Sixty Six
“Is there even still a case, Ray is already dead. Astra has been through a lot already, she doesn’t need to start talking about that all over again, she was raped for Christ sake!” Nicholas shouted and walked out on Detective Morris. He walked till he got to the quiet part of the hospital and he sat down and he cried. That only happened to her because he was unable to protect her, if he could protect her then she would have never been hurt. If he had been faster, if he didn’t wait for the police, then Astra would not have to go through so much pain. Ray deserved the worse part of hell, he deserved a death worse than he got. He should die again.
After a while, Nicholas wiped his tears and went back into the hospital. On getting to Astra’s room, Detective Morris was there. Nicholas felt angrier. He told the man not to disturb her and yet he was doing the exact thing. Nicholas wanted to drag him out of her room when he heard Astra’s voice.
“I wanted to see you. I have something to give you, it is a recording device it was in my dress,” Astra said and gave him a small device. Detective Morris looked at the device and smiled.
“This will be very helpful, thank you. How did you get it though?” He asked her
“I was planning to become bait for Ray, he beat me to it though, I just took the recorder just in case,” Astra said and then faced another side on her bed. She was obviously tired of talking.
“Astra, are you okay?” Nicholas asked her, and she nodded.
“Mommy!” Brian shouted. Nicholas was surprised to hear Brian’s voice, he turned back to see the entire crew coming in. Their son bounded to meet his mother. Nicholas expected a smile from Astra, but she cried instead as she held her son. Nicholas figured that tears were also good, as long as they were tears of joy. He hoped that they were tears of joy and not sorrowful tears. He could not take those.
“Mommy I missed you so much and now you are not well,” Brian said and pouted.
“Mommy is good,” Astra said, the tears were still rolling down her eyes. Her eyes still looked as lifeless as the first time.
“Oh, Astra we were so worried,” Stephanie said, coming forward to hug her. Yvonne and Jared also went in. Nicholas excused himself then. He just stood by the door watching her.
“She is different,” Sarah said. His cousin did not go with the crowd.
“She doesn’t even look happy to be back,” Sarah continued. Nicholas carried Theo from her and held him on his hip.
“She has been through a lot Sarah. She has been through too much. I just really hope that she bounces back,” Nicholas said. The people in the room started leaving one by one and Brian was crying when he left.
“Mommy doesn’t want to hold me,” Brian said. Nicholas looked at Astra but she was facing another direction, she probably wanted to be alone.
“Come on Brian, let’s go get some ice cream,” Nicholas said to Brian and his son took his hand. They both went on to hold his father’s hand as they went out of the hospital.
~~~~~
Two days after Ray died and Astra was taken to the hospital, she made it obvious that she did not want visits. She only allowed a handful of people to see her and Brian was the first In that list. It was clear that Ray had did a number on Astra. She was different from before and even when Nicholas had the chance to tell her what the doctor said about her being pregnant she began to cry.
“That is not possible. It has just been a few days,” she said. It took Nicholas a while go understand what she was talking about. She thought that the child was Ray’s.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.
“You are already two months gone,” Nicholas clarified. He looked at her in hopes that she would say something about the father of the child, but she didn’t. She just sighed and looked the other way. It was her new sign of saying that she wanted to be alone.
“Is Jared the father?” Nicholas asked her, and she turned to him and shook her head.
“I have only had sex with one man willingly in the last seven years and it was you,” Astra said and Nicholas breathed a sigh of relief, it was his child. Nicholas knew that it was a bit too early, but he was thinking about what everything meant for him and Astra. He hoped they would become a family with Brian, the fact that the baby was his made it seem smoother and easier.
Nicholas was unable to celebrate or be happy because of the way she said the words. Astra turned back again and faced the wall. She was not in the mood to talk again. Nicholas was leaving her hospital room when he received a call, it was detective Morris.
“Hello,” Nicholas said.
“Hello, Nicholas. We have been able to get the information from the recording device. There are some things I will like you to know,” Detective Morris said. The recording device had been damaged and they had been fixing it before then, now it was finally playing.
“I am on my way,” Nicholas said before getting into his car and driving to the police station. Nicholas decided that he had been in there too many times for someone who did not commit a crime.
“We think that Astra needs some therapy. Over the course of the kidnap, Ray, as you can hear, was rationalizing his feelings to her, he was making how he was, seem like it was Astra’s fault,” another detective told Nicholas and he nodded. For the umpteenth time Nicholas felt like bringing him back to life and killing him again.
“Just give Jared a bit of time and he will become like me. Because that is what people like you do, you break me like me, by teasing and making them hang on. It makes you feel powerful. Do you think I ever wanted to be like this? Unable to love someone other than you? I don’t Astra, but you made me this way, it is all your fault,” Nicholas heard Ray’s voice. He was clearly a master at manipulation. It was so sickening to listen to and Astra was probably still hearing his voice in her head.
“It was in the same way that had was manipulating Astra that he was able to manipulate Thompson to do all those things to do. He was just a pawn,” Detective Morris said and then scrolled to a part and played.
“So you asked a question, Thompson, he was a pawn in all of these. I know a secret of his you see, and I managed to convince him that I was helping him, to keep his daughter and her mother away from the world,” Nicholas heard Ray’s voice again. He knew that was another story, he did not know that Thompson had a child, but for him to want to hide her so badly, something must have been wrong.
“He also confessed to a variety of crimes. Too many to be honest, I kind of wish he was not dead, but then he would have been treated for his mental disorder and not thrown into prison. He confessed to drugging you and your wife while you were still married and then taking you both to an orgy, that was where he took the pictures that he sent to you. We recovered the numerous pictures that he took of Astra, and then he confessed to poisoning your daughter when she was a child and starting the fire that almost killed Astra. He did all these to someone he claimed he loved,” the detective said. Nicholas was not sure what to do with all the information that he had. Tears began to roll from his eyes again, it will take a long time before their family would be able to heal.