BATON ROUGE by Carla Cassidy - Scene of the Crime 09 - BATON ROUGE

energy. She got up from her chair and walked over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. Before carrying it back to her chair, she stretched and tried to shove away the weariness of inactivity.
    She was halfway back to her chair with the coffee when her cell phone rang. The coffee sloshed over the rim as she hurried to her seat, conscious of everyone’s gaze focused on her.
    Her insides trembled as she placed her cup on the table and then answered the phone, as usual punching speaker and record at the same time. “Agent Beaumont,” she said.
    “Ah, Georgina, have you missed me?” Bob asked.
    “Actually I have,” she replied. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
    “You’re my closest friend, Georgina, and I want to continue the discussion we were having the other day about family.”
    Georgina closed her eyes, a familiar pressure of pain filling her chest as she thought about her family. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you let Macy go? Just drop her off at some mall or in the middle of a park and drive away and then we’ll talk about my family.”
    “Georgina, are you trying to call the shots here?” Bob laughed, the sound a sinister one that crawled up her spine. “How about we talk about you first and then I’ll consider your request to release the little princess.”
    A reckless hope buoyed up inside her as she kept her focus on the face of the cell phone. “Ask your questions, Bob, and then we’ll see if you’re a man of your word when it comes to reciprocating.”
    She felt Alex’s presence right behind her, smelled the familiar scent of his cologne and a sense of calm, of security swept through her.
    “Do you have siblings, Georgina?”
    “Two older sisters,” she replied.
    “Do you have a good relationship with them?”
    “I don’t have any relationship with them.”
    “Why is that?”
    Once again Georgina closed her eyes as ancient memories cascaded through her...bad memories...horrendous ones. “I don’t have anything to do with any of my family because they were verbally, physically and emotionally abusive to me,” she replied, despite the ever-stronger constriction in her chest.
    “Why was that, Georgina?” Bob asked. “Were you a bad little girl?”
    Alex’s hand fell to her shoulder and even though she’d told him she wanted him to treat her only as a professional, she was grateful for the touch that kept her connected to the here and now as she darted down the rabbit hole where all her monsters lived.
    “No, I wasn’t a bad little girl. My problem was that I was born a girl. My sisters are four and five years older than me. When my mother got pregnant again my father was certain she was going to deliver him the son he desperately wanted. Instead he got me. He called me the abortion that should have happened.”
    She was vaguely aware of Alex’s fingers tightening on her shoulder as she fought the demons of her past. The last thing she wanted to do was bare her skeletons in front of the team, in front of Alex, but she would do it if it helped further the investigation. She would give to Bob what she’d never been able to give to Alex or anyone else on the face of the earth.
    She’d give him her nightmares.
    It was as if Bob had poked a hole in a dam and now the flood of evil spilled from her in an emotional burst. “Yeah, Bob, I had a crappy childhood. My father hated me and insisted that my mother and sisters have nothing to do with me. I was kicked and beaten by all of them when I wasn’t locked in a closet for days at a time.”
    “I hear your pain, Georgina. I feel your pain,” Bob said. “My old man was a mean drunk and he was drunk most of the time. I was beaten nearly every day of my life and my dear mother did nothing to stop it.”
    “Tell me, Bob, how did you manage to get the people you kidnapped?” Georgina asked. Despite the turmoil and chaos the discussion about her past had stirred up in her head, she hadn’t lost