by David Bishop
Long distance relationships can be such a bitch. Still, Dix was a very good man and a very good lover.
Why do I feel I must have a main man in my life? Do most women feel this way? Is it merely the meshing of social convention with the lust for a lover?
#
By mid-afternoon, the throb of unused energy pulsed through Linda like the earthy sounds of a distant saxophone. By four, unable to sit still, she walked the road, rather than the beach, into town to get a coffee and a blueberry scone. After walking the two miles, she changed her mind and shopped awhile. Then she ambled into the fresh fish house next to the harbor to see what the fishing boats brought in. Today’s catch was white sea bass, as an entree or as fish and chips, which she chose, with a side of coleslaw. By six-thirty, shopped-out, fed and watered, but still unsettled, she went to a movie. Having just eaten allowed her to avoid the lure of popcorn with the petroleum-based butter flavoring.
On the walk home, Linda kept her hands in her pockets. Starting up the front sidewalk, she brought out her house key. The cool ocean air was damp on the back of her bare hand. On the porch table, under the small light that drew visitors’ eyes to the doorbell, was a white box, long and thin, the kind used for flowers.
Dix? Announcing he’s on his way? Or, maybe to soften the message that again this month he’s not coming.
She carried the box into the kitchen and opened it next to the sink. Red roses. Two dozen. There was no card.
Who sends two dozen red roses without a card?
She began cutting the stems, working the roses into her favorite vase, along with the delicate white baby’s breath packaged with the roses. After removing several roses, she noticed an envelope under the remaining flowers. Not the small white kind that contains a greeting card, but a manila envelope commonly used for not folded documents. It curled around the bottom of the box under the green tissue paper, extending partway up the sides. Without the weight of the full complement of roses, the envelope’s stiffness caused it to bow upward into view.
She turned off the water and put the scissors on the counter. She returned the rose she was holding to its source, extending its blossom beyond the end of the box. She picked up the envelope and held it. Her eyes focused on its unaddressed front. The envelope didn’t have the feel of empty. She put it on the table, sat down and crossed her arms. Her knees drew together, pressed tightly.
Relax, it’s an envelope. It came with red roses.
The glue-line wasn’t sealed. The flap at the top was simply folded inside the envelope. She pulled the flap free and peered inside. One sheet of white paper, thicker than that used for writing, stiff, glossy, more like the kind used for photographs. Her heart rate increased. Her tongue staggered across her dry lips. Linda’s hands became fists. Her knuckles whitened.
What the hell’s my problem? Stop being such a twit.
The photo paper came out blank side up. She turned it over.
Oh my God.
A photograph of Stephanie, the love of her life, her ten-year-old daughter. Her perfectly healthy, wonderful Steffi.
Someone knows my secret.
Her heart seemed to separate away from the rest of her like a yolk parting from the white of an egg. The natural ease of breathing ceased. She released the picture and, unknowingly, curled her lips inside her mouth holding them tightly with her teeth. She drew in a deep breath, her nostrils flaring with the effort. She held it as long as she could. Her eyes went dry and felt larger. She put a palm flat on each side of the photograph. With her thumbs slightly touching the edges of the picture, she leaned over the image of her daughter. Her baby girl was on the playground at the private, boarding Hobart School just outside Portland, Oregon. Stephanie wore the plaid skirt and white blouse uniform the school required all the girls to wear. Her usually unblemished face was violated by a red rubber stamp, circular with a slash-line through it at a ten-to-four angle, like the ones used to designate no entry or no parking. The ugly ink smeared down onto her daughter’s white blouse.
Who would stamp a red blotch on Steffi’s face?
Linda had left Steffi’s father before she began to show. To this day, the man didn’t know he had a daughter. She never told her special male friend, Ryan Testler, about Steffi. She did tell Clark. He was her second husband. He had a right to know before they married. Clark had died over a year ago.
Who the hell knows? Has someone taken Steffi? What do they want?
2
It was late to call the Hobart School. Late to be connected to Steffi. Linda pushed those reasoned restraints from her mind and called Hobart, confessing to feeling silly before explaining she had a premonition. The school put her on hold and, after a seemingly endless few minutes, returned to confirm Steffi was peacefully asleep in her room. “All is well at Hobart,” she was told. That was good, as far as it went, but did little to calm her fear that something horrible might soon befall Steffi.
What’s going on? Roses without a card. That damned red stamp sullying Steffi’s face.
Linda tried to calm herself, but, failing, she tossed a few things into a bag. Her unsteady hand proved incapable of grasping the slider on the bag’s zipper. She sat on the bed. Her fingers gripped her chin, squeezing it as if checking for ripeness. Without knowing when they had started, she recognized the warmth of quiet tears, and the convulsions of trying to hold them back. Her shoulders sagged. Her hands tightened. Her fingers intertwined. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.
Those roses were delivered while I was in town. I should have called the florist. No. The sender would have hand carried the box to my porch. He wouldn’t have trusted the florist to handle the picture of Steffi.
When a semblance of calm returned, she zipped her bag closed. After calling the Red Lion Inn and reserving a room, she went out to her car.
From her research years before, Linda had concluded the public schools where she lived were like most public schools throughout America—failing their charge to educate the young. The politicians tell us America has the best schools in the world. Based on the evidence, this was far from the truth, particularly with respect to grades kindergarten through high school. Any lie to get another vote.
Maybe Dix was right. Maybe she should move back to Caruthers. Dix loved children. She imagined he would accept Steffi and invite her into their conjoined lives. Of course, he would be shocked to learn Linda had a daughter. It was one of the issues they would need to work through. That is, if Dix was in her future, which was something she had in no way decided. Maybe the three of them could live like a normal family—whatever a normal family is in today’s world. Linda had gone to school in Caruthers. She understood the school she went to over twenty years ago was not the school that existed today. Nothing much at all was the same as it was twenty years ago, and that, she felt, was both good and bad. Dix claimed the schools in Caruthers were still good. She’d think about it. Right now she needed to get to Steffi. See her daughter. Hug her. Know she was all right.
I’ll be at the Hobart in about two hours.
#
Linda glanced at her watch when she passed through the glare of a street light, the bright cone piercing the front windshield to illuminate her face, then brighten the steering wheel, and finally flash across her thighs. It would be after eleven by the time she arrived near the school. Hobart didn’t allow late night visitors, not unless it was an emergency. They would not consider her ominous feelings an emergency, even if Linda did.
Hobart was small, with about one-hundred girls. The owner was like a second mother to each one of them. She was a homely woman. Linda’s deceased husband, Clark, once claimed that should Pauline Hobart take off her clothes in front of the window, the man across the street would close his drapes. Linda always scolded Clark for it, but smiled at the memory of him saying it with his eyebrows raised like Groucho Marx.
Maybe the time had come to bring Steffi home to live with her. She’d been thinking about it. She always thought about it.
Always. Steffi loved the long summer trips they took together each year, and the shorter ones over each Christmas. Steffi loved the Hobart School. Hobart was K-6. In any event, Steffi was in the sixth grade so this would be her daughter’s last year there. Maybe at the end of this year, maybe then she would bring Steffi home. She had to look closely into the quality of schools in Sea Crest and, maybe in Caruthers, Kansas. But she had no more time to juggle her thoughts pro and con with respect to Dix’s proposal that continued to age without her answer.
She’d be in Portland a little before midnight. Maybe get a little sleep, probably not. The only thing that mattered was being on the porch of Hobart in the morning when they unlocked the door.
#
Waiting to check-in at the Red Lion, Linda glanced at a stack of national newspapers on the front counter that used color more frequently than any other newspaper she had ever encountered. The headlines announced that U. S. President Ronald Walker had formally announced his decision to run for re-election. The photo with the article on the front page showed him standing next to his wife, Carolyn, a woman considerably younger than the president, looking up at him. President Walker was at least six inches taller than the first lady. Carolyn wore a blue dress that matched the president’s tie. Presidential, is the word they use for such a grand image.
“Welcome to the Red Lion.”
“Huh?” Linda’s mind pulled back from thinking why the presidential announcement, expected for months, was being treated as big news. “What?”
The middle-aged woman’s voice came from behind the hotel counter, she smiled and repeated, “Welcome to the Red Lion.” Her face had that fresh-scrubbed look, her skin taut, her eyes bulged slightly, her lips too plump to be naturally so. The name badge hanging on her yellow blouse made it sag unevenly on one side, pulling it open to a measure that fell between shy and brazen, her visible chest skin dotted with freckles. A Becky Thatcher with bigger, bolder boobs.
After Linda finished at the front desk, she walked into the bar and took an overstuffed chair in a quiet corner near the river-rock fireplace. Normally, she ordered a wine, but this was not sophisticated drinking time. She ordered a martini, a double. Minutes later, the waiter returned and, without spilling a drop, skillfully put down a small cocktail napkin, centered her drink upon it, and left.
While her mouth played with the first sip, a man weaved carefully around nearby chairs. He approached slowly, his stern manner that of a well-trained pit-bull. He was average built with broad shoulders, but had a behaved hardness about him. Given his direction she assumed he came from the bar.
“Hello Linda.”
She didn’t recognize this man, yet he knew her name. Perhaps he’s a parent from Steffi’s school? A student’s father she met at some past school function and forgotten.
He stopped at her left and used one of his unexpectedly small, well-manicured hands to lean onto the back of the chair next to her. “How have you been?”
“I don’t know you, sir.” Then, her nerves fully on alert, she challenged the approaching stranger. “Did you send me roses?”
If he didn’t, he’ll conclude I’m daft and scurry away. Good riddance.
He raised the drink in his hand toward her, showing small patches of hair on the backs of his fingers. “I hope they were all right. I told them to send their very best. Roses don’t last long. I wanted them to be as fresh as possible when you received them.”
Linda sat forward. Her stare fixed on his narrowed eyes. “What the hell is this about? How dare you threaten my daughter to get my attention.”
He ran his fingers across the hard edge of his square chin. “Call me Brad. Of course, that’s not my real name, but it’s the name you’re to use.”
“I want to know what this is about.”
“You usually stay here. It’s close to the Hobart School. I was simply stationed here to confirm your arrival. To buy you a drink and help you relax.”
“Relax?” After a pause and a calming breath, she lowered her voice. “Relax,” she repeated. She leaned toward him, with hate behind her quiet eyes. “I’d like to puncture your scrotum with a serrated steak knife.”
“Oh, that’s descriptive.” The slight slant to his hooded eyes widened. “But, please, no.” He grinned, his voice matching Linda’s for low. “Without consideration of the obvious pun, it would be pointless. I could tell you nothing. Patience, dear lady. The situation in which you find yourself, above all, calls for calm. You’ll learn everything you need to know.” He placed his open palm on his chest. “But not from me. I’m just a walk-on in this drama. I suggest you remain at ease. You’ll need a clear head. Now smile. Limit yourself to the one martini, a double is more than plenty. Then go up to your room. Get a good night’s sleep. Your daughter, Stephanie, is warm and safe in her bed at Hobart. You’ll see her in the morning.”
The man glanced at his watch and spoke in a normal voice. “Sorry, love, I’m a bit behind schedule. He touched two fingers to his lips and leaned down to touch Linda’s cheek. She jerked away, her body pressing against the opposite side of her chair. “Gotta run. Ta ta.” He dropped a twenty on the table and walked away.
Linda waited until he left the bar before she got up and followed. He walked out of the hotel and across the parking lot to the front street. A dark SUV immediately, but unhurriedly, pulled to the curb, its broadside facing Linda who remained in the hotel lobby. She couldn’t see the license plate. The window glass was tinted. Brad got in behind the driver. That indicated there were likely at least two others, possibly three, in the vehicle which promptly pulled out onto the dark street and disappeared into the night. Local lights reflected off the wet northwest pavement.
Linda went back into the bar, chose a different chair on the other side of the room and, ignoring Brad’s advice, ordered a second martini, also a double. With her drink in hand, she searched her memory for some connection between her past calamities and this present threat to Steffi. As for Brad’s identity, who he worked for, and the objective of whomever that was, she had no clue.
3
Before shutting the door to her hotel room, Linda slid the plastic do-not-disturb tab into the outside slot for the cardkey lock. After closing the door, she reached over and flicked on the wall switch. The light didn’t come on.
“Leave the room dark.”
Linda gasped, dropping her small suitcase to the floor. Another man. Another voice. Not Brad. This voice was different. Deeper. Older. It couldn’t be Brad. She had watched him leave in the backseat of the dark SUV. She reached for the doorknob.
“I have a gun on you, Linda Darby. Don’t try to leave. You’re safe. So is Steffi, for the moment.”
Linda froze.
“Move toward my voice. Keep your right hand in contact with the wall. After you turn the corner, you’ll touch a chair. Sit it in.”
Linda slid her hand along what felt like a vinyl-covered wall. She reached the corner, moving around it to her right until her hand touched the rougher fabric of a chair. “Okay. I’m at the chair. What do you want?”
“Take off your clothes.”
“I asked you what you wanted.”
“Right now, this isn’t about what I want. It’s about you seeing your daughter in the morning, so I’d suggest you keep your wits about you. Take off your sweater and slacks. Oh, I’m sorry, you’re wearing a sweatshirt, not a sweater. In any event, get them off—right now.”
Linda stood still, willing herself to remain under control. She stiffened and pulled her green sweatshirt over her head. After tucking the hoodie to the front, she folded it once lengthwise, then across the middle before dropping it where she stood.
The man remained quiet.
A moment later, she unfastened the belt at the top of her slacks, unhooked the clasp, drew down the zipper, and, after bending slightly at the waist, stepped her first leg, then the other, out of her pants. She folded them lengthwise, then in half near the knee, and dropped them where she imagined they migh
t fall on top her sweatshirt.
“Sit.”
She did.
“There’s a lamp to your right. Turn it on. Don’t touch the shade. I have it angled to shine on your face. Keep your eyes forward. And don’t move the piece of two-by-four wedged along the cushion behind you.”
Linda’s reached back. Her hand touched the wood. “What the hell’s this for?”
“Now stand up.”
“Stand, sit, stand, what are you some kinda control freak?”
“Call it practice. You need to become accustomed to doing what you’re told, when you are told to do it.”
She stood, absentmindedly sliding her fingers under the elastic waistband of her panty. She tugged them a bit higher.
She heard his low, gruff, chuckle, a mature voice, throaty, perhaps from too much smoking or alcohol. She imagined a neck swag of purposeless flesh vibrating with his moment of perverse gaiety.
“A woman and her vanity, I love it. No need to be self-conscious. You’ve got a hell of a body, honey. Must be all that beach running you do. It’s wonderful for the legs and butt.”
“I’m not shy. I’m frightened.”
“No need. As long as you play by my rules, follow orders.”
“What do you want?” She self-consciously put her hands behind her. The position made her feel even more vulnerable. Unsure what to do with her hands, she brought them back around in front and intertwined her fingers. Her joined hands settled against her pubic area.
“We’re going to have you kill someone.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Sit down. No need for you to remain standing. Killing this man is a simple thing.”
“I’m not a killer.”
“I told you to sit down.” His voice now riding a hardened edge.
She glared at the dark image of the man sitting some eight or ten feet away, directly across from her. Then she sat.
“About two years ago, you evaded Blue, a trained assassin, on the beach at night. Eventually, you killed Blue while he had his attention on you. That took real talent. When we learned of that, you became a woman worthy of our attention. We kept an eye on you like a professional football team watches a hot-shot high school quarterback. Compared to Blue, your kill for us will be a piece of cake.”
