Beauty and the beard

by Crowne, K. C.

  I nodded.

  Brad sighed. “I don’t know what advice to give you,” he said, shaking his head. “But, you don’t know what she’s going to remember. Or what she’s going to decide to do after she does remember,” he said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I just have a bad feeling about it,” I told him.

  “You can’t go by bad feelings, Cole. Especially when it hasn't even happened yet. And you can’t take it out on her. It’s not her fault. You knew this was going to happen eventually,” Brad reminded me.

  “I know,” I repeated and sighed heavily.

  “Look, this is what I would do. Me, the hopeless romantic. I would enjoy your time with her. How often do you fall in love in life? Even if she decides to leave. Do you want to hate her for being who she is? Or love her for how she makes you feel when you’re with her?” Brad asked me.

  “Mom said the same thing,” I told Brad.

  “And Mom is always right,” Brad said smiling.

  I chuckled. Brad was right. So was my mom. I thanked Brad and decided to go and talk to Lindsay about what was going on.

  22

  Lindsay

  I was feeling really awful today. Cole was upset with me and I didn’t blame him. Maybe I should just leave. I was hoping that he would come and talk to me after he’d had time to think things over, but he hadn’t.

  He’d been giving me the cold shoulder ever since I told him about my memory returning. Maybe, I should have kept it to myself? But how? Angela and the boys were here when it happened. And I’d been excited to get more pieces of my life back.

  Lying to Cole about my memory coming back wasn’t the answer. The answer was to accept it and deal with it. We both knew it was going to happen eventually.

  I just wished that he would talk to me instead of shutting me out. I thought that what we had developed over the past near month was stronger than that. But it seemed as though Cole was pushing me away because he was scared to face reality. Well I was scared too.

  It didn’t seem fair.

  I sighed. I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. Cole had been gone all day and I was feeling lonely. Fresh air would do me good.

  I grabbed my camera so I could take some pictures while I was walking. The view was amazing from up here. I put on my boots and coat and headed outside. I walked along the driveway down to the resort. Nobody was around today. I found myself thinking about Cole as usual. I wondered where he was.

  As I turned the corner of the road that led to the resort, I saw that Cole’s truck was in the lot. I didn’t want him to think that I was following him, or worse yet, spying on him, so I kept on walking straight across the lot toward the mountain road.

  As I was walking, a car with a man and woman pulled up beside me. The man asked rolled down his window and asked for directions.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not really from around here,” I told him. “Why don’t you go back inside the resort and ask the Katie at the front desk?” I suggested.

  “Can you just look at this map here of the town?” the man asked. “You’ve been to town, right?”

  “Sure,” I said and waited for him to unfold the map. It was a big map and he couldn’t get it straight in the car. I stepped back as he opened the door to make more room for the map on his lap.

  Just then, I had an odd feeling. Something about this guy seemed familiar. But before it hit me what it was, it was too late. The man moved fast. He grabbed my arm and held on tight. I tried to pull away, but he was up and out of the car in no time.

  He stood close to me and I felt a hard object protrude into my gut. I looked down and saw it was a pistol. Now I knew who this man was. And the woman wasn’t really a woman at all.

  “Get in the car,” the man with the pistol said.

  He opened the back door and roughly shoved me inside. He got in after me and sat beside me, keeping the pistol pointed in my direction.

  “Give me that freaking camera,” he said, pulling it from my neck. I glared at him.

  The skinny man with the scar was wearing a wig. How stupid I was not to notie the giant mark across his face. I watched helplessly as he slid over into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed.

  I wanted to cry. How could I have let my guard down like that? I was so worried about Cole that I had forgotten about keeping an eye out for these two lunatics. And now they had kidnapped me. I opened my mouth to scream, but the big guy pointed the gun at my face and shook his head.

  “Wouldn’t be a smart move,” he said as I shut my mouth again.

  The skinny man drove the car out of the resort and down the mountain road toward town. I looked back at the resort hoping that Cole would have seen me. Or anyone for that matter, but no one was back there.

  I didn’t know what to do. All I could do now was to cooperate with them and try not to get myself killed. I was on my own.

  23

  Cole

  After talking with Brad, I went out to my truck and drove up to the cabin. I was trying to figure out how to apologize to Lindsay for treating her poorly.

  I opened the door and stepped inside. Bella ran around looking to greet Lindsay too. She had gotten used to her being here.

  “Lindsay,” I called out.

  Nothing. Where was she?

  I checked upstairs. She wasn’t there either. Maybe she went for a walk? I looked outside the window and saw footprints leading away in the snow, down the driveway. Looks like she did walk somewhere.

  Maybe she got fed up with me and went back to her room at the resort. I called the front desk and had Katie patch me through to her room. The phone just rang.

  She didn’t appear to be there either. I wasn’t sure what to do. All I could do was wait, I supposed. I made us dinner and figured that she would either be back here or would go to her room at the resort eventually.

  Dinner time came and went but there was still no Lindsay. I was beginning to get worried. I looked around again to see if any of her things was missing.

  The first thing that I looked for was the camera. I couldn’t find it. But the laptop was still there. If she’d gone back to her room, wouldn’t she have taken the laptop with her?

  I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I decided to get in my truck and go and see if she was in her room. I drove down to the resort and asked Katie if she had seen Lindsay.

  “No, I haven't seen her all day,” she said. She looked at my face. “Cole, is everything alright?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I got the extra room key and headed up to the fourth floor. I knocked on Lindsay’s door. No answer.

  “Lindsay? Are you in there? Please answer me if you are. I’m worried about you. I’ve got a key and I’m going to come inside.”

  No answer. I put the key in the door and opened it. The room was empty and it didn’t look like she had been there at all.

  I inhaled deeply. Where could she be? It was getting dark out now. I looked out the room window, half hoping that I’d see her out there. Nothing.

  It didn’t make any sense. Would she just leave the resort? Did I lose her for good? I hoped not. Where would she go? I had a hundred questions and no answers because I was stupid enough to not talk with her since yesterday.

  I knew that she was getting her memory back. Slowly but surely. What if she finally remembered? I felt like kicking myself. All that I could think was that she had left me. And it was my fault.

  I told Katie that if Lindsay showed up to please call me and let me know. She agreed. I went back to my cabin and half expected to see Lindsay there. Nope. The house was eerily empty without her here. I’d gotten so used to her being around.

  I ate dinner alone for the first night in a while. I drank a beer alone for the first time in a while, as well. Nothing seemed right with Lindsay gone. I almost wanted to cry.

  I put on a movie and tried to watch it, but it was impossible to concentrate on anything. Why didn’t I get her a
cell phone? I thought. Because she didn’t really need one. Who was she going to call?

  I wonder if she had had an Uber pick her up? Maybe if she remembered who she was and wanted to leave, she’d try and call a cab but have to use an Uber. We didn’t have a cab company around here.

  I had my cell phone with me so she couldn’t have used that. I went to the house phone and hit *67. The last number dialed was Brad’s and that was me this morning. So, she didn’t use the phone here. Katie would have told me if she’d used the phone at the front desk.

  The cameras! We had cameras set up outside of the resort for the guests’ safety. We’d fortunately never had to use them for anything other than watching a family of raccoons knock over some garbage cans. But the feed led into Brad’s office and I’d be able to watch the footage from the last 48 hours before it taped over itself.

  If she went anywhere, I’d see it on the camera. I called Bella and we went back down to the resort. I headed directly for Brad’s office. He was gone for the day soI went into his computer and clicked on the video footage of the first camera.

  This camera showed the front of the main building all the way out to the road. I started it when I left the house this morning since that was the last time that I had seen Lindsay.

  I watched on fast forward until I finally spotted her in the afternoon. Damn, I had just missed her it seemed. Wait, what was she doing? Who was she talking to?

  There was a silver car. It looked like an old Pontiac Sunbird. I couldn’t see who was in the car but they pulled up to Lindsay. It lookedlike the driver was talking with her andshowing her something? He opened the car door and Lindsay just stood there like she was waiting for something. He had a map, I think. He was asking for directions.

  Wait! The man leapt from the driver’s seat and grabbed Lindsay’s arm. Was that a gun? He shoved her in the back seat and he got in beside her. Then a skinny figure with a bad wig moved over to the driver’s side. Suddenly, with my stomach twisted in horror, I knew exactly what I was seeing.

  The two men from the pictures. Shit! They had Lindsay! I watched as the silver Pontiac drove out of the resort and headed for town.

  I had to find her.

  24

  Lindsay

  The men left Blue Haven and kept going. I kind of recognized where they were taking me. I think that I’d been here before, but I couldn’t really remember. We arrived in a town about thirty minutes away.

  The men had a room at a motel here. They had an outside entryway so they didn’t have to walk through the main lobby. The motel looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t say for certain if I’d been there before or not.

  “Act normal,” the burly man told me. “You know that we’ve killed someone before, so don’t make me shoot you,” he warned me. “Not yet, anyway. Until we decide what to do with you.”

  I swallowed hard and did what the man said. They took me into their room. It was an apartment-style room and with a separate bedroom. The man put me in the bedroom and handcuffed my one hand to the bed frame.

  He left the room and locked the door behind him. I could hear them in the other room arguing with each other about what to do with me.

  “She got our pictures put on the news!” the skinny man was saying. “But she doesn’t know what she saw really.”

  “She knows what she saw,” the burly man retorted. “There’s no question there. We just need to decide what to do with her.”

  “We can’t kill her,” the skinny man said. “I’m done with killing people. We got that old man on our conscience. I don’t need any more.”

  “Then what do you suggest that we do with her?” the one guy asked the other.

  “I don’t know. Let’s think about it. We got her. Nobody knows she’s here. She ain't going nowhere,” he said.

  “Twenty-four hours. That’s it. And then I do what needs to be done.”

  Twenty-four hours! That’s all the time I had to get myself out of there!

  I was hoping that Cole would realize that I was missing. After thinking about it, I realized that he was either still mad at me and didn’t care. Or, he thought that I had had enough of him and just left.

  Would he really think that I just left? I hoped not. But who knows what he was thinking. With the way he’d been acting, maybe he was glad that I was gone. The thought of Cole not caring made me cry.

  I wiped my tears with my free hand. I wasn’t going to die here, I thought. If I couldn’t depend on Cole, I’d have to get myself out of this mess.

  That’s when I realized that the big man didn’t put my handcuff on tightly enough. I had a really small wrist. I was sure that if I wiggled just enough, I could get my hand out of the cuff.

  And I did. The men were still in the other room talking. I looked around and saw a phone. It was on the other side of the bed. I needed to call Cole.

  I left the cuff attached to the bed frame and quietly slid over to the other side of the bed. I picked up the receiver and dialed Cole’s cell phone number, which I had thankfully memorized.

  He answered right away.

  25

  Cole

  I called Brad immediately.

  “Cole, what are you doing calling me from my office?” he asked surprised.

  “Brad, Lindsay was taken. I came down here to watch the cameras to see if I could find out where she’d gone. Those two men from her pictures took her some time this afternoon in a silver Pontiac Sunbird. I can’t see the license plate clearly. But we have to find her,” I sputtered out.

  I was trying to talk calmly but I knew that it was coming out hysterically.

  “Cole, calm down,” Brad told me. “I’m on my way.

  “Okay, I said and hung up to wait for him. I watched the footage, again and again, trying to get any other clues. Nothing else of use presented itself to me.

  Brad came into the office and watched the footage of Lindsay being taken.

  “Where do you think that they took her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. All we can do is drive around town and take a look. Let me call the Sheriff first and let him know about the car and what happened.

  “Okay,” I agreed and waited for him to make the phone call.

  When he was done, he said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  We got into Brad’s Jeep and started to drive into town. Just then, my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but hoped that it was Lindsay.

  “Hello,” I asked.

  “Cole!” Lindsay’s voice whispered on the other end.

  “Lindsay, where are you? Are you okay?” I asked her.

  I was so relieved to hear from her.

  “I can’t talk long. They are in the other room. They locked me in the bedroom and handcuffed me to the bed. I got my wrist out. I don’t know where we are,” she whispered into the phone.

  “Are you calling me from the motel room?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I got the number in the caller ID. I’ll find you. Hang up and put your hand back in the cuff. If they try anything, just keep them talking. I’m going to find you, Lindsay,” I told her.

  “ Hurry up,” she said and hung up.

  I dailed back the number and the front desk attendant answered. “Misty Creek Lodge,” she answered.

  “Hello, where are you located?” I asked her. She rattled off the address.

  “She’s at the Misty Creek Lodge in Silverthorne,” I told Brad.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said and hurried toward Silverthorne.

  26

  Lindsay

  I hurried back across the bed and slid my hand back into the cuff. Just in time, too. The skinny man unlocked the door and came into the room. He put a bottle of water up to my lips.

  I didn’t want to drink it. What if they were trying to poison me?

  “It’s just water,” the skinny man said.

  “I’m not thirsty,” I told him.

/>   “Suit yourself,” he said.

  “What are you going to do with me?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know yet. You shouldn’t have put your camera where it didn’t belong,” he said. “Whatever happens to you is your own fault.”

  He left the room and locked the door.

  I waited patiently for Cole to get here. I hoped that he would make it in time. The big man had said twenty-four hours, but could I really trust the word of a murderer?

  At one point, I could hear them arguing again. The big man was hungry and he was telling the skinny man to go and get him food.

  “No, go and get it yourself,” he said. “I’m the one who stands out with this scar on my face,” he told him.

  “Fine, I will,” said the big man.

  I heard the front door bang closed. A moment later the TV turned on. I took a deep breath. The skinny man wouldn’t hurt me. At least I didn’t think so.

  Suddenly I heard a commotion outside, two men yelling at one another. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but then I heard a female voice in the mix.

  The girl yelled, “Hey, where did you get that camera?”

  Was she talking about my camera?

  “That’s Lindsay’s camera! Where’s Lindsay you creep? What did you do to her?”

  I was thoroughly confused now. This woman whose voice I heard obviously knew me well enough to recognize my camera. Who was she?

  “Get off of me. I have a gun,” the big man yelled. I recognized his voice but not the other voices. It wasn’t Cole.

  Then, I heard the skinny man. “Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIT,” he was yelling, over and over. “DAMN HIM,” he screamed.

  A gunshot echoed through the air. Then silence.

  27