When Opportunity Knocks - 7. Chapter 7

Kyle stared at the sight of Jett holding a crying Kim in his arms. He was touched by the tender streak that the man he was dating was showing. It was more than obvious that Kim had not fared well during her weekend away.

Kyle went inside Jett’s house and grabbed a box of Kleenex that was in the bathroom off the kitchen. Kim gratefully accepted it when she pulled away from Jett.

“I’m sorry.” she said. “It was a rough weekend in more than one way.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jett asked.

“No, I don’t want to, but I really need to. I think I’m going to need your help,” Kim averted her eyes as she replied.

Kyle’s heart broke for Kim. She looked utterly defeated. “I think I’ll head out and leave you two to talk.”

“No! Please stay Kyle. You need to hear this too.”

“Why don’t we go inside?” Jett suggested.

Tater was trying his damnedest to do his job and get Kim’s attention and she finally stooped down and gave the dog what he wanted. She picked up the wiggling ball of fur and gave him a reassuring hug before putting him down and leading them into her house. Her half of the duplex was a mirror image of Jett’s. It was decorated nicely, simple, yet tastefully done. The biggest difference that Kyle noticed was that she had a large, electric fireplace installed on one of the living room walls. She had mounted her TV over the mantle.

Jett made a pit stop at her fridge and pulled out three bottles of water, handing one to Kim and then Kyle as they sat down and made themselves comfortable. Jett and Kyle were on the couch and Kim sat in a well used chair and put her feet up on the matching ottoman. Tater jumped up and parked himself on the oversized ottoman next to Kim’s feet with his chin on her leg.

Kyle felt a little bit out of place. He couldn't imagine why Kim would want him to stay. He didn’t have a history with her like Jett did. He honestly felt like he barely knew her. He could see that she was uncomfortable whenever she glanced his way.

Kim took a few sips of her water and looked like she was trying to figure out where to begin.

“Kim, if whatever it is that is troubling you, we can do this another time. I can see how upset you are.” Jett said as he tried to comfort her.

“Thanks, but I really need to do this now. It’s about time you heard this anyway.” Kim answered.

Kyle still couldn’t see how he could help, but seeing how Kim had asked him to stay, it would be rude if he tried to excuse himself now.

“Jett, have you ever heard of Dr. Baby Broker?” Kim asked.

Jett looked surprised, but answered “The case was mentioned when I was in training as a cadet, but I really don’t remember too much about it.”

Kim nodded. “What about you Kyle, have you ever heard of him?”

Kyle thought for a moment before he replied “I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Well, let me educate you both.”

Kim took a deep breath and continued. “Dr. Baby Broker was convicted of black market adoptions back in 1995. He had kidnapped three girls in 1988 and held them hostage for over six years, impregnating each of them several times and “facilitated” the adoptions of those babies. The couples that adopted the children had no idea that these babies had basically been bred for the sole purpose of him profiting from it.”

Kim paused to let that sink in for a moment and Kyle stole a look at Jett, whose face surely mirrored his own with shock.

“I was one of those girls.” she admitted.

“What?!” Both men exclaimed in unison. Kyle felt nauseous. He could see that Kim was steeling herself to continue. He reached for Jett’s hand. He had a sinking feeling this was not going to be good.

Kim took a deep breath before she began. “In 1988 I had two best friends, Nikki Morgan and Heather Burke. We were just finishing up eighth grade and were so excited that we would be going into high school. We were finally going to be one of the big kids. The only problem with that was that we were still very much young kids. Boys had only recently appeared on our radar. Heather was the only one of us who had actually kissed a boy, and that was at a party during a game of ‘Truth or Dare’. Nikki had barely hit puberty, she was a late bloomer. Me? I still liked to play with Barbies.” Kyle could easily see the blush that crept its way up Kim’s neck. The sinking feeling in his gut made it tighten up even further.

Kim’s voice was strong as she continued. “It was Sunday, May twenty-second and Heather and I had slept over at Nikki’s the night before. It wasn’t unusual, we did that at each other’s houses roughly once a month or so, depending on our parents’ moods. Nikki’s house abutted a large wooded area and on the other side they had just built a shopping mall. We used the woods as a shortcut. This particular day we decided to go hang out at the mall, which was nothing new for us. We told Nikki’s mom we’d be back by three. Nikki had the strictest parents, you have to remember that we grew up back when ‘helicopter parenting’ was just beginning to be a thing. Nikki’s mom always wanted to know where she was going and when she was going to be back.”

“We were on our way back, about to enter the woods. There was a car parked at the far corner of the lot and this guy looked like he was searching for something. He wasn’t skeevy or creepy looking, he looked like a dad to tell you the truth. He called out to us to ask if we had seen a loose dog. We fell for it, hook, line and sinker. There was no dog, just a very strong man who sprayed us with pepper spray and in less than a minute had us all thrown into his trunk. Once there, it only took him a minute or two to inject us each with something to knock us out.”

Kyle watched as Kim hesitated. Tater seemed to pick up on her emotions and crawled onto her lap. Her hand buried itself into his fur, as if to grab onto it for comfort. “When I came to it was dark all around me. It was cold, and it was damp and musty. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious or where Nikki and Heather were. I called out to them, but there was no answer. My hands and feet were tied and I also realized I was naked. Needless to say, the shaking that started just wasn’t from the cold. I don’t know how much time passed before I heard sounds from one of the other girls. It was Heather, she finally came around and then Nikki did shortly after. We weren’t gagged, but we were chained and had no way of reaching each other. Petrified doesn’t even come close to describing how scared we were.”

“Holy shit Kim. I-I-I-have no words. I can’t begin to imagine the terror that you felt.” Jett said. Kyle felt like the air around him was closing in.

“Terror is a good start. We stayed like that for quite a while. It’s impossible to judge the passage of time when you’re tied up and blindfolded. Our captor finally made his presence known. He was nice enough to introduce himself as Marc. That’s the only name he ever gave us. We found out much later that he was Dr. Marc Greene, OB/GYN turned fertility specialist. We could tell that we were in a cellar. There were concrete block walls with a few small windows along the top. The windows were blacked out, barred and sealed shut. There was no way we could have ever gotten out that way. We tried. Many times. All we ever managed was to flake off a small chip in the blackout paint. It was just enough so that we could judge whether it was night or day.”

Kyle’s heart was racing as he tried to imagine being in that sort of situation, his fingers automatically gripping Jett’s tighter.

“The first time he came down all he brought was some water and a box of crackers.

He told us we would have to earn anything else.” Kim shook her head. “How naive we were. We had no idea what was going to happen to us, what exactly we would have to do to “earn” anything.”

“Out of the three of us Nikki was the quiet one, Heather was the brains, and me? I was the one who didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. When he came, I mouthed off to him. Screamed at him to let us go. Called him every name I could think of, plus a few that I think I made up. He hit me a few times and then told me I needed to be punished. Nikki and Heather kept telling me to shut up. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

Kim lowered her head, as if she were ashamed of the memory. Kyle could picture her as a kid, scrappy, loyal and ready to defend her friends with everything she had.

“My punishment was to watch while he raped Nikki and then once he recovered, he did the same to Heather. I kept screaming at him to leave them alone. I screamed until I was hoarse. My throat was raw. I will never forget the look on his face when he turned his attention toward me. It finally shut me up. It was feral. He was the hunter and I was now his prey. He left us alone, still chained up so we couldn’t reach each other. I kept sobbing that I was sorry. Over and over. I believed it was my fault, and I guess in a way it was, but in the end it didn’t matter.”

“What a fucking sick bastard!” Kyle exclaimed. Kyle couldn’t help but feel angry at what had happened. He could feel Jett’s tension as well, transmitted through their hands which were gripped tightly together.

Kim looked dejected as she went on. “It gets worse Kyle. The next day, or whenever it was when he came back, it was my turn. He told me as long as I kept my mouth shut then when it was over he would get us some food. I didn’t even make a sound as he stole my innocence. I’m not going to lie to you, it hurt. It hurt worse than when I dislocated my shoulder falling out of a tree when I was eight. In the end he fed us. The first real food we had since the ordeal started. I had traded my virginity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. To this day I can’t tolerate the sight or smell of peanut butter. I never liked jelly to begin with.”

“He unchained us after we ate and after he left is when I was able to chip away a tiny piece of the blackout paint he had over one of the windows. We then had a way of marking the passage of time. The ceiling was just exposed wood beams. At first I used my fingernail to mark the wood. We eventually “earned” plastic forks and spoons and I would use the fork to scratch the wood. Two-thousand, two hundred and ninety-three marks is what they counted. Over six years is what he stole from us, nevermind the years since.”

“How the fuck did you not go crazy?” Jett asked softly.

“We didn’t. Believe me, there were plenty of days when we lost our shit. Heather figuring out she was pregnant for the first time was one of them. It probably happened one of the first days we were there. Once she realized I had marked over twenty days on the wood she knew she was late. The morning sickness kicked in shortly after. I had my period about two weeks in, so I went back and made an extra nick on what day I thought it was. I knew I’d end up pregnant sooner or later. Nikki was a different story. I told you that she was a late bloomer. She hadn’t even gotten her first period when we were kidnapped. She had two mosquito bites for tits and her mom wouldn’t even let her shave her legs. She never got to experience the rite of passage every girl goes through. She went straight to pregnant about six months later. By that time I was pregnant too. He knocked me up shortly after Heather figured out she was expecting.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Kyle whispered, the horror of what Kim and her friends endured slowly sinking in.

“Yeah, well, he was nowhere to be found. Heather’s family was really religious. Did the whole church thing every weekend, family bible study nights, weekend retreats, all that sort of shit. My family and Nikki’s were religious, but not the bible-thumping kind. If we missed a Mass on the weekend, it wasn’t a reason to go to confession and flagellate oneself for penance.”

“Anyway, he must have been keeping track of us as well. Within a day or two of Heather figuring out her period was late, he brought her a home pregnancy test. It was all the proof he needed. We were treated better after that. We had three nutritious meals a day. He dragged down a king size mattress and more blankets. Up until then we would sleep on the concrete floor huddled up together. There was a small bathroom down there with a toilet, sink and shower stall. He brought us shampoo. We had been using just the bars of soap that he provided. He also brought us warmer clothes, underwear, and socks. He also made sure the temperature was more along the lines of comfortable. It was summer the first several months we were there, but in the fall when it started to get cold he would open the vents so we were warm.”

“Anything other than a basic necessity had to be earned. In the form of sexual favors. All of us learned how to give blow jobs, how to jack him off, rim him, massage his prostate. He also liked to watch us do things to each other. Things that he instructed us on. The thing is, he brainwashed us into eventually liking sex. I’m not sure how much you know about pregnancy, but many women go through a phase where their libido increases. It may have something to do with the blood volume increasing or the hormones. He took advantage of that and taught us all about orgasms and how to achieve them. With him, with ourselves, and with each other. We got addicted to it. We would have sex with each other when he wasn’t there. We just didn’t know any better. Although I knew, in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right to force us to have no alternative. He made us aware of our sexuality. Yes, it was way too soon, but once that cat is out of the bag, there’s no going back. For better or for worse, we only had each other.”

“He made sure we stayed healthy. His income depended on it. He brought in an ultrasound machine and I cried the first time I heard the baby's heartbeat. The first kick I felt was like magic. There is no way to describe the way it makes you feel when you realize there is a life growing inside of you. It’s overwhelming. Keep in mind, we had no idea he was going to take our babies away.” she gave a wry half smile. We also had no idea what to expect when we went into labor. I started having sporadic contractions a couple of weeks before the real thing. He merely said they were called Braxton-Hicks contractions and were normal. When I went into labor for real it scared the bejeezus out of me. It was too early. Heather had gotten pregnant before me. Turns out she was overdue as much as I was early. Toward the end of our pregnancies he kept a closer eye on us. Whenever he left he told us that if either of us thought we were in labor to shove a piece of paper under the door at the top of the stairs. I made Nikki do that after the first ‘real’ contraction hit. There’s a reason so many women choose to get epidurals when they give birth. It fucking hurts. Worse than anything you can imagine. Your insides are doing their damndest to expel another human. It doesn’t matter that the human is tiny, it feels like you’re being ripped apart from the inside out. Screaming sorta helps, it gives you a channel to shoot the pain through.”

“Heather and Nikki were terrified as well. I was in labor for a few hours before he came down. He brought a big plastic sheet to put over the bed, a bag with towels and stuff that he would need during the delivery. I guess the sight and sound of everything stressed Heather out so much that it triggered her labor. All of a sudden he had two babies to deliver. Heather progressed much faster than me. She gave birth to a boy and less than an hour later, I gave birth to a girl.”

Kyle could see that Kim was on the verge of tears again. The angst she was experiencing came through in her voice. “Those were the only babies we got to hold. She was so tiny. I was so afraid I was going to hurt her. At the same time, all I wanted to do was protect her. It took him a while to clean up everything. Nikki wasn’t much help. She was sort of shell shocked. We had recently figured out she was pregnant, but had no idea how far along she was. As soon as he got everything cleaned up and got Heather and I the supplies we would need, he took both babies, telling us he needed to have them checked out. We never saw them again.”

“It was three days before he showed up again. I went ballistic when I realized he had done something with our babies. The only thing he told us was that they were being taken care of. We had no choice but to go on the best we could. Nikki needed our support. She was terrified, and with good reason. Her pregnancy was harder on her. She was sick every day and she seemed so huge. She was a tiny thing to start with. One of those kids who was skinny, barely any meat on her bones. Pregnancy took its toll on her. Heather and I tried to make her eat more, even though she couldn’t always keep it down. Surprisingly her delivery was relatively easy. It was shorter than both mine and Heather’s. She got to hold her baby for only a few minutes before he took him away.”

Kyle could see Kim shaking and Jett gave his hand a quick squeeze before getting up to go sit on the ottoman and reach for her hand that she didn’t have buried in Tater’s fur. She looked relieved. Kyle felt like he was going to either pass out or explode as he scooted to the edge of the couch, his nerves just as much on edge.

“Did you ever find out what happened to your children?” Kyle asked.

Kim answered “For the most part we did, but I’ll get to that in a bit. There’s still more, and a lot worse. After we had proved ourselves fertile, he made it his mission to impregnate us as soon as possible. Within a few weeks of giving birth he was back to fucking us daily until we were knocked up again. Heather and I ended up getting pregnant together three more times. “For whatever reason, most likely because a young female body really isn’t designed to be a baby factory, Heather’s fourth pregnancy was extremely difficult. She had cramping and sporadic bleeding. A few times we thought she was miscarrying. That would have been so much better in the long run if she had. I was pregnant as well, my body decided that it was perfect for churning out babies one after another.”

“Heather went into labor early with this pregnancy. I had figured it was roughly thirty-two weeks or so. She was in trouble right from the start. Some bleeding is normal, the bleeding that Heather had?” Kim shook her head. “Even with no medical training, I knew that wasn’t normal. I hauled my swollen body up the stairs and pounded on the door. We knew it was nighttime from the darkness of the window. He finally showed up and as soon as he saw Heather he swore. I’ll never forget that. The way he looked at her and swore. ‘Son of a fucking bitch.’ That’s what he said, like all she was was an inconvenience. He examined her real quick and then raced back upstairs and came down with a bag of supplies.”

“Heather’s baby was breech. He tried turning it from the outside, but that didn’t work. I will never forget the screams she let out when he reached up inside her to try to turn the baby. Nikki was sobbing, I was sobbing and yelling at him to stop. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. He literally yanked that baby out of her body. I’ve never seen so much blood. He was so focused on getting the baby to breathe he ignored Heather. I tried to stop the bleeding. I held every towel Nikki could find up against her. It didn’t take long before they were soaked. Heather was barely breathing when we finally managed to get him to look at her. He shoved her baby at me and then grabbed Heather and carried her upstairs. Her baby didn’t look right. Her head was deformed, one side sort of sunken in. She never made a sound. He came back and took the baby, telling us he was taking them to the hospital. We never saw either of them again.”

Silence descended like a fine curtain, blocking out everything except the sound of their breathing. Kyle broke the silence. “Did you ever find out what he did with them?”

“At the trial he admitted nothing, but we knew that they had both died. Their bodies still haven’t been found. They could be anywhere. He was gone for at least six days after the birth. Nikki and I were running out of food. I still had a few weeks left of my pregnancy and I had never been so anxious before. He made it back and acted as though Heather never existed. If one of us brought up her name in front of him he would hit us.”

“I went into labor a few weeks later and that baby was gone just as quickly as the first three. Nothing changed. I got pregnant two more times. Nikki had two more as well. Altogether I had six babies in just over six years. Nikki wasn’t quite as fertile, she had four babies. Heather had four as well, but just three survived. It wasn’t until after we escaped that everything unfolded.”

“How did you finally escape?” Kyle wondered.

“A very lucky break.” Kim said. “For over six years every single time he went up those stairs he was so careful about making sure the door was secured. We could hear the locks clicking into place. There were three locks, the one on the door handle, a chain and a deadbolt. Now keep in mind that this was the age before cell phones were commonplace. He was a doctor and back then doctors carried pagers. He was bringing us food when his pager went off. He looked at the number and swore. Whoever it was, they made him angry. He stormed up the stairs and in his haste to get to a phone he didn’t turn the deadbolt all the way. We heard the slide of the chain and the click of the lock on the door, but not the deadbolt.

“Nikki and I held our breath, listening for him to turn the deadbolt the rest of the way. Instead we heard a door slam and then we could faintly hear the sound of a car driving away. I was six months pregnant and Nikki was nearly seven. This was our only chance and we knew it. He had brought books for us to read and one of the books had a sturdy cover. When I was much younger my brother liked to prank me by locking the door to the family room so he could watch TV without me. My Dad showed me how to slide a butterknife in between the door and the jamb to pop the lock. I tore the cover off one of our books and folded it a couple of times. It took a little jimmying, but with the help of one of our plastic knives, it worked. The chain was easy. We both kicked at the door until the chain broke.”

Kyle could see that Kim was lost in the memory of her escape. He couldn’t imagine how she and Nikki must have felt.

“After the initial shock of what we had accomplished wore off we ran. We had no shoes, only socks and it was late fall. The air was cold when it hit our faces. The sun, however, the sun was warm. We hadn’t seen the sun in over six years. I’ll never forget how that sunlight felt as it hit our faces.” Kyle watched Kim close her eyes, almost as if she could still feel that warmth on her face.

She opened her eyes and looked at Jett, still perched on her ottoman. Kyle’s attention was riveted on her. He had a good idea where this was going, but his brain didn’t want to acknowledge it.

“We had absolutely no clue where we were. His house was set back from the road and all we could see were trees on both sides. The only option we had was to go down that driveway and find the road.”

“Why didn’t you use the phone?” Jett asked.

“Because we didn’t want to stay in that house one more second. We wouldn't have been able to tell them where we were anyway. Nikki and I ran down the driveway as fast as our preggo asses would let us. His driveway was long and it took us at least five minutes to reach the road. There was a house across the street with two guys raking their yard. Needless to say, we sort of shocked them. The rest is history. The cops were called, we were taken to the hospital and he was arrested at his clinic. We were reunited with our families, which didn’t go over so great when they saw that we were pregnant, especially my family. I had already decided that I wanted to give the baby up for adoption. I was in no shape mentally to handle raising a baby conceived the way it was. My parents went ballistic. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want them, or someone else in our family raising him. Yes, it was a boy and I couldn’t face having a daily reminder of how six years of my life was lost. I had the final word as I had turned eighteen and legally was an adult. It was hard though, adjusting to ‘normal life’.

“So what happened to your other babies? You said you’d get to that.” Kyle reminded her.

“Ah, yes. The scratches on the wood beams not only marked the days that we were held captive, but I also marked the days that the babies were born. The police were able to trace most of them. Out of the five that he had taken away from me, four of the adoptive parents came forward. I legally signed away my rights. Nikki had four babies and the same thing with her, all four sets of adoptive parents came forward and all four were awarded permanent parental rights. Heather. Heather had three living babies. They found two of the families that adopted them. Heather’s parents sued for custody and won. Heather’s sister ended up adopting them. The first baby she had, no one ever came forward, just like my first baby. The police theorized that they were adopted together as a sibling pair.”

Kim dropped her next bomb. “Kyle, our first babies were born around February 27th, 1989.”

Kyle’s brain felt like it had short circuited, so many thoughts and emotions were now entwined and he couldn’t sort them out. He was Heather’s first baby and Megan was Kim’s. He now had a better idea of why his parents kept it a secret, but he still had so many questions.

“Fuck.” Kyle uttered, completely dumbfounded.