Trigger warnings: This chapter mentions violence, abuse, and sexual assault, but neither take place in the chapter

EIGHT

"Kate…what are you doing here?"

Rick's tone was one of mixed surprise and disappointment when he opened up his apartment door after her knock. Confused and slightly disappointed herself, Kate's expression fell. "I…thought we were going to that end of summer concert tonight?"

Embarrassment flashed across his face. "Oh—shit. I totally forgot about that; I'm sorry."

She shrugged and shook off his apology. They had made the plans over a week earlier and when she tried to confirm them with him a few days prior he had not responded to her text. "No biggie. Do you still want to go or…?"

"Sure, um, just give me a few minutes?" He requested before waving her inside.

While Rick disappeared into the bathroom, Kate wandered into the apartment and over to the wooden table, where she intended to sit and wait for him, but a letter poking out from a stack of mail caught her eye. She should not have been snooping—she knew that. It was rude and completely inappropriate, but the fact that the page had letterhead from Black Pawn Publishing was just too enticing.

As Kate had predicted, she and Rick were able to complete the revamping of Flowers for Your Grave by mid-August. With their diligent work the book had taken a complete one-eighty. The story had not changed, but with more developed descriptions and scenery additions, it was now an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Kate immediately began suggesting sending the book out to prospective publishers, but Rick backpedaled, not even sure what that would mean. It was then Kate brought in her source for such things: her father.

Before scheduling the meeting, Kate asked Rick's permission to reveal Rick's true identity to her father so as to explain just why he felt so hesitant and borderline uncomfortable with sharing his works with the world. Rick agreed, and her father was shocked to say the least. He had been told about her friend Rick who had a "difficult past," but he never would have anticipated the real story and Kate couldn't say she blamed him as some days she didn't even believe it herself.

After the elder Beckett gave his input, he directed them to a friend of his in the publishing world, who gave Rick all the details he needed to begin his journey to becoming a published author. Rick drafted a prospect letter, which Kate's father reviewed and edited, before the letter along with a book excerpt was sent out to a dozen publishers and the waiting game began.

Over a month had passed since the letters went out and Kate wondered every single day whether or not that day would be the day Rick received a response. He was going to receive a response, she just knew it! Unfortunately, the first response he received was a rejection notice; that had been at the twenty-one day mark. The next day, he received two more and as she stood in his apartment he'd thrown them in the trash and said, "Well, at least I tried," but Kate discouraged him from giving up. Nine more publishers had yet to respond, and there were others they could send letters to as well.

If Rick was devastated, he hid it well. He always thanked her for her kindness and support and told her that no matter what happened it would be fine, but she wasn't sure that she believed him; however, until they received that twelfth rejection letter, she would be positive.

Without second though, Kate plucked the Black Pawn letter out of the mail pile and skimmed her eyes down towards the body of the letter. The first sentence had her squealing with joy. They were interested! They were interested in his book! They wanted to schedule a meeting with him to discuss it further!

It was happening! It was really happening!

When Kate heard the bathroom door open again she whipped around and rushed towards him, the letter still grasped in her right hand. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "Oh Rick! This is fantastic! I'm so happy for you."

"What are you doing?" he asked, resting his hands at her sides but not hugging her back; Kate was too overjoyed to notice.

"Black Pawn Publishing—they want to schedule a meeting with you! That's incredible!" She pulled out of their embrace and held the letter up as though it were a gold medal.

Immediately, Rick's eyes clouded over and he snatched the letter from her. "Where did you get this?" he asked, accusatorily.

"I'm sorry, I found it on the table, and I was just—why aren't you excited about this?" She changed course mid-sentence when she finally noticed how dark and unsettling his expression had become.

"You shouldn't have gone through my things," he said before walking back to the table and putting the letter beneath the pile of mail again.

Kate's brow knitted together. "What's wrong? Why aren't you excited about this?"

"It doesn't matter."

He made his way towards the door, but she stopped him, standing in front of him with her hand lightly pressed to his chest. "It does matter. What's going on, Rick?"

"Nothing. Let's just go."

He moved to walk around her, but she moved quicker blocking him again. "No. Not until you tell me what's going on. I don't understand. You wanted-"

"No you wanted." He snipped, raising his voice to her for the first time ever. "You wanted, Kate, and now…I'm not sure I'm going to pursue it."

Her arms dropped to her sides and she shook her head. "I don't understand. Why…why would you… You love writing and your story is so good, why wouldn't you want to share it with the world?"

He said nothing; he merely stood still with his fists clenched and his eyes turned down. She gave him a moment to respond, but when he didn't, she stepped up to him again and pressed her hand gently against his cheek. "Rick. Talk to me, please."

"I don't know if I can, okay? I don't know if I'm ready."

She nodded. "Okay. I can understand that, but even if you're not, where's the harm in calling Black Pawn, setting up a meeting, and hearing what they have to say?"

He shook his head and pushed himself away from her, walking back towards the kitchen. "It's not that simple. I just…The rejection letters didn't bother me, because they confirmed what I thought—that my story wasn't good enough. But if…okay, let's say Black Pawn does want to publish. Then my name is out there again and…and people might…"

Kate caught his implication and her expression fell. He was afraid of being recognized; of regaining notoriety for the wrong reasons. Finally, his hesitation was beginning to make sense—at least, in part. "But Rick, you changed your name. You were found over fifteen years ago. People won't know."

He let out a mirthless laugh. "People always know; that's why there's the internet."

She nodded, conceding to this. If he remained relatively under the radar, it probably would not happen, but if his works became popular, the likelihood of someone making the connection was strong. After all, she had. "So what if they know?"

He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. "If they know, they could dig into it and…and things could come out—things that…that I…"

"Things that you didn't tell the police." She concluded for him.

He looked up at her, eyes darker than she'd ever seen them, and he whispered, "Things that I couldn't."

Kate's skin prickled and her stomach flipped in her gut. God, oh god—this poor man before her. Wasn't being kidnapped by a psychopath enough? Being chained up in a barn and given limited food not to mention having no human contact aside from with said psychopath? What other horrors did he face? What was so terrible that he could not tell the police? Given what she knew about his captor's crimes against women, only one possibility came to her mind. Stepping closer to him, she asked softly, "Did he hurt you Rick?"

His head popped up and his eyes flashed with recognition before he quickly shook his head. "Not like that; he wasn't interested in me—not that way."

She breathed a sigh of relief; at least sexual assault was not added to Rick's list of terrors. Nodding, she asked, "Okay, so what happened?"

As though he'd been suddenly electrocuted, Rick scurried out of the kitchen and moved instead to the area in front of the couch, though he did not sit down. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't…I shouldn't tell you this."

She followed without hesitation. "Why not?"

"Because then you'll never speak to me again."

Kate almost laughed at his absurd assumption, but she managed to keep her tone gentle as she approached him as though one would a ticking bomb. "Rick. If you don't want to tell me what happened, you don't have to—ever—but I promise there's nothing you can say that will make me not speak to you again."

He turned away from her, shaking his head. He brought a hand up to cover his mouth and she could see his fingertips quivering. Stepping up behind him, she placed her hand tentatively on his bicep. He shook his head back and forth for almost a full minute before rasping out, "You can't say that, you don't know."

Hearing the emotion in his voice, Kate felt tears prick at her own eyes. God, what had this man seen? What had happened to him that he feared confession would end their friendship permanently? She wanted to help him, she wanted to listen and, though she hated that part of herself, the detective in her wanted to know. More so, she felt the confession might help him—might lessen his burden; that was a feeling she knew all too well.

"I know what it's like to keep things inside." She began just above a whisper. "My mother was murdered when I was nineteen. I'm not saying that in any way compares to what happened to you, but I do understand. I don't talk to anyone about it, ever."

With this confession, Rick turned to her, his expression one of mixed confusion and horror. "She was murdered?"

Kate nodded. "And her killer was never found which makes it even more difficult for me as a detective. I've struggled with it a lot these past seven years and it's led to some problems in my life, problems that might not have happened, or might not have been as bad if I had talked to someone about it. My point being: no matter how bad it is, talking about it could help and I'm here to listen."

He swallowed hard and nodded, letting her recommendation hover in the air for a moment before asking, "And if you never want to see me again?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Never gonna happen," she said, keeping her tone as light as possible. It was one hundred percent true. Short of him being the man that took her mother's life, there was absolutely nothing he could say that would end their friendship so dramatically.

Rick sunk down onto the couch and she dropped down just beside him. Tucking her leg under her body she sat sideways so she could face him directly as he spoke.

"About a year, year and a half after he had me I tried to escape. He was really good at keeping me locked up—fanatical about it, actually. He only let me out to use a garden hose to shower every few days and everything else was brought to me. The only other time he unlocked my shackles was when he needed me for something—usually to help carry a body or dig a grave."

Kate swallowed hard; immediately she did not like where this story was headed.

"This one time he made me help him carry a body to his truck and he pinched his hand when he tried to load her in. I saw an opportunity in those five seconds he wasn't watching me and I took off running. I ran and I ran–I don't know where I was running to, but I just kept running. I thought I could hear cars and I thought I was going to make it to the street—to safety but I wasn't even close.

"He tackled me and dragged me back to the barn. I thought he was going to kill me then; he didn't. I almost wish he had, because what he did was far worse. He said he'd make me pay and he did in many ways. Didn't feed me for days. He punched me in the face and kicked me. And then, a few weeks later, he had another woman there. A blonde—they were always blonde. I remember she stayed awake the whole time…most of them passed out but she was awake and looking at me the whole time—the whole time he was…he…"

His voice broke off and Kate reached over and placed her hand on his arm. He didn't need to finish that sentence; she had read enough about the case to know what his captor was doing to those women—what he had been forced to witness.

"At least, I think she was awake for most of it—I tried to keep my eyes closed as much as I could. He, um, he…" Rick paused to clear his throat. "There was this bench where he put all of them—an old work bench with worn, split boards, but it was heavy; sturdy. He had shackles on it to hold them down and it was right by my mattress so I was always right there. Usually, he ignored me, too engrossed with what he was doing, but that day, when he was through with her, he grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me to my feet. Then, he handed me the knife."

Kate shut her eyes and fought the urge to cover her face as she let out a slow breath through her nose. Yeah, she definitely didn't like where this story was going.

More emotion showing in his voice, the broken man continued. "He said I had to do it; I had to kill her. He was screaming at me, shoving me forward saying that I had to kill her then—right then. The woman crying and whimpering and her breathing—I could hear her breathing so quick and hard. I just started crying telling him I couldn't; I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill anyone. I was shaking and the knife in my hands was so…so…I just couldn't shop shaking."

Rick took in a rattled breath as tears spilled down his cheeks. Shedding a few of her own, Kate moved her arm so that it looped around his bicep and she held him tightly.

He shook his head as he continued. "I never—I never even thought to turn the knife against him I just wanted it to stop, I wanted everything to stop. I wanted it to be over even if that meant he killed me instead, but he just kept insisting that I had to do it and I couldn't; I was frozen. He yelled at me for what seemed like minutes—forever—but was probably only a minute? A little more, maybe, until he got angry and he took his hands and put them over mine, trapping the knife there and dragging me forward along with it. His hands were tight—so tight. They were so tight." He sobbed, his whole body shaking from the viciousness of the memory.

Rick sniffed back tears and shook his head. "And the knife…the knife went into her neck, just below her jaw and the sound, oh god the sound—I'll never forget the gurgling and her wet gasps for breath…the way the blood soaked my hands and how her body shuddered until she just…she just stopped."

A hiccupped sob escaped his lips and Kate pulled her body closer to his, resting her forehead against his shoulder as the tears poured down each of her cheeks.

"And…and then he looked at me, pulled the knife away and said, 'You did it; you killed her.' And he went on to say I could never escape because then they'd arrest me and put me in prison, too."

Kate shut her eyes as a shiver traveled down her spine. Oh god, she could hardly fathom it. The horrors he had seen would have been indescribably cruel to a child as young as he, but then being forced to be directly involved in a murder at what? Twelve? Thirteen years old? She had no idea how he was able to live through it, and didn't being to question why he hesitated to tell her.

Her gut response was almost to start saying how sorry she was, but sorry didn't seem appropriate; nothing did. How could anything she would ever say or do take away the unspeakable things that had been done to him? Instead, she just hugged his arm even tighter and waited for his sobs to cease.

Several minutes later, Rick reached for a box of tissues to mop up his cheeks and beneath his nose. He then passed it to Kate so she could do the same. When he settled back on the couch he did so a full cushion away from her. Tucking his hands between his knees he said softly, "So, um, I guess you have to arrest me now."

"Wha-god, Rick, no. no. Never." How could he even think such a thing?

He glanced over to her, disbelieve evident in his red-rimmed eyes. "But…I just confessed to a murder."

She shook her head and moved towards him on the couch. She knelt on the cushion beside him, reached out for his hands and placed hers over them. "No; no, you didn't. You were twelve years old, under duress, being mistreated and held as a hostage. There's not a DA in this city that would charge you." They wouldn't have then and they wouldn't now; it wasn't possible.

Looking away from her, he whispered, "I still did it."

She reached out to cup his chin so he'd look back to her. When their eyes met, she shook her head. "He did it; he forced your hands. This isn't your fault." With that, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him in close. He did lean his body slightly towards hers, but did not otherwise move.

After a moment he said, "Even if that's true; it still happened. It can't be taken back."

"No, it can't, but look at everything else you did. When they found you, you showed them were all those women were buried. You gave closure to all those families. Weren't there twenty or more?"

"Twenty six." He responded as though the number was tattooed on his soul.

She nodded. "Yes, twenty-six. Twenty-six families that would never have been able to have a funeral, get closure. Believe me: I know how important that is."

They continued to sit side by side in silent for the better part of two minutes before Rick excused himself to get a glass of water. When he returned with one for Kate as well, they sat in silence again before she said, "I'm going to assume you never told your therapist any of this."

Rick confirmed by shaking his head. "I was afraid he'd have to tell the police."

"No, you can talk to him about it and I think you should, but you don't have to. You told me, and I'm glad you did."

He glanced over to her, almost fearful. "Did you change your mind about never speaking to me again – I wouldn't blame you."

She placed her hand on his back and offered him a sweet smile. "No, I didn't change my mind. In fact—why don't I stay here with you tonight? That way you don't have to be alone." She knew his mother was out of town on an acting retreat so it only made sense.

Rick looked surprised, as though her act of kindness was akin to flying to the moon and back. "I…you'd do that?"

"I'll do whatever you want," she assured him.

Hours later, after a low-key evening with ordered in pizza and a two-star rented movie that had them rolling their eyes more than laughing, Kate slipped into bed wearing an old t-shirt of Rick's. She slid close to the man and looped his arms around his larger frame, encouraging him to cuddle against her. He did so, resting is head against her upper chest as she carded her fingers through his hair. Had she given it much thought, she might have considered the move too intimate for their "just friends" status, but such thoughts didn't enter her mind that night; she only wanted to comfort him.

"Kate?"

"Hmm?" She grunted, as she had already been drifting off to sleep.

The man moved his head from her chest to the pillow beside hers and said, "You know if you ever want to talk about your mom's murder, we can. And, I'm sorry that happened to you."

Kate opened her eyes and gazed over at him in the dim light of the room. "Thank you. I might take you up on that someday."

A moment of silence passed between him before he added, "And thank you for being my friend."

She found his arm beneath the covers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Always."

A/N: sorry this chapter was so sad :(