Level Five

by Carla Cassidy

  In the weeks and months following Francine’s death, Edie’s father had lost himself in booze. Edie’s mother, Janet had traded grief for a simmering rage that exploded without warning or provocation. Most of those rages were directed at the child who hadn’t been victimized, at Edie, the child who had survived.

  Then one day Edie woke up and her father told her that Janet was gone. For the first couple of days Edie breathed a sigh of relief. Peace reigned in the house. Edie’s dad pulled himself out of the bottle and held strong until Edie graduated high school and entered college.

  Then he completely fell apart. He sold the house and the furniture and household goods, put all the money in an account for Edie to pay for her college and then he’d disappeared.

  She grabbed a carton of milk and added it to the items she’d already placed in her cart and tamped down the ancient memories. She’d learned long ago that nothing was served by dwelling in the past.

  She was glad Jake wasn’t stopping by tonight. A weighty depression settled on her shoulders and she knew from experience it would take some time for her to finally slough it off. She’d be fine by tomorrow when he came to spend the first of the three nights a week they shared.

  This was one of the reasons she liked her private time. She could deal with the issues that were still ongoing from the trauma so long ago. She’d always felt that in sharing some of this mess with Jake, she’d just make him one more victim. There were already more than enough to go around.

  She checked her watch as she stood in the check-out line. It had taken her longer to get the things than she’d expected. She hoped he was still where he’d been when he’d called, but there were no guarantees.

  Once she was in her car she headed toward the motel where he’d been staying for the past year thanks to her paying the rent.

  The Skylark Motel catered to dope addicts, hookers and down on their luck people who needed a cheap place to flop. The broken sign out front boasted full kitchenettes, cable television and a heated pool that had years before been filled in with concrete.

  As she stepped out of the car she imagined her nose was assailed by the scent of vomit and urine and utter hopelessness. The badly cracked sidewalk that led to the office of the motel spoke of the fact that nobody cared about the people who stayed here. They were society’s throw-aways, people who had given up on life, on themselves. They had come here to wait for death.

  The manager was an ex-con who favored filthy undershirts and suffered an instantaneous hearing loss if anyone tried to make a complaint. He hated the world, but especially the cops who occasionally busted one of the units for drug activity or to arrest a suspected felon.

  She carried three grocery bags as she walked past the office to unit five. She used her elbow to knock on the door. The door to unit four flew open and a woman stuck her head out.

  Eye make-up was smeared dark like bruises beneath her tired eyes and her blond hair was gnarled and showing three inch roots. Her gaze swept the length of Edie in her crisp sun dress and matching sandals. Edie felt her wave of jealousy, of hatred before the woman slammed the door shut once again.

  Edie’s depression pressed harder across her shoulders. She hated coming here, but it was her penance. She knocked again and when there was still no answer, she used the key she possessed to open the door.

  This time she didn’t have to imagine the smell that struck her nostrils. It was the odor of garbage and booze and dirty clothes. It stank of mold and stale cigarette smoke and lost dreams.

  Edie dropped the bags on the small table and then opened the curtains to emit some sunshine. The brilliant illumination only served to highlight the dismal conditions.

  It took only minutes to store the groceries where they belonged and then she grabbed a garbage bag and began to clean up. Fast food wrappers, booze bottles, unidentifiable fruit that had gone black with rot all made its way into the bag.

  There was nothing she could do about the torn and dirty sheets on the bed, nothing to be done with the sticky, nasty carpeting underfoot.

  As she gazed around despair clutched at her throat. Paths. How many wrong ones had they all taken to end up here in this sordid mess, in this horrible place? How had it all gone so wrong?

  Before she allowed her thoughts to get too maudlin, she pulled out a twenty from her wallet and laid it on the table. She shouldn’t leave it, she knew what it would be used for and leaving it for him would only make her feel more guilty, if that were even possible.

  She left, careful to close and lock the door behind her. As she walked back to her car, she recognized that the guilt was part of her penance. She just hadn’t quite figured out what her original sin had been.

  Chapter 9

  “Another piece of chocolate cake?” Colette asked.

  “I’d love it but my hips would complain,” Edie replied. The two women sat at the table in Colette’s kitchen, a double layer fudge cake in place of the usual centerpiece in the center.

  Colette cut herself a second slice and pulled it before her. “That’s one of the things I promised myself when I was being held captive, that if I ever escaped I’d eat two pieces of cake if I wanted them. I’d indulge in a half a dozen donuts if I so desired. I vowed that if I ever got away I’d never deny myself anything that gave me pleasure and that was reasonable and hurt nobody.”

  “What other kinds of promises did you make to yourself?” Edie asked.

  “I promised myself that I would read Gone With The Wind. I’d seen the movie but I’d never read the book. Same thing with To Kill A Mockingbird. I promised myself that I’d never buy a pair of cotton underpants again, that if I lived it would be silk and sexy all the way.” She paused to take a bite of her cake and then continued. “I vowed that I wouldn’t be afraid of thunder anymore, that I’d laugh out loud whenever possible. In some ways the experience freed me, although I wouldn’t recommend it as a form of therapy for anyone.”

  “From what you’ve told me he only came into the room in the evenings a couple of times a week and the rest of the time you were left alone. That kind of aloneness could make somebody insane.” Edie glanced at her tape recorder to make sure it was still running.

  “I tried to maintain a routine. I got up in the mornings and did my affirmations of who I was and then spent about an hour exercising.” She stuck the tines of her fork into a thick glob of icing and stared at it for a long moment.

  “But more important than the physical exercise were the mental ones.” She looked up at Edie. “As badly as he beat me, as often as he raped me, the thing I was afraid of most of all was slowly losing my mind.”

  It was the first time Colette had said anything about the beatings or the rapes she’d endured and although Edie wanted to know more, she held her tongue. It all had to come from Colette when and how she was ready to tell.

  “I recited poetry that I remembered from my childhood. I sang a different song every day. I tried to remember the words to all the old Beatle songs. I did math problems in my head, imagined puzzles and tried to solve them. I knew I had to stay mentally active in order to keep my sanity. I had to be ready to take advantage of any path of escape that might present itself.”

  Edie leaned back in her chair and gazed at Colette thoughtfully. “Why do you think he took you? I mean, why you in particular? Or do you think it was just a random thing?”

  It was a question that had haunted Edie for years after Francine’s death…still haunted her in the darkness of the night. Why Francine? Why had Greg Bernard become obsessed with Francine? Why not one of the other little girls who walked home from school every day. Why not me? A little voice whispered in the back of her brain.

  “It wasn’t random. He showed me a picture of his ex-wife one night. I looked a lot like her. After I saw the picture I started thinking back over the weeks before he abducted me. I’m fairly sure he stalked me for a while before he finally got me. But I know he chose me specifically because I looked like her.”

  “Do y
ou remember seeing him in the weeks before he took you?”

  Colette shook her head. “No, but I do remember several times I thought I was being watched. You know that creepy crawly feeling you get when you’re out at the store or in a parking lot and the hairs on the nape of your neck tingle? I felt that several times. Then there was one night I went out for a walk and thought I was being followed. By the time I got back into my apartment I dismissed it, told myself I was just being a silly willy. In retrospect I certainly wished I would have paid more attention to those things.”

  She set her fork down and pushed the last of the cake aside. “That’s part of why I want to do this book, to tell women to listen to their instincts, to pay attention to what’s happening around them. It’s okay to be a little paranoid. Sometimes, somebody really is after you.”

  “You know it’s not your fault,” Edie said.

  Colette flashed her one of her beautiful smiles. “I know. It took me a while to figure that out. Until he showed me the picture of his ex-wife, I spent a lot of time wondering why me? Seeing her photo answered that question for me.”

  “So, he wanted you as the wife who had left him.”

  Colette’s eyes darkened with the flash of demons left behind. “It was so bizarre. On the nights he came to the cellar he brought dinner and we’d sit together at the table like a married couple. He’d tell me about his day, although never with enough details for me to know exactly what he did or where he worked. It took me a while to realize there was a script in his head that I was supposed to follow. When I got something wrong, whether it was a comment I made or didn’t make or a glance misplaced, I was beaten. In those first few months I was beaten a lot.”

  “Was it during one of those beatings that he cut your face?” Edie asked.

  Colette jumped out of her kitchen chair and carried her cake plate to the sink. Edie wondered if perhaps she’d pushed her too hard.

  She sat silently while Colette scraped the last of her cake into the garbage disposal and then turned to look at Edie once again. She reached up and touched the ropey scars that would forever mar the natural beauty she had once been.

  “He beat me black and blue over the three years that he held me captive. He pulled my hair, broke my ribs, and twisted my fingers until I screamed, but he never touched my face. That last night he loaded me up in the back of his van and drove me to that empty parking lot across from The Dollar Discount Store. He pulled me out of the back of his van, tied up like a turkey, and for a moment, just for a moment hope filled me as I realized he might let me go. He just might let me live.”

  Her voice rose slightly and her cheeks flushed with what appeared to be the first anger Edie had seen in her. She grabbed a nearby hand towel and began to twist it around her hands.

  “He left me on the pavement and got into his van and I thought he was just going to drive away. Somehow I’d be found and everything would be okay. I’d made it. I’d survived him and I couldn’t believe it.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

  She’d twisted the towel so tightly around her hands her long slender fingers were turning white. Edie got up from her chair and approached her.

  “And then he got back out of the van and came back to me. At first I thought he was slapping me over and over again. Then I saw his bloody hand and the knife and I realized he was cutting me…slashing me. Then he leaned down and whispered that no man would ever want me again. He got back in the van and drove off.”

  Edie reached out and gently unwound the towel from Colette’s cold, lifeless fingers. “He was wrong,” she said softly as she set the towel on the counter nearby. She reached once again for Colette’s hands and held them, warming them with her own body heat.

  Colette nodded slowly and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I lied to you before.”

  Edie frowned. “When was that?” Edie released Colette’s hands.

  “When I told you that I was willing to do anything to survive? That was a lie.” She leaned with her back against the sink cabinet. Her gaze shifted from Edie to follow the sunlight slanting across the tiles on the opposite wall.

  “I did my best to learn his sick script, to say what I was supposed to say when I was supposed to say it, to figure out what triggers to avoid so I wouldn’t get beaten. But I never gave him my dignity.”

  She focused her gaze back on Edie and there was a burn in the blue of her eyes, an anger that Edie had never seen flash before. “As he raped me, grunting and sweating like a pig, I never begged him to stop. When he slammed his fists into my ribs because I didn’t tell him he was good enough quickly enough, I never pled for my life. I didn’t grovel, I didn’t whine, I didn’t try to bargain with him. That’s where I drew the line. He could have all the rest of me, but he couldn’t have my dignity.” She released another deep shudder. “And now, I think we’re done for the day.”

  “I love making home-made lasagna. Of course, the secret of any good Italian dish is in the sauce. I simmer mine all day long with the meatballs cooking in it. But, this is very good. I can tell they use a lot of fresh basil.”

  Anthony forced a smile at the chattering Susan as he reached for a breadstick from the basket in the center of the table. What he’d like to do was shove the piece of bread down her throat so she’d stop talking for a minute.

  His smile widened as he imagined her choking and gagging on the garlicky bread stick, eyes bulging wide as she realized she couldn’t draw a breath. He blinked as he realized she’d finally shut up and looked at him expectantly.

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “I asked if you liked to cook.”

  He’d like to cook her kidneys and feed them to the stray cats that hung around his house. “No, I’m really not much of cook,” he replied. “The microwave is my best friend.” In truth he hadn’t seen the top of his stove for years. It was stacked high with plastic containers in every shape, size and color imaginable. You never knew when you might need a plastic container for something.

  As she launched into a monologue of her favorite foods and recipes, he wondered if this whole ordeal was worth the effort. Susan Springer was a stupid cow, but she was obviously a cow besotted with him.

  Her ground floor apartment when he’d arrived to pick her up had been neat and tidy, unimaginative in its décor. It had instantly created tightness in his chest.

  The blue dress she wore was obviously new and perfectly matched her eyes. Her blond hair was curlier than usual and she’d gone heavy on the eye make-up. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to look her best for him.

  Anthony assumed there were men who would find Susan attractive. For him she was simply a tool to be used. She would help make him appear normal and that’s all that mattered.

  He’d brought her to an Italian restaurant in the Zona Rosa outdoor shopping area filled with dozens of restaurants and stores. He figured after dinner they could walk the quaint sidewalks, maybe drift into a bar and get a drink. Then he could finally take her back home and be rid of her for a little while.

  A date. The first of many. Susan was a lucky girl. She was going to get exactly what she wanted as long as she played by his rules.

  Dinner was interminable. He learned about Susan’s eating habits, where she liked to shop, how much she adored cats and the various decorating classes she took with an interest in some day becoming an interior designer.

  Anthony gazed at her as if she were the most interesting woman in the world, but inside his head he was remembering his last time with the waitress from McDonalds, the lovely Maggie.

  As he thought of her eyes widened in helpless terror, his blood warmed with pleasure. As he’d beaten her, it had been like beating his mother for all her sins, taking back some of the dignity she’d stolen from him as a child.

  But Maggie had joined the growing hoard in his backyard and his need for a new project at his house was growing stronger with every minute that passed.

  Unfortunately, Susan wouldn’t do. He needed a specific type in order to al
leviate his pain. And his pain was back, growing bigger, deeper and more difficult to tolerate. The right woman. God, he wished he could find her, the right woman who would alleviate his pain forever.

  He glanced around the restaurant, seeking a woman who might excite him, who could fulfill his needs. There were several dark-haired women, but none of them caused that sizzle of excitement to roar through him, that anticipation of sweet relief from his inner demons.

  He’d find her…he’d find the perfect one like he always did. It was just a matter of time. He smiled across the table at Susan. Yes, Susan was a lucky girl. She was a blond who stirred nothing in his soul.

  After dinner they walked outside where the sidewalks had filled with people enjoying the beautiful evening. Open doors of restaurants and bars emitted savory scents and the sounds of people laughing.

  “You like to read?” he asked Susan as he pointed to a Barnes and Noble store down the sidewalk.

  “I love to read.”

  “And I’ll bet you like those mushy romance novels,” he forced a teasing tone to his voice.

  She blushed and raised her chin slightly. “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” He forced himself to reach out and take her hand in his. That’s what people did on dates; they held hands and took leisurely walks and just enjoyed being together. “Maybe we should go inside and do a little browsing, then get a cup of coffee.”

  “That sounds like fun,” she readily agreed.

  As they drew closer to the store he saw the poster in the window announcing a book signing by a local author the next day. As Anthony saw the photo of the author he froze. His heart pounded so fast in his chest he thought he was going to die.

  It was her.

  The one he wanted.

  The one he needed.

  Her long dark hair framed a slender face with beautiful features and the electric blue of her eyes seemed to be looking right through him. Just like his mother used to do.