Tapestry of Scars

Scars of a Survivor

A/N: This one is more than a rollercoaster. It's a damn rocketship being pulled into a crazy gravity forcefield. Prepare yourselves.

***

Chapter 19:

Scars of a Survivor

The plan was straightforward enough. All they had to do was lure him to the Poconos. Shana and her team were going to try and get him to follow Emily to a secluded location, where there would be a sting task force already in place.

Caleb had spread the word to the right kind of the wrong people in town. He'd gone fishing and he'd captured Emily's white whale. The FBI had been monitoring every CCTV and security camera for miles outside of town. They'd finally gotten a hit at a gas station at a road eighty miles away from the cabin that morning.

The girls had been on edge as they waited for the call. Alison panicked when the phone rang. Emily was strangely calm. Shana came over with lunch so they could go over the plan.

"If you know where he is can't you just go intercept him and arrest him before he gets here?" Alison asked. "Or set up a roadblock or something."

"We know what direction he's traveling, but we don't know what route he's going to end up taking. And we don't have the authorization to shut down a highway for a suspected felon..."

"He is a felon." Alison argued.

"Hey, calm down." Emily rubbed her arm. "Look, I know him. I spent years learning how he operates. If he suspects a set up he'll go back into hiding. This is our one shot."

"How are you not freaking out right now?"

Because I'm going to shoot the motherfucker in the face.

"Because only one of us can freak out at a time." Emily put her hand on top of Alison's. "They can't bring him in without probable cause. They don't have any evidence. He covered his tracks."

"You have literal physical proof on your body." Alison lifted her shirt.

Emily jerked her hand away from Alison's and pulled her shirt down. She didn't like feeling exposed with Shana in the room. Shana glanced away. Emily appreciated her discretion.

"That isn't admissible in court." Emily smoothed her shirt down. "You're forgetting I served overseas. Nothing on my body can prove what he did to me."

"What about all the times he..." Alison stopped herself and glanced at Shana. Shana got up and walked over to the counter to try and give them a little space. She poured some coffee in a cup and then put it in the microwave to create a little ambient noise. Alison looked at Emily and took her hand as she lowered her voice, "You said Ethan went with you when you..." She looked at Emily's stomach. She didn't want Shana to overhear. She was trying to be discreet for Emily's sake, "...that he held your hand..."

"We didn't use any real information on the forms when I had the abortion."

"What about DNA or..."

"Ali, I never went to the hospital. I never had a rape kit done. I was a kid. I was scared." She'd been too scared that he would hurt Ethan. "There is nothing in any records that can nail him. We have to get him on tape coming after me...or confessing."

"This is such bullshit. Why should you have to put yourself in danger to prove what a psycho he is?"

"Take it up with the justice system."

Shana pulled her coffee out of the microwave and walked back over towards them.

"We know that he's on his way. We know he'll be looking for Emily," Shana said, sitting down at the table. "He'll be watching. So all we've got to do is set up a controlled situation where Emily is alone. We'll stage an argument somewhere in public where he can see." She pulled out a folder with a bunch of loose pieces of paper. She pulled out a detailed map. "After you and Ali go your separate ways you're going to walk into this liquor store..." She pointed to the map.