Kate walked out of her bedroom and into the living room, double checking the locks on all the windows. They looked secure, still locked. She peered out onto the fire escape but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Kate gulped her nerves down and traveled into the kitchen, feeling like she was in a trance. She poured herself a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table, laying both photographs in front of her.
Kate knew that she didn’t have the option of privacy anymore. He hadn’t just taken it from her once, he was still stealing it from her. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, while still staring at the photographs. Numbly, she scrolled through her recent contacts and picked out the name she was looking for. The phone began ringing as she held it up to her ear.
“Kate, how are you doing? I was going to call you in the morning.” The voice responded immediately upon picking up the call.
“I can’t wait until tomorrow, I need you to come over now. There is something I need to show you.” Kate said flatly, trying to push away any emotions.
“Okay, yeah, I’m heading over now.” The call disconnected and Kate placed the phone on the table. She leaned her head down into her hands and began to cry. Small little tears at first but she was sobbing loudly within a few minutes. She had been holding back these tears for a while now, but she couldn’t any longer. How had things gone from good to bad quickly?
~~~~
The knock on her door couldn’t come soon enough and Kate jumped up from her kitchen table to go answer it. She had still been sitting there staring at the photographs side by side, her mind swollen with swirling thoughts. She wanted to pour them all out to someone who could pick it apart and make sense of it all because Kate certainly couldn’t. She yanked open her front door quickly without even checking through the peephole.
“Hi, Kate.” Detective Liz Snow greeted her with a small wave and friendly smile. It was clear that she had been working too many long hours in a row because she was still in her business wear but her clothes were wrinkled and slightly disheveled.
“Come in.” Kate said with no greeting or smile, no attempt at civility. She didn’t have it in her to think about proper introductions or conversation etiquette. Her mind was at capacity and she was about to overflow.
She didn’t even close the door behind the detective, she just walked straight into the kitchen. The detective followed her into the kitchen, closing the front door for her. She could tell that the mood was off, there was something upsetting Kate. She didn’t say anything, giving Kate the floor to speak first as she sat down at the kitchen table across from where Kate had sat.
Without saying a word, Kate slid both photographs across the table towards Detective Snow. She took them from her and her eyes widened in surprise as she tried to figure out what she was looking at. One picture was clearly taken from outside the apartment, looking in. The other picture took a few seconds to decipher because of how violent the image was, but Detective Snow finally pieced out Kate’s face somewhere under the swelling and blood.
“Kate, what are these?” She looked up at her, talking gently with as much compassion as she could muster on top of her shock.
“The first one. The really bad one. I didn’t tell you about it. It’s from that night. He took it. After he was done.” Kate slowly tried explaining in choppy sentences, not sure how to figure out what she was saying and how to explain something that was still so confusing to her.
“He took it with his own camera right after the attack? And then gave it to you?” She clarified, picking up the pictures again.
“Yeah, he had brought one. It was in his pocket. He took two, he kept one of them. The other one, that one-“ Kate pointed to the original photograph, “it fell behind the bed. I forgot about it until I came home from the hospital and was rearranging my room.”
“And you kept it. What about this one?” She asked, holding up the photograph of Kate sitting on her couch.
“That’s why I called you. I just found it now, I didn’t take it and I didn’t put it here.” Kate said, her hand shaking a bit as she pointed to it.
“I had put the first photograph in the pages of my Bible in my nightstand, its been there since I first found it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it, I knew I should, but what would it have helped? It was just so embarrassing and I just, I just couldn’t handle... I don’t know what to say, I don’t have a good excuse.” Kate started going off topic, feeling guilty about having kept such a large secret from Detective Snow. She had done nothing but try to help her since the attack and Kate had lied to her, hidden the photograph.
“Where was the other photograph?” The detective tried to steer her back to answering her question while she pulled a notepad out of her pocket and a pencil. Liz didn’t want to slip and express the anger she was truly feeling at having been left in the dark for so long. She couldn’t believe Kate had not told them about the picture in all these weeks that she had worked so closely with her.