Billionaire in Rehab: The Complete Series

by Claire Adams

  I was alone.

  The sun was bright and I felt the warmth of it on my back as I stood there. For that moment, I didn’t feel as afraid as I thought I would. Perhaps it was because Chris had just left or maybe because it was daytime still, but I felt like I might be just fine.

  I went into the house and saw the gun that Chris had left for me sitting on the table. I had the safety locked on and I smiled. That was exactly where I would leave the gun until bedtime, and then I would bring it up to my room and leave it on the nightstand next to me. It felt weird to be so concerned about being alone. I had spent the last year utterly alone in my family’s old home. I had never worried about something bad happening to me. Often, I didn’t even lock my doors. But since Chris had moved next door to me everything had changed. I didn’t feel safe anymore. The bliss of the unknown had disappeared and now I knew what could really be out there. Now I knew that people who would kill someone really did exist.

  I wasn’t stupid; it’s not like I didn’t think that bad peopled existed, but I just didn’t think any of them would ever bother me. I didn’t think that the life I lived would be of any interested to people like that. I was a simple photographer from a small town in Missouri, I hadn’t hurt anyone ever and I didn’t participate in a lifestyle that would harm others. The more I thought about it, the more it made no sense that I felt in danger at all.

  Chris was the one people were after. Why on earth would they bother to even come after me? I didn’t know them and I didn’t know anything about what was going on. I didn’t have information that would benefit anyone. It would serve no purpose to anyone if I was hurt. My brain was overwhelmed with thoughts of the past few weeks and all that had happened. I really didn’t want to feel afraid in this house and the more I thought about everything, the better I felt. This would be a great time to concentrate on myself and relax. I did really wish I had my camera though, that would have made this time perfect. Taking pictures of this old bed and breakfast would be the perfect start to my next series of photos.

  I started to think about what all I could include in that new series. The idea to find old abandoned buildings and take pictures of their beauty was very appealing to me. I made a mental note to look more into that idea. For now, I would just have to learn to relax like the rest of the world did. I would have to actually sit and enjoy the calmness of the environment around me. I pulled a chair from inside the house out onto the front porch and put my feet up with an old book I found on one of the shelves.

  It had been years since I had sat in solitude and read, which was very sad considering how much I loved to read. But anytime I had spare time I often went to take photos. I was consumed with the search for the next best photograph and hadn’t taken the time to truly enjoy the other things in life that I had once found so pleasurable.

  It was a warm day and the heat of the sun seeped onto the front porch and I drifted off to sleep as the afternoon wore on. I woke up after the sun had set with the book across my chest and hardly any light at all around the house. Quickly I made my way inside the house. The darkness did not feel as safe as the light sunny afternoon had been. I locked the front door behind me and pulled all the curtains shut throughout the lower level. It felt much safer to have the curtains closed, at least in my head if felt safer. Obviously, if someone wanted to come after me, curtains would not keep them away I knew this in my mind but not my heart.

  I made myself some spaghetti and ate at the counter in the kitchen. The old house made a sound that I didn’t know at first; I froze still and waited to see if there would be another noise. It would be a long night of worrying about each noise, I was sure of that. I didn’t know this house well enough to feel safe with any of the unusual noises that I heard.

  Chapter 48

  When I went to bed, I pushed a dresser in front of the door to ensure my safety. It made me feel much better and I was actually able to get some sleep. I woke up to the sun shining into the room and I felt more refreshed than I had in a very long time. It was close to ten in the morning so I went downstairs and looked around to make sure everything was safe. I looked through each of the windows to see if anything unusual was going on outside, but I didn’t find anything.

  Finally, I felt safe enough to go sit on the front porch again. I picked up the book I had been reading and continued on with the story. It was a very relaxing day, one of the most relaxing days of my entire life. I watched as a couple cars drove by all day long, but none of them even looked over my way. The house did not have any vehicles parked there and I probably wasn’t very noticeable just sitting on the porch.

  After making lunch, I decided to explore the land around the house a little bit. Mentally I took notes of pictures that I would like to come back and take later. If I ever got back to this place, I would certainly enjoy taking some pictures. I looked through an old shed and played with some of the equipment that was around there. It all seemed like it was from another world, nothing like what people used in the current day on their farms.

  When the sun set, I made my way inside and locked myself into the house again. I checked all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked tight and I made my way back up to the room again. It was then that I realized I had left the gun next to the bed all day long.

  I smiled, I must have felt safe all day or I certainly wouldn’t have left the gun up there. It was good to know that Chris would be back the next day and hopefully done with all his work he was doing.

  I fell asleep with the dresser in front of the door again. It was the second night of great sleep and I had started to become familiar with all the sounds of the old house. Nothing bothered me at all and I drifted off to sleep without a worry in the world. The second morning I woke up with a feeling of excitement. Chris said he would be gone for a day or two; so he should be by sometime that day.

  I got into the shower and shaved my legs. I spent at least an hour blow-drying my hair and making myself feel pretty. I was so excited to see Chris again. I spent some time dusting the house and felt like I owned it or something. I cleaned surfaces and put things away to try and make it look nice for when Chris got home. Obviously it wasn’t home, but it was where we were staying right then and I wanted him to feel comfortable after his two long days of working.

  When I finished cleaning, I sat back on the porch and tried to reach through the ending of the book I had started. My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Chris and I looked up in anticipation at each car that passed. I went in quickly to grab lunch and later some dinner and then returned to the front porch. I wanted to be there waiting for him when he arrived. But as the day wore on and the night set in, I moved inside to the living room. I still went through my ritual of locking all the doors and closing the curtains, but instead of going upstairs I waited for Chris in the living room.

  When I woke up to the sun the next morning, I didn’t know what was going on. Chris had said he would be back in one to two days, this was the third day. Worry set in, but I tried not to let it overpower me. Instead, I went about my day again. Reading, lunch, cleaning, more reading, dinner and then locking up the house.

  But this pattern continued on for day after day and Chris never came back. Finally, after it had been a week since he left, I didn’t know what to do. I had plenty of food around the house, so I wasn’t worried about that. But I didn’t want to be stuck at this abandoned house for weeks or even months. If something had happened to Chris and his team, then there was no one that knew where I was. I would be stuck there forever.

  I wanted to figure out what happened to Chris or I at least wanted to go back home. One of those two things had to happen. So on the eighth morning, I packed a backpack full of food, water, and the gun that Chris had left for me. I set out down the dirt road in the direction that I thought was south. I remembered there had been a major road a few miles down that way and I planned to walk to that road and then hitch a ride into Chicago.

  I didn’t know what I would do once I got to Chic
ago and I didn’t know how I would ever get back home if that was what I decided to do. All I did know was that I couldn’t just sit at this abandoned bed and breakfast and wait for someone to rescue me. I had to figure out what happened to Chris and I couldn’t do that if I sat alone in that house for another moment.

  Chapter 49

  About two hours into walking down the dirt road, I started to regret my decision to leave the bed and breakfast. I had air conditioning, food, water and a bed there. I had everything I needed and could have lived comfortably there for months. But instead, I was walking down a dirt road in the ninety-degree heat, waiting for someone to pick me up and help me get to Chicago.

  My mouth was dry from the hot summer day and as much as I tried to ration my water, my thirst kept getting the best of me. I continued to sip on the gallon of water I had brought with me and hoped I would run into a grocery store or gas station at some point so I could fill it up again. Admittedly, I had no experience in packing for long hikes and probably should have prepared a little better before I had taken off down the deserted road that I was on.

  When Chris and his team left the bed and breakfast over a week before, they had said they would be back in a day or two. It was clear that something had gone wrong with their plan and I needed to figure out what it was. Chris and I had grown very close and I knew he wouldn’t purposely leave me at the bed and breakfast without any word of how he was doing.

  A few cars had come past me, but they were all going the wrong direction. I needed to go south and make my way into Chicago. But at ten in the morning there were not many people on the old dirt road and the ones who were out were heading to their fields to work. The farm land around me was beautiful. It was filled with corn and soy beans and ripe for the farmers to start harvesting. It was a picturesque seen that I enjoyed immensely as I continued to walk at a slow, but steady pace. I couldn’t remember the drive into the bed and breakfast, but I knew there had to be a major road somewhere down this dirt road. I just didn’t know how far or how long I would have to walk before I found a ride.

  My resolve started to fade fast as the hot summer sun got stronger throughout the day. I had only brought a gallon of water with me and tried to ration it as best as I could. I thought for sure I would have run into someone to take me into town by then. I couldn’t take the heat anymore and found a spot under a tree just a few yards from the road. Sweat poured from my body and my t-shirt was drenched. I clearly had not brought enough water on this walk.

  It felt nice to relax and cool down though. The summer breeze made the shade the perfect place to hang out. I seriously contemplated just taking a nap and then heading back to the bed and breakfast, but decided against that plan. Instead, I sat and sipped on my water and ate one of the apples I had brought along. I felt my heart pounding and realized I probably should have spent some time working out before I decided to set off on a ten-plus mile walk. I really was more out of shape than I had realized.

  As I sat there I watched an old green minivan go north, I realized that it looked surprisingly familiar but I couldn’t place where I had seen it before. Often I felt like I had seen a person or a thing before but just couldn’t remember when or where I had seen them; so it wasn’t unusual that I thought I had seen it somewhere before. After about twenty minutes, I was ready to finish my hike toward the interstate and hopefully find a ride into Chicago before it got too late. I didn’t know where I would sleep or what I was planning to do if I never found a ride into town. I just had to keep a positive outlook that sooner or later I would find a ride.

  My feet throbbed in pain as I stood up and started my slow walk south. Surely there had to be someone going south on this old dirt road at some point during the day. I know I had seen a few cars go by while sitting on the front porch of the bed and breakfast, but I couldn’t remember what time of day I had seen those cars.

  I used one of my spare shirts to cover my head and try to keep some of the sun off of me as it beat down hard on my skin. One of the things I had forgotten to gather before I left the bed and breakfast was sunscreen. I knew for sure I would regret that the next day. My skin already felt burned and stung when the sun shone down on it. I heard the vehicle coming before I saw it, the green minivan that had passed shortly before was heading south now. The woman and man in the van stopped beside me, most likely out of concern since the old road I was on seemed to go for miles and miles. They probably had not seen many people actually walking down the road before. Most people were probably smart enough not to venture out in the hot sun of the afternoon, if they did need to walk down that dirt road.

  “Do you need a lift?” the woman said as she leaned out the passenger window.

  “Yes, thank you!”

  The excitement in my response was a bit more than I would have liked. I couldn’t control myself though; I was genuinely excited to have a ride. Any ride to any distance was a big deal at this point.

  “Where are you heading?” the man asked while the woman hoped out of the van and opened the side door. I stepped in and sat down, put my things onto the ground and then buckled my seatbelt. The air conditioning in the van felt heavenly and it made it very hard to even think straight. My body was hot, probably too hot and I felt a huge sense of relief when I felt the cool air rush over my body.

  “Ideally I’m going to Chicago, but I’ll go as far as you can take me,” I said. I wasn’t about to turn down a ride at all. If they could only take me to the next town, that would have to do for the night. I could try and call Rebecca and Robert from there, or maybe get access to my bank account so I could get some money for the rest of the trip.

  “We are actually heading south of Chicago, we can drop you off. Where at within Chicago?”

  I didn’t have an exact location and really didn’t know at all where I needed to be.

  “Around Navy Pier would be great,” I said as I tried to sound convincing. Really, I had no clue where to start looking for Chris and his team. I didn’t even know which agency he worked for. The first place that had come into my mind was the rides that I remembered going to at Navy Pier when I was younger. I hoped that I would be able to get where I needed to go from there.

  “Alright, sit back and relax, we will get you there,” the woman added. She looked back and smiled at me and I instantly felt at ease.

  It was weird to be in a van with people that I didn’t know. I had never hitchhiked before and thought that I would never have done such a thing. But I felt surprisingly comfortable with the pair. They had a baby car-seat in the back and the woman was reading a book in the front seat. I couldn’t see what the title was, but it looked like a romance novel. The man, who was in his mid-thirties, drove and flipped through the radio stations until he found something that he liked. He didn’t seem to care that I was in the van with them and I had to wonder if the pair had ever picked up a hitchhiker before.

  My favorite thing about the ride was that they didn’t bombard me with questions. I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to explain every detail about why I needed to go to Chicago. I probably wouldn’t have explained it to them even if I did have a ton of energy.

  Chapter 50

  It surprised me that I had fallen asleep in the van with the two strangers. It certainly wasn’t something I had planned. The hot summer heat and the relief of being in air conditioning had been too much for me. But when we went over a bridge on our way into downtown Chicago I was jolted awake.

  As I sat up and looked around I couldn’t figure out exactly where we were at. I didn’t know Chicago very well though, so it wasn’t unusual that I had no idea where we were. I just sat back and looked around as we continued through the city streets.

  “Do either of you have any water?” I said as the dehydration from my day in the sun seemed to set it. My level of dehydration had probably contributed to the long nap that I had taken on our drive into town also. The woman handed me a bottle of water and I guzzled it down as quickly as possible.

  H
opefully, after the pair dropped me off, I would be able to call someone and at least get a hotel booked for the night. I certainly didn’t want to find myself sleeping in a homeless shelter or something like that. I continued to look around and take in all the buildings, but I still couldn’t figure out where we were. It seemed like we were heading more into the shipping district as I saw large docks and container ships all along the side of the road as we continued to drive.

  My heart started to beat faster as we turned into the shipping area and I grew more concerned that something was going on. We weren’t anywhere close to Navy Pier and I was pretty sure there was no reason to be turning into an old shipping yard at that hour of the night.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Neither the man driving nor the woman responded to me. Something was definitely going on. They ignored me and drove into the shipping yard. I looked around to see if I would be able to make a run for it. Maybe if he slowed down to make a turn, I could jump out and start running. I looked at the door handle for the sliding back door, but it was gone. The whole door handle had been removed. I couldn’t believe I had not noticed that before!

  I looked at the door handle and then at the driver. By that point, he was watching me very closely through the rearview mirror. He knew I had figured out that something was going on. He motioned to the woman sitting next to him and she started to rifle through her bag of things.

  “There is nothing to worry about. Someone just needs to speak to you,” the man said as he looked at me in the mirror. I looked at him and then at the female in the passenger seat. They both looked so normal! Then it dawned on me, perhaps Chris had sent these two to come get me. They must have went to the bed and breakfast and then left when they found that no one was there. I tried to run that idea through my head and see if it fit the possibilities of the situation.