Level Five

by Carla Cassidy

  She talked at length about Colette Merriweather’s facial scars. He sensed that Edie had internal scars that were just as devastating. The real question was if those scars were deep enough to keep her from ever fully committing to him?

  He frowned as Teddy burped a verse of Love Me Tender. It was going to be a very long afternoon.

  Maggie Black came to on a stained hardwood floor that smelled faintly of blood and urine and a faint tang of bleach. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for some time. This was the first time she felt awake enough to sit up and actually look around.

  The first thing she became aware of was the thick steel ankle bracelet that bit into her tender flesh. It was connected to a chain that disappeared through a nearby doorway.

  But, it wasn’t the chain that captured and held her attention. As she looked around at the room she felt as if she was still drugged and on some sort of weird hallucinogenic trip.

  Stacks and stacks of paper filled the room. The teetering stacks two and three deep rose from the floor almost to the ceiling all around the walls. She felt as if she were in a womb of paper. The only place there weren’t stacks were in front of two doorways and the small area where she sat.

  What kind of a place was this? Her mind worked to make some kind of sense of it. How had she gotten here? She concentrated to find answers. The last thing she remembered was leaving work on Friday night.

  It had been a busy night and she’d been tired, eager to get home and into bed. She remembered telling her co-workers goodnight and walking toward her car. The parking lot had smelled of the garbage bin near where the employees were allowed to park. She’d hit the button on her keys to remotely unlock her doors and then…nothing.

  Panic seared the back of her throat, a wild panic she’d never experienced before in her life. Why couldn’t she remember? How had she gotten here? And where was here?

  She staggered to her feet, afraid of what might lurk behind the two doors, yet needing to find an escape route. She needed out. She needed out right now!

  She followed the chain, wobbly on her feet. Her brain still felt as if it was wrapped in heavy layers of fog. The chain led her to a paper-filled bathroom. Newspapers lined the walls, filled the tub, once again rising up to obscure any window that might have been there.

  The toilet and the sink were the only things not covered with papers. The chain attached to the ring around her ankle was connected to a thick, metal ring in the wall. Just by looking at the size of it, she knew there was no way she could pull it out.

  She staggered out of the small room and headed toward the other door. She got to within two feet of it and the chain stopped her cold. The panic once again clawed up the back of her throat. She was trapped in the paper room.

  Exhausted and slightly disoriented, she fell to the floor and crawled back to the small center area of bare floor. “Hello?” she tentatively yelled. “Hello? Is anybody here?”

  She wasn’t sure what scared her more, that somebody might actually answer her cry or that somebody wouldn’t. “Hello?” she yelled again and listened to the silence that replied.

  But it wasn’t a complete silence. The room held a faint whisper of noise that she couldn’t quite identify. She held her breath and cocked her head, trying to figure out what it was that she was hearing.

  It was then she realized the papers in the tall stacks seemed to be undulating. At first she thought it was just an illusion, an effect of whatever drug she’d been given. But, then she saw them.

  Bugs.

  Hundreds of them.

  Thousands of them.

  She screamed and frantically raced her hands through her hair, over her arms, her skin crawling as if the bugs weren’t just in the papers but were inside her.

  With a small cry of defeat she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She stared at the door she hadn’t been able to reach and waited for the next horror to come.

  Chapter 6

  “The room was like a small apartment.” Colette stood at the window in her living room and stared out. It was just after nine on Friday morning. The hot sun slanted through the window as if to specifically accentuate the scars on her face. “When I came to I wasn’t bound in any way. I was on a single-sized bed that had been neatly made up with pink flowered sheets.” She turned to look at Edie, who was seated on the sofa. “The room had a small table and chairs, a fully stocked refrigerator and freezer and a microwave. There was a bathroom with a stall shower - everything you’d need to get by.”

  She frowned, the gesture tugging at her scars. “My initial reaction wasn’t fear, but rather curiosity. The fear came later.”

  She moved from the window and sat in the chair opposite Edie on the sofa. “I decided on that first day that I’d do anything I had to do to survive, that my will to live was greater than my terror. I knew I’d lose if I gave into the terror. I even had little tricks that I think helped me to survive.”

  “Tricks?” Edie looked at her with interest. This was only the second time the two women had met at Colette’s house. After the first session Colette had needed time to regroup before meeting again.

  From the moment Edie had walked in a half an hour earlier she’d recognized that Colette appeared especially fragile. She seemed restless and more than a little distracted.

  “The first thing I’d do whenever I’d wake up or come to after being beaten half-senseless was say my name out loud. It was vital to remind myself of who I was and what was important in my life so that I wouldn’t become a nameless victim in my own mind.” She sat up straighter in the chair. “I’m Colette Merriweather and I love Frank Burgess.”

  Edie fought a shiver as she heard not only the words themselves but also the faint edge of desperation that marked Colette’s tone.

  “Did you say the same thing every time?” she asked.

  “No. I had almost three years of captivity to remind myself of who I was and what I loved. Sometimes it was my name and that I loved pizza or walks in the park or buying shoes. What was important was that I held onto all the pieces of me. I would not become what he wanted me to be.”

  “And what was that?”

  “He wanted me to be the ex-wife who’d left him.” Colette’s eyes took on a slightly haunted glaze.

  “Any other tricks that helped you survive?” Edie asked, hoping to pull Colette back from the closed darkness of her expression, from the haunted nightmares of her memories.

  “I worked hard to stay above the terror. I knew if I completely gave into it I’d never survive. I spent a lot of time trying to learn details about the man who held me, details that would hopefully lead to his arrest when I escaped and I was determined to somehow escape. It became like a job. I spent long hours exploring the place where I was being held, trying to find clues that might either help me get away or help in his arrest.” She offered Edie a rueful smile. “Unfortunately nothing I learned was enough to find him once he let me go.”

  She jumped up off the chair. “Would you like some coffee or something else to drink?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine. Colette, if this isn’t a good day for you I could come back on another day,” Edie said gently.

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just…I’m pregnant.” She blurted the words as she stared at Edie.

  “That’s wonderful,” Edie exclaimed. “Isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.” Colette cast her gaze to the wall just above Edie’s head. “Frank will be thrilled.”

  “You haven’t told him yet?” Edie asked in surprise.

  She shook her head. “I only found out for sure yesterday morning. I needed some time to figure out how I felt about it before I told him.”

  “And how do you feel about it?” Edie asked.

  Colette’s blue eyes filled with a veil of tears. “Happy…excited and scared all at the same time.”

  Edie got up from the sofa and approached where Colette stood. “Why scared?”

  Colette r
aised a hand to her face and touched one of the raised scars. “What if the baby comes and thinks I’m some kind of a freak? A monster?”

  “Oh Colette, that isn’t going to happen. Your baby is going to grow up to love you and to know that you’re strong and courageous.” She stepped closer to Colette and placed her hand across the scarred cheek. The raised skin felt fevered beneath Edie’s cool hand. “These scars will simply be a part of the mother he or she loves. They’ve made you the beautiful, strong woman you are today.”

  Colette covered Edie’s hand with her own and released a sob that sounded as if it had been trapped inside her for days. The sob changed into a burst of embarrassed laughter and finally she stepped back from Edie. “Thank you. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

  “Why don’t I turn off the tape recorder and instead of working on the book we have a cup of coffee and talk about morning sickness and pickle addictions and all things baby,” Edie suggested.

  She knew with some kind of woman’s instinct that Colette needed to back away from the darkness and instead focus on something wonderfully normal right now.

  The shadows that had claimed Colette’s eyes lifted. “That would be wonderful,” she replied.

  It was just after two when Edie got back in her car to head home. As far as the research for the book was concerned, the day had been mostly a waste. But Edie knew the relationship she was building with Colette would serve them both well as they traversed through the rest of the crime that had forever changed the woman who had once been Colette Merriweather.

  Edie turned the air-conditioner on high and pointed all the vents in her direction, then backed out of the driveway. Within minutes she was on the freeway that would take her to her home on the furthest northern edges of the city.

  Pregnant. Colette was pregnant. It was perhaps her final victory, the last embrace of the happily-ever-after she so richly deserved.

  Edie dropped a hand from the steering wheel to her own flat belly and was surprised at the unexpected wistfulness that filled her. Jake would be beside himself with happiness if she got pregnant. She jerked her hand back to the steering wheel. She fought against the sudden weight of guilt thoughts of Jake always brought.

  She knew what he wanted – he wanted it all, the picket fence, the babies and her. He wanted morning sickness and pickle addictions and snuggling together seven nights a week.

  He’d be an awesome, hands-on kind of father. He’d change diapers and prepare bottles. He’d mentor and teach and love with all his heart.

  Some nights when she was alone in her house she wondered if perhaps she should cut him free, break it off. It seemed the kindest thing to do rather than keeping him in the state of limbo she’d placed him in.

  But in this particular instance she wasn’t kind and good, she was horribly selfish and she didn’t want to let him go. She needed him.

  Her work and Jake and Rufus were the only good things in her life, the only things that kept her from falling down a rabbit hole filled with crushing guilt and utter despair.

  Pain and the sound of a door opening somewhere in the distance brought Maggie out of the half-conscious state she’d been in since the man had left her bleeding and shattered on the floor earlier.

  A mewling sound filled the space around her. In horror she realized she was making the noise – it was the sound of terror too broken to scream.

  She’d lost count of the days she’d been in hell, had realized there were times she hurt so badly she wasn’t sure she remembered her own name.

  A monster. Although he was handsome and well-spoken, he was a horrible, sadistic monster. And if he and the pain he inflicted on her wasn’t enough to make her lose her mind there were the bugs with their scabby sounds and the towering stacks of paper that made no sense.

  How could he live like this? What kind of person was he to surround himself with papers and bugs and filth? She had yet to get used to the smell of the foulness that engulfed her.

  And he lived in this foulness. She’d worked out his schedule, knew that when she heard the water running someplace in the house it was morning and that meant there would be glorious blessed hours before she’d see him again.

  Much later she’d hear the sound of a door opening and knew he’d come home. If she remained very still and listened intently, minutes after that she often heard the ding of a microwave finishing its task.

  The sound of the water in the morning brought a shuddering wave of relief. The ding of the microwave shot a trembling terror through her.

  As she heard that familiar noise, she curled up into a fetal ball and prayed for death. She knew now that it was the only way to escape the monster.

  Chapter 7

  “Come on, Francine. I want to go home now,” Edie said impatiently.

  “Wait a minute,” her big sister replied and then leaned closer to her best friend, Amy Sutton and whispered something. The two girls looked over at Edie and giggled as Edie blew out a sigh of frustration.

  She wanted to get home to watch her favorite show on television and eat some of the Oreo cookies their mother had bought at the store the day before.

  It was always the same thing. Each day after school Edie had to wait for her big sister to talk to all her friends before they started the three block walk home. And Francine had lots of friends. They could talk forever!

  “Francine, come on. Let’s go.”

  Francine shot her an annoyed look. “God, can you be any more aggravating. Can’t you see I’m busy here? Stop being a stupid little pest and just wait a minute.”

  Edie came awake with a gasp, her heart thundering in her ears as the dream slowly fell away. The dream was a frequent one and always left a bad taste in her mouth.

  She rolled over on her side. In the first stir of morning light dancing in the window, she saw that Jake was still sleeping soundly.

  Last night had been the usual Saturday night. They’d popped popcorn and watched a movie and cuddled together on the sofa. The movie had sucked, but their lovemaking afterward had been magical.

  Jake had been especially tender. Rather than it being a hot, banging kind of sex, it had been slow and languid and amazingly satisfying. He’d ruined it when afterward he’d tried to get her to talk again about why she wouldn’t marry him.

  For several long moments she remained in bed, watching him sleep in the faint golden light of dawn, imagining that she could hear the slow, steady beat of his heart. It was a sound she identified with safety and love.

  Knowing that any further sleep was out of the question now that she was fully awake, with the dream banging in the back of her head like a bad hangover, she slid soundlessly from the bed, grabbed her robe from the nearby chair and left the room.

  Minutes later she stood at the kitchen window with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and watched the dawn streaking vivid colors across the eastern sky.

  Surely people in love told each other harmless little lies all the time. Women lied about how many lovers they’d had before. Men told half-truths about their sexual prowess. It was just a fact, wasn’t it, that even people who loved each other desperately didn’t always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  She’d given Jake all the pieces she could, more than she’d ever given to another human being. She just wished he could be happy with the status quo. She wished she could be enough for him just as she was now.

  She was still standing in front of the window with her second cup of coffee when Jake came into the kitchen. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned back into him as his mouth nuzzled her ear.

  “Hmm, nothing better than warm, soft woman in the mornings,” he murmured.

  “Good, then I’ll forget about the blueberry waffles I was contemplating making.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute, I meant to say there’s nothing better than hot blueberry waffles in the morning.”

  She turned to face him and smiled. “I thought that’s what you said.”

&
nbsp; “Sorry about last night,” he said, his breath toothpaste minty.

  She placed a finger over his lips. “Let’s forget about it. We’re going to have a good breakfast and then we’re going to figure out how to spend this beautiful day together.” She moved out of his embrace and headed for the refrigerator to get the ingredients she needed for the waffles while he headed for the coffee maker.

  “Actually, I was thinking maybe this afternoon you’d like to go to the bookstore and check out what kind of publicity they have up for your signing next weekend,” he said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “That would be terrific,” she replied.

  “And if you feel like it, Teddy invited us to a barbecue at his house at four this afternoon. I told him I’d call him this morning to let him know if we were coming.”

  “Sounds good,” she agreed. Although Teddy sometimes made her want to put him in time out, she adored his wife, Lisa and their children. “When you call, ask what we can bring.”

  “I already asked and they said nothing.” He sipped his coffee and watched as she plugged in the waffle iron to heat.

  “Then we’ll stop at the store on the way over and pick up a cake and a gallon of ice cream. I hate going anywhere empty handed.”

  He grinned at her knowingly. “You just want to stay Snap, Crackle and Pop’s favorite person. You know the way to their heart is through cake and ice cream.”

  She returned his smile. “Someday those girls are going to hate Teddy for those nicknames.”

  “I’m not sure Teddy even remembers their real names anymore.”

  “Sarah, Caitlin and Patience,” Edie rattled off, her voice filled with the affection she held for the girls. “And they all love chocolate ice cream. And now, make yourself useful and grab the syrup out of the pantry.”

  For the next few minutes they worked as a well-honed team to get the waffles on the table. Rufus gruffed and danced underfoot as if trying to make them believe he was an active participant in the making of the meal and therefore deserved some of the spoils.