Into the Vault_A psychological thriller about a young woman locked in a life that she does not recognize.

by Marie Ellie

  In a few more minutes, I feel like I’ll have control of my eyes and I already feel my arms and legs. I try to move my fingers under the white hospital sheet without Charles noticing, and I succeed. I can move, I have all my senses conscious, I am ready to escape, I just need an opportunity. While I think about all this, I notice a slight muscular pain that runs through each and every one of my muscles. It’s the same as the pain I felt while Charles was driving his car to the Hamptons. Wait a minute; I’d felt this pain before, this time leaving the hotel wasn’t the first time I felt it. I had felt it much earlier, two or three times, maybe more, during the last five years. I had told William, and he always blamed tennis, he told me that I had to do my stretching exercises better to avoid all those muscle aches. This is very weird, but I'm sure it's the same pain. Why? Why is all this so familiar to me if it's the first time I’ve taken that medicine?

  Suddenly I hear a vibration. It's a telephone. Charles's phone is ringing, well, vibrating. Charles rushes it out of his pocket, slides his finger on the screen and answers.

  “Good. Yes, we are in the hospital. Grace has not woken up, but I've been told she's stable, that you just have to wait for her to wake up.”

  Who is he speaking with, it must be someone from William's team because he is giving them all the details of my condition. I try to keep listening to see what they are talking about but the next thing I hear doesn’t make me very happy.

  “I understand, I won’t leave the room until my replacement arrives.”

  A replacement? It can’t be, now I have to deal with a stranger. Why are they taking Charles? This can ruin my plan; it’s better if I wake up and ask him to stay with me.

  I begin to make soft movements and moans as if I were waking up, oblivious to everything. Charles approaches, puts his hand on my shoulder and begins to say my name.

  “Mrs. Grace! Ma’am!”

  “Um….” is the only thing I can think of to answer, to moan.

  “How do you feel?” he asks me and when I look into his eyes I can tell that he’s really worried, his pupils are dilated, and his breathing is more agitated than before.

  “It hurts a little,” I say hiding the strength of my voice behind a soft moan, almost a whisper.

  “You really gave me quite a scare, I didn’t know what happened to you,” and while he sends me that confession of concern, he caresses my hair and his eyes change, now he seems calmer.

  “Water, I want some water.” I told him, when in fact what I wanted was to drown in those eyes as blue as the sea, as deep as the very ocean, those eyes that gave me peace for a second.

  “Sure, right away.”

  Charles left the room and came back in less time than it took me to check that we were alone in a private hospital room.

  “Here it is, it's not too cold, do you want me to look for some ice?”

  “No, Charles, it's fine like this, it's just a sip.” Charles approached and put the glass of water on my lower lip, holding it while my head goes back a little and I can take a sip or two. Then I motion for him to remove the water. “Thanks, my mouth was a bit dry.”

  “Feel better?”

  “Well, my body hurts a bit, what happened?” I ask Charles as if I didn’t know I’d taken the Midazolam and asking before he could ask me.

  “We are waiting for the results of the laboratory tests, we still don’t know what caused all this.”

  “And what happened, how did I get to this place?”

  “Well, you were drinking a tea that you prepared, we talked and all of the sudden you started to close your eyes, you wouldn’t answer me, your eyes were lost, and if I didn’t hold you in my arms, you would’ve fallen to the ground. So I took you in my arms, I brought you into my car, and while driving I sent for the helicopter of the team, we went to the club, and we flew here from there, literally.

  “And where are we?”

  “In New York Presbyterian, in Lower Manhattan.”

  Lower Manhattan, hey, tremendous choice, my parents live near here on Park Avenue. As far as I know, they bought an apartment here so as to not have a huge house for them alone. Now I understand how he was able to buy an apartment in that area, of course, as he turned out to be corrupt and a kidnapper of his son-in-law. Anyway, it is very easy for me to escape from here and get to 432 Park Ave, at least in theory it's very easy, let's see how I do it in practice. For now, I need to focus on Charles and how to keep him from leaving. No replacement will ruin my plans. Besides, I already took care of Charles.

  “Thanks, Charles, for bringing me here and for taking care of me.”

  “Do not thank me, Madam, it's my duty, and I do it with pleasure.”

  “You must be tired, you haven’t slept at all. Why don’t you rest.”

  “Don’t worry, my replacement will arrive in a while; I'll go rest for a few hours, and then I'll come back, I hope to take you home.”

  “Replacement? Who? A stranger?”

  “He is a member of the team. Better said, he is the boss.”

  “But, I don’t know him, I don’t want a stranger to be with me in this room!”

  “It will only be a while. If you want, I can tell him to stand to watch outside the room, so you feel more comfortable. I can’t guarantee that he’ll accept, as I said, he is one of the bosses, and I don’t think he’ll accept my orders, but I can make the request in your name.”

  “Please.”

  “Of course. No problem.”

  “I'm going to rest a little, please let me know when your replacement arrives and you have to leave. Ah, Charles, something else.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Is there any news of William?”

  “Don’t worry, we know where he is.”

  “But is he okay? Did they kidnap him?”

  “For now I only have permission to tell you that he is doing well and that you’ll be able to meet soon.”

  “Well, you make me feel a little calmer. You know, let me know when you're going to leave.”

  “Yes ma'am, get some rest.”

  When he finished speaking, Charles left the room, the orange chair he had been sitting in stayed in the same place, next to the bed and I looked at it, thinking of William, that he was well and he would come soon, but when? Why hadn’t he arrived if he was already well? The orange color was getting darker and my thoughts on the whereabouts of William along with it. Each time I understood less, each time I had more doubts, each time the uncertainty was greater, until that chair was no longer orange, now it was black, everything was black, and I slept soundly.

  ...

  Who is whistling? My eyes snap open and in the orange chair that Charles was sitting in the last time I woke up, there was now another man, a thin one, white with blue eyes and reddish-blond hair. He has well-marked furrows on his forehead, not because of age, but because of his rough expression. His large and profiled nose protrudes from his defined cheekbones. It gives him a feminine appearance without losing his masculinity. I couldn’t guess his age, but he must be a little over 40 years old. His gestures are unfriendly, and it’s easy to tell that he cares about his appearance. That man, without flinching, without moving a single finger, whistled a song that seemed childish.

  Who is this guy? Why do you wake me up like that? Where is Charles? I asked him to let me know before he left.

  “Where's Charles?” I asked the man with the coldest and sharpest of attitudes.

  “Oh, Charles! The great Charles, very good boy, right? Well, unfortunately, he is no longer among us!” I look at him worriedly when hearing those words that are normally used to refer to someone who has passed away. When he noticed my concern, he continued saying:

  “Do not worry Madame, he has not died, he has just left and won’t return. Ciao! Adios! Bye! Let's forget about Charles! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Andrew, and I am here to take you back to your home. Do you have any questions Madame?”

  “None.” I don’t like his attitude. He speaks as if h
e were a god and had the world under his control. Pedantic and haughty.

  “Perfect! Then your clothes are there on the chair. As you can see, you don’t have a serum or anything else so you can get dressed and as soon as you’re ready we can go back to your house, your husband is waiting for you.

  “William, is he okay?”

  “Sure, Madame! He is waiting for you impatiently. I'm going to leave so that you can get dressed with absolute comfort and when you finish we’ll leave. With your permission Madame.”

  This was the weirdest man in the world. He spoke clearly, very correctly, I mean he seemed very polite, but that kind of perfection scared me. He had cold gestures, and I don’t like that he speaks to me with that haughty tone one bit. I have to talk to William about this employee he has, what did he tell me his name was? Oh yeah! Andrew.

  I finish putting my clothes on and go out into the hall, where Andrew was waiting for me. He takes me by the arm just above the elbow and points the way to me, I try to get free of him but he tightens his grasp harder, and I understand that something is not right. He makes a sign to another guy dressed in a black suit with glasses, I don’t know him, I've never seen him, but he goes ahead and makes a call to have the car ready at the exit. While this is happening, Andrew whispers in my ear.

  “William is waiting for you dear, and he has a great surprise for you.”

  I don’t answer him, I don’t like his arrogant attitude. When we leave the hospital, William's truck is outside, the guy in the suit opens the back door, Andrew invites me in, and I quickly get up and settle on the other end. Andrew goes up and sits next to me, and the guy in the suit closes the door and walks behind the truck to get on the passenger side. There is another man in a black suit who is driving, wearing dark glasses and he doesn’t utter a word. When we are all inside, Andrew gives the order to start, and we leave Manhattan towards East Hampton.

  It's a long way there, and they talk to each other, but I just looked out the window. I didn’t want to think about those men; I just wanted to get home and see William, to know that he is okay and to see what surprise he has waiting for me. But there is one thing that worries me, Charles. He had been very kind to me, I do not want him to lose his job because of me, I have to talk to William so that he understands that Charles did take care of me, that I only cheated him so I could go out and rescue him, because I thought my father had kidnapped him.

  “What are you thinking about sweetie?”

  “Sweetie? What is this guy thinking? What are these types of words?”

  “Let's leave it at Madame which fits me better,” I spit to him without any remorse. I don’t like his attitude, and my eyes have just confirmed it.

  “Oh excuse me, Madame!” He said sarcastically. “It’s better if I don’t talk to her and I just observe the landscape, what do you think Madame?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  It was the longest trip in history. I could not wait to get to my house and get out of that truck. I decided to close my eyes and wait for the time to pass faster, but no, the atmosphere was so tense that the road became eternal. I could have read El Quijote five times before I arrived. My heart would not stop fluttering, I was really nervous, the smell of that man was overwhelmingly perfect. I don’t know what cologne he used, but it must be really expensive. I observed his nails, and they were perfectly groomed, his physical appearance is definitely neat and polished. He has an air of haughtiness, but that doesn’t incite respect. He is reading something, but I don’t know what it is, the title is on the other side, and I couldn’t see it when he took it out of his pocket. It is a small book, cream color. It seems that he realized that I was looking at his little book and he says:

  “Madame! Does reading interest you?”

  “Not yours.”

  “Honesty, that is a quality that I respect a lot. So I'm going to reward it and share some information with you. This little book is one of the greatest works of Greek literature. It’s called The Fables of Aesop. How interesting! How does a man achieve something so big in so little space? Like everything Madame, it’s all in the details. You have to look at every detail, you have to control every detail, and if you do, you'll achieve great things! Like this book. I was reading a very interesting fable, Want to hear it?”

  “Go for it.” In any case, if I have to put up with his presence then at least he can entertain me.

  - It is called “THE FALCON AND THE NIGHTINGALE,” and it says: “A nightingale sang as usual while perched on top of an oak tree. A falcon, needing food, saw it and launched after the other bird to capture it. On the verge of dying, the nightingale asked him to release him; He said that he was not enough to fill the stomach of the falcon, that what he should do was, if he was hungry, go after bigger birds. But the falcon replied: “Well, it would be stupid if I let this food I have in front of me to go free in order to hunt what has not yet been presented to me still.” - Do you know what the moral is?

  “No. What is it?”

  “Come on! You can think a little!”

  “I will not think if you do not want to tell me that’s fine.”

  “What a woman, honest and stubborn. Okay, the moral is that “Among men, there are ignorant ones who, in the hope of obtaining better things, let go of what they already have in their hands.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes, very interesting. There are also men who catch nightingales for flying high like falcons. Don’t you think so?”

  “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

  “Maybe it won’t seem stupid to you later, Madame.”

  He continued reading fables from the small cream-colored book. All of them ended with a pedantic attitude. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me or if that was his attitude with everyone. I can’t understand how a person can have that way of being. It is really unbearable, he knows it and enjoys it.

  “Open your eyes, we're here, Madame.”

  With the last syllable of “Madame” and as if planned by the best of the film directors, the truck stopped. Finally, we made it home.

  CHAPTER VIII

  A PLAN IN THE BASEMENT

  I try to open the door as soon as the truck stops on the stony road in front of the stairs of the house. The door doesn’t open, “he has the child’s lock on" I hear Andrew shout. The front passenger, whose name I still don’t know, opens the door for Andrew and me is already there taking my arm again. I try to get out again, but he tightens his grip and lets me know with a gesture that I shouldn’t try it again. What does disrespectful man think? He treats me as if he were the king of the world and I’m a simple servant. When I look up at the front door, I see him standing there, perfect, without a scratch, William.

  “Here is your brand new wife Sir William,” Andrew says to William while he takes me by one arm and with the other hand he draws several circles in the air in a clear sign of fictitious reverence.

  While Andrew speaks, I try to get out of his hands to embrace my husband. Andrew holds me tight with both hands and William gestures as he recoils as if warning Andrew to hold me tightly and not let me get close.

  “Take her to the vault.”

  What? William told him to take me to the vault? But he hasn’t seen me for two days, I've been worried about him because they kidnapped him, I was in the hospital, and my husband doesn’t even ask me if I'm okay, he just says to take me to the vault without letting me get close to him. What happened to him? Why is he rejecting me? What vault? Wait a minute ... When I woke up at the EDITION, I heard Charles talking to someone on the phone, and he told them that as soon as he woke me, he would take me to the vault. But Charles just brought me straight home, and there was no vault, only the house where we’ve lived as a couple for the last five years. I recover my posture after I stop struggling. It’s already clear to me that William does not want to have any rapprochement with me.

  When I pass by William's side, Andrew hastens our pace so that I do not have a chance to exchang
e words with him. He takes me straight to the office, Andrew knows the entry key, enters 110320 and opens the door. Once there, he releases me and goes straight to the shelf that hides the entrance to the basement, pushes until he hears the click and swings it open naturally as if he had opened that door thousands of times. He turns on the light in the stairway and takes my arm again.

  “Let's go beautiful, to your rooms.”

  We go down the stairs when we reach the last step Andrew turns on the light, and I pretend to be surprised at what I see.

  “Don’t force yourself sweetie; we know you were here, although you were not observant enough to see everything.”

  “I saw everything that I had to see, and it doesn’t scare me.” Lie, of course, it scared me, I was terrified to know what they wanted all this for, but I didn’t want to stay there to find out. I tried to turn around and leave, but Andrew grabbed me and whispered in my ear.

  “You haven’t seen the best part but I better not spoil anything.”

  Before he finishes talking, I can tell someone’s coming down the stairs. It was William, my husband, the newly appeared one I've been worried about and even went to a hospital for. He looks different, nothing to do with the man in love with me a couple of days ago in the EDITION. He takes a look at Andrew, and he understands that he should leave and give us a moment alone. Perfect, I have a lot to talk about with William. Andrew left the scene and William, and I are alone in that basement that contains thousands of questions.

  “Where were you? I thought something bad had happened to you.”

  “Nothing happened to me, I had to leave the hotel urgently, and I left Charles to bring you home. That's it.”

  “But it was our reconciliation, you could’ve warned me at least.”