by R. G. Ryan
“Has to be chloroform or ether,” I said in speculation as everyone else stayed silent, their attention riveted to the drama being played out on the screen.
She fought her attacker. She fought him hard with every skill she had learned through many years of mixed martial arts training. From the man’s body language, it appeared that she severely injured his ribs and right knee before dropping into unconsciousness. The other figure rushed in as soon as Cassie was unconscious and helped to support her weight. In the process, the hoodie had slipped, revealing that it was, in fact, a woman.
Then the man swept back his hoodie and looked around as if in search of a security camera. Once he located the camera, he walked purposefully toward it dragging Cassie along between him and the other woman.
Coming as close as he could, he stared up into the lens, a cruel smile stretching his thin lips.
It was like looking into the face of the devil himself.
Paul Morgan!
How I hated him! And now, he had Cassie.
Aaron said, “Looks like he’s mouthing something, Jake.”
It was true. I have become quite adept at lip reading over the years. However, no expertise was required to decipher his very personal message.
Mentioning me by name, over and over he suggested that I perform a physiologically impossible sexual act on myself.
And then, he spat at the camera, turned and dragged Cassie roughly away through the gate that opened on their approach. We watched in horror as he and his accomplice manhandled her unconscious form into the back of a white, windowless van and drove away.
I stood shakily, just staring at the image frozen on the monitor.
Michael said, “Is that Paul Morgan?”
“In the flesh!”
“Cassie and Muriel have talked about him so much over the years, but I’ve never seen him. Still…he looked very familiar. Huh! Must be because they’ve described him in so much detail.”
“Maybe so.”
Muriel’s already alabaster complexion was now devoid of any color and she seemed on the verge of passing out. Aaron moved closer, wrapping one of his massive arms around her shoulders and hugging her tightly.
Vanessa had slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor and weeping openly.
Paul Morgan!
As much as I wanted to say that I couldn’t believe it, it wasn’t true. I suppose, if I’m being honest, I had feared this exact thing occurring at some point for a long, long time.
“That’s not possible!” Muriel said in a small voice.
Michael responded, “I didn’t think it was either, Mur. But you saw him; I saw him.”
“The girl with him,” Muriel mumbled quietly.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She looked up at me.
“The girl who helped him. I recognized her too. It’s Eddie. Edwina Madison, actually. But we called her Eddie. She was with us back in the day. Can’t believe she’s still with that monster.”
Vanessa sobbed, “So, is he going to demand a ransom, or something?”
I thought it over for all of two seconds before answering.
“Not a chance. This, at the core, isn’t really about Cassie. It’s about Morgan taking revenge.”
“For what?”
I glanced around the room.
“It’s kind of a long story.”
Muriel whispered, “Tell it, Jake. Tell our story.”
Michael added, “I’m not sure even I know everything.”
“Me either,” Aaron replied.
“Okay. I’ll condense it as much as possible. But I warn you…it’s not pretty.”
“Let’s go back to the condo,” Muriel suggested.
I agreed, because I didn’t really want to have a breakdown in public.
And I sensed it coming as surely as one anticipates the arrival of the dawn.
Chapter Five
Once back inside Cassie and Muriel’s condo, I made some coffee, figuring that the busy work would help me order my thoughts into a cogent narrative.
“I guess I’ll start with you and Cassie in high school,” I said to Michael.
He replied, “Yeah, I mean, whatever you think is relevant.”
“Okay…well…Cassie and Michael dated through half of their junior year and all through their senior year. After graduation, though, they sort of went their separate ways.”
Michael interjected, “By then, we had already been talking about marriage.”
“That’s right. But, Michael went off to UCLA as Sid, his father, had always dreamed he would. Only, he went as a creative writing major instead of the star of the basketball team. Wasn’t it during your sophomore year that you had the first contact with a publisher?”
“It was,” he said. “There was this writing contest that I entered on a dare from my roommate. I won the contest, but in the process of winning I lost the will to continue my education.”
Aaron interjected, “Let me guess…an agent suggested you drop out of school and write full-time.”
“That’s right! But, in this instance, it was good advice. My first novel was published when I was twenty-one.”
“That’s young!” Vanessa said.
“It is. And to this day, I remain one of the youngest published novelists in history.”
I continued, “Cassie, because of her height, was highly recruited by several schools for their basketball and volleyball programs. It wasn’t really what she wanted to do, but she went with it as a means to an end. What she really wanted was to go to Hollywood and act.” I paused as memories of Cassie’s childhood passed in review. “As a young girl, it’s all she used to talk about. She used to compose and perform these elaborate plays for me and anyone else that would sit still long enough to observe.”
Michael said, “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard that—you know, about the acting when she was a kid.”
Muriel and Aaron said the same thing.
“It’s true.” I laughed at a memory. “I just now remembered one time when she put this elaborate little play together that included multiple characters, props and costumes. Of course, she portrayed all the characters. And right in the middle of it, the FBI called with a very pressing case. So, there I am watching Cassie’s play and trying to listen intently to Zack Hastings briefing me on the details of the case.”
Vanessa asked, “Couldn’t you have just told her to wait until you got the details?”
“Ask Cassie to wait?” Michael replied with sad amusement. “You apparently don’t know her very well.”
“Michael’s right, “ I agreed. “She actually followed me from room to room hauling her little props and costume changes with her. It was…” A knot the size of a softball lodged in my throat rendering me temporarily speechless. “It…ah…was precious. Yeah, that’s what it was. Simply precious.
Silence settled on the room, broken only by the sound of quiet sobbing.
I cleared my throat and tried to pull it together.
“Wow! Okay, well…she finally settled on a small, mostly unknown liberal arts college in the northwest where she pursued a major in communication. She didn’t really know why she had chosen that particular college other than the fact that it had the…” I mimed air quotes. “…‘coolest campus’ of any of the ones she’d visited. Other schools had offered far more scholarship money, but there was just something about that particular one that had captured her fancy.
“I believe it was around the middle of her freshman year that her roommate, who worked at Nordstrom’s Department Store, asked her if she’d be willing to participate in a charity fashion show. Since she’d never done modeling, at first Cassie said no, but eventually caved in under pressure.”
“She was a natural!” Michael said. “The hit of the show, if I remember correctly.”
“And not only that,” I continued. “A few of the big agencies tracked her down the fo
llowing week and offered her developmental contracts on the spot. I remember her calling me and relaying their promises of fame and glory—not because she had a burning desire to model, but because she saw it as a natural lead-in to her dreams of being in Hollywood. She told them all the same thing: that she really needed time to think about it and discuss it with me.”
Vanessa said, “So, Cassie was a model? Something else I never knew!”
“Well, not really” I replied. “Sadly, she never made it in modeling. She never made it to Hollywood either. Cassie’s collegiate career lasted one semester longer than Michael’s.”
Michael added bitterly, “She dropped out over Christmas break during her junior year. As for the reason why…you saw his face on the video monitor!”
Vanessa had been staring at the floor and looked up.
“She told me about his sex parties and him getting her hooked on drugs. Is that why she quit school?”
I said, “Basically it was all about the drugs. When you are as hooked as she was, there isn’t a single decision you can make that doesn’t include some provision to perpetuate and feed your addiction.”
I paused to order my thoughts.
“Cassie and I had always been close. She would call me every single day, sometimes two or three times. But something changed during that third year. She stopped coming home for holidays and I started to notice a certain disinterest when we would talk, as if something or someone distracted her. I recall waking up one morning with the realization that I hadn’t spoken to her in over ten days.
“I placed a call to her dorm room, which led to the discovery that she had moved off campus the preceding weekend and was living in an apartment with three or four other students. Her roommate stressed that she had been instructed to not give Cassie’s new phone number to anyone. Omitted from the conversation was the fact that this request had come not from Cassie, but from one of the new roommates…Paul Morgan.”
Aaron said, “If I recall, that phone call right there is what finally got your butt on the plane, though…right?”
“Yeah, it was. I booked a ticket on the first flight heading that direction. I got a cab at SeaTac and arrived at the campus by early evening. The cab dropped me off by the women’s dorm and I went to her room. The roommate who had been so insistent that she not give out any information, started talking to me as soon as she opened the door.”
Muriel chuckled around her tears.
“I bet you had that look you always get when you’re feeling intense about something.”
“Yeah, man,” Aaron agreed. “I’ve seen that look make large burly men go weak in the knees.”
“Whatever!” I replied. “From the info she gave me, I figured out that Morgan’s apartment was within walking distance from the campus, so I took off and was able to find it pretty quickly. My first impression was that the place had definitely seen better days. I knocked on the door, knocked again and then beat on the door so hard I was afraid it was going to collapse. Paul Morgan finally answered the door himself. He was a skinny little dude, shirtless and wearing boxer shorts. And while I wasn’t completely sure it was him, he was standing in front of me and I was quite put out. So I grabbed him by the back of the head and punched him in the face a few times, just to get his attention, you know?
“Somewhere along the way, he figured out who I was and started stammering something about how it wasn’t his fault; how everything had been Cassie’s idea; how she was a sex fiend and a drug addict and that he had simply been trying to please her. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t sit very well with me, so I broke a couple of body parts, tied him to a chair and tied a dirty tee shirt around his mouth.
“While he sat in the corner whimpering and bleeding, I called Cassie’s name over and over and finally heard a low, faint moan in answer. The sound had come from somewhere down a short hallway beyond the living area, so I started in that direction. The place was filthy, as if there had recently been a party and no one had gotten around to cleaning up. The door to the first bedroom I passed was partially open and I saw two girls and three guys all passed out in various stages of, well, high-ness. In the next bedroom were four people, three girls and a guy, engaged in various sexual acts.”
I glanced at Muriel, and she nodded that I continue.
“One of those girls was Muriel.”
“And one of them was Eddie,” she added.
“When I came to the last bedroom, the door was closed but not latched. I opened it cautiously and…well, the stench of dirty clothes and unwashed bodies was nearly overpowering.”
I had to stop talking as the emotion was simply too strong to overcome.
Muriel had begun sobbing uncontrollably.
“At first, all I could see was a single sheet covering a…ah…form on the bed, and that it was female. But she bore so little resemblance to Cassie that I almost turned and walked away. If the matchstick arms were any indication as to her overall condition, this poor girl looked to be close to starvation. I finally called Cassie’s name. The girl was lying on her side facing away from the door and had slowly turned her head toward me, her eyes growing large and frightened at first. Then…then she mouthed, “Uncle?” and began to weep, the sobs convulsing her body.
“I ran to her then. I picked up that skinny, stinking little girl…and I… rocked her like a mother would rock a child. She was naked under the sheet—naked and absolutely filthy. As I held her there, I kept looking around the room for a suitable covering for her. The best I could find was a tattered robe I managed to grab with one hand and fit round her shoulders.”
The room was silent except for Muriel’s quiet sobbing.
“We stayed like that for a long time, with neither one of us speaking. I think that on a subconscious level we both knew that words weren’t sufficient for what needed to be said between us.
“She finally told me that the reason for her lack of communication was that she tried desperately to protect me from having to see her like that. And then she said, ‘I’m so ashamed, Uncle. Now that you know, if you want to, you know, not be my uncle any more, or whatever, I will understand.’
“That statement broke something loose inside of me—something dark and terrible. I told her to get dressed as quickly as she could and I went back out into the front room to have a discussion with Mr. Morgan. I found him there, still tied to the chair but trying to get loose. I squatted down in front of him and just stared into his eyes for the longest time. What I saw looking back at me was evil…pure evil. So, I decided to attempt an exorcism. It was an exorcism of pain. I beat that little shit worse than I’ve ever beaten another human being in my life. With every blow I saw Cassie’s ravaged face; I heard her pathetic little voice telling me that if I wanted to walk away from her that she would understand. And so, I beat him harder.”
I had to stop because my breathing was getting out of control.
After thirty seconds or so, I continued, “I finally stopped because my knuckles were simply too bruised to go on. I stepped back and looked at him. He was alive, but barely. Truthfully, I’m pretty sure I wanted him to die from the beating. He was unconscious and…well, I won’t describe his face because he didn’t really look human. But then, neither did Cassie!
“I helped her finish getting dressed, called a cab and was leading her out of the apartment when she started calling Muriel’s name. Said she wouldn’t leave without her. So I went back, walked in to the room Cassie had said she’d be in; pulled a guy off of her and threw him against a wall; helped her get dressed and led her out to join Cassie. When Cassie told her who I was, Muriel began sobbing and wrapped herself around me like a clinging vine and wouldn’t let go. She kept saying over and over again, ‘Thank-you. Thank-you. Thank-you.”
Muriel said, “As screwed up as I was, I will never forget that night. You saved my life.”
“Yours and Cassie’s. I called a cab and took them both to the ER, had them admitted and waited aroun
d for two weeks for them to be pronounced healthy enough to leave.”
I paused as Paul Morgan’s ugly, scarred face flashed through my consciousness.
“And now, Morgan has Cassie again. I should’ve followed my instincts and killed him when I had the chance.” After making eye contact with everyone I added, “I won’t be making that mistake again.”
Chapter Six
As she fought her way back to consciousness, Cassie became aware of a face; a face still shrouded in the fog caused by the drugs and the blow to her head; a face she had desperately hoped to never see again. The growing awareness that it was, in fact, who it appeared to be, filled her with a dread she knew she dared not reveal.
Her voice was surprisingly strong and calm when she spoke.
“Hello, Paul.”
“Well, I thought for a minute there we’d lost you,” he replied.
“Oh, you know me,” she said laboriously, slurring her words slightly. “It takes more than drugs and a cheap shot to the head to get me down.”
“Well, at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“There’s nothing humorous about this sad little scene.”
“Oh, I quite disagree. Eddie and I have had lots of laughs since you’ve returned to your rightful place, haven’t we Eddie?”
Cassie raised her head slightly and with considerable difficulty focused her eyes on the girl standing by Morgan.
“Edwina Madison?” she said in amazement, allowing her head to collapse back onto the pillow. “You’re still with this clown?”
In a rush of emotion Eddie gushed, “Cassie, please forgive me. I’m so sorry but he made me do it. He said he’d hurt me real bad if I didn’t go along with the plan.”
“Paul Morgan hurt a woman? Oh, now there’s a real shocker!”
Paul glanced at Eddie as if to say, “I’ll deal with you later.”
He reached out his hand as if to touch Cassie’s face. She jerked her head violently to the side producing a jolt of pain that knifed straight into the middle of her brain. As the pain registered on her face, he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, allowing his fingers to trace the outlines of her lips.
