by Jack Parker
The raw honesty and intensity of this philosophical speech left Ess more astounded than ever. Dwelling on it, taking it all in, was too much. There were too many conflicting observations that it brought forth. It was better to keep the explanation going. "So, what does all this have to do with this 'dangerous man' kidnapping me?"
Shame once more crossed Max's face. "It's my fault. I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back and undo it . . ."
She prompted him to continue his explanation rather than expound on his self-loathing apology, "But what did you do?"
"I created my Esther works and they drew attention. More importantly, they drew the attention of a wealthy man by the name of Marcus Angoli." Max needed to explain everything to make this woman understand. "When I was in college, I was encouraged by a professor to display my art in a local gallery. Mr. Angoli happened to be associated with the gallery and picked up on my works. They were paintings, all done in a Pre-Raphaelite Roman goddess theme . . . and they had your face.
He purchased the collection soon after they were placed on display. I was reluctant to sell, but I was a starving student at the time, and he wagged a lot of money in my face. I thought he liked my works in general, but over the years I noticed that the only works he actually acquired were of Esther – of you. You were like the unattainable movie star, only existing to be pined over.
I was taken to his estate once to manage a particular arrangement of some of the works. His home was like a fortress. Security cameras, guards . . . I never knew a place like that existed anywhere around here. Anyways, he has an entire room dedicated to the art he purchased from me, and there's a lot. He seems to have his own little obsession for you. Turns out, I wasn't the only one who thought highly of you. Except he didn't know that you were a real person. At least, not until you showed up at La Donne a couple of weeks ago." Another quick glance showed troubled shock on his passenger's face. He hated being the barer of such news, but it was better that she knew the danger.
"I hate going to the galleries and seeing my art on view, and I rarely go once the exhibit is opened, but Angoli insisted on meeting with me in person to discuss the purchase of my latest sculptures, because I did not want to sell them. Unfortunately, he was determined to have them, and, of course, he won out in the end. I'm ashamed to say that he threw a lot of money in my face again, and I couldn't refuse."
"Eighty thousand dollars? I can't say that I blame you." Ess commented quietly.
Max was surprised. "How did you know?"
Ess replied, "I tried to buy them myself. I didn't want them on display. They have my face . . . and the nude! I was embarrassed." Now it was Max's turn to be embarrassed.
"I didn't mean to be derogatory." He explained, "It's not porn. It's art. The ultimate beauty is the uninhibited human body. I was trying to emphasize beauty, not sexuality."
Ess just responded with a nod. Her chin was set and her eyes unreadable. Max couldn't tell if she accepted his justification or not. So, he decided to move on.
"Well, when you walked into the gallery it caused a little stir. Not a lot, but enough to bring you to Angoli's attention. I was too stunned myself to notice his reaction when he saw you. I didn't realize that it would be such a revelation to him as it was to me."
If Ess felt appalled and disturbed before, what he had to say next would really distress her. "Now here is the shocking part that I am most embarrassed to tell you, but please don't be mad." He paused for another deep breath. "Once I saw you, I couldn't just let you walk away again. I looked for you for so long, in classrooms, in crowded halls and stores, in every face I passed on the street. And finally, when I wasn't looking, you appeared.
I had to follow you. I told myself that I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and that you were happy with your life. I just wanted to look in on you from time to time, sort of like a guardian angel.
So, I trailed you and your friends to the café, and followed you home. Everything seemed well enough. You're life was simple and quiet. You seemed safe." Ess looked at him, her brow furrowed in disappointment over his description of her life. Her life was simple, and it was small, but she couldn't say that she was exactly happy about it.
"After I made this estimation, I tried to back off. I thought I had control of myself by this point in my life, but the pull was . . . it was . . . overwhelming. After only a day, I started finding excuses to pass by your neighborhood, though it's really not on my way anywhere. I discovered where you worked and shopped, the route you took home after work. I noticed that, on the days you left your job before dark, you would take a longer route home so that you could go through the park. The autumn leaves are starting to turn, and the scent of the fading summer is unbelievable right now. I imagined that you were enjoying the charm of it as much as I did. It seemed to me like you were in your element there." He caught himself going off on a tangent, and stopped himself.
The astute assessment he made of her rambles through the park surprised her. She was also alarmed. The accuracy of this study of her was very disturbing.
"I'm sorry. That's just the artist in me. Anyway, a few days ago, I began to notice that I wasn't the only one watching you. There was another man persistently observing you, and he always seemed to be nearby. I started watching him watch you. He got bolder as the week wore on. By this afternoon, he was letting you see him, too. He even ran into you a few times."
"The man who came to my apartment," Ess put it together. "Chad!" She was angry. She never contemplated that she was interesting enough to draw attention, and now she found out that she had an audience?
"That's the guy."
"But then who was the other guy?" Ess asked. "The one who hit him over the head?"
If Ess could see his face illuminated by more than the glow of a dashboard, she would have seen it turn a bright red. This was the part Max was most upset about.
"That," his voice cracked in humiliation, "was me."
"You?" Ess looked at him as closely as she dared. That scene in the apartment happened so quickly that the man's face had been a blur. She couldn't put this man's face to the one who had wrapped his arms around her and stifled her scream.
"I was trying to come to your rescue. I scared you and the whole thing went badly. I'm sorry." He had to stop apologizing so much or she would stop believing his sincerity. "I didn't realize the guy – Chad – had an accomplice. By the time I reached for you keep you from screaming and to try to help you recover yourself, the other man managed to enter the apartment and – judging from the fact that he shot at us on the road earlier – he must have hit me in the head with the back of his gun or something. He probably would have shot me then and there if the noise wouldn't have caused alarm amongst the neighbors.
By the time I came to, you were gone. I don't know how he got you out of there unseen, but he left 'Chad' on the floor, still unconscious. I wasn't about to just let them have you, so I made some quick decisions.
Before I left, I grabbed your suitcase, packed a few things and headed out to find you. I was heading in the general direction of Angoli's estate. I couldn't remember exactly where it was located, but I was going to break you out of there."
"Wait," Ess became livid, "You packed me a suitcase? You went through my things?"
"Esther, I wasn't invading your privacy for selfish reasons, I was just – "
"Just what? Planning to kidnap me yourself?" She was certainly angry now that she overcame her distress. "Gee, what a thoughtful kidnapper, packing me a bag!"
"Now, that is not what I was doing."
"Then what?"
"I planned to hide you. I still plan to hide you. It's not safe for you to be back in the city right now."
"Oh, and I'm supposed to assume that I'll be safe with you?"
"You are safe with me." Max was straining to recover the situation.
"How does that follow?" Ess noticed that she was displaying a little of Manda's gumption. It was quite the adrenaline rush. "How does going from one kid
napper to another mean that I'm safe?"
"I won't hurt you," he was desperate to reassure her, "but Angoli will. I plan to protect you, to repay you for what you did for me. Angoli's purpose for taking you is less noble, I guarantee you."
That crushed Ess's adrenaline fed accusations. She had nothing more to say, and couldn't think of anything she could do to get out of the situation.
They sat in silence for a long time.
About an hour later (a very slow hour) Ess noticed that they were slowing down. She looked up and saw some lights ahead in the distance. Max decelerated the car and turned into a grimy gas station that was attached to an antiquated general store.
He finally broke the silence. "This is the last stop before the wilderness preserve. I'm going to fuel up and get some provisions. If you don't want to get hurt, then stay here."
Ess was indignant in her quiet way. "Is that a warning or a threat?"
Max winced, realizing his words had come out wrong. "It's advice." He shut the car door behind him, and walked towards the dirty old store, concentrating on not looking back to see what she was doing. It wouldn't help his case any if he made her think he didn't trust her.
Ess didn't particularly care to believe him, but then again, her former kidnapper had shot at him as well as her, so it wasn't like he was in cahoots with them. She didn't know what to think. It was difficult for her to make a snap decision when it was truly her life in her hands.
Besides that, nothing but darkness and trees surrounded the gas station; and the only other person present was the storekeeper. She could see through the window, that he was a grubby old man with an unkempt Santa Claus beard and a patch over one of his eyes. He looked like a quintessential pirate. Ess decided she'd rather chance it with Max than with 'Captain Ahab'.
Max made sure that it was a very short time later that they were back on the highway. A few minutes afterwards he turned the car onto a one-lane road, which quickly became a dirt path.
Ess started to panic a little again. Thoughts ran through her head of television news stories in which raped and beaten victims were left for dead in the middle of the wilderness. Perhaps it wasn't the right decision to trust this guy over the filthy pirate storekeeper, after all. She looked at Max as he drove, trying to study him like he had studied her; to see if he was really honest and sincere about what he told her. She wanted it to be true, just to know she was safe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The bumps and jolts of the small car traveling over rocks and potholes were giving Ess a headache. Nervousness and fright kept her body tense, making every jostle radiate through her rigid frame, and quite possibly giving her whiplash in her neck. The slow progress was made painfully slower by the edgy quiet that fell between her and her current captor. Quite honestly, she felt less afraid of him when he spoke. The problem was, she didn't exactly know how to get him to resume a conversation.
She remembered watching the movie Silence of the Lambs, and tried to recall a specific scene. What was it, again? The one about the psyche of the bad guy not using the victims' names. Instead, he referred to them as objects, or 'its', rather than as people so that he could keep his conscience clean from his criminal acts. Maybe if she started talking about herself, making herself more of a real person to this Max guy - rather than an object of obsession - he would feel less inclined to harm her. It was the only weapon she could think of at the moment.
She cleared her throat and began, "So, a lot has happened to both of us since the last time we met." Wow, that was a lame start, but she was desperate and needed to initiate a 'getting-to know-you' conversation quickly.
Sadly, Max noticed the awkwardness of that statement. He didn't understand where such a comment came from, but he knew she was scared. He realized that she didn't know him, and she still didn't fully understand the extent of the danger she was in. Well, maybe she understood a little, since she was kidnapped and shot at, but she had no reason to believe anything he had told her about what was happening. Perhaps if she got to know him a little better, he could earn her trust. He would do anything to make this situation easier for her.
"Yeah. A lot. For the both of us." Jeez, was that the best he could do? Say something. Initiate an anecdote. Tell a joke. Anything. Why hadn't he been granted the gift of eloquence?
While criticizing himself for yet another of his flaws, Max suddenly realized where he was. It was time for the next leg of their journey.
Suddenly the car stopped. Ess's heart raced. Oh, no. She didn't have a chance to make him see her as a real person. He wasn't going to give her the chance. This was it. They reached their destination, which looked like nowhere in particular, and he was going to strike. Well, she wasn't going to give in so easily. She would fight tooth and nail for her life.
Before Max shifted the car into park, Ess had her seatbelt off and reached for the door latch. Pushing at the door as she pulled the latch, she practically fell out of the seat. She felt the brush of his hand as he tried to grab her arm, but he missed. Ess was now out of the car. She scrambled to regain her footing, and it took her longer than she had time for to re-establish her balance so that she could sprint. At least now she could run with her arms free from bindings.
Max was startled at her action, if not surprised. If she was going to run, he expected that she would have done it back at the gas station, not in the middle of the wilderness. This was not a place to run around in during the middle of the night.
He instinctively grabbed at her, but missed. Her clumsy escape from the car gave him time to get out of the driver side door. By the time he dashed around the front of the car, she had her bearings and was fleeing.
The half moon gave off a bright glow at this time of the night, but the thick canopy of the trees cast many shadows. This made both the escape and the pursuit more difficult. There were boulders and gullies everywhere. Max needed to catch her before Ess did some real injury to herself . . . or before some wild animal caught her.
Ess was more afraid than ever. She loved nature, and had gone camping many times in her youth, but between the darkness and her inappropriate shoes, she was finding it very complicated to maneuver in this topography. She stubbed her toe on a rock and almost flew forward to the rocky ground. Luckily, her other foot stopped her fall, and her balance, though faltering, didn't fail her.
However, she wasn't ready for the low branch that was in her path as she looked to the terrain in front of her. The branch made harsh contact with her cheek and nose, knocking her backwards. Her arms tried to swing behind her to catch her fall, but they weren't in time. She landed on her tailbone, followed by her back. Her head just missed a ragged rock, which smashed into her shoulder instead. Then, she felt a sudden numbness throughout her body.
Max witnessed it all. He heard the thud as Ess hit the branch, and saw her feet swing out from under her. The way she went down, he knew she had landed hard. He was only seconds away from her aid, practically slipping as he came to a halt over her.
When he bent down to make sure the wind wasn't knocked out of her, Ess reacted. She put her hands to his chest to shove him away, and flailed her legs so that she could kick him if he came within the vicinity of them.
Max quickly countered this pandemonious self defense. He grabbed her wrists, shoving them to the ground, while he used his own legs to pin hers down. She still struggled for several seconds longer, but exhausted her already fatigued limbs very quickly.
He could hear her sobs as she realized she couldn't struggle anymore, and he felt her shake with fright and cold. Pinning her down like this was not the best way to earn her trust. In fact, it appeared to be the exact opposite. He didn't know what else to do, though.
"Sshhh." He tried to sooth her. "Sshh. Esther. Esther, it will be all right. Just calm down." She heard him, but was she listening?
"Ess," Max continued, "I know you don't believe me, but I won't hurt you. Please let me help you. Please."
He felt her submit a little more to him.
If she would only relax a little further, they could return to the car. "Ess, we need to get you back to the car. Your nose is bleeding. Let's go take care of your injuries. Okay?"
It took Ess several moments to respond. Here he had her at his mercy, and he wasn't taking advantage of it? He wanted to get her back to the car to bandage her up? Then she felt it. Her nose was throbbing. Really throbbing! Her tailbone ached, and a sharp pain pierced at her shoulder. She winced and nodded at the same time.
With that reply, Max loosened his grasp and helped her to her feet. She stumbled forward. Obviously, her equilibrium was off, so he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. When she gasped, he realized that her shoulder received an injury. Unsure of how she would react, he placed his arm around her waist so that he could carry most of her weight. To the astonishment of both, she let him do this.