CHAPTER 37

Take It to The Grave

I kept my eyes on the ground as I walked back to the table. I tried to stifle my yawn as I took my seat, but it was no use. I was drained, both physically and mentally. I wanted to go home, but that wasn't going to happen until I gave them an account of all the things Durant had done to me and how I killed him, or at least what I was willing to share anyway.

"Excuse me, please," Agent Shaw said as he switched off the video camera and got up from the table. I turned in my chair and watched him walk over to the technicians, answering their questions and giving directions about the evidence they'd collected. After receiving their instructions, the technicians began removing Durant and the women's bodies from the tent.

"Are you doing okay, Stephanie?" Agent Kinkade asked. I turned back around but avoided looking at her or anyone else directly. She placed a bottle of water in front of me. "Can I get you anything else? I have a pack of cookies in my bag."

"I'm fine," I told her as Hector unscrewed the lid for me, and I took a drink. "I just want to get this over with."

"It's after four," Cyrus said as he looked at his watch. "How much longer will this take?"

"We're almost done," she said as she reached out and put her hand over mine in a show of comfort. "You've given us more information than we'd thought possible. Thanks to you, we'll be able to give his victims and their families something they've been waiting a long time for. Closure. After we finish today, I'll head back to the Newark office and type up your statement. You can have Mr. Fusco look it over and then when you sign it this will all be over. You can begin putting this ordeal behind you."

I knew she was trying to make things easier for me and I appreciated it, but I didn't think it was going to be possible to put everything that happened in the cellar behind me.

Agent Shaw took his seat again and after turning on the video camera, he gave a nod to Agent Kinkade for her to begin the rest of the interview. "You've told us about Hunter Durant and his interactions with the other women, but now we'd like to hear about your personal experience with him." She smiled encouragingly. "Start with the first thing you remember and if we have questions along the way, we'll ask."

Thinking about the terror I felt when I first woke up in the cellar made my chest tighten. I didn't want to lay my personal pain out for them to witness, but I also didn't want to go to jail for murder. I had to make them understand why I did what I did. I took a cleansing breath to calm my nerves. "When I first opened my eyes, I had no idea where I was. I was lying on a metal bed in a room that was pitch black and I was scared to death. As soon as I moved, I realized my wrists and ankles were shackled, and my neck had some sort of metal collar around it. At first, I thought I was alone, but then I heard someone breathing."

Hector slid a little closer to me and squeezed my hand. I took the comfort he offered and went on with my story. "Listening to someone breathing in the dark room terrified me. I had no idea who was in there with me. Then he turned on a lantern and I could see him sitting in a chair, watching me. He handed me a long white box with a dozen red roses and told me that he was in love with me. He said he'd been following me for weeks and that if I didn't do what he wanted, he'd—" My voice started to shake, so Hector put his arm around me for comfort. I had to force the muscles in my throat to relax before I could continue. "He threatened to bring my nieces to the cellar and hurt them as well as the rest of my family. The look on his face when he told me that… let's just say, I believed him. He bragged about breaking into my apartment, my family's homes, and even Joe's." I chanced a quick glance at Joe, noting his red face and tightly clenched fists.

My eyes traveled from Joe to Ranger. "He wanted to get into Rangeman, but there was too much security. It made him angry." There had only been a handful of times when I'd seen Ranger react emotionally, but right now he was just as angry as Joe.

Agent Kinkade leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table. "Did you know Hunter Durant before you woke up in the cellar?"

I didn't want them to know I'd met him while buying ice cream. They might think I had done something to lead him on—that it was somehow my fault he became fixated on me. My answer was simple, "No."

"Maybe you came across him in your work as a bounty hunter?"

"No," I said, again.

"Why didn't you tell Detective Morelli or Mr. Manoso that you suspected you were being stalked? Surely, they would have investigated?"

I stared at the tabletop; suddenly interested in the faint design etched in the plastic. I didn't want to know if Joe or Ranger were disappointed or if they blamed me for what happened. I messed up. I should have known better. "I wasn't sure I was being stalked," I told her. "At the time, I only knew that things in my apartment were being moved around or were missing altogether. Joe was busy working a really big case out of town and with his stomach issues, I try not to worry him, and I wouldn't have bothered Ranger unless I was certain I had a stalker. He already does so much for me."

"Why you?" she asked. "Why did Hunter Durant pick you?" I asked myself that same question. What was it about me that attracted crazy people? Since I had no answer, I stayed silent. She worded her question differently. "You said Durant had been following you for weeks. Do you have any idea what triggered him to finally abduct you?"

"He got really angry when he found out that Joe and I had gone away for a few days. I think that was when he approached my mother in Giovincini's Deli. He was fishing for information about where I'd gone."

"How do you know he met with your mother?"

"He told me. He wanted to make sure I knew that no one was looking for me… that everyone had forgotten about me."

"You know that isn't true… right?" she asked.

"I do now, but… " I shrugged and looked down at my hands in my lap. "At the time, I thought maybe… "

Hector grabbed my hand. "I would never stop searching for you, Angelita."

I looked into his eyes. "I know that. I shouldn't have let Durant get in my head, but I was tired and hungry… "

Agent Kinkade tried to get the interview back on track. "Earlier, you stated you woke up in a dark room, lying on a metal bed. What happened after that?"

A sour taste filled my mouth when I imagined myself back there. "At first he tried being romantic by giving me roses." I kept my attention on Agent Kinkade, but from my periphery, I could see Ranger and Joe bristling with anger. "Mostly, he talked about his childhood. I had no idea the women were in there with us… not until he pulled the curtain back."

"We'll get to that in a minute. Right now, tell me how often he visited?"

"I'm not sure, but in the beginning, I think he visited once a day and stayed for several hours. But that all changed on New Year's Day."

"What happened that day?"

"I'd finally been reported missing and he thought it was funny it had taken so long for anyone to miss me." I pinched the bridge of my nose to keep the tears from falling. "He was laughing when he showed me the newspaper."

Hector's shoulders sagged and I knew he was feeling guilty for not noticing that I was missing sooner. I had to make him understand that it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. I was so well hidden that no one would have found me if I hadn't gotten away. "None of this is your fault," I whispered. He could barely meet my eyes, but I could see that he desperately wanted to believe me. I gave his hand a squeeze.

"Did he hurt you that day?" Agent Kinkade directed my attention back to the interview.

I swallowed past the constant pressure squeezing my throat, wishing I didn't have an audience for this part. "No, he didn't hurt me that day, but from then on, everything went badly."

"Besides being reported missing, what else changed that day?"

"I don't know. He just got this sad look in his eye and said that I wasn't 'The One.'"I made air quotes around the phrase. "He seemed confused and angry that Emmie had gotten it all wrong."

Agent Shaw's brows furrowed. "Who's Emmie?"

"She was his twin sister. When they were ten years old, she fell into an abandoned mine shaft. She was missing for seven days before they found her, starved to death. He blamed himself because they had been playing and she'd wandered off." I paused to let that sink in. "We… the women and I, resemble his dead sister. At times, he would talk as if Emmie was alive. Several times, he got confused and called me by her name. I was never sure if I should go along with it or if doing so would make my situation worse."

Agent Kinkade's eyes widened. I don't think she was prepared for how much I knew about Durant's history. "What did he mean when he said, Emmie had been wrong about you being 'The One?'"

"I guess he meant his true love… soul mate… whatever." I shrugged. "He believed Emmie sent each of us to him." My voice had become detached—clinical. "He had issues. One minute he would yell at me and the next he would be kind."

"How long had you been in the cellar before you were aware of the other women?" Agent Shaw asked.

"The day he threw the newspaper at me, that was New Year's Day, he pulled the curtain back, and introduced me to his wives… my sisters. That's what he called the women. I'd known something was back there because I would see him go behind the curtain and could hear him talking in low tones, but I didn't know it was—" I cleared my throat, "them. I thought maybe he had another woman chained up back there and she was too weak to answer when I called out."

Agent Kinkade nodded her understanding. "What about his parents? What can you tell us about them?"

"After Emmie died, his parents sued the mining company and won a huge settlement. They were so caught up in their own grief, they just forgot he existed."

"Do you know how he found the cellar?" These questions were easy. I could talk about them all day. They didn't require laying my personal pain out for everyone to comment on.

"After his sister died, his father became an alcoholic and ended up getting into a car accident that killed himself and his wife. Durant went to live with his grandmother in the Pine Barrens. One day, he found the ruins of a burned down house and over the years he cleared the debris away. When he was twenty-one, he brought Jenny to the cellar."

"Tell me more about why he made you recite the stories of how he met each woman." Agent Shaw was asking me to help him understand Durant's psychosis. I had my theories, but that's all they were… theories.

"The same day that he declared I wasn't 'The One', he told me in detail everything about the women and his role in kidnapping them. He warned me to listen closely as he rattled off dates and places and took great delight in letting me know there would be a test. I didn't take him seriously. I should have, but I didn't." I did my best to push my emotions down. They were unproductive. But just thinking about the beatings made my back begin to burn and I had to lean forward in the chair. The memories were always just below the surface, ready to make an appearance like it was happening all over again. "When he came the next time, he pulled me to the center of the room and shackled my arms around the pole. The first time—" I bit the inside of my jaw. No one needed to know that the first time I got fifteen lashes for my naiveté. That was my pain and I would bear it alone. "Let's just say, I didn't do very well."

I heard swift intakes of breath from behind the agents. Even without specific details, Ranger and Joe were able to imagine what Durant had done to me.

Agent Kinkade's features softened and I chose to speak to her as if no one else was present. "As the days went on, I got better at his game. I even managed to get everything right, once." My face heated in embarrassment when I recalled how proud I'd been and how painful that particular lesson was. "Instead of being rewarded, he—" My voice turned thick with emotion. I clutched Cyrus' handkerchief in my hand.

Don't you dare cry.

"What did he do, Stephanie?" Agent Kinkade's voice was soft, encouraging.

"That time it was really bad. He flew into a rage. I didn't think he was going to stop hitting me. I woke up sometime later, passed out on the floor and he was gone."

Giving me time to compose myself, Agent Shaw reached down, pulling a stack of clear evidence bags out of a box at his feet and placed them on the table in front of me. "Each of Hunter Durant's victims are wearing period costumes in these pictures. Can you tell me the significance?"

I picked up each evidence bag, flipping through them as I studied each woman. Their pictures had been taken while they were still healthy and beautiful. By the time I got to mine, tears were streaming down my face. I turned my head and pushed the pictures away as I used the handkerchief to mop my face. When I got myself under control, I cleared my throat. "As a child, Emmie was given a porcelain doll for each birthday and Christmas. She displayed them in a special case. I think, in Durant's twisted mind, he was paying tribute to his sister by turning us into his own version of her dolls."

While Agents Shaw and Kinkade considered my explanation, I sat back in my chair, letting them draw their own conclusions. Agent Shaw picked up the picture of me in the red Victorian dress. "Can you tell us about the day this was taken?"

"He said that night marked the end of my old life and the beginning of our new one together." I drew in a large breath, not wanting to remember that night, but knowing they wouldn't settle for less than every little detail. I pointed at the picture. "He made me put that dress on and he fixed my hair and makeup. He'd brought a fancy meal of chicken cordon bleu with seasoned red potatoes and asparagus and set the table with candles and had music playing. After we ate, he made me dance with him and then he tried to kiss me." I swallowed, hard, and fought to continue. "When I didn't reciprocate his feelings, he hit me across the face."

Agent Kinkade was sitting back in her seat, letting Agent Shaw take over. I'd already figured out that they were tag teaming, leaving the more intrusive questions to Agent Shaw. "Earlier, you said you heard him talking quietly from behind the curtain," Agent Shaw stated.

"Yes, that was before I knew the women were back there."

He nodded. "Describe his interactions with them once he pulled the curtain away and introduced you to them."

"He treated them as if they were alive—talking and listening—carrying on conversations." Both agent's eyebrows rose in curiosity, hanging on my every word. "I asked him once, why he was talking to dead women and he laughed. He acted like I was the stupid one when he told me they weren't dead."

"Are you saying he believed the women were alive?" Agent Kinkade asked.

"I'm telling you what I saw and what he told me. You'll have to decide what his actions mean for yourselves." I swallowed and pushed my hair behind my ear. This next part had to be said, but that didn't mean I had to look at anyone while I said it. "He sat in front of their cases, masturbating while he talked to them. Then he'd use his—" I cleared my throat. "His um… you know... his stuff… to um… to paint on their cases." And on me, but they didn't need to know that.

Agent Shaw signaled for the forensic tech. "Be sure to swab the exterior of each case for DNA?"

"Already done, Sir," she said. "There were numerous smears of seminal fluid on each case except for two. The empty case and the third woman's case, tentatively identified as Ashley Allen, only had fingerprints. No DNA, Sir."

He dismissed the forensics technician and turned back to me. Not wanting to upset me, he skirted around the empty case and focused on Ashley. "He didn't paint with his ejaculate on Ashely Allen's case?"

"No. He hated her."

"Because he found out she was pregnant?"

"Yes. He said she was a whore." I blinked but maintained eye contact. "He was also angry at Melissa when he found out she had been divorced. That's when he decided she should take her rest." The confused expressions on their faces prompted me to explain what that meant. "That's what he called it when he put them in the glass cases. Since I've been divorced before, I was terrified he was going to find out and put me in a case too."

Agent Shaw mulled that information over in his head and then asked, "Why do you think Durant didn't kill you like the others?"

"The moment he brought me to the cellar he started killing me." I snorted. "His method of death takes a while." I paused to really think about why I lived, and they didn't. "But to answer your question, I told him whatever I had to in order to stay alive." Agent Shaw tilted his head to the side like he wanted to get inside my brain and learn all my secrets. "I gave him just enough reason to think I might one day return his feelings. It was a gamble, but he bought it… for a while." I paused, considering my words before I continued. "But now that I look back, I think he was more intrigued because I didn't behave like the other women."

"How were you behaving differently?"

I smiled and tried not to sigh. Hadn't he read my file? "This wasn't my first rodeo with a monster. This wasn't even the first time I've been kidnapped." I tried not to let the sarcasm seep through, but in my tired state, I wasn't very good at hiding my feelings. "I will admit, Durant is the worst by far, but because of my history, I apparently didn't cry like the others had. Mostly, because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction, but also because his moods were volatile, and I didn't want to do anything to set him off. One time he came in drunk, carrying a bottle of whiskey. It was hard to know what to say when he was like that."

"Did he drink often?"

"Not in my presence, but it was his and Emmie's birthday, so he was in a lot of emotional pain. He cried and asked me to hold him."

"Did you hold him?" Agent Kinkade asked. I nodded slowly but offered nothing else. "How did he react when you showed him compassion?"

"He seemed happy… for a few minutes, but then he'd get angry again." I shrugged like it was no big deal that I held my captor while he cried. "In a fit of rage, he threw the liquor bottle against the floor, shattering glass everywhere. I believe he tried to keep his rage under control, but he couldn't manage it for long."

I looked around, noticing that the women and all the evidence had been removed from the tent and was probably on its way to a lab somewhere. The only people left in the tent besides me and Cyrus, was Hector, Joe, Ranger, and Agent's Shaw and Kinkade. After a prolonged silence, Agent Shaw sat forward in his chair, elbows on the table, face serious. "When I asked how you knew Durant wasn't the father of Ashley's baby, you seemed certain he hadn't had sex with her. You've been vague on this particular subject, but I need to know if he had sexual relations with any of the women."

I stayed silent, but inside I was vibrating with anger. Telling them about the most intimate details of the women's violation was a betrayal that I wasn't ready to commit. Those horrible moments when Durant hurt them in the worst possible way was their own private pain. I understood that. It wasn't as if they needed this information to punish him. He was already dead.

Sensing my reticence to answer, Cyrus said, "I'd like a moment to confer with my client." He helped me up and we walked several feet away to have a hushed conversation. "Agent Shaw is gearing up to ask you some very personal questions. Questions that you've already told me you don't want to answer. I can stop the interview, but that'll only buy you some time. They will need those questions answered. If not today, then very soon."

"I just want to get this over with… today."

"I can request that Mr. Sanchez, Detective Morelli, and Carlos be removed, so you don't have an audience during this part of the questioning."

I didn't mind Hector hearing what I had to say. He was always supportive no matter what and I was sure he wouldn't look at me differently. And it was pointless to ask Ranger and Joe to leave. They wouldn't be satisfied until they heard exactly what Durant had done to me. If they didn't get those answers today, they'd use their connections to call in a favor to get the transcripts of this interview and read it for themselves. Neither of them would rest until they knew the extent of how badly Durant had hurt me. "No," I said. "Let them stay."

When we took our seats again, Agent Shaw asked, "Would you like to finish this interview in private? We could reconvene at the Newark office in a couple hours?"

"I'd like to finish it now, please."

"Are you sure, Stephanie?" Agent Kinkade asked. "We don't want to do anything to make you feel uncomfortable."

"I'm sure."

"Alright," Agent Shaw said. "I'll ask you again. To your knowledge, did Hunter Durant have sexual relations with any of the women."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, debating on how much information I was going to share. I felt like the more details I supplied, the easier it would be for them to decide he'd done the same thing to me. "I don't know about the others," I finally said, "but he told me he had sex with Jenny right before she took her rest."

"I'm not following you," he said as he referred to the notes Agent Kinkade had typed into the computer. "Why would he wait sixteen months before forcing Jenny to have sex with him?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't a therapist or a psychologist, how was I supposed to explain a crazy man's actions. "This is just my opinion, based on what I saw and heard, and what he told me. In the beginning, he was attracted to me, but it wasn't sexually based. That started to change as I lost weight. The skinnier I got, the more his interest sparked. I didn't put it together right away, but I believe that was why he only fed me once a day. He was walking a fine line, trying to keep me alive, but barely."

"The results from your medical exam were inconclusive." He cleared his throat and I knew he was about to ask what everyone had wanted to know since the moment I was discovered missing. I felt the room receding as if my chair was sliding backward on a track and everyone was getting farther and farther away. "Did Hunter Durant sexually assault you?"

All at once, image after image of Durant touching me and making me do things to him played out before my eyes. I felt my face getting hot. I was afraid everyone could see what I was seeing, and they would know just how dirty I really was.