Free Not Forgotten by Camille Taylor Page B

better to know your enemy , she thought.
    Hours later, Natalie was sitting on the coffee coloured couch in her family room with a notepad resting on her thighs. The TV was on in front of her and the police tape of the interview of twelve-year-old Hallie Walker was playing. The footage was clear. It was obvious the camera was mounted high up on the wall in the interrogation room from the angle in which it looked down on the witness. Hallie sat at the table wrapped deeply in blankets, her eyes red. A mug sat in front of her, the liquid inside steaming, sending white curls of puff wafting out. Two uniformed officers sat on the opposite side of the table observing Hallie, their backs to the camera as a child advocate sat beside her.
    The first officer announced himself as Ryan Garratt, senior constable. The date was August sixth, 2005, and the time was four-twenty in the morning according to the timestamp on the display.
    Ryan Garratt softened his voice. Years of experience would’ve told him to tread carefully, otherwise the girl would most likely close up.
    “Okay, Hallie, what I would like you to do is go over it again.” Hallie looked at him with unseeing eyes. “Do you think you can do that for me?”
    Hallie nodded slowly and recited the events for the officers one more time. Her voice was hoarse from crying and her hair was still damp from her trip in the river. Natalie watched every movement the girl made, every nuance, and listened closely as she spoke. The more she understood about twelve-year-old Hallie, the more she could work with the seventeen-year-old version.
    The on-screen Hallie started sobbing uncontrollably.
    “I want my mummy.”
    She rocked back and forth, trying to comfort herself. Natalie had to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from screaming at the adults to comfort her. For a moment she wondered how they could be so heartless. She knew she was being overly protective. Had they actually comforted Hallie she probably would’ve broken down and become catatonic and then been no help at all. But the latent maternal gene in Natalie felt there was a middle ground that could’ve been explored. Tears burned in Natalie’s eyes. She could feel Hallie’s pain as if it was her own.
    She replayed the footage over and over again until her emotions were raw and exposed. Natalie picked up the remote and turned her television off. There was nothing more she could learn from it. She felt the warm, salty tears silently trickling down her cheek and swiped at them as she walked out of the room.
    Natalie abhorred violence and as much time as she had spent studying the human psyche, she couldn’t understand why people hurt one another. How soulless did one have to be before they stopped caring about the pain they caused, or the lives they took?
    She entered her bathroom and turned on the tap, watching as her bathtub slowly filled up. She added a few drops from her collection of sensual oils. It had been a while since she’d had a bath. As a child she used to love them. When her father had been alive he had joked that she had been born part fish. Natalie remembered fervently stating she wasn’t a fish but a mermaid. Who wanted to be a fish when they could be something as romantic and beautiful as a mermaid? And she had wanted to be pretty.
    Natalie had often thought of herself as plain or mousey or at least that was what her beauty queen of a mother had told her. Her easy-going father hadn’t argued with her, allowing his daughter the fantasy of believing. It wasn’t until a few years ago that she had been able to sit in a bathtub again and even now she couldn’t fully relax. It had taken everything she had to overcome her fear of contained water.
    She placed her mobile phone on the basin nearby and undressed before slipping into the water. The scent of rose soaked into her skin. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Hallie, the Walkers or the sick bastard known as the Butcher. The only trouble with that