Chapter Three

Kimberly sat alone in her hotel room trying to stop crying. She knew that she was going to be verbally attacked when she reached Tommy's house, but she didn't think she would be affected like this. She'd usually been pretty good at controlling her emotions; never letting anyone see her cry, but she'd lost it in front of Tommy. Maybe it was because it was Tommy that had started the fight or because of how she felt about him. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Tommy had always been the one to defend her, to fight for her and now he didn't. At this point, she didn't care. She changed into black Victoria's Secret V-neck camisole and elastic waist boy shorts with side slits and the Victoria's Secret logo in pink on it. She curled up in the middle of her bed and cried herself to sleep.

Tommy padded down he stairs into the Dino Thunder Lab and took a seat in front of the control panel.

"Do you even know what you're looking for," Jason asked.

"Not really, but I figure that I can search her name and see what comes up," Tommy answered.

"Come on Jase," Aisha, the second Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger who replaced the original, Trini, said, "The girl is a two time Olympic Gold Medalist, you can Google her name and find just about anything."

"Yes, Google," Billy, the original Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger, said, "Wonderful invention."

"Well, we aren't using Google," Tommy said, "The Ranger Database will pull up any police records, newspaper articles, anything that her name was even mentioned in."

"Oh yes, because Kim defies the law so much," Aisha chimed in.

"Hey, you never know," Kat responded.

"There's faith," Aisha said sarcastically and Katherine picked up on it.

"All I'm saying is that something bad had to of happened for her to go AWOL on us like that," Kat said, "I mean we all know Kim and we all know that's not like her."

"Kat's right," Adam added, "There has to be a pretty damn good reason for her behavior. After all, she was the heart of our team. No pun intended."

"Hey guys," Tommy interrupted as Aisha opened her mouth to respond, "I think I've got something." The large group of thirteen crowded around Tommy's chair to see what he found.

It was a newspaper article in the Miami Post from May of 1998, around the time that she quit talking to them. The headline read:

"Gymnast Brutally Raped, Beaten & Left For Dead"

"Two time gold medalist, Kimberly Hart was found brutally beaten and raped late last night outside Marine Steel Factory, not far from Pete's Roller Rink, barely alive," Tommy began to read, "The gymnast, 20, had gone out with friends but decided to call it an early night and walked back to the gymnastics dormitories alone. The police informed us that she was attacked sometime after 10 p.m. and was found around 1:30 a.m. by a Steel Factory security guard…" Tommy trailed off and didn't finish the article. Instead he clicked on a link to the police files. It took him a minute, but he pulled up the file for Kimberly's case and opened it. After seeing the first two pictures, he bolted from his chair to the nearest garbage can and threw up in it. Billy took his place in the chair to read the file.

"Multiple stab wounds, four broken ribs, massive internal bleeding…" he began but did not finish.

"It's a miracle she even survived," Aisha choked out, "All that blood…"

Nobody spoke as Billy scrolled through the crime scene photo's. The pictures showing Kimberly's mangled body lying in a blood filled ditch. What was left of her clothing lay in shreds around her.

"The report said that they found defensive wounds on her arms and wrists," Billy said, his words directed at Tommy's back.

"She fought back," Tommy coughed, trying to hide the fact that he was crying, "Oh God…" Aisha, who had been Kimberly's best friend for most of high school went and put her arms around him.

"Did they find who did this to her?" Aisha asked, tears falling down her cheeks.

"The perp was never found and Kim couldn't have ID'd him anyway," Billy informed, "She was in a coma for three months; by that time it had become a cold case."

"How did we let this happen," Kat cried on Jason's shoulder, "How did we miss this?"

"No," Tommy snapped, "How did I miss this? How could I have let this happen?"

"Don't do that, Oliver," Jason barked, "Don't you dare do that! We are in his together. None of us knew and I know damn well that not one of us picked up the fucking phone to call when she dropped off the face of the planet. We were all to damn caught up in our own lives to notice that she hadn't called in more than three months. And I guess we all just came to our own conclusions over the years as to why she just cut us all out."

"What makes matters worse is that this happened right after our little trip to Muranthias," Adam said, observing the date, "Which was stressful enough."

Tommy made I first move since throwing up and it was toward the door. Nobody said a word as he went up the stairs.

"Maybe we should go with him," Kat said, after he'd gone up.

"No," Jason said, "He blames himself for this happening to her and for the way he treated her earlier."

"Tommy," Zack, the very charismatic, original black ranger began, "Even before he joined us, was always very protective of Kimberly. Naturally, he feels that this was his fault because he wasn't there to protect her."

"Which is why he needs to do this alone," Jason told them all.