Past Abandon
Page 1
Past Abandon
Alice Ayden
Copyright 2012, 2013, 2015 by Alice Ayden
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are fiction. Any similarity to any real persons, characters, events or incidents is entirely coincidental. All Rights Reserved.
To my parents who support me in everything, open my eyes to the world of possibilities, and foster my dreams. Without you I’d just be a blob of nothingness.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Natalie
Chapter 2: Cora
Chapter 3: The Cellar
Chapter 4: Investigation
Chapter 5: Soulless
Chapter 6: Deliberate
Chapter 7: Oliver
Chapter 8: The Name Tag
Chapter 9: Other Morgans
Chapter 10: The Witness
Chapter 11: Forget
Chapter 12: Lookalike
Chapter 13: Haunting
Chapter 14: The Signature
Chapter 15: Johnston
Chapter 16: Instinct
Chapter 17: The Boyfriend
Chapter 18: Relax
Chapter 19: Brave
Chapter 20: Judgements
Chapter 21: Connections
Chapter 22: Resolve
Chapter 23: The Journal
Chapter 24: Day One
Chapter 25: Deterrence
Chapter 26: The new plan
Chapter 27: Closer
Chapter 28: Will Them Away
Chapter 29: Warnings
Chapter 30: Clues
Chapter 31: Memories
Chapter 32: Plaything
Chapter 33: 3rd Room on the 3rd Floor
Chapter 34: Surrender
Chapter 35: Control
Chapter 36: Aftermath
Chapter 37: Remember
Chapter 38: Numb
Chapter 39: Evidence
Chapter 40: Fate
Chapter 41: Sacrifice
Chapter 42: Malum
Chapter 43: Gravity
Chapter 44: Obedient Soldiers
Chapter 45: Undone
Chapter 46: Past Abandon
Also By Alice Ayden
Chapter 1: Natalie
“By the time I was ten, I had killed more than Jack the Ripper.” Natalie groggily read the note slipped under the door during the night. She sighed and tossed the note on the table. “Probably nothing.”
She shivered in her studio apartment. Natalie realized she still wore yesterday’s gloves as she kicked the radiator, but her eyes found the note again. “Stop obsessing.”
She rifled through a drawer stuffed with sweaters, old turtlenecks, and mismatched gloves until she found the thick pink fuzzy socks she kept for freezing emergencies. She slipped into her jeans and favorite pink sweatshirt and squeezed into her too small boots. She admired the way the black cowboy boots made her size elevens dainty. She gulped a cup of something. “Cold peppermint coffee.”
She coughed and struggled to gag the coffee down and twisted her ankle jumping over the lab coat she forgot to return to her anatomy class partner. “The day’s gonna suck. I just know it.”
She glanced at the clock on the microwave. “She’ll love this.” Already late for lunch with her mother, Natalie assumed her trademark disappointing sighs would take center stage.
She checked her answering machine: six missed calls. She didn’t have to listen. Natalie went down the list. “The would-be sponsor. Rent’s due. The University’s concerned about the missing classes and suggests a counseling session. You can’t register for next semester until you cough up the tuition you worthless sack of monkey pi...” Natalie stopped herself and thought a few minutes. “They’d probably word it differently. Who else have I pissed off?” They were justified, she thought. Natalie could disappoint faster than most people blinked.
Natalie grabbed her roommate’s coat and shoved the Jack the Ripper note in her pocket. She quietly opened her front door and tiptoed out making sure landlady hadn’t planned an ambush. Out the main door, Natalie stumbled down the sidewalk careful to avoid a pile of pewter slush. She lost her balance, slipped on the ice, and slammed into a woman with a thousand shopping bags.
“The Romanian judge’ll nail me on that one.” Natalie held up her hands to the woman with overturned shopping bags. “Sorry, these boots are pretty but bitches on ice.”
Clearly not as impressed with them as Natalie, the woman half-heartedly smiled at the boots. “Yeah.”
Too busy making her escape, Natalie hadn’t noticed the man following her.
She dashed into the alley shortcut behind her street. “Almost there, boots.” She could see the friendly dog walkers, joggers, and the smiling mailman looping through the neighborhood park filled with the requisite shady trees and lazy benches.
Volunteers flanked the gazebo as they rearranged wreaths and bows torn in the wind. Behind decorative iron fences, tool belted renovation enthusiasts lingered. They stared at their colonial projects while their gaze drifted jealously to the finished and already historically accurate houses on either side.
Natalie should have heard him behind her, but her gaze followed a cute cyclist who winked at her. He passed the neighborhood coffee shop which competed for quaintness honors with the mom and pop hardware store curiously named, Mom & Two Pops.
Some snow landed in her hair. Natalie swatted it before it melted, and a few strands of black hair came into view. She hadn’t gotten used to her shorter, darker hair. Natalie chopped off her natural dark blonde waves and opted for a more spiked jet black ‘do. “Just another way to disappoint mom.”
“By the time I was ten, I had killed more than Jack the Ripper,” a man whispered.
Blood rushed through Natalie’s ears. She recognized the voice. She turned around slowly.
“Hello, Natalie.”
“Oliver.”
It wasn’t a dream. She knew what came next. In those few seconds, Natalie realized she wouldn’t have to worry about her mom, her landlady, or her tuition. She woke up handcuffed in a cellar.
Chapter 2: Cora
Cora listened for whispers as she crept from the safety of her room and rushed to the stairs. “Is it safe?”
The dreaded floor board burped making her jump. Hardwood floors were notorious tattle tales refusing to shelter a secret. Cora slinked her way down careful that her boots didn’t knock against the bare wood. At the bottom step, Cora glanced at her watch. She lived with her family at Ausmor Plantation - an old northern Virginia plantation named after the Austen and Morgan families who were related by blood and a weird marriage. “The tours will start soon.”
Cora marched to the New Wing’s living room and scanned the massive oak coffee table sandwiched between pink flowered couches. Only the family and Mrs. Kiness lived in the two story New Wing, but some tourists disregarded the ‘private’ signs leading from the original house and wandered around like elephants at a new watering hole. Cora suggested glue traps, but that produced gasps and clutching of hearts as if she demanded an asthmatic sniper or indiscriminate poisonings.
Cora introduced herself to the bouquet of coral roses Mrs. Kiness, the head housekeeper, regularly placed in each room and paused as their sweetened aroma seduced her. She glanced at the crystal bowls overflowing with ripe green apples and oranges. Footsteps reverberated above her. “Not yet. I need more time.”
Cora sped up the pace as she flung open each cupboard searching past extra pillows, blankets, notepads, batteries, and flashlights. Only one cupboard remained.
Cora whispered a prayer. She quickly yanked open the doors: two hazelnut and milk chocolate bars waited. She grabbed them and meticulously unwrapped the blue tinfoil with the precision of a world class heart surgeon.
A thud above Cora’s head rattled the ceiling fan as if jarred by an earthquake. Cora didn’t notice. At a small side table jammed against the wall, the scent of hot peppermint tea lured her, and she studied the collection of mismatched tea cups Mrs. Kiness had randomly collected over the years. While her cousins usually grabbed the closest cup, Cora’s decision influenced the rest of her day. A plain, utilitarian cup missing a saucer induced a drab day. Cora smiled as she poured the steaming tea into a gold trimmed white cup punctuated with bright red roses.
Cora alternated between sipping the tea and devouring the chocolate. As the heat melted the chocolate into a sugary energy jolt, Cora took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready.”
More footsteps pounded above her, and Cora prepared for the worst. She reveled in the last few moments before chaos swirled. Even as a child, Cora collected calm.
As footsteps machine gunned down the stairs, Cora hastily shoved the rest of the chocolate in her pocket as she waited to be interrupted. Cora was generous, but she never shared chocolate.
Lillia Morgan, Cora’s younger eighteen year old cousin, skipped into the living room dressed in her usual retina protesting yellow from hat tip to shoe bottom. Her antebellum dresses and oversized, spiky blond Shirley Temple on acid curls helped the tourists obsessed with the Civil War era. Lillia’s thick, black felt tip eyeliner was the only vision of Lillia that didn’t scream Antebellum.
“Hey, Lillia.” Cora greeted with zero enthusiasm. “Eye gouging dress.”
Lillia waited for Cora to correct herself. She didn’t. “Cool nails!”
Cora held out her hand. The light caught the bright blue polish: a favorite of some but an irritation to most.
“And your hair’s finally growing back.”
The frizzies had unionized Cora’s hair, and she waited patiently for their demands. Her hair was wild and unsupervised - everything she wished she could be.
“Can’t really see your scar when that one curl is all done up.” Lillia picked up an orange and scrunched her nose to the sweetness. She curled her face into what looked like a squished child’s squeaky toy. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”
Cora peered around the large room and listened for any noises upstairs. “A tourist? The Bitty? What?”
Lillia clapped and giggled like a crazed monkey toy banging the annoying cymbals. Cora liked it better when Lillia had ‘lapsed into a most congenial unconscious state of Lillia.’
Footsteps down the hall vibrated closer. Cora motioned for Lillia to be quiet as they slid along the hallway to snoop.
Lillia smothered a giggle. “We’re doing that Eva straw ping?”
“Eavesdropping.”
The footsteps stalled as Mrs. Kiness, the head housekeeper, murmured.
Lillia giggled again, but Cora silenced her with a strangulation gesture.
“Pay no heed to the rumors,” Mrs. Kiness said. “Though there have been several incidents concerning Cora, she is not a danger to herself. Though many have complained.”
“Many have complained?” Cora asked. “Was there a town meeting?”
“Shush.” Lillia made her own exaggerated strangulation gesture.
Mrs. Kiness’ rosy cheeks and perfectly gray bun hair turned the corner first. She quickly hung up the phone.
“How are you this morning, Mrs. Kiness?” Lillia twirled in between questions. “We were just thinking. Cora and I. Cora and I were thinking. At least I think we were thinking. When are the tours starting? We’re having tours today, aren’t we?”
“Miss Austen. Miss Morgan.” Mrs. Kiness folded her hands behind her barely brown skirt and morphed from head housekeeper to confession chasing detective. She x-rayed Cora’s jeans and recognized the offending chocolate bar lodged in Cora’s pocket.
Cora stole a deep breath and attempted aloof, but, unsure of aloof’s requirements, she smoothed her hair back behind her ears and hoped it didn’t look like she used a bent spoon as a comb. She glanced down at her black sweater, shifted her boots, and hoped her eyeliner hadn’t aggressively transformed her into a raccoon.
“How many?” Mrs. Kiness asked. “How many candy bars, dear? And answer without cheek.”
“One.” Cora cringed. Her shaky voice betrayed the lie. “Four.”
“Four! Just this morning?” Mrs. Kiness groaned. “Do you not believe that to be rather excessive?” Mrs. Kiness stiffly held out her hand as if she were taking tickets at the movies. Cora and Lillia stared at it. “Hand it over please.”
“I had to get more. I gave my last share to Lillia.”
“That’s true.” Lillia nodded. “Yesterday was an ass of a day.”
Cora regurgitated how chocolate supplied enough nutrition and vitamins to sustain life, but Mrs. Kiness needed more scientific proof. “But it was a hidden object chocolate mystery, and I found them without hints. She used the blue wrapper!”
“Oh!” Lillia looked at Mrs. Kiness as if that should make the difference. “Those are the best. Hazelnut.”
“You two do not amuse.” Mrs. Kiness’ slight British accent, long hidden from decades of living in Virginia, emerged. Her hand remained outstretched waiting for the chocolate. She thought she could wear Cora down by narrowing her eyes like a predator. Silly thing; she underestimated Cora’s commitment.
“You’re wearing your fav bracelet,” Lillia said, breaking through the tension.
Cora glanced down at the bracelet on her left wrist.
“It’s different. Where’d you get it?” Lillia giggled like a five year old in church as she continued her twirling.
“Testing me?” Cora asked but knew the answer. Several years ago, after another bout of missing time, Cora was diagnosed with something called dissociative amnesia. Since the amnesia usually occurs after a trauma, the family doesn’t like to push Cora to remember too quickly, but Lillia loved to test her memory on little things.
Cora stared at her bracelet. The royal blue flower in each red glass bead wouldn’t confess. Cora didn’t stall; she couldn’t remember. She didn’t know the who, what, where, when, or why. Long story short: Cora fell down the stairs at last year’s Christmas party and hit her head. A scary brain bleed and fractured skull introduced themselves, and it had only been three months since her hospital release. The bracelet hid in the big bag of stuff the hospital gave her of what she wore at the time of the fall.
Cora couldn’t remember the missing months before the fall. Nothing unusual. Cora routinely forgot important details, days, and weeks of her life. This was the first time she forgot an entire chunk of six whole months. Cora visualized the missing months as a destructive tornado refusing to release anything of use from its grip. She’d been trying since her release to remember.
Lillia stopped twirling and stared out the window. “Anyone hear a scream last night?”
Mrs. Kiness lurched forward and clutched the miniature gold cross that never left her neck. After a few moments, she let it go. “It is an old estate with plenty of old noises. I am most sure it was not a shriek.” She sighed as her explanation instantly soothed her.
Lillia shuddered. “I think it was a scream. I hope we’re not starting that mystery again. God knows there’s plenty of spaces to stash someone around here.”
Cora’s stomach clenched. Why did that sound so familiar?
Chapter 3: The Cellar
In the cellar, Natalie rocked back and forth. She didn’t want to open her eyes. “Oliver doesn’t like noise.”
In the corner, a blood streaked arm stretched towards her. “Please,” someone whispered.
Natalie didn’t respond. After four months in the cellar, she could sense the end of another.
“I have family.” The girl breathlessly whispered in between shivers. “They need me. I won’t say anything. My name’s
—”
“Tiffany,” Natalie spit out. “I know. You’ve said it like a thousand times.” She heard her detachment. She’d learned not to get chummy with his toys. “You don’t count.” Natalie lowered her voice. “Not yet.”
“Please.” Tiffany’s pleading descended into sobs. She shook as she bled into the dirt floor. “Please.”
“Quiet. Don’t scream like that again. Cora will hear you at the house. If he hears you...you saw what he did to the other one.”
“What was her name? Sally something.” Natalie wanted to remember them all. She closed her eyes tight as the spoiled air filled her lungs. “Rachel. Marie. Then Amber. Then Sally.” She opened her eyes again. “Four. Not counting...” Natalie glanced into the darkest corner of the cellar.
Tiffany curled tighter into a fetal position and silently cried.
“Doesn’t mind tears. Just don’t scream again. I never scream. Not anymore. No matter what I see. No matter what.” Natalie hugged her legs so close to her chest she felt her stomach growl in her knees. “I can take it. I can take it.” Natalie rocked back and forth. “I can take it. I can take it.”
Tiffany stopped whimpering.
Natalie didn’t look over. “Number five. Lasted longer than I thought. He’ll be on the prowl for another. Better them than me.” Natalie shook her head so fast she hoped the bad thoughts had splashed out and dissolved into the dirt. “Sorry.” She forced herself to glance in Tiffany’s direction. “You shouldn’t have screamed. Oliver doesn’t like screaming. I never scream.”
“Not anymore.” Natalie rocked back and forth. “Rachel. Marie. Tiff should have been three. Amber is four. Sally. And I’m almost out the door.” Natalie rattled the handcuffs attached to her left wrist and an ancient iron stove. She lied down and stared up at the ceiling.
Natalie wondered if they’d found Rachel’s body. Oliver ensured most were never found. But Rachel? He’d kept Rachel the longest. She’d been there that night. “He needs her found so Cora will know.” Natalie silently prayed for Cora. “Almost your turn.”