When five o’clock rolled around, Ellie remained at her desk, despite her boyfriend’s encouragement for her to go home and see her sister. Ellie texted Cassie to take Spots out for a walk while she worked late.
When nine o’clock rolled around, Ellie was still at the office and so was her boyfriend. She still didn’t want to leave.
“Am I going to have to carry you out of this office? You don’t have to do anything more for me.”
“But I want to.”
He walked over to Ellie’s desk and swooped her up bridal style. She let out a slight screech and then a giggle. When she remembered everything that happened with Cassie and Charlie Logan, she frowned and buried her head in Edric’s neck.
“Edric.”
“Ellie,” He gave her a gentle peck on the lips, “Go home now. I can find out who this mole is on my own.”
He gently lowered her to the ground and gave her one last warm, gentle kiss. He ran her fingers through her hair again.”
“I’ll figure it out soon. It’s process of elimination. Not many people have access to my office. And I know it’s not me who leaked the information and I know it’s not you. I’ll figure it out soon and we can go back to normal.”
“Edric. I-I-I have to talk to you.”
Ellie walked over to the couch and ran her fingers through her hair. The mental speech that she had all planned out earlier vanished. Her mind suddenly went blank.
Edric sat next to her and rested her hand on her leg.
“What is it, Ellie? You sound upset.”
“Edric…I…”
He raised an eyebrow. She took a deep breath.
“It’s me. I’m the mole.”
Edric stared ahead blankly. He looked devastated. She cried. Ordinarily when she cried, he would so something to comfort her. Even when they first met and she cried, he at least sent her out on an errand to pick up breakfast for the two of them. This time, he just stared straight ahead. He didn’t even look at her. He didn’t say anything. They sat in silence. Ellie felt a need to explain herself. “I-I…I Cassie was hired by Charlie Logan and she asked me to work for you. I’m so sorry, Edric, I’m so sorry.”
He stood up from his seat and walked across the room. He stared out the window to the city scape below and folded his hands behind his back. “How ironic: all this time I was afraid that I would be the one to hurt you. Never thought this would happen.” He spoke lowly and evenly. “Eleonore, you can leave now.”
She scrambled to her feet. “Edric, I lo—”
“Don’t say it.” He snapped. “Don’t you dare fucking say it. Leave. Just leave now. If I ever see you again, it’ll be too soon.”
Ellie walked over to Edric and gently touched his arm. “I’m so, so, sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Don’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Just leave.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughed bitterly. “Not as sorry as I am. We’re done here.”
“I love you.”
“Leave!”
She never once heard Edric raise his voice. Even when Summers assaulted her he’d been angry, but he didn’t yell. He wasn’t the type of person to scream and shout.
Ellie scampered out of the room without even stopping to gather her coat, purse or cell phone. She could hear Edric’s anguished sobs coming from the other side of the door. His wails were accompanied by the smashing of glass and things being thrown around the room. She assumed that it was the desk ornament she got him for his birthday.
Ellie wanted to run back in and embrace him and tell him that everything is all right but she knew that she was the source of his pain. And that shook her to the core.
She felt like the worst person in the world for letting this happen to him. When she got out to her car, she noticed something: her coat, cell phone, purse, and car keys were all up in Edric’s office. She never collected them when she scampered out the door. As much as she wanted to collect her belongings, doing so would require seeing Edric again. She just couldn’t look him in the eye and she knew the feeling was mutual.
Instead, Ellie decided to make the five-mile journey back to her home on foot, even though it was thirty degrees out, lightly snowing, and she wasn’t wearing a coat.
She took this walk as her penance. The icy breeze felt good against her bare skin. I deserve to feel cold. I was wrong. I didn’t stop Cassie from stealing the blueprint. I didn’t let Edric know why I worked at the office in the first place. I tried to be neutral but that blew up in my face. I was wrong and I deserve to feel cold…
After thirty minutes, Ellie was drenched by the wet snow and was shivering. Her hands, face, and feet hurt and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. To top it all off, the frozen snow in her hair was giving her a headache.
She remembered how Edric picked her up when she walked home that unseasonably cold and rainy day in May and offered her a ride him. Ellie knew that wouldn’t happen this time. She had a sinking feeling that she would never see him again. The thought made her cry again. She cried so hard that she lost all focus on where she was going and wandered aimlessly down the streets in the general direction of her home.
Ellie didn’t notice the man slowly following her down the street. When she turned the corner down the dark alleyway, she felt a strong pair of arms grip her and cover her mouth to muffle her screams.
The man turned her around. Ellie saw that he had pale skin, black hair, and brown eyes. He was painfully thin—even thinner than she. But he was a foot taller than she. The man slammed her against the wall. Her back and head hurt and everything felt achy and foggy.
“Give me all your money.”
“But…But…I-I don’t have any.”
“Bullshit!”
“I don’t have any. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me.” Her sadness was overcome with a newfound emotion—terror.
The man frisked Ellie and then shoved the hand that was not covering her mouth inside her pockets.
He then slapped her hard against her face. “Bitch, you got nothing.”
He punched Ellie in the stomach. Hard. She doubled over and let out a cry, which got interrupted by a swift kick to the stomach and then another kick. She tried to curl up in the fetal position to protect her aching stomach. The last thing that Ellie remembered was getting a swift kick to the head.
Chapter Twenty
Cassie looked at the clock. It was eleven at night and no sign of her sister. She knew that Ellie was going to fess up to Edric at some point during the day so she was getting very concerned that she hadn’t arrived or checked in yet.
The private detective had a hunch that something was wrong. She pulled out her cell phone and called Ellie for a third time.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
“Hello, you’ve reached Ellie Kent. I’m not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Cassie sighed and hung up the phone.
If Ellie’s not picking up the phone, then maybe she’s with Edric.
Cassie picked up her phone and dialed his cell phone. It rang and rang and rang. She hung up her phone and sighed again. She had a bad feeling festering in the pit of her stomach.
The private investigator decided to wait another half an hour before taking further action.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid…
When the time passed, Cassie called Ellie, again no response. Then she called Edric. She decided to leave him a voicemail this time, even though he rarely checked it.
“Hey, um, Edric. It’s eleven thirty at night. Ellie isn’t home yet and I’m starting to get a little worried. Can you call me back? Thanks. Bye.”
Where the hell could Ellie be?
When the clock struck midnight, she decided to call Violet.
Ring.
Ring.
“Hello?”
Finally. Someone’s here to pick up the phone.
“Oh, Viol
et, I have a question: have you seen Ellie?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“How about Edric?”
“He came in around ten without saying a word and went straight to bed, which is odd for him. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Thanks for the info.”
“Night, Cassie.”
“Night, Violet.”
Cassie turned the phone off and paced around the room.
If she’s not here and she’s not with Edric, then where else could she be? The homeless shelter she volunteers at is closed for the evening. I already tried the office and no one answered. I don’t know where she is.
She knew that something was disastrously wrong, it was midnight and her sister was totally unaccounted for. She continued to call Ellie and Edric every thirty minutes, praying that she would get an answer from one of them.
At three in the morning, Cassie decided that it was time to start searching hospital admissions records. Her shaky fingers typed on her laptop, praying to God that Ellie would walk in the door in the meanwhile.
If she’s not at the hospital, I’m going to file a missing person’s report, even though the police are going to say it’s too soon…Fuck.
Cassie finally got a hit: a five-foot-tall, ninety-five-pound woman with albinism was admitted at midnight with severe injuries.
That must be Ellie.
Cassie grabbed her coat, ran out the door, hopped in the car, and drove to the hospital, running two red lights in the process.
She arrived at the hospital by three thirty in the morning. Her heart was racing and she felt sick to her stomach. Jogging up to the nurse at the front desk, she slammed her hand down on the white counter table.
“Hi, I’m here about a Jane Doe. She’s five feet tall, ninety-five pounds, and has albinism.” Cassie said breathlessly.
The nurse on call looked down at her charts. “Hmm… We do have a patient who matches the description.”
“Her real name is Eleonore Kent. I’m her sister, Cassie Kent.” With trembling hands, she pulled out her identification and placed it on the table. She drummed her fingers nervously along the table.
“She’s in the ICU. We need to have some tests and we might need to operate on her tomorrow morning.”
“Can I see her? I’m family.”
The nurse nodded her head. “Follow me.”
Cassie followed the nurse down the hallway. Her hands were shaking. She smiled wryly. I feel like Ellie. Ellie’s hands always shake when she’s nervous. The private detective felt like she was walking to the gallows when she walked down the long, white hallway. She had memories of doing this as a child, walking down the hallway and seeing Ellie laying helplessly in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of tubes and machines.
When the nurse stopped in front of Ellie’s room, Cassie took a deep breath and walked in. Nothing could have prepared Cassie for what she saw: Ellie was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of monitors. There was a large gash on her forehead and her right cheek, the latter was so severe that it needed stitches. Both her arms and legs were covered in bandages that were still a little blooded and needed to be changed. Even though Cassie couldn’t see Ellie’s torso, the bruises on the nape of Ellie’s neck told Cassie that she didn’t want to.
Cassie let out a slight gasp and covered her mouth.
“She lost a lot of blood. She broke four ribs, her left arm, punctured her lung, and there might be more internal damage. We’re bringing her in for an additional CAT scan tomorrow morning.”
“Did she wake up?”
The nurse shook her head.
“Will she wake up?”
“In due time. It appears that she has sustained a head injury as well. We can’t make any guarantees.”
Cassie collapsed onto a nearby chair. She tried to think of all the things that needed to be done but her mind was drawing a blank.
“Do you have her medical records?”
Cassie nodded her head. “I’ll have her primary care physician send them over first thing in the morning.”
“Does she have any allergies?”
“Shellfish.” Cassie pursed her lips and nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s it. Just shellfish.”
“Is there anything about her medical history that we should know.”
Cassie sighed loudly and ran both fingers through her hair. “No. Dammit. I don’t know. I can’t think right now.”
“Ms. Kent, we’ll give you a few minutes. If there is anything that you can think of, please let us know.”
“Thanks.”
Cassie walked over to her sister’s bedside, grabbed her limp, frail, hand, held it against her face, and cried. The red-head didn’t get much sleep that night. She only left Ellie’s bedside to get her medical records faxed over. She didn’t want her to have to go through the trauma of waking up in a hospital bed alone.
At first, the private detective couldn’t figure out what had happened to Ellie. Her mind was too clouded by stress and panic. Finally, after an hour passed, Cassie was able to calm down just enough to think rationally. She really took a good look at her sister.
Judging by the wounds, she was probably laying in the fetal position on the ground and trying to use her arms and legs to block kicks…that bastard.
There was one key suspect that Cassie had in mind: Edric Kensington. It made perfect sense to Cassie: Ellie was going to tell Edric that she was the mole. The most logical result was that Edric snapped, severely beat her, panicked, and then dumped her unconscious body on the street. That was it: Edric hospitalized Ellie. In a situation like this, it was almost always the boyfriend. He had the means and the motives and the statistics backed her up.
When eight a.m. rolled around, Cassie decided to leave her sister, just for an hour or two, to divvy out some justice.
***
Cassie Kent had none of her usual theatrics when she burst into Edric’s office. Usually, she would hurl insults and he would insult her back. It became a running, private joke, that they both found amusing, mostly because Ellie wasn’t privy to their theatrics and took many of their insults at face value.
This time, Cassie marched into this office with a glowering facial expression. She slowly closed the door behind her.
Edric looked up from his desk and glared at her.
“Oh? Are you here to steal more of my intellectual property this time or are you here to pick up your spy of a sister’s belongings. If it’s the later, you know where her desk is.”
“Don’t you dare mention her you son of a bitch.” Cassie said in a low, harsh tone. The words seeped out of her lips like venom seeps out of a snake’s fang.
“I don’t know who you think you are, talking to me this way after what you did to me. You and Eleonore can both go to hell. Leave this office and never, ever, come back.”
Cassie walked right up to Edric’s desk, leaned over, and grabbed the lapel of his suit jacket with her left hand and punched him in the face with her right. “I told you not to say her name.” She said through gritted teeth. The sudden violence took him completely off guard. He stood up, broke away from the lapel grab, and took a few steps back.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She grabbed his latest coffee cup and hurled it right at him. He dodged it in the nick of time but the mug crashed against the glass wall.
“Cassie. What the fuck?”
“Man up. Fight me.”
“Jesus Christ, Cassie, I’m not going to fight you.”
Cassie walked over to Edric and shoved him. Hard. He stumbled back a few steps.
“Why not? Afraid I’ll fight back?”
“No, it’s because I don’t hit women.”
“Like hell you don’t!” She lunged Edric and scratched him right across the face, causing three cuts to form on his right cheek. “What? Are you too pussy to fight someone your own size? Huh?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Cas
sie swung a punch. Edric dodged this one.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, you son of a bitch! You monster! You piece of shit! I’m going to kill you!”
She lunged at him with all her weight. He tried to do his best to wrap his arms around her to restrain her but, between her fighting experience and the adrenaline flowing through her veins, she managed to snap out of Edric’s hold and knock him to the ground, sending out a loud thumping sound. She raised her hand and delivered a blow to his right eye.
“Security!” Edric called out. “Security!”
“Oh! Calling for your security guards? Too bad Ellie didn’t have that luxury when you broke four of her fucking ribs! You piece of shit!”
Edric rose his arms up to block the next onslaught of punches. He managed to block all of her attacks by holding his arms out in front of his face. Finally, the security guards grabbed the elder Kent sister and pulled her to her feet.
Edric sprung up from the ground and shook off his aching arms.
“You son of a bitch! She’s in the hospital because of you! She might never wake up again! You son of a bitch!” Cassie writhed in the arms of the security guards. She was still trying to break free and lunge at Edric.
“If she dies, I’ll fucking murder you! I’ll murder you, Kensington!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ellie Kent! The girl you fucking hospitalized!”
Edric froze. “Hospitalized?”
“Sir, do you want us to remove her?”
Edric shook his head. “Not yet.”
The security guards stayed, each guard had a tight grip on each of Cassie’s arms.
“Cassie, what do you mean? Is Ellie in the hospital?” Edric spoke pointedly, as if he was talking to a small child.
“Yes! Ellie’s in the hospital! You should fucking know!”
“No, Cassie, I didn’t. How is she?”
Cassie’s voice cracked. “I don’t know.”
“Can you give us a minute?”
The security guards exchanged worried looks and then released Cassie. They slowly backed out of the room. Cassie shook both of her arms out. The two were alone in the office once more.
A Sibling's Dilemma Page 24
