Missing

Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N:So sorry guys, a lot has been going on the last few days. I'm going to need some time to catch up too, by the way, with almost all of my ongoing works the posted count has either reached or is near the amount of chapters I have written. Bear with me folks, and enjoy this chapter

Chapter 38 (Wounds Run Deep)

Cat was visiting after she and Trina were done with their individual appointments with a gynecologist. "You had your appointment too?" Trina smiled at the redhead and took a sip of water. "What did your doctor say?" Cat pat her abdomen and peered down with a smile.

"It's been enough time to tell the gender. I'm having a boy." She was thrilled to hear the news. She would have to wait a few weeks before she could tell the gender of her own baby. Sasha was excited to be getting a younger sibling, and of course she'd been asking if they were all going to be a family with Jesse.

She wanted that in time, but right now she was pacing herself. "I went to see my gynecologist, and my primary doctor was there too. So I got my physical. I'm in relatively decent health. Not too malnourished." Cat leaned forward and pat her arm.

"See, it's all the good food I made for you." Trina frowned and thought back to her years in hell. She wanted more than anything for Tori to have killed Holly during their fight, but considering everything, she was glad she hadn't done so.

Getting through that trial was going to be hell, but she was going to look Holly square in the eyes and tell the court-tell everyone-everything the monster had done to her. As far as she knew, the prosecutors had a solid case the defense couldn't break. She honestly didn't want to get up in that courtroom, she didn't want the entire nation watch her break, but she prepared herself because she was the key witness. It was her testimony that was going to put Holly away.

She prayed the woman would be sentenced to death, and death row was what the prosecutor was aiming for. Unfortunately, in America, death row inmates still lived at least thirty years in luxurious and comfortable prisons. Just the thought of Holly living a life of luxury before death made her stomach churn.

As her muscles tensed, Cat started to reach over. The girl placed a comforting hand on hers and smiled slightly as Trina looked to her. "It's going to be okay, Trina. We made it out, that's what matters. We're alive…Andre and Robbie, yeah they're gone, but I bet they're both happy that we're out."

"Yeah…Andre did contact Jesse directly after we did that pregnancy test. I just wish he'd done that years ago. No sense in crying about it now, right?" She rubbed her lips together and glanced at the floor. Cat moved back into her chair and shook her head.

"Sam and I have been spending a lot of time together with my family. She says it's okay to cry it out…I've been doing a lot of that actually. My younger brother's dead because of Holly-because I didn't shoot Robbie. Andre's dead for whatever reason-"

"Jade and Beck say he didn't want us to deal with the stress of seeing him go through trial." She understood his meaning in that. The truth of the matter was only she and Cat truly knew how much of a hero he'd been, and the trial was going to be hell enough that seeing him grilled by lawyers, and all of his intentions twisted around to make it seem like he was working alongside Holly would be far too much for them to watch. "He was always thinking about us…"

"Even to his last breath." Silence surrounded them like a cloud of smoke, strangling them of their breath and drawing the tears to their eyes. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Live?" Trina chuckled nervously and Cat smiled weakly. "You know something? When I think about everything…I can't believe my sister, or even Jade and Beck, worked so hard to find us. To find me. Then Andre, Robbie…All of you hated me back then. None of you had a reason to give a shit-even Tori gave up a possible career in entertainment to go into law enforcement so she could try and find me. Don't even get me started on Jade. Maybe she just had a guilt complex or something."

"Maybe. But if it makes any difference, none of us hated you." Trina raised an eyebrow and watched Cat scrunch her shoulders together. "And Tori did chew our heads off about treating you so badly, but that was close to when the, you know-"

"Why did all of you act that way in the first place? Do you even remember? You guys even scared off the one friend I did have."

"I don't know. Jade never needed a reason to trash whoever she wanted to trash back then, and I guess we all just went along with it. Your sister wanted friends, so she didn't say anything-even joined in. When she did finally speak up, it was too late…and then, our mistreatment of you was something Holly used to her advantage."

"Yeah." Trina knew it was Robbie that put her in the hospital because of the harness incident. It was something that Holly used against him, because she found out he was responsible, and threatened to expose him if he didn't help abduct her. Cat was easy to kidnap and to threaten. "It always bothered me how she got Andre, though…"

"I don't really remember. I think it had something to do with his family, and a little to do with you. I seem to remember her killing someone and setting it up to look like he did it." Cat ran her hand along her shoulder and exhaled slowly. "She knew a lot of our secrets, I know that. She told me once that every time we were over, every time it looked like she was ignoring us, she was watching us. Planning…"

"She planned my kidnapping?"

"And planned to use us as leverage. I don't even know why she didn't approach Beck and Jade. She even mentioned once that she would have loved to-" The girl stopped and Trina drew her eyebrows together. Curious, she pursed her lips and tensed her hands around the arm rests.

"What? What did she want to do, Cat? You may as well tell me."

Cat's eyes flickered into hers and the energy in the room grew tense. "She wanted to use Jade." Cat's voice trembled. Her heart sank and she held her breath, groaning lightly as her stomach churned. "She knew it would destroy your trust in people completely if she could get Jade to torture you. Holly always said it would fit, that it you would believe Jade to enjoy hurting you because of how miserable she acted towards you in the past."

"Mentally speaking, probably." Considering she already thought they all hated her, if Jade had been forced to take a part of it-with how long it took for her to see that Andre, Robbie and Cat were forced-it would have confirmed what she always feared. "I'm in bad enough shape now, pretty sure I'd be in worse shape. If Holly knew that, then why didn't she go after Jade?"

"I think Holly said she was bought out or something. Someone knew what she did, knew she was after Jade too. Holly said she found that person, and killed her. So somebody else was killed so that the woman wouldn't get Jade…"

"Do you remember any details at all?"

"Let me think." Cat's forehead wrinkled and her eyes slanted. The girl closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. "Jade's mom, I think. I think Holly was going to go after her anyway, but prior arrangements were made or something to where she couldn't find her."

In the hallway, Tori had been listening in on the conversation with Jade-who was now more distraught than she'd been just moments ago. It appalled her to hear her mother wanted to use Jade after all, and to make matters worse, back then it would have worked.

However, discovering this, she'd been given something more to work with. Jade's mother moved away many years before, to some place in Mexico of all places. Apparently she met somebody and ran off with the man, but if the woman had been a resident of Mexico-it meant Holly committed a murder over the border.

"Jade? Didn't your mother go missing a long time ago?" She looked to the right and frowned at the woman. Jade's arms were crossed, her posture was rigid and her face held an angered expression that Tori hadn't seen in years.

"Yeah. They found her body in Mexico City, thought her boyfriend killed her. Though there was DNA evidence and a fingerprint that proved otherwise. But it was Mexico…and Mexican police wanted an arrest, so they took the guy into custody. They're not exactly known for having a fair judicial system."

"Yeah I know, Rick talks about it all the time." She crossed her arms and turned towards Jade. "Back then, you went to Italy to take classes."

"Mom was Italian. She forced me to go to an Italian college-I always thought it was because she wanted me to follow her footsteps or something."

"Do you think she did it so Holly couldn't get to you?"

Jade dropped her arms and quickly ran a finger across her eyelids. "I don't know." She took a deep breath and looked away. "I don't want to think about it. Beck and I have been taking this whole thing hard ever since, you know…this stress isn't helping me either."

"I'm sorry, Jade. Really." It was difficult to be apologetic, but she was sympathetic still. Her mind wasn't on her friend's troubles now, her mind was on how to ensure Holly did not have an easy prison term.

Should they pin the murder of Jade's mom on Holly, then she could legally ensure Holly went to one of those prisons in Mexico that Rick said was truly terrible.

"Take a few days off, Jade." She balled her fists and started down the hallway. "I'm going to work with the Mexican police for a little bit." Jade raised an eyebrow and followed after her.

"What do you mean?"

A rush of anger coursed through her veins as ice. "Your mother may be the key in making the rest of Holly's life a miserable one."

Within days she had investigators reopening the case of Denise West. "You must truly hate this woman," the investigator replied with a smirk, "To reopen a case simply to insure she serves a prison term in one of Mexico's prisons."

"Well." Tori grinned as she fanned the fires of her hatred. This was all for her sister and for Rick. She didn't have to kill Holly, but she was going to make damn sure the bitch suffered. "Don't quote me on it, but American prisons are far too lenient for a bitch like this."

"So you're not simply interested in clearing the name of an innocent man?"

"Oh, I want to do that too." She glanced at the ring on her finger and pressed her lips tightly together. Her eyes narrowed as her anger continued to spiral out of control. "I need this woman to suffer for what she's done. Ella tiene que pagar por lo que ha hecho a mi Hermana y mi prometido."

"We will definitely work on this case, but we need to test the DNA evidence as well as fingerprints."

"I've given you those samples already. She's about to have trial in an American court. If you can prove she's the one who murdered this woman, then we can prepare to extradite her once she's been sentenced."

"Si."

Her nose crinkled and she turned away with a dangerous huff. She walked to the door and turned around, glancing at the evidence on the investigation table. "I want her in the worst, trashiest, most diseased prison in the biggest cesspool of hell that you can find in Mexico. She may get the death sentence in America, but death row inmates tend to live for twenty years or more before execution."

"Miss, I can guarantee, inmates here don't always last that long."

"Good. She needs to feel the hell she put my sister through." Holly could be confident that the politically correct American society had made prisoners happy and living lives of luxury, to be treated like human beings instead of the dirtbag criminals that they were, but she would soon find herself being treated to a different criminal justice system.

Considering the Mexican police did their criminal investigations differently than America, such as directly throwing their prisoners in jail, Holly was in for an unpleasant surprise.

"Gobierno mexicano no es tan bonito como Americano, Holly…"

So what are your thoughts on everything going on here?