy as you are by accident.”

Her voice is even calmer than his when she responds.
 
It raises the hair on the back of Brian’s neck as he listens.
 
“No, John.
 
No one likes being beaten.
 
Not me, and not my baby.
 
I did everything I could to make you happy.
 
I cleaned, I scrubbed, and I cleaned all over again.
 
I tried to be pretty, I tried to be smart, I tried to do
everything
I possibly could so you’d walk through that door at the end of the day and tell me you loved me and put your arms around me and treat me like a
person
.
 
That’s all I ever wanted … to be treated like a human being.
 
But all you ever did was treat me like an
animal
.
 
I’m nothing to you.
 
I never was.”

“You’re nothing to anyone.
 
That’s why you should never be a mother.
 
That’s why you never will be as long as I have anything to say about it.”

It’s the last thing Brian hears before a bunch of loud, weird sounds come over the recording device.

“Gaaarr … !
 
Phhaarrrr …!
 
Geeeet …!!
 
Heelllp!”
 
Crashing and banging occurring right near her microphone make Brian yank the headphones off his ears in an attempt to save his eardrums.

“Go!
 
He’s got her!” yells one of the officers in the room, bursting through the door with a shout.

Brian’s jack pulls out of the main unit, and the voices from John’s room come out over a speaker.
 
Brian hears them as he’s trying to get out of the room but is blocked by all the bodies in his way.
 
“Move!
 
Move!” he yells, but no one’s listening.
 
He can’t get out to save her.

“Let go, ma’am!
 
Let go of him!” yells a voice inside John’s room.

“I’m going to kill him!” Nicole shrieks.

Bangs and crashes are followed by John’s yelling. “You crazy bitch!
 
See!
 
I told you!
 
You’ll never find her!
 
Never!
 
You hear me!
 
She’s with a good mother, not a monster like you!
 
You fucking freak!” Any sanity he might have had sounds as if it’s abandoned him.
 
He laughs maniacally.

By the time Brian makes it out of the room, Nicole is being dragged down the hall by two police officers, bawling her eyes out and struggling to get free.
 
He loses sight of her as she rounds the far corner.

Chapter Sixty-Three

NICOLE IS SITTING IN THE plastic surgeon’s operating suite, and Brian is in the chair next to the exam table.
 
She runs her tongue over her new dental work, thrilled she no longer has holes in her smile.

“Are you
absolutely
sure you want to do this?” he asks her, leaning forward so he can hold her hands in his.

She nods.
 
“I’m sure.
 
When they find her, I want to look like a normal person.
 
I don’t want to scare my daughter when she first lays eyes on me.”
 
She swallows her excitement and fear down.
 
“Did you hear anything else this morning while I was in here?”

“It could be a while, you know,” Brian says, his eyes going soft.
 
“Gary called me just before I got in here, though.
 
John still isn’t talking. According to Gary, John’s attorney should be advising him to fess up on the location of your daughter, but who knows if that’s what he’s doing or not.
 
Maybe he’s telling him to keep his mouth shut.
 
Regardless, John’s still refusing to say a word about Kitten or what he did with her.
 
We still don’t know if she’s alive or … well, you know…”

Nicole refuses to consider that her daughter is not out there alive somewhere, waiting to be found.
 
“For right now, it’s enough to know that it’s not her in that grave.
 
That gives me hope.
 
I believe he’s arrogant enough that he wouldn’t have killed her.
 
She’s his property in his mind.
 
If she survived, he gave her to someone who would take care of her. Maybe that lady in the picture. We just need to find out who that is.
 
I won’t stop until I do.”

“I know you won’t.
 
And neither will I.
 
I promise you that.”
 
Brian squeezes her hands, and then leans forward to kiss her on the lips.
 
He stays there after their lips part and says, “This is the last time I’m going to kiss your lips how they are or see you looking like this.” He searches her face, like he’s trying to memorize it.

“I hope you can forget it completely after my surgery.”

He shakes his head as he backs away.
 
“I don’t want to forget any of it.
 
I fell in love with you looking like this.
 
It’s who you were to me the day I met you, and you might think it’s ugly, but I don’t see you that way.”

“You’re lying to make me feel better.”
 
She says the words but she knows they’re not true.
 
She just wants to hear him say the things that make her feel like a million bucks, that make her want to change a little so she can be seen with him out in public without drawing grimaces from strangers.
 
Where she used to hate his compliments because they felt like lies, she’s now grown to love them, believing he really feels that way about her.
 
Trust is a wonderful thing; it opens the heart and lets in the light that chases the dark away.