Painful Deliverance

by Ann M Pratley

  His reaction had not been good. He had responded firstly by telling her that he couldn't be with anyone else. He loved her too much and she was the one he was meant to be with. She was the only one he trusted to keep secret the time - the things - that they did together. She was the only one who would enjoy those things with him.

  Then he had turned mean. Telling her that he knew where she was at every minute of every day. He had recited to her where she had been that week - the coffee shop she had been in to buy a coffee and a muffin one day for lunch. He told her how much money she had spent on groceries that week. He accurately said how many texts she had received on her phone - and how many she had sent.

  He told her enough to make sure she understood that no matter what she did - he would know. And that leaving was not an option. It was a degree of information that shocked her … and made her realise the depth of which she had let herself become entwined with this man.

  Immediately after that conversation she had resolved to try harder to please him, and never again bring the subject up of them not seeing each other anymore.

  But it was too late. And now she had to find a way to extract herself from him. It would mean walking away from her apartment - now her home. And if she really wanted to get far away, she would have to leave her job also. He was just so unpredictable now, she found. After one time of mentioning them going their separate ways, he was gentle. After another time, he was mean. In between these times he didn't seem to want to acknowledge she had even brought the subject up. Like he wanted the possibility of them ending their time together, to simply not exist.

  But she didn't lose sight of what she had to do - for her. She had to get away. She had to leave. She had to escape. She had to move on and start a new life. She had to find a way to put this all behind her and simply forget. They would never be able to go back and start over. His desires were too far away from hers now, and he had already proven that although he could have a small respite from it, he would always want to go back there.

  No, his needs were too different from hers now. No matter how much planning it would take. No matter how far she would have to go to hide herself from him. No matter what he would do - how he would act - when he realised things had changed permanently … it was time for her to go.

  9 ~ LINCOLN: THE CONFESSION

  Present Day

  In the initial days that followed the police report on television on that Sunday afternoon, Lincoln acted in desperation. He had staff around the country looking for this 'Lexi Montgomery', and the question on everyone's lips was 'why is he going so far for this girl'. He had ensured every supermarket, fast food outlet and department store under the umbrella of his company had vast numbers of flyers on their staff and public notice boards, showing her face. In one part of Melbourne - over a busy highway - he had a large billboard changed so her name and face were on it, for all drivers passing under it to see.

  He offered money to the public for any sightings of her. He offered money to any staff member who saw her and reported her location to him. His head was full of thoughts on how to get her to come back to him. He was so consumed by that thinking that it didn't even occur to him that something serious could have happened to her. She could have suffered a bad accident, or worse. That kind of thinking his mind never ventured to. Because in his head all he cared about was that she wasn't there with him. She wasn't there for him.

  He managed to get through the following work days, from morning till night, but always she was there, in the back of his mind, and even he started to question his stability where she was concerned. When he had called the police he had thought it a good idea - an easy way to bring her out of hiding. An easy way to ensure she came back to him. But as reality set in over the following 48 hours or so since he had made that call, he knew he had made a stupid mistake, making it seem like she had been abducted. And he had associated his name with it, so there was going to be damage. He cursed himself profusely at the level of desperation he had let build up in himself.

  And Diana had not come back. He could see through their bank statements that she was already purchasing lots of new things that made it obvious she had immediately left him completely and was now already starting to set up a home somewhere, but she had not tried to contact him. He didn't go after her. He had been disloyal and disrespectful toward her and that went against everything he had thought he stood for in a marriage. He was certain she would be filing for divorce, and if she did, he would let her go and wish her well. And he would well reimburse her. As a wife she had done everything perfectly - she had played her role with dedication and utter professionalism.

  With the time and space away from Lexi - and finally confrontation that things had not been as perfect in recent times as he had let himself believe them to be - he took time to think over the three years during which they had been spending time together. He still knew that he loved her - and still believed that she loved him. But away from her he could see that he had asked her for everything but given her so little. Yes, there was the apartment, but even that was his idea - what he wanted, to suit his wishes and desires.

  In hindsight there was a small part of him that knew he should never have gone near her. He was an old man and she was a beautiful young woman - a young girl, really, when he had met her when she was only 18. In his head, she had inspired him to be who he really was inside, and had let him try so many new things, but really it had always been about him, never her. When he thought about it now, he could not remember her ever once actually saying to him 'try new things, Lincoln', or even 'I want to do that for you'. He wanted it all to have been driven by her. Her ideas. Her initiative. But it was never her. She just went along with it … to please him.

  And he did regret that. If only he could see her and tell her how sorry he was. If only he could get her to listen to him. She would then understand. She would know he wasn't angry at her. She would feel safe with him again. She would forgive him for his stupidity. She would want to be with him again. She would again remember how much she loved him. She would want them to start again, in a new life … together.

  From his resources and research via various kinds of technology, he knew now the lengths she had gone to, to plan and work toward getting completely away from him. He vaguely remembered her saying more than once that she had wanted things to end between them, but he hadn't accepted that. He had tried to make sure she could never leave. Because that had been what he wanted. And always, it was what he wanted that had mattered most. Never what she wanted.

  He felt ashamed all of a sudden. And sick. But his emotions swayed from feeling like that - regretful and remorseful - to then feeling anger at her for thinking she could walk away from him.

  After all the hours he had put aside for her - all the attention he had given her, and generosity - an apartment, clothing … love. And she had the nerve to just walk away from him? No, that was not on. That was not okay. He had invested too much time into her, and she had no right to walk away from him. No right!

  He felt like he couldn't get his thinking straight … like he was in a constant state of confusion, not able to focus. And that was not good, especially for his business. He needed to get her off his mind so he could resume normal living, but how could he do that? He needed to talk, openly and honestly about her. But who could he even talk to? No-one knew about her…

  Except that wasn't quite right. There were three people who knew about her.

  Although he hated to admit the truth of it, Diana knew about Lexi. She shouldn't have known. And if he hadn't put that broadcast on the television - and stood there and watched it in their apartment when he knew she was there - she wouldn't have known. No, that wasn't quite true. Diana had told him the last time he saw her that she had already known he was seeing someone else over those three years - she had always known. In thinking about that, Lincoln cringed. He had been certain that he had been discrete, saving his wife from knowing what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. H
e had honestly thought that he had saved her any possibility of humiliation that might come from people knowing her husband was being unfaithful. He would never have wanted to hurt Diana by the world finding out about Lexi. And yet, despite him telling himself that, now he had gone and associated his name with hers, after all - to the entire country.

  Ironically, Lincoln thought to himself, Diana would have been a good person to talk to about this situation. She had always been open to listening to him talk about anything. His world - his company - was not her world. But she was a committed wife, dedicated to the perfect wife role she was expected to play, especially in front of the outside world. And she had always encouraged him to talk to her about his work even though she didn't truly understand the nature of business.

  Yes, he thought sadly, he would not have minded talking to her about all of this … if he hadn't known it would hurt her so much. Not that she was talking to him now, of course - the fact that she had run when she did on that afternoon, proved her high level of intelligence and sense of self-preservation - but if the possibility had been there, perhaps she would have been the right person. To listen. To advise. In addition to her many other strengths, she had always been good at providing him with advice - even things he did not think she really understood, she seemed to easily grasp and see the best solution to.

  But Diana was not here. And she was not available to him. She was scared of him. And understandably so.

  Second on his list of possibilities was Nate - his IT manager, and long time employee of twenty years or so. Nate had helped him with the first and second attempts to locate Lexi through her phone. Even though Lincoln had not said to Nate who she was, he would have suspected - of course he would. The very reason Lincoln considered him so important to the company was his high level of intelligence, forward thinking and forward speaking. And the fact that the information had not gotten out into the public meant that Nate hadn't told anyone - and therefore he could be trusted. But he was a staff member in his office and it wouldn't be professional for Lincoln to talk to him about something so personal. No, Nate also wasn't the right person to talk to about all of this. He could be trusted, but he wasn't the right person.

  So that left one other person - Toby. He hadn't been a staff member of Lincoln's for very long but he was fully aware of Lexi. He, too, had proven he could be trusted.

  But what could he talk to Toby about? He was his driver - and fairly newly so since it was not so very long ago that Lincoln had stopped driving himself everywhere. And that was mainly so that he could be dropped off at Lexi's apartment and then the car would move on and not be parked outside. So Toby could later come back to pick him up when he was ready to leave, and his car would not be seen sitting outside the building every time he was visiting her.

  Could he trust his driver? He'd had to, of course, to a certain degree. If he didn't trust him then he would not have let Toby see where he was going - or see who he was visiting.

  Lincoln felt like his head was going to explode. He had to take a chance. He had to talk to someone. And he could choose a professional counsellor who he did not know, or he could choose someone he knew. But he knew a counsellor would not provide him with any advice - their job would be to listen but not advise. And he needed advice. Every day at work he made decisions that were worth millions of dollars, and sometimes affected thousands of people. But now he needed advice - desperately.

  He sat quietly and considered all options. He had to be sure of what he was doing - he knew he hadn't been thinking clearly for some time now and he couldn't keep making mistakes like he had been. No, he had to be absolutely certain, without any possible doubts. Because once he started talking - once he started to speak - he would never be able to undo that. It would be out there for anyone to know, if he started to speak of it. And if he made a bad decision about who to trust with the information, the whole world could know about … everything.

  He made his choice. He had to talk. There was no denying the need now. He had already let himself become too merged - too self-absorbed - into the mess of this all-encompassing life - this existence - he had been living in for the past year or two. He needed help. Advice. Support. Those things Lexi would have given him, if she were still here…

  ~~~~~

  Twenty minutes after calling Toby, Lincoln saw his driver walk into the apartment with a look of great apprehension on his face, even though he was never anything but professional.

  "Toby, thank you for coming at such short notice. Please come in and sit down," Lincoln said, trying to welcome the man into his living area to sit down.

  Toby, of course, thought he had done something wrong and was going to lose his job, so he was surprised when he heard the words his employer next spoke.

  "I need your advice," he saw the powerful man sitting beside him say, and Toby was instantly stunned. He had been in the service industry for decades, including extensive time as a chauffeur to many wealthy business owners. In his career he had been asked for many things - many favours - but he had never once been asked by an employer … for advice.

  "Of course, Sir. What can I help you with?"

  Lincoln looked at his driver. Toby was actually older than him, and in that moment Lincoln found something so ironic about that - that he as a 45 year old could have a driver who earned only a tiny fraction of the money he did, and didn't have any recognition in the world at all, even though he had worked for much longer - and much harder - than Lincoln had in his lifetime.

  "Toby, you know about … the young woman I … visit," he started to say, feeling incredibly awkward all of a sudden.

  "Yes, Sir. Of course," Toby replied quietly, intrigued by what his employer was going to say. Although his employer had never said why he visited the young lady, of course it had been the assumption Toby had made, that they were seeing each other intimately. Lincoln Kokiri was wealthy and attractive to everyone - women and men. Even if he hadn't been who he was in the business world, he had an air about him - a level of self-confidence, handsomeness and poise - that made him attractive. It would have surprised Toby more if his boss didn't have a mistress.

  "I need … I need someone I can trust, to talk to about some things that are going on with her … and I trust you."

  Lincoln looked at Toby's face and waited to see if there was any discomfort there but the older man only looked kind, yet professional.

  "Thank you, Sir. I am happy to help in any way that I can."

  Lincoln stood up and paced, and his driver could immediately see how stressed he was. This level of stress had started on Friday night at the airport, Toby realised. He had thought then that something had upset his employer, and whatever it was, it was still going on.

  It was difficult for Lincoln to find words. He had worked so hard to keep Lexi a secret for so long. To openly talk about her wasn't a natural thing for him to do. And at his core - in his heart - he didn't know if he should talk about her. Did he have the right to share information about the two of them? It wasn't only him who would be exposed in this. He didn't want to hurt Lexi. He loved Lexi.

  "I can't think. My head is overflowing," he started to say as he paced back and forth across the living room floor, and the older man waited, not sure what to do or what to say.

  "Are you in some kind of trouble, Sir?" Toby ventured to ask, in an attempt to get conversation flowing. He had seen the news report on television on Sunday, and had wondered then if Lincoln was involved in anything to do with the disappearance of the young woman, but decided he wasn't brave enough right in this moment to mention that he had seen the report or had considered those thoughts.

  Lincoln heard the question and came back to sit down beside the older man once again, before looking him directly in the eye.

  "I lied to the police. Lexi has gone and I know - I believe - inside of me that she has just left. I don't think anything bad has happened to her, and I believe that wherever she has gone, she has gone willingly. But I told them that she had been
abducted. I don't even know what made me do it - I was just so desperate to get her back, and I wanted a way to bring her out of hiding. But why is she hiding from me anyway? I don't understand. I put her up in the apartment, and looked after her, and I never hurt her. I just don't understand. Why did she leave?"

  Toby listened and kept quiet, his mind rushing. His employer was sitting beside him and he was rambling. Words were spilling out of his mouth at an alarming rate, like he really was talking almost as quickly as he was thinking, which was not like him at all. Always Mr Kokiri was in control - very much in control - and could articulate anything with grace and patience.

  "What do I do? I shouldn't have lied to police, and now people will be looking out for her. She won't be able to move without someone identifying her, which is what I wanted of course - why I did it - but it isn't fair. It isn't right. I need to put it right. I need to put everything right."

  "Do you need to go to the police then, Sir?" Toby asked tentatively, not sure if he really was welcome to speak and provide advice or not.

  Lincoln looked at him, having already considered that option but not knowing if it was wise or not.

  "Should I? That is what I am uncertain about. I know I shall get in some kind of trouble for it - and rightly so. I just don't want everything coming out in the open about her…"

  "It is likely they will find out everything that has happened between you, and formulate their own story of events and information about who she is to you. Would it not be better to control everything that they learned, by telling them directly?"

  Lincoln considered the words. He did have to step up and take control. Always he could handle things as long as there was order. This was chaos - and chaos he did not handle well at all.