Chapter 32: The Story – Part 1

I'm usually pretty observant, but Pearson was good. He could disguise himself in ways that I never saw. Apparently he was watching me for a while, looking different each time and not doing anything that would make me suspicious. When I left the hospital after dropping Emily off at day care, there was a man walking out at the same time. He was dressed as a businessman and he looked nothing like Pearson. Nothing about him seemed odd. He was just a man leaving the hospital.

When I reached my car, he came up near me and asked me directions. I started to give them to him, when he got close to me and I realized he had a gun in his hand. I never saw it. I don't know how, but he was quick and smart. He put the gun in my side and brought me around to the passenger side so that I could slide in first and him right after me. He kept the gun on me the whole time.

Once we were in the car, he told me to slowly remove my gun and hand it to him. He knew I kept a clutch piece in an ankle holster and he asked for that too. He also took my cell phone and my purse. Then he told me to start driving.

He directed me to a house outside of the city. It was about an hour away and pretty isolated. He made me get out of the car. We went into the house and the smell hit me right away. I knew something was definitely wrong here. That's when I saw them. Three bodies lying on the floor. A man, a woman and a teenage girl. They all looked like homeless people. Obviously he had killed people that he assumed wouldn't be missed by anyone.

He was still holding the gun when he asked me to take off my wedding ring. When I did, he told me to put it on the woman's ring finger. I did that too. I noticed that the man's body already had a wedding ring on it. I recognized it from the pictures I had studied of Pearson. It was his. And the teenager had a necklace that was engraved "Monica". But it wasn't her. I had studied his daughter's picture as well.

I realized he was setting this up to look like him, Monica and me. I wasn't sure yet why, but I didn't like it. I tried to think of something I could do, but he seemed to read my mind.

He told me, "I would like you to be alive, but if you don't cooperate, I won't have any problem killing you. I just thought you would prefer to be alive and with Monica and myself."

That was what got me and he knew it. He remembered how I always asked about Monica when he called me. He knew I would do anything to help her survive. I couldn't do that if I were dead.

He made me take off my shoes and leave them near the front door. He had me put my purse near the woman's body. I wondered how he was going to make anyone believe that these people were us. He was too smart not to know that DNA and dental records would prove the identities. Still, he continued to set everything up. Once he seemed happy with everything, he pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number. I realized who he had called when I heard him speak.

"This is Jack Pearson. I am sure you are wondering where Detective Martin is. I thought I'd just give you that information. Although this may be too late for you to recover her. Still, you can try."

Then he gave them the address where we were. He didn't disconnect the call, but threw the cell phone on the floor near the woman's body. I tried to yell something that I hoped the cops would hear.

"It's not what it looks like…"

He cut me off by shoving the gun up to my neck and yelling himself. "Nothing's gonna save you now, Kate. It's finished." Then he murmured low, so that the phone couldn't pick it up. "Say anything else and you will be dead."

He removed some duct tape from his pocket and secured my mouth and my hands with it. He moved me out of the room and the house through a back door. There was a car waiting there. He pushed me inside and taped my legs together. Then he got into the driver's seat and started the car.

He didn't drive very far. Just out of the view of the house, behind a copse of trees where we could see the house, but someone there couldn't see us. Then we waited.

It took less than an hour for the cops to come screeching up to the house. As soon as Pearson heard the sirens, he pulled out two small electronic devices. When the cops got out of their cars, he pushed a button on one. I could hear, faintly, a voice coming from the house. I couldn't make out the words, but it sounded like Pearson's voice. I heard the cops more clearly as their voices were amplified towards where we were sitting.

"Stay calm, Pearson. If you come out now with Detective Martin, we can get you a deal. But if you kill a cop, you're going to be in trouble."

There was something else said from the house, then a bright light and an explosion louder than anything I've ever heard. When the dust cleared, the house was a pile of rubble. The cops had all scattered. I couldn't see if any of them had been hurt, but tears filled my eyes just the same. I knew that some of them were probably my friends come out to rescue me. And they might be injured or dead because of me.

Before the cops had a chance to realize anything, he pulled away. There was no way they could see his car from where we were. We drove for several more hours until we came to a really isolated cabin in the pine barrens. He all but dragged me inside and put me into a room in the cellar with no windows and no means of escape. The only good thing about the room was that I wasn't alone. Monica was there.

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For the first few days, I held out some hope that I would be rescued. But slowly I came to realize that Pearson had set it up and destroyed the house perfectly so that it would be impossible to identify the bodies. Everyone would think we were dead. No one would come looking for us. I was on my own.

The hardest part was knowing that Greg would think I was dead. I had promised him that I wouldn't die and I knew he would be upset. But I also knew that he would recover and go on because of Emily. He would take care of her. He wouldn't let me down.

Pearson brought us food, drink and some clothing. At first, Monica was silent. She had already spent six months locked up after seeing her mother murdered by her father. She didn't know what to make of me.

Eventually, she realized we were both her father's prisoners and she began to talk to me. She's such a sweet girl, despite everything she's been through. If she hadn't been there, I might have given up. I might have thought 'there's no way out, why even try?' But I couldn't let this kid give up, so I told her we would get out. In convincing her, I convinced myself. And we started to make plans.

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The room he kept us in was small, no more than 10 by 10. There was a sink and a toilet in it, but no windows. We had no way of knowing if it was day or night. I tried to keep track, but before long, I couldn't. So I had no idea how much time passed. Pearson brought us food once a week. We had to make it last for the entire week. The first time, we didn't know that and finished it in four days. We went hungry for three until he brought us more. We had one box of cereal, 2 loaves of bread, a jar of peanut butter and twelve bottles of water. That was it, and it had to last a week. Monica was really hungry. I gave her more of the food, she's a kid, she's still growing.

Our weekly supplies also included soap, toilet paper and paper towels. After pleading, he finally gave us some cleaning supplies as well. He brought us some clothes, clearly bought at a thrift store. I had two pairs of pants, two t-shirts and one sweater. Monica had brought some of her own clothes, so she had a little more.

We had to wash them in the sink and hang them up to dry. Since there were no windows, that took forever. By the time they were dry, we needed to wash the clothes we were wearing. We tried to go for several days before washing them. The longer we were in there, the longer we could go. Things like clean clothes stopped being important when you're locked up like that.

I think he wanted to keep us weak. Everything was about power to him. The weaker we were, the more powerful he was. He loved to have us beg for stuff. But he really loved playing god to us.

Not too long after we were imprisoned, I thought I would try to escape. I'm a trained cop, I know how to take someone down. When he came in with food and supplies, I attacked him, using all the fighting moves that I knew. Unfortunately, I didn't count on my reduced capacity due to lack of food. I was weak, I was light-headed. I was also unaware of his ability. He could fight too. He took me down, quickly. Then he beat the crap out of me.

(At this point, House holds her hand and squeezes it.)

If it wasn't for Monica, I might have died that day. She cleaned my wounds and made sure I ate and drank. Eventually, I recovered. But I knew we had to be much more clever if we wanted to get out of there. I had the bruises and scars to remind me of that. Still do.

She made the days bearable as well. We didn't have a TV or even a radio, so we talked. We told each other the stories of every movie or TV show we'd ever seen and every book we'd ever read. We played word games like twenty questions. We sang every song either of us knew. We kept each other sane.

Nights were the worst. I lay awake, unable to sleep, missing Greg and Emily. I had no idea if I would ever get out of there, if I would die in that little room. I'm not a spiritual person, I don't pray and I don't believe in the supernatural. But on those nights, I would close my eyes and imagine Greg was beside me. As strange as it sounds, sometimes I felt him there, almost as if our minds were reaching out and touching each other. Last night, he told me he felt me with him too, so who knows?

Days, weeks passed. I didn't even know how much time. Each day flowed into the next, each more monotonous than the last. I knew that if I didn't do something, we'd be imprisoned in that little room until we died.