While Brian waited for the appointed time, he again went to his favorite stand of forest. He meandered through the magnificent old trees and beheld in wonderment the perfection of the wild flowers he chanced upon. How could anyone ever doubt the existence of a powerful Creator when all of nature provided evidence every day, if only they took the time to notice?
Knowing his mother’s punctuality, at exactly eleven o’clock he popped into her presence. As he’d expected, she was already seated at a small table, impatiently tapping her manicured nails on the tabletop. Within a few minutes, Adrienne came rushing in and took the chair opposite her.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Mrs. F.,” she said breathlessly, picking up the waiting menu. “I didn’t realize that traffic would be so heavy in the middle of the day. That’s quite unusual.”
Vivian nodded with a tight smile. “I learned to plan for things like that.”
Adrienne returned her smile, but Brian thought her eyes looked a little too bright. “I’m still learning,” she said demurely.
A waiter appeared at Vivian’s elbow. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”
“Iced tea,” Vivian said absently.
“Iced tea is fine,” Adrienne agreed with a smile.
As soon as he left the table, Vivian looked sharply at Adrienne. “I want to know,” she said forcefully, “what happened to Brian?”
Adrienne’s gaze dropped to where her hands rested on the table, fingers twisting together. “You don’t really want to know,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. Brian was amazed to see tears well in her eyes and her lips begin to quiver. Is she really going to confess to what she’s done?
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Vivian said firmly. “I certainly do want to know.” She glanced up as the waiter approached the table with their drinks. He set their teas on the table. “Are you ladies ready to order?”
Adrienne took a moment to glance over the menu. “I believe I’ll have a tuna sandwich and the broccoli cheese soup.” He turned to Vivian.
“Club salad,” Vivian stated, her demanding gaze never leaving Adrienne’s face. The waiter hurried away and she said, “You were saying?”
“It was just terrible,” Adrienne whispered, with a pleading look in her eyes. Vivian just stared at her silently, her foot tapping impatiently. After a moment passed she said, “Go on.”
“If you insist,” Adrienne acquiesced. “You see, he was on his way into the office.”
Brian stared at her incredulously. “Tell her the truth!” He shouted. Adrienne sighed and slowly continued. “He was crossing the street when, without warning, this car came barreling around the corner and hit him. He was thrown up into the air and when he landed in the cross street, he was hit by several others cars before they could get stopped.” A single tear traced a path down her cheek.
“And why wasn’t I notified? He always had me listed as the person to be notified in case of emergency.”
“They didn’t know who he was. You see, he carried all of his identification in his briefcase, since he always had it with him anyway. But when he was hit, the case went flying and they never did find it. They figured someone had stolen it.”
“So how did you find out about all of this?”
“I know this emergency room nurse who works at the hospital where they took him. She was telling me about it.”
“And all of the details about how it had supposedly happened?”
Adrienne shrugged. “The EMTs told her they’d talked to an eyewitness who had seen it.”
“And why wasn’t it reported?”
“Because it was the cops!” Adrienne almost shouted, and then, lowering, her voice she continued. “It was a cop car that hit him. They said that the cops were in the middle of a high-speed chase and they certainly weren’t going to admit that they’d actually killed a pedestrian, especially while doing something they shouldn’t have been doing anyway on a downtown street.”
Vivian’s eyes clouded with pain and misery. Adrienne reached across the table and gently patted her hand. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you like this.”
Brian noted the look of shock in his mother’s eyes and glared at Adrienne. How could you? How could you tell her such a tale?
The waiter brought their food and set it down before them. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
Adrienne looked up at him with a dazzling smile. “No, thank you. We’re fine.” She picked up her spoon and glanced at Vivian who still sat staring into space. “You’d better eat, Mrs. F.”
Brian fumed as he watched his mother pick up her fork and begin to mechanically eat. Why would she make up a story like that? What was she trying to gain, other than not going to jail, of course? He watched his mother pick at her food, while Adrienne ate heartily.
Suddenly, Adrienne laid down her soupspoon. “Mrs. F, you know that Brian wanted to look out after you, don’t you?”
Vivian looked up at her with a blank stare. “I . . . I guess so.”
“And I know that, with him gone, he’d want me to do the same. You know that don’t you?”
“I. . . I never really thought about it. This isn’t the way things are supposed to happen.”
“I know,” Adrienne said, soothingly. “But you do understand that I feel it is my duty to do what he would have wanted.” Vivian said nothing, so she continued. “I’ve recently found a really good investment counselor and, well, Brian said that you had several CDs.”
“So?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking. They really aren’t earning you much income right now and I thought how much better off you would be if you were to put that money in an investment account. You’d make lots more return than you’re making now and you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. I’d be more than happy to take care of all the paperwork for you.”
“No, Mom!” Brian shouted, suddenly understanding that Adrienne hadn’t really changed at all. “She's just trying to take your money like she did mine! Don’t listen to her!”
Vivian, still seeming dazed, asked, “What do you mean?”
Adrienne smiled her most reassuring smile. “What I’m saying is that if you sign the CDs over to me, I’ll have my broker invest them in one of their high-return funds and your future will be much more secure than it is now.”
“I. . . I don’t know.”
“Come on, Mrs. F, you know Brian would want this for you.”
“No, Mom! Don’t do it!”
“Are you sure that’s what Brian wanted me to do?”
“I know it! I know he’d want me to take care of you, just like he would – if he could.”
“Well . . . I suppose . . . if that’s what Brian wanted.”
“Good!” said Adrienne, signaling the waiter for the check. “We can go to the bank right now.”
Brian followed them to the bank and watched his mother listlessly return the bank officer’s enthusiastic greeting. He watched as he retrieved the paperwork for $250,000 in Certificates of Deposit and noted the glazed expression in her eyes as she signed where she was instructed. My God, she’s in shock!
Chapter 17
“Dad, we gotta help Mom!” Brian exclaimed as soon as he reached his father’s side.
“Slow down, son. Your mom seems to be doing quite well.”
“Not anymore. Not since Adrienne got her claws into her!”
“Tell me what happened.”
Brian took a moment to calm his spirit. “Well, Adrienne called Mom and invited her to lunch and then she told her this God-awful story how I was killed in a car accident and my body was mangled beyond recognition. Mom couldn’t take it – at least that’s the way it looked.”
“She believed her?”
“She sure seemed to, but that’s not the worst of it.”
His father sighed. “There’s more?”
Grimly, Brian nodded. “She convinced Mom that she should sign her CDs over to her so she could ‘invest�
� the money for her, and she told her that was what I wanted. Can you believe it?”
“And your mom believed her?”
“She believed it enough to sign over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of CDs.”
“That must be most of her life’s savings.”
“Probably, and now it’s gone. She’ll never see a penny’s return on any of it. Adrienne will use her money to carry on her own lavish lifestyle and Mom will be broke.”
“We have to do something.”
“But what? It’s already done. Wonder if we could get Mom to go to the police? That’s certainly grand larceny.”
“Your mom would have to prove that she signed those papers under duress, and she didn’t have a gun to her head.”
“What about psychological duress? She used that horrible vision of my mangled body to put her into shock. Maybe she should see her doctor and document it.”
“Maybe. We can try that. We’ll just have to convince her that Adrienne is stealing her money and get her to contact our lawyer, Bob Price. He’ll know what to do and he’ll watch out for Vivian’s best interests.”
“But how can we convince her?”
His dad shrugged. “We’ll have to try more dreams. It seemed to work before, maybe it’ll work again.”
Brian nodded his agreement. “And I’m going to give Adrienne one last shot. She thought she was having nightmares before, I’ll have to see what I can conjure up for her now.”
At 3:00am Brian appeared at his mother’s bedside and invoked a vision. When it had become strong enough, he projected it into the mind of the sleeping woman. Vivian was walking down a darkened street. Suddenly, from an alleyway on her left a masked figure, dressed in black from head to toe, leaped out and pointed a gun in her face.
“Give me your money!” it demanded.
Vivian stared. The mask fell away, revealing the contorted face of Adrienne topped by the distinctive mass of auburn hair.
“I said, give me your money!” The figure again demanded, grabbing Vivian’s purse, yanking it from her grasp and darting back down the alley.
Heart pounding, Vivian turned and ran down the sidewalk and straight into the arms of Bob Price.
“Help me! I’ve been robbed!”
Brian watched the frown crease his mother’s brow. Please, Mom, understand what I’m trying to tell you. He struggled to intensify the feelings of a crime being committed and the need to seek help. After a few minutes, he turned away and began concentrating on Adrienne.
At her bedside he projected an entirely different image.
Adrienne was walking through a very dark forest. The wind shook the skeletal branches and moaned through the treetops. A feeling of some evil terror permeated the very air that she breathed. Her watchful eyes swept back and forth around the area she traversed and she frequently glanced fearfully over her shoulder. All at once she became aware that a dark, vicious entity was stalking her, intending her unknown, yet terrifying, harm. She increased her pace, but it still crept closer and closer.
Faster and faster she moved, finally breaking into a full-out run. It seemed as if she were trying to run through a lake of molasses, with the sticky ooze sucking at her feet, slowing her down, every time she tried to take a step. She fought to run faster. Still the frightful creature kept gaining on her, until she could feel it’s hot breathe on her back. Brian watched Adrienne’s muscles strain, the pulse pounding in her neck and her breath coming in raspy gasps, while a look of sheer terror contorted her face. His lips curved into a slight, sad smile. Maybe now she’ll get the message of just how wrong she had been.
Night after night he projected the same dreams, over and over again. They always said that people pay more attention to recurring dreams, he thought; maybe these will get their attention.
Chapter 18
Over the weeks that followed, Brian was disappointed to note that Adrienne seemed to be reverting to her old ways. She spent more and more time pursuing her interests in attractive young men and the pleasurable adventures they offered and less and less energies on fulfilling her job duties.
He sought consolation in his father’s company. “I just don’t know what more I can do, Dad,” he lamented. “It seems as if whatever message I send to her, she does the opposite.”
His father sighed. “We all have free will, Brian. Regardless of the influences of others, we always have to make our own decisions. If she’s choosing to pursue a path different than what you would like for her, you just have to accept it.”
“I know. It just makes me feel so – sad – I guess is the best way to put it.”
“Yes, it’s painful to watch someone you love make serious mistakes. You try to help and it does no good.” He sighed. “Then, I guess, you just have to let go.”
“I guess,” Brian agreed, his head hung low.
His father smiled. “But look on the bright side. Your mother seems to be doing much better. She seems much more determined than I’ve seen her since this whole thing started. She’s not nearly as depressed and weakened as she was there for a while.”
“That’s good. Do you know if she’s gone to see a lawyer yet?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m sure she will call him any day now.”
Brian kept closely tuned in to the vibrations of his mother and checked in on her frequently. About two months after her luncheon with Adrienne, he found her entering the offices of the law firm where Bob Price worked.
When she was shown into his office, the lawyer rose from his desk, wearing a bright smile, and with his hand extended.
“Vivian, it’s a pleasure to see you. How have you been?”
“Oh, I’ve been doing all right, Bob, but . . . Well I came to see you because I think I may have a problem.”
A frown creased his forehead as he waved her toward a chair. “Have a seat. How can I help you?”
Vivian paused. “I guess you know about Brian.”
“A fine young man. How’s he doing?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and the lawyer leaned forward with an expression of concern. “Vivian, what’s wrong?”
“Well,” she said slowly. “Several months ago, Brian suddenly disappeared and was nowhere to be found. His office hadn’t heard from him and his girlfriend kept insisting that he was just busy.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I called the police to file a missing person’s report and, after several days, they called to tell me they had his death certificate!”
“Oh, no. What’d happened?”
“I still don’t know for sure.” She slipped a tissue from her purse, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then she took a deep breath and continued, “Anyway, a couple of months ago, his girlfriend called me and suggested that we have lunch together. I met her and asked – no, demanded – that she tell me what had happened to Brian.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me how he had been in this horrible traffic accident and . . . and his body had been mangled beyond all recognition.” Fresh tears flowed and Mr. Price handed a box of tissues across the desk. After a few moments, she regained her composure. “Then she told me how Brian had always wanted to look after me and that she felt it was her duty to carry out his wishes. She said that she had found a terrific investment broker and, if I would sign my CDs over to her, she would invest the money for me and I’d earn a much greater return.”
“And you did that?”
Vivian nodded. “I did. They were worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You see, I was so upset by what she’d told me about Brian that I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
She paused and then looked him directly in the eye. “I think she just took my money.”
“Why do you say that?”
Vivian shrugged. “If she had invested it for me, I should’ve heard something from the investment firm by this time and I haven’t heard a thing. I’ve tried calling every firm in the phone book, but none of them will tell me anything unless I have an account number. And
of course, that I don’t have. I thought maybe you could . . . I don’t know, have their records subpoenaed, or something. Find out somehow what happened to my money.”
Price withdrew a yellow pad from a drawer of his desk and plucked a pen from the holder. “Now,” he said, poising the pen above the paper. “What do you know about this young woman?”
“Not much, actually.”
“Name?”
“Adrienne Porter. She works at Central Hospital. She’s a nurse there.”
He looked up from the pad. “Home address?”
“She and Brian were living in a condo . . . somewhere on Elmwood Drive. I’m afraid I don’t remember the exact address. I was never there.”
He nodded. “I’m sure we can find that out from the hospital. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Vivian slowly shook her head. “Not that I can think of right now.”
“Okay, if you think of anything else, give me a call. Meanwhile, let me do a little digging and see what I can come up with. We have some very good investigators that we use on occasion. I’m sure they can find out what we need to know.”
“I’m . . . I’m just sure she’s stolen my money.”
“If that turns out to be the case, we’ll certainly take whatever steps we can to get you justice.”
Vivian rose from her chair and extended her hand. “Thank you so much, Bob. I appreciate anything you can do.”
He accompanied her to his office door. “Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.”
As Vivian left the lawyer’s office, Brian paid a visit to his father.
“She did it, Dad. She went to see your lawyer.”
“Good. What happened?”
“Not much that I could tell. She told him what had happened and he took down whatever information she was able to give him about Adrienne and said they’d look into it. I guess now all we can do is to wait and see what happens.”
His father nodded his agreement. “We’ll just have to keep checking on her.”
“I intend to do that every day. I hope she can get her money back.”
A couple of weeks later Brian popped in on his mother and found her on the phone with Bob Price.
In Sickness and in Death Page 9