See Tom Run (15 page)

“So how did that go?” he asked.

“Well, at first it was exciting. I mean, it was
pretty obvious that Kyle had exaggerated somewhat—his movie
production company wasn’t much more than an extra room in his
apartment. But I really didn’t care, I was just so thrilled to
actually be living in New York City! The people, the buildings, the
lights, Broadway, everything!”

“So his apartment was in Manhattan?”

“Well, no. It was actually in Brooklyn. But we were
only twenty minutes from midtown,” she added. “Anyway, I decided to
call my foster parents to let them know I was okay. They of course
wanted to know where I was and begged me to come back. I just told
them that I would keep in touch and not to worry about me. I felt
bad for them, but I really thought I was doing the right thing at
the time.”

“So how did you make ends meet? Did Kyle have a
regular job to pay the rent?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“He, uh, sort of had his own side business,” she
replied slowly.

“You mean making movies?”

“Well, he did that, too. But he got most of his money
from dealing.”

“Great,” Tom muttered.

“I’m not going to make any excuses for him. He was a
drug dealer and it got scary at times. I mean, strange people
bopping in at all hours wanting to score some weed or coke. I once
begged him to give it up because it was only a matter of time
before we got in trouble and he, uh, wasn’t very happy with
me.”

“Meaning?”

“He beat the crap out of me—I sure learned not to do
anything like that again!”

“Jesus, Erin. Why did you stay with him?”

“I don’t know—I was just young and ignorant. I really
believed that I could go somewhere there, model or something. And
besides that, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was stubborn and
did not want to go back to boring Cleveland. So I figured I was
better off where I was.

“It wasn’t always as bad as it sounds—at least not
for awhile, anyway. Kyle was a really good photographer and shot a
modeling portfolio for me. It was really good. I showed my book
around and went to a few go-sees. I almost got a couple of jobs,
too, but it is really competitive in the modeling industry.

“Kyle started getting pissed off that I wasn’t
getting hired anywhere so he thought of another way to bring some
money in.” She said this under her breath so softly that Tom could
barely hear her.

“What was that?”

“Porn. He started taking shots of me for the
internet.”

She saw the expression on Tom’s face and quickly
added, “I told you I wasn’t proud of my past! Now you hate me,
don’t you?”

“Erin, I do not hate you. And I wish I could say that
I’m surprised to be hearing all of this but I’m not. Kyle reminded
me of a very shady character who was quite capable of taking
advantage of a young impressionable fifteen year old if given half
the chance.”

Erin sighed. “Well, it gets worse,” she declared
dismally. “At first he shot stills of me and uploaded them to kiddy
porn sites. He had me, uh, get naked and pose in all kinds of
positions. Then he decided that that wasn’t enough, that he needed
to ‘spice things up a bit,’ as he put it.”

Tom braced himself. “How was that?”

“He had a friend, Gino, who started posing with me.
He had me—do stuff to him. It was disgusting! I told Kyle I didn’t
want to do those things!” she cried.

Tom reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder
comfortingly. “Erin, you don’t have to go on with this. It’s only
getting you upset.”

She gazed at him in earnest. “No, Tom, I want to tell
you this. I need to get this off of my chest and be up front with
you about me.”

“Okay, kiddo, it’s your call.”

“Kyle basically didn’t give a damn what I didn’t want
to do. You see, by this time he had gotten more and more into
drugs—not just selling them but taking them, too. He started doing
a lot of crack and his personality changed a lot for the worse. He
didn’t really care about me anymore, he just wanted to use me. I
realize that now, of course, but I was clueless back then. You see,
I was starting to do drugs, too. I was messed up half the
time.”

Tom thought: surprise, surprise. As much as he felt
bad about Kyle’s violent demise, right now he was glad the son of a
bitch was dead.

Erin went on. “Anyway, Kyle made me keep doing the
porn shots and apparently made good money off of them on the
websites. He was thrilled at how much money was rolling in ‘for
such little work,’ as he put it. But it wasn’t enough—he always
wanted more and to expand his horizons. So, he started shooting
porn movies.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“Yes, I was the star of them, too. There were a few
other guys he knew that joined in as time went by. Kyle would
create these retarded ‘screenplays’ where I would like, come home
from school, wearing my plaid skirt with my hair in pigtails, and
start watching television in my bedroom. I’d hear a knock at my
window and it would be some older guy staring in at me. I’d let him
inside and start undressing while he played with himself. It was so
stupid and disgusting!

“There were a couple of other girls he would
occasionally use in the videos, too. One of them was only ten or
eleven. That was when I finally drew the line. I told him flatly
that I was not going to be a part of this sick shit anymore!”

“What did you do?”

“Well, he of course beat the shit out of me. He said
that I would do what he wanted me to do or he would throw me out on
the street. I told him that was fine, that I was going to leave him
anyway. That made him even madder and he beat me some more. He beat
me so bad that I was knocked unconscious for hours. When I came to,
it was morning and Kyle wasn’t in the apartment. But he had tied me
to the bed and locked me in the bedroom.”

“What happened when he returned?” Tom asked.

She smiled. “I don’t know—I wasn’t there when he got
back!”

“You managed to escape?”

“Yeah! What Kyle didn’t know was that there was a
pair of scissors in the nightstand. I managed to get close enough
to work them out of the drawer and cut off the rope. Then, I
figured a way out of the bedroom. There was a fire escape outside
the window but Kyle either forgot about it or figured that even if
I did manage to untie myself, I would never have the nerve to climb
out onto the rickety thing. That’s where he misjudged me,” she
added.

“So I packed up a few things, took some money I had
stashed under the rug and left by way of the window. When I stepped
out onto the fire escape, it shook and squeaked like it was going
to collapse with me on it. But I was determined to get out of that
place one way or another, so I walked over to the edge, tossed my
bag onto the sidewalk and hang-dropped twelve feet onto the
concrete. I sprained my ankle, but at least I made it!”

“Good for you. Where did you go?”

“I didn’t waste any time—I took the subway to the
Greyhound station on Eighth Avenue and bought a one-way ticket to
Cleveland. It took every cent I had.”

“So you went back to your parents?”

“No. I knew that Kyle would come looking for me so I
stayed with my best friend, Courtney for awhile to figure out what
I was going to do next.”

“But what about your foster parents? Why didn’t you
simply go back to them and let them take care of Kyle in case he
ever tried to track you down?”

“You know what he’s capable of! The man was a raging
druggie by then and would have done anything to force me to go back
to New York with him. The last thing I wanted to do was put my
parents in the same dangerous position you had been in.”

Tom realized that she had indeed been very wise
keeping her parents out of the picture. “So what did you do?”

“I needed money so I called my foster parents just to
see if they would loan me some. That was the stupidest thing I
could’ve done, obviously. They begged me to come home, but I told
them I couldn’t, that I needed to live my own life. After I
realized that they weren’t going to give me any money, I told mom
goodbye and that I loved her. That’s when she broke down and cried,
then told me that someone had been looking for me earlier that
day.”

“Kyle,” Tom said.

“Yeah. He’d actually had the nerve to call the house
and ask for me! I couldn’t believe it!”

“So what happened next?”

“Courtney had a friend she knew who offered to drive
me to Columbus if I wanted to go. I didn’t have much choice since
Kyle was in town and hot on my tracks so I said yes. Courtney gave
me all the money she had—seventy-five dollars—and Matt picked me up
later that afternoon. And that’s how I ended up in Columbus. I
stayed with a friend of Matt’s who went to Ohio State until I could
find a job and get on my feet. I eventually earned enough to get my
own apartment in Worthington and the rest as they say is
history.”

“So why did Kyle try to find you again after all of
this time, you suppose?” Tom asked.

Erin shook her head. “The guy was sick, that’s all I
can tell you. He got so strung out on drugs that he just suddenly
lost it and decided that he had to get me back—apparently to start
exploiting me again, judging by our conversation on the way to New
York. All I know for sure is that there was no way he was ever
going to let me leave him again. He would’ve definitely killed me
first.”

Well, at least you don’t have to
worry about that now,
Tom thought with more
than a little satisfaction.

They lapsed into silence. Tom thought about Erin and
wondered how she had managed to remain so together after all of the
baggage she had been carrying most of her young life. He thought
back to the way Kyle had spoken to her—his condescending and
demeaning attitude toward her and total lack of respect. How could
someone put up with someone like him as long as she had? And how
could someone have the gall to imply that she was a slut when in
fact Erin had done nothing but what she been forced to do at his
hand?

But perhaps the most troubling aspect about Erin
Myers was that she literally had no family now, and never really
had. Her foster families had been either unwilling to make any
sacrifices to keep her or dysfunctional and abusive. What would it
be like to never know who your biological parents were? Or if you
had any siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents somewhere out
there?

It all seemed inconceivable to Tom. He tried to
imagine going through life being tossed into random homes with
random people who were expected to pretend to love and care about
you as if you were their own but in reality lacked the real,
rock-solid commitment that true blood parents possessed. Granted,
it was better than nothing he supposed, but there were no
guarantees and plenty of risks, considering what Erin’s second
adoptive “father” had done to her.

Tom’s thoughts shifted to his own family and he
wondered where they were now. He stared out at the dark highway,
void of any traffic just as it had been the entire return trip, and
realized that most likely nothing had changed since leaving
Columbus the day before. Peg and the kids would still be gone. The
rest of the world would still be gone …

And all that would be left in the world would be he
and Erin.

CHAPTER 14

It was 8:20 PM when Tom pulled off the I-71 exit at
Morse Road. They hadn’t seen a single vehicle the entire trip and
Columbus looked the same as the day before except for the snow that
had begun melting away in the warmer temperature.

Tom was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go
home and sleep. He would of course gladly trade that in to see his
family again. Erin had mentioned that she would like to go to her
apartment to get some clothes, so Tom drove past Indianola toward
High Street.

“It looks as dead as ever, Tom,” she said
quietly.

“Yeah, I know. But I don’t think either of us is too
surprised.”

“Nope, I’m not. After all, when you drive thirteen
hours and don’t see a single car on the road, you don’t expect to
arrive here and see all kinds of people milling around.”

“I wish I could say that I’m getting use to any of
this, but that would be a lie,” Tom declared.

“God, do I need a shower! I’ll even take a cold one—I
have never felt so funky in my entire life!” Erin exclaimed.

“The good news is that we have a gas hot water heater
at the house, so we can at least enjoy a hot shower.”

“Awesome—I can’t wait!”

Erin told Tom how to get to her apartment, which
wasn’t far from downtown Worthington. He parked in front of the
four-story brick structure and kept the car running.

“You want to come in? It will just take me a minute
or two,” Erin said.

“Yes, I do. It’s going to be dark as pitch
inside.”

“Forgot about that.”

Tom grabbed the flashlight and followed Erin up the
walk. Erin led the way inside and up to the second floor. Her
apartment door was still wide open—the way Kyle had apparently left
it.

“Can I borrow the flashlight? I need to find my
clothes,” she said.

“Sure,” Tom replied, handing it to her.

Tom stood near the door and watched Erin as she made
her way across the small living room to her bedroom. He heard her
rummaging around for several moments before she came out carrying a
backpack. She went into the bathroom, stuffed some items into the
backpack then rejoined Tom.

“Now take me to where that hot shower awaits!” she
smiled.

Back in the Jeep, Tom yawned for what had to be the
twentieth time since leaving New York. He tried to recall the last
time he’d slept and realized it had been the night before while
parked in front of Macy’s—about forty-five minutes worth in all
before being rudely awakened by Chappy and his cronies.