Healing, she realized, was not linear.
Six months after the sentencing, something unexpected happened.
The district attorney’s office contacted Kiara again.
There was another victim.
A woman named Emily Ross had come forward after recognizing Derek’s name in a news article archived online.
Emily had dated him briefly years before he met Kiara.
She had never filed a report.
She had never documented anything.
But she remembered the yelling.
The control.
The threats.
“He told me no one would believe me,” Emily said during her statement.
Kiara sat across from her in a quiet advocacy center office.
For a moment, neither woman spoke.
Then Kiara reached across the small table and took her hand.
“He told me that too.”
It wasn’t about adding charges anymore.
Derek was already sentenced.
This was about pattern.
About record.
About the truth stretching further back than Kiara had known.
“You’re not crazy,” Kiara told her.
Emily’s eyes filled.
“I thought it was just me.”
“It never is,” Kiara replied.
Lauren met Emily once, briefly, when she accompanied Kiara to the advocacy center.
Later that night, Lauren sat alone in her apartment reflecting on something she had not allowed herself to examine before.
If Kiara had not sewn that flash drive into her coat…
If Lauren had not looked closely at the bruises…
If security had not been called immediately…
There were too many ifs.
She thought of the note.
Please don’t trust him.
It had been simple.
Direct.
