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

by Marie Ellie

  I take out the griddle, put the three sandwiches on it to start heating them. That's the way I like them the most, toasted on the griddle with butter. While I wait for them to toast, I think of the electronic map which Charles uses to control the house from his tablet. How am I going to leave without him noticing when I escape? The sandwiches are toasted on one side, and I flip them over one by one with great dexterity, well, it seems like I did this every day and I don’t even know how to cook. William always brings food specially prepared for us, I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s homemade and fresh as if we had a private cook, but they weren’t in our house. I always liked that idea because we eat fresh and healthy foods without having a house that smells like food and well, add to that I don’t have to worry about cooking.

  The sandwiches are ready, Charles stands up, looks for two plates and passes them to me so that I can place the sandwiches on them, and while I do that, he looks for two glasses and puts some ice directly from the refrigerator dispenser into them.

  “What do you prefer to drink, ma'am?” He says to me while showing me the glass he chose to be mine.

  “Orange juice please, only half a glass.”

  “Perfect.”

  Charles serves two glasses of orange juice, one-half full and the other almost overflowing, which I suppose is for him. Obviously, a body of that size involves a lot of food. I put his plate in front of him and give him napkins.

  “Enjoy your meal, Charles.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  Poor guy, he starts eating as if there were no tomorrow, it seems he hadn’t eaten in many hours. While we eat, we don’t talk, each person focuses on their own things, each on their food, there is silence but it’s not complete, you can hear it when we chew, move the glasses, swallow juice, put the napkin on the counter. We do not talk, but there is no total silence, we are there eating and thinking. I don’t know what he's thinking about and I'm really dying to know. I'm dying to know who he is and what he's doing here, taking care of me, he said, but taking care of me from what? From who? For my part, I’m thinking about him and how to draw up a plan for as soon as I finish eating the sandwich which was actually pretty tasty. I have no concept of the time, I do not know what time it is exactly, and now that I'm wondering, the clocks in the house do not work. Also, when I used the computer, I didn’t notice the time. What time will it be? When I woke up at the hotel, I didn’t know how long I was asleep or paralyzed or ... I don’t even know what was wrong with me.

  We finish eating, I pick up the dishes to wash them, put them in the sink, open the water tap and while the water runs and I clean the dishes, I remember the image of the map on Charles' tablet. Two floors, only two floors! The basement! He doesn’t control the basement. The house has a basement, which I have never gone down to for two reasons, the first is that I’ve always been a little afraid of basements and the second is that when we moved, William had his office remodeled and placed the entrance to the basement inside his office, it's like his place of meditation, his private place. No one enters the office or the basement, both are sacred, and I have always respected that. Always until now, we’re in an emergency, I don’t think he’d get upset if I entered to find out how to get out of here and help him. I need to know about him; I'm not sure if he was kidnapped or if he left on his own and I still don’t have details or know if he's okay or needs help.

  I close the tap, dry my hands with a kitchen towel that has “his & hers” written on it and that message gives me strength. I am his “hers,” and William is my “his” and I will do everything in my power to find him and bring him back home, safe and sound.

  “I'm going to read a little in the office, please, if you hear from William let me know.”

  “Of course, ma'am, be careful.”

  “See you later, Charles.”

  “Bye. Ma'am, thanks for the food.”

  I smile at him and walk to William's office. Once in front of the door, I turn the handle and no kidding! It’s locked. The lock is one of those with a numerical input, so I enter the numerical code of the house alarm, and it doesn’t open. The screen turned red, indicating a wrong code. I keep thinking for a few seconds and remember that Charles entered a different password when he activated the house alarm. I memorized it, would it be the same? I start entering 110320. To my surprise, the light turns green, the door opens, and I am able to enter the office. Once inside, I lock the door manually so that Charles cannot get in so easily. I know he can enter, but that will at least make it a little harder.

  I turn around and for the first time look at William's office, it's really beautiful, all these books, a large wooden desk, and a modern design. There is very little natural light, so I turn the desk lamp on, sit in the ergonomic black chair and stay a few seconds looking at William's desk. There is a Mont Blanc pen, a stack of high-quality white papers in a specially designed tray and a miniature plane. When I say miniature, it is in comparison with real planes, because it has a considerable size. It is an imposing figure of an army warplane, specifically a Combat F-16, it is a perfect replica, and I say that because I know some about airplanes. My father has a collection of these replicas, he is a fan of airplanes, and when he was a child he showed them to me and told me stories of when he was in the Air Force.

  I keep looking at the desk, there are some mustard yellow envelopes. You can see that they have papers inside because of the thickness of the envelopes. Something catches my attention on this desk, there are no photos. Not a single photo of us. I had thought I might see a picture of us on his desk, but no, he has a plane, some envelopes, a lamp and a Mont Blanc. What is in the envelopes? Maybe they’ll give me a clue, if what happened to him has to do with a new job, it must be something that is still on his desk and not filed away yet. Nothing will happen if I open them.

  I take the first envelope, begin to unroll the string that keeps it closed until it opens completely, put my hand inside and take the papers with great care not to damage them or bend a corner. I take them out and place them on the desk, put the envelope aside while looking at the first page that says, confidential. I turn the page, and ... what is this? Why does William have this information on his desk? What does this have to do with his work? What sort of things is he a part of?

  CHAPTER V

  SURPRISE AFTER SURPRISE

  I can’t believe what I’m reading, it is a report of a meeting held in France between three people. The report contains the profiles of the people gathered, as well as the transcript of the conversation. Three men, two of them senior officials of two world powers and the third has a name that appears to be Arabic. The transcribed conversation is sparse; they only said what was strictly necessary, nothing about protocols. In summary, one asks for money, another for information, another talks about the established plans in the places they previously decided. They add two or three more unimportant things, and the meeting is over. The report marks three places on the map, France, Syria and North Korea. I'm not sure what those marks mean.

  What surprises me isn’t all that, what surprises me is reading one of the profiles, Congressman Edward L. James, my father. One of the men gathered in that place was my father, and I have no idea what he was doing there, but it doesn’t look good. This must be what William has been doing in secret, he's investigating my father. I always believed that my Dad was a just man, this must be a mistake. The man who raised me can’t be involved in anything dark or murky. He always instilled good values in me, he always taught me that the road to success was rocky, but it was worth going through without taking shortcuts that could harm you later. He was always honest, always took the necessary actions to move into the future in the most dignified way and be remembered as a good man. That’s what he taught me when I was a child and took me every day to school. It was a short trip from our house in Pelican Bay to the Lakemont elementary school in Florida, but he always took the opportunity to give me sermons on what a good citizen should do.

  Then we
moved to New York State. I finished high school there finishing as one of the best in my class and a leader in tennis for my age bracket. With everything, I always applied the morality and respect that my father instilled in me during those short trips from home to school. When I told my father that I wanted to study drama at Juilliard, far from being outraged and making a scandal because his daughter wasn’t going to be an attorney or a doctor, the only thing he told me was that whatever career I chose, I had to be honest with myself and with everyone else. I had always tried to follow his advice, except when I married William. I know I was 22 years old when I met him and it was a very quick love. I remember that William did everything to make me look at him and I fell in love in such a way that I agreed to marry after 3 months of knowing each other. I didn’t need more time to know that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that wonderful man that made me fall in love with every detail, with every flower, with each love letter and with each walk in the park. Everything was perfect for me but not for my dad, he never wanted me to marry William. They tried everything, they even wanted to send me to France to finish studying drama. I didn’t accept, I left everything to seek my happiness with William, and although our marriage hasn’t been perfect, I don’t regret it. I have not done badly as a tennis instructor; on the contrary, I earn more money than many actors in the area who could never live in the Hamptons.

  All this information seems absurd to me. My father, the man I know, would not be able to sell out, this has to be a mistake or misinterpretation. I flipped to the second page and all the hopes that William was wrong faded away in a second. There was a photo taken from a distance, but clear enough to tell that my father was the man who was sitting at that table, with a briefcase-type bag in front of him while another man showed a wad of bills in the air. I don’t know how much money was in the bag, I don’t know who the other men were but what I do know is that this is the saddest day of my life. The man I always considered perfect, is involved in God knows what business and not only that, he also wants to be President!

  What could he be involved in? William must have investigated without knowing that he would be surprised to discover his father-in-law is corrupt! Oh no! And if my father noticed? And if his men had William kidnapped? What do they want from him? Surely they have him as a hostage to return all this information that would ruin my father's political career forever, and God knows how many others because surely my father isn’t the only corrupt member of his group of congressmen. Here there must be a lot of information about other investigations. This will be my weapon to save William, surely it can help me if they ask for an exchange.

  I put the papers in the envelope and hide it under my blouse, arranging it in such a way that it looks as natural as possible in the event that I run into Charles on the way. Once I feel that it is perfectly accommodated, I get ready to leave the office, remove the lock and open the door, stick my head out to see if Charles is nearby, coast is clear, so I close the door and walk quickly to the stairs, climb up the guest room where I left the laptop and lock myself there.

  I open the laptop, type in the password and immediately start taking pictures of the papers. This will be enough proof in case I have to testify against my father. Who would imagine that a Congressman's daughter would be lying about a topic as sensitive as her own father? No one. I finish taking the photos and store the envelope on top of the closet, where we keep the Christmas decorations. Nobody would think of looking for something like that among Christmas decorations, it's the perfect hiding place.

  Now what? William is kidnapped by my father, or by my father's people, who also work for the government and all because William discovered he was corrupt. All that makes sense, but how to save William. I can’t let them hurt him! He is my husband! My father has to respect at least that! I have to act, maybe I should talk to Charles.

  I go to the bathroom that is in the guest room. I’ve had to go for quite a while and been holding it, and while I'm there, I’ll think about what the perfect way would be to convince Charles to take me to see my father. I can’t go down and tell him that I know everything, I can’t risk it. I'm also not sure if Charles works for William or my father. What on earth am I saying, of course, he works for William, he knows the code of the alarm that I didn’t even know?

  I finish, wash my hands with a liquid soap that has a very intoxicating jasmine scent and dry them with a white towel folded in the shape of an elephant that maybe nobody had ever used. I stand in front of the mirror looking at myself. My face is pale, my eyes look tired and sunken. I’m in pretty rough shape. All this makes me want to run away, there’s a pressure in my chest that I don’t know how to get rid of. It's like when your first love breaks up with you. That pressure that the pain of losing someone causes is what I feel now. Normally crying relieves it, but I don’t feel like crying. It's strange, but I don’t have tears. I’d like to be able to discharge all the pent-up energy inside my body. I’d like to take advantage of this moment and mourn all that is needed. I can’t. You have to calm down. Deep breath. I wash my face twice and keep looking at the mirror at the drops running down my face. I take a deep breath again and this time recover the strength necessary to continue my plan to escape.

  I leave the bathroom after drying my face well and once in the room, pick up the laptop and put it under a pillow before leaving for the kitchen. When I'm heading there, I consider rehearsing what I'll say to Charles, but surely when I see him, I'll tell him some other silly thing so I don’t waste energy on that. Once downstairs, I find him looking out of the glass of one of our kitchen windows. He is focused, and has a relaxed face as if highly trained to face situations of great tension. I envy him, I'm going at a thousand revolutions per minute, my heart beats faster than ever, it’s too much, I've never noticed it so much, now I'm sure I have a heart, I hear it, I feel it. My head is spinning round and round, there are a thousand questions and so few answers, but the man who is in charge of taking care of me looks so calm, of course, it’s not his husband who is missing. Nor is his father the possible kidnapper, it’s not his life that turned around from one moment to the next, overnight, literally.

  “Charles,” I pronounce his name with a friendly tone. He turns almost immediately, and for a second I feel scared, but he composes himself quickly.

  “Tell me, ma'am; I thought you were asleep.”

  “No, I couldn’t stop thinking about William. Is there any news?”

  “The team is doing everything possible to find him. We already have some clues, and we are following them.”

  “It's going to be dark soon, do you know what time it is?” he looked at his watch and gave me the time.

  “1900, Ma’am.”

  “What?”

  “7 o'clock in the evening,” he says with a shy smile at realizing how little experience I have of anything military.

  “It's getting late if someone’s kidnapped him they haven’t called. That’s not a good sign. I have seen it a thousand times in movies, the kidnappers always call to say two things, 1. That they don’t want you to call the police and 2. that they want money, or something else.”

  “Ma'am, they don’t always behave the same, besides nobody has said that he was kidnapped. Calm down. Do you want me to make something for you? A tea? A coffee? Something?”

  “No, Charles, I just got tired of being locked up, I wanted to talk a little. Maybe it'd be good to get some fresh air. Will you go out with me?”

  “Ma'am, I think I don’t think that would be a good idea. The best thing is to stay inside.”

  “Is there someone outside? Do you suspect that someone wants to hurt me?”

  “So far I have not seen anything suspicious, but that does not assure us anything. Nobody has come by, nobody has approached us. When it’s calm, it’s good, but when it’s too calm, it’s suspicious. We must be prepared to act accordingly.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do? Standby waiting for a miracle to happen or do I start praying?”
>
  “Grace, if you want to pray, you can do it. If you want to meditate, do it. But you cannot leave here. My duty is to protect you, to make sure that no one hurts you or takes you somewhere far from here, that's my job, and I'm going to do it.”

  “Okay, that's pretty clear to me.”

  For the first time he called me by my name, without formalities, he must be speaking very seriously. He sounds pretty sure that he won’t let me out, but we'll see who gets out or not. He better not even think he's going to stop me, I'm going to save William, and it's not going to be Charles who prevents that. Meanwhile, I'm going to sit here where he can see me so he can calm down a bit, totally, he can’t read my mind, so he has no idea what I'm thinking.

  It's going to be dark soon and the darkness of the night can help me get out of here. Now, I have to be smart, we are in the Hamptons, more than three hours from the city of New York where William disappeared. If someone has him as a hostage, it must be somewhere in the city. I have no doubt, the hustle and bustle there can camouflage any crime. But if I escape Charles, how will I get to the city? He must have already taken the keys of all the cars and must have put them in a secure place. With respect to that, I need a smarter plan than just going out and running, that's not going to help William or me.

  I need to get out of here in a car, what alternatives do I have? Well, my car is in the garage, but Charles must have the keys. There's also Charles's 428i, but I don’t think he'll lend it to me or leave the keys laying around inadvertently. What else do I have? Not much, the options are limited.

  I decide to stand up, stretch, and do that yoga position to stretch, what's it called? Oh yeah, sun salutation “until uttanasana.” It's enough for me to relax a bit and I decide to go to the office. My breathing goes back to normal after stretching and walking to the office. Once I get to the door, I enter the code 110320 and open the door. Once inside, I decide not to secure the lock, completely, Charles is not the enemy, he is there to take care of me, I can’t be afraid of him. I look around me, all the shelves are full of books, a ton of books, from the floor to the ceiling, books of all kinds, politics, laws, health, literary works of great importance, all in perfect condition, as if nobody had never opened them, as if they had been bought and put on the shelf directly, without opening, without reading, an absurdity for books. Books are made to be read, to be touched, to be smelled, to mark them when you find the phrase of your life, in short, to be enjoyed. Later I’ll make sure of giving some love to these books, but now I need to go down to the basement.