Hi! Sorry it took so long to post! I am anticipating 1-2 more chapters after this, depending on how I break things up. Also, there is a trigger warning partway through for graphic descriptions of a homicide. I have indicated this spot with and A/N. Another A/N is at the end of the section with a less descriptive short explanation if you can't read the full thing. Enjoy!

"What do you mean, it didn't work?" Rocky asked. "Who did he hurt?"

When Kim looked back up, she had some tears in her eyes. "We are missing someone here today. Someone who should be sitting right about there." Kim pointed between Zack and Billy.

It took a second for people to think, but then Billy whispered, "Trini?"

All of the former rangers were taken aback. "I thought she was killed in a hit and run!" Tanya said. The others murmered their confusions as well.

"It was so much more than that," Kim said.

"But a couple of things happened that I have to tell you about before I get to Trini. After the letter, Jason and Trini called me. They knew something was up. Since he was not in Angel Grove at the time, I wasn't as worried about Carter finding out. I was so distraught that I told them everything. They agreed not to tell anyone else.

"A couple of months later, Jason contacted me again and told me about the charity boxing tournament happening in Angel Grove. He asked if I wanted to go with him and Trini. I hadn't heard from Carter since he cut me off from you guys, so I thought…" Kim paused. "I don't know. I thought maybe he had miraculously forgotten about me and life could go back to normal, whatever that was.

"Jason and Trini were going to fly out to Florida to get me and then we were going to go to Angel Grove. Trini ended up needing to stay back but she was going to fly out to Florida after the tournament – when Jason and I got back. I was planning on telling you all what really happened after the tournament. But then everything with Divatox happened."

Kim turned to the rest of the table. "The rangers' new enemy was a space pirate named Divatox and she kidnapped me a Jason before we were able to get to Angel Grove. She ended up throwing us into a lava pit where her magma-boyfriend was trapped, which turned us evil until a magical troll-like creature broke the spell on us and… wow."

Kim stopped. "I did not realize how ridiculous that sounds. I don't think I would believe me if I didn't live through it myself. But the point is, I got a little sidetracked. When the tournament was over and I was going to tell you everything, I decided not to."

Locking eyes with Tommy, Kim continued. "Tommy, you were with Kat then and I didn't want to ruin anything you two had just so I could clear my conscience. And… well I guess I chickened out. I made Jason leave with me right after the tournament." Tommy's face was unreadable.

"We got back to Florida and expected to find Trini at my apartment. My dad picked her up at the airport in the earlier that afternoon and brought her to the apartment. When Jason and I got there, which was around 4pm, Trini wasn't there. She left a note saying that she wanted to explore my neighborhood and would be back before dinner, so Jason and I weren't super worried. We knew where she wa-…" Kim and Jason glanced at each other. "We thought we knew where she was.

"Dinner time rolled around and Trini hadn't come back yet. We were starting to get worried. We were in the middle of deciding if we should go out and look for her when there was a knock at the door. I was so relieved. I thought it was Trini."

Kim took a breath, leaving time for Spike to butt in with, "Let me guess, it wasn't Trini?"

Nodding, Kim continued, "No it was not. It was a package about yay big," Kim mimed a box the size of a large textbook. "But by the time I got to the door, I couldn't see who left it. It didn't have any postage stamps or anything to indicate that it was just delivered by a mailman. The only think on the outside of the box was my name written in black sharpie."

"That's not suspicious at all…" Rocky mumbled to himself. When he realized everyone was looking at him, he cleared his throat. "Sorry, was I talking out loud?"

Aisha and Adam, sitting on either side of the former red ranger, punched Rocky's shoulders to quiet him down.

Kim suppressed the faint smile that came to her lips. It had been so long since she had seen her friends interacting with each other. Rocky's comment and Adam and Aisha's reaction was such a miniscule moment, but it reminded Kim of everything she missed by hiding all of these years. All of the moments, big and small, she missed from her friends' lives. Then she remembered where she was in her story, which reminded her why she hid; so her friends could continue having moments like those, even though that meant she wouldn't get to be a part of them.

Jason nudged her arm, brining her back to reality. "Right, sorry. Yes, Rocky, you're right, it was super suspicious. But I brought the box inside and opened it. There were two envelopes, a VCR tape, and a sticky note on top. The sticky note said 'Watch video first', or something like that. So I popped the video into the VCR player and –"

Her voice cracked. Jason took her left hand in his right hand, knowing full well what was about to come out.

"Let me," he said.

Kim nodded in thanks and let Jason continue. "The video was taken from a pickup truck. The camera showed the view out the front windshield. I think the camera must have been strapped down to the bed of the truck and pointed through the open back window. But we could see the shoulder of the driver and a little bit of the wheel. The truck was driving down an unpopulated side street near Kim's apartment. At first, there was no one, save for the driver, in the frame. Then a person with long, dark black hair and a yellow shirt came into view. She was just walking down the street."

"Trini," Billy whispered, but this time it wasn't a question.

"You're saying the hit and run was on purpose?" Zack asked. "Done by this Carter guy?"

Kim nodded. "But there's more." She only managed to get that out in a whisper. Her eyes started to glaze with tears.

"What do you mean, 'there's more'?" asked Zack. "How can there be more? Trini's death wasn't an accident. She was hit on purpose. How can it get worse than that?"

"Because she wasn't just hit," Again, it only came out as a whisper.

***A/N here is the trigger warning. Skip to the next A/N for an abbreviated version without all the more intense details***

Kim steeled herself to go on. She made herself look up from the table and make eye contact with her friends, though she knew she would have trouble seeing in a few seconds because of the impending tears forming. "The truck hit her. But then instead of running, Carter… he laughed and backed up. I could hear her cries of pain through the laughter. She was crying out for help. I couldn't help her." Jason squeezed her hand as she paused. "Then… then he realigned the truck and drove completely over her. And then he backed up over her. But that last one was just overkill because she was already dead. I could pinpoint exactly when she died because one second she was yelling and the next… nothing. And through it all, Carter was laughing. He turned to the camera and I saw his face for the first time. He had this malicious smile that I still sometimes see in my nightmares. He said, 'that was for you, Kimmy'. Then the screen went dark".

The silence in the room was deafening.

Sam was the first one to talk. "What the actual hell?"

"That's messed up," Wordy joined in.

Kim turned so she was facing the whole table and not just the former rangers. "Oh, but I'm not finished."

"How can it possibly get worse?" Spike asked.

Kim wiped away her tears with her free hand. "He got out of the car and took pictures of her dead body. How's that for worse?"

"Wha-?" Leah tried to ask but Kim kept going.

"Yeah. From multiple angles, to make sure to capture all of the gore. The pictures were in one of the two envelopes from the box. I will not be demonstrating the horrible scream that came from my mouth when I saw the pictures of her lifeless face, but I can promise you it happened."

"I can confirm this," Jason grimaced, trying not to remember.

Kim went back to staring at the table. "When I saw her face I just… I just broke. Before then, I was in denial. I thought, 'maybe that wasn't her, maybe it was a stranger'. Not that I wanted a stranger to get hurt or anything. But by pretending it wasn't Trini, I was able to numb myself. But then I saw her face… and I… I-"

***A/N Here is the abbreviated version: Carter hit Trini with the truck multiple times and then took pictures, which one of the envelopes from the box contained.***

Kim stopped, tears pouring out of her eyes. Jason let go of her hand and stood to get tissues. He put the box down in front of Kim, took some out, and handed them to her. Then he took a few for himself. He passed the box to his left, and many of the former rangers took a tissue and kept passing the box down. Some of the members of Team One even took tissues. Kim's parents definitely took a few as well.

The only sounds in the room for the next minute was sniffles and more tissues being taken out of the box. Finally, Kim got her emotions under control. Her mother the first one to speak.

"What was in the other envelope?"

People around the room nodded like: 'Oh yeah, what about that other envelope?'

Kim shook her head at her mother. "It was just another letter from Carter. Stuff like 'you didn't listen', 'your best friend is dead because of you', 'I told you I was serious', and 'you made me do it'. Oh, but this time he also threatened you and Pierre all the way in France.

"My coach, he heard my scream. Most of my gymnastics team lived in the same apartment complex but coach gave us the week off so the complex was mostly empty. But coach was still there, and he came to see what was wrong. I was so distraught that I broke down in front of him and told him everything. And in the middle of telling him everything, my dad came home and so I had to tell him everything too. Well, not the ranger-related details, but everything else. And then they both agreed that the safest thing to do was for me to disappear. The hope was if Carter couldn't find me, he couldn't try to control me by hurting the people I care about."

"But how did you get up here?" Ed asked. "Why did you pick Toronto?"

Serge cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since the explanation started, all eyes on him. "That would be because of me. Kim's coach and I were childhood friends. He called me and told me what was going on. I agreed to help protect Kim from Carter. We got her up here as quickly and quietly as possible."

"I changed my name from Kimberly Ann Hart to Julianna Callahan," Kim continued. "I cut off contact with everyone I had ever known. Serge helped me get on the track to become a SRU officer like him. I wanted to help people, not put them in danger, and being a part of the SRU helped me do that. I joined Team One and have been here ever since."

"Jason, how did you end up here?" Adam asked.

"I didn't want to make it super obvious to Carter where Kim was going by moving up here with her right away, but I didn't want her to be completely alone. I waited about a year and then moved up here, buying this dojo from the previous owner and taking over," Jason explained.

"Okay, but what about Kat? You said she knows everything. Did she know you guys were here before she moved here?" Tanya asked.

Jason shook his head. "No, Kat moving here was completely coincidental. Her job transferred her here and the two of us ran into each other. We decided to go out to reminisce and get to know each other better. But we got our wires crossed somewhere. I thought I was picking her up at her place, she thought she was picking me up at mine."

Kim turned to Jason. "Yeah, and when you let your friend," Kim pointed at herself, "stay at your apartment for a couple day while hers is getting fumigated and you have a date, you should really tell that friend or else she will answer the door in her pajamas while you are getting ready."

A couple chuckles came from around the table.

Kim turned back to face everyone. "When I answered the door, Kat and I were both shocked. But her probably a little more. I can't imagine what she thought; someone she hasn't seen in years opening the door to her date's apartment. Jason came running out of his room when he realized what was happening. We got Kat to come inside and we told her everything. She agreed to keep my secret."

"Just like that, you told her everything?" Sam asked, a little hurt in his voice. "You hadn't seen her in years and you just told her everything? And you never told us anything?"

Kim sighed. "I didn't want her to tell anyone of our friends that she saw me. It had been 14 years since I left Florida, but I still didn't want to put anyone from my old life, or my new life for that matter, in Carter's crosshairs."

"Did anyone else know?" Billy asked.

"Only one other person," Kim said and glanced at her stepfather. "Pierre was in Toronto on a business trip about three years ago. We ran into each other on the street by SRU headquarters. I was not expecting to see him so I had not mentally prepared myself to come up with an excuse for why I looked like his missing stepdaughter. I brought him to the SRU and told him what happened."

"You've known for three years where my daughter has been?" Madison asked, whipping her head to her husband. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Mom, don't be mad at Pierre," Kim jumped in. "I made him promise to not tell you. He didn't want to but because he didn't want you or the twins to get hurt, he agreed. But he also believed that me living separated from my old life was not a healthy way for me to live the rest of my life. We agreed that if I got no word pertaining to Carter in the next five years, I would reconnect with him and meet up with you and the twins. We exchanged numbers and agreed only to contact each other in five years or if there was an emergency. That is how he was able to get a hold of me last night to tell me that Carter took the twins and Kira."

"Speaking of Kira," Ed butted in, "How is it that Tommy was able to track her down last night? Something about a bracelet?"

Kim looked at Tommy to see if he wanted to explain. Tommy took a second to respond because he was still processing all of the information being thrown at him.

"Huh? Oh, yeah right," Tommy mumbled. "I was a teacher at Reefside High, where Kira went to school. To make a long story short, when she was a senior, she, three other guys and I were the Dino Thunder power rangers. This is how I was able to track her."

Tommy showed his wrist with his black dinogem bracelet. Kira did the same with her yellow one. "These are dinogems. They were the source of our power. They lost their power after our final battle with our bad guy, Mesagog, but they still give off a distinct energy reading. I called Ethan, our blue ranger, who is a technical genius. I asked him to track Kira's location."

"Kira, you were a power ranger?" Pierre asked.

Kira nodded. "I am so sorry I couldn't protect Lily and Max better. I should have been able to. But I don't have my powers anymore. We were walking around Highland Park and Carter threw the twins into his van before I knew what was even going on. I tried to fight him but he chloroformed me. I did get in a few punches before I went down though."

Pierre shook his head. "You did what you could. And for that, I thank you."

"Sorry, this is touching and all, but I thought you lived in France." Spike said. "I don't know for sure, but I don't think there are any Highland Parks in France."

"We did when Kim first disappeared," Pierre started. "But before the twins were born we moved to Rochester, New York."

"That makes a lot more sense," Spike said and leaned back in his chair.

The was quiet in the room for a couple seconds, then Zack asked, "How did Carter find you here?" Zack looked around at his friends faces. "Or did we already talk about that? My brain is on overload right now."

"No, I didn't mention that yet," Kim started. "When I said earlier that I cut off all communication with everyone from my old life, that was technically not 100% true. I'm not talking about Jason coming up here or me running into Kat and Pierre. Every year around my birthday, Coach Schmidt would send a package to Serge who would give it to me. The package contained a couple letters; from him, from my dad. That's how I found out my mom and Pierre were going to have the twins. Dad told me in his letters and kept me up to date every year. He even put in a Christmas card with the twins' pictures on it so I could 'meet' my siblings."

"Wait, you said something about that last night," Sam said. "You said that your birthday is in February? I thought it was in March." (A/N I tried looking up when Jules' birthday is but I couldn't find it, and if it was said in an episode, I don't remember so I made her birthday March).

"When I changed my name, I changed my birthdate on paper to hopefully throw Carter off of my scent. So yes, I have been celebrating my birthday in March for the past 15 years. But my real birthday is February 14th," Kim said and chuckled when she saw her team making the connection in their minds. "Go ahead and make fun. My last name is Hart and I was born on Valentines Day. Ha ha, I've heard it all before."

"If he found you in February, why did he wait over three months to face you?" Tanya asked.

"I…" Kim trailed off, "I've been wondering that too. I honestly don't know."

"But wait," Jason interjected. "Didn't he say he sent you a present or something?"

Kim nodded. "Yes. I have been thinking about that too. I have no idea what he's talking about." Kim turned to her team. "I know I didn't get any suspicious packages in the past three months so I think Carter did something to mess with me. But what did he do? What happened in the last three months?"

"You mean other than Lou?" Spike grumbled.

"Yeah, other than-" Kim stopped. She thought to herself for a moment, trying to connect dots she didn't realize were even there until just now. She shook her head, muttering, "No… no, no, no, no…"

"What is it?" Wordy asked. "What's wrong?"

Kim turned to Jason. "Can I borrow your laptop?"

Jason nodded and stood up. His laptop was on top of a small table in the corner. He grabbed it and set it down on the table in front of Kim.

"What are you doing?" Wordy asked.

Kim kept tapping at the computer. She groaned. "What is the password to get onto the SRU database off site?"

Spike stood and rounded the table. He typed a password in and stood back while Kim searched for a file.

"You still haven't answered any of my questions," Wordy grumbled.

"I'm looking for pictures from a case file… found it," Kim said, opening the online casefile and flipping through the pictures. "Okay… not it… not it… not it… there." She stopped on a picture and zoomed in. Her face, previously full of concentration, fell and the blood drained from her face.

After staring at the screen for a few moments, Kim silently stood up and started walking to the door closest to her.

"Where are you going?" Jason asked.

"I need to punch something," Kim said as she walked out the door. She headed to a punching bag not far from the conference room and started punching it.

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. Spike, who was still standing behind Kim's chair, bent down to look at the computer screen. When he saw the file that Kim had been looking at he froze.

"Spike, what is it?" Serge asked.

Kim, who finished her angry punching session, walked back into the room with more tears in her eyes. She froze at the door when she saw Spike looking at the computer.

"Spike, I- I am so, so sorry." Kim said.

Spike stood up from looking at the computer. He turned to face her, his eyes unfocused.

"Lou…" Spike muttered.

"I had no idea, I swear." Kim said.

Anger filled Spike's face. "You killed Lou," he spit out forcefully. Then he turned and stormed out the door at the opposite end of the room.

A/N I hope you enjoyed this chapter! How Lou's death is connected to Carter will be revealed in the next chapter. Please review!