One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  “It looks that way. Which would explain why John didn’t mention him as a friend, didn’t include him in the electronic journal entries I found. But you know John. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and he wasn’t about to pretend to have a relationship he didn’t feel.”

  “Which probably pissed Jump off.”

  “I’m sure it did. My theory is that Charles Jump targeted John. He was jealous of his success as a football player in college and high school. A little research would have told Jump that John has a wife, a supportive family, a father who got a Purple Heart in Vietnam. And the eyes of the world were on him because he walked away from big money and fame to serve his country. By contrast, I doubt that anyone paid much attention when Jump enlisted.”

  “So he hated John for his celebrity,” Suz says.

  “And his popularity among the other guys in the platoon. Jump was brought in as a psych officer, but from what Emjay tells me, John was the unofficial leader. Most of the guys liked John, though some of them weren’t crazy about his politics.”

  “So…fast-forward to that day in the warehouse.” Suz knows where this is going, but it seems that Abby needs to get it out.

  “That day, Jump had it all planned. Sociopaths have no remorse, but they can be brilliant. Jump might have even rigged that warehouse mission, provided fake intelligence claiming an insurgent was spotted in the building. Also he just happened to be the person in the squad responsible for maintaining the night-vision goggles—NODs, they call them. And Emjay’s didn’t work, so he couldn’t get a good look at the man who shot John.”

  “Oh, cripes. It was Jump, wasn’t it.” Suz punches the pillow in her arms. “But you’d think he’d steer clear of all you Stantons. Isn’t he afraid of being found out?”

  “He’s gotten away with it so far, and coming after John’s family is part of the plan. In targeting John, Charles Jump wants to collect John’s trophies: John’s wife, his parents. He even tried to move into John’s house.”

  “He’s a monster, Abby. And can you imagine what he’s doing to the people in therapy with him?”

  “Oh, God! I recommended him for Madison!” Abby reaches down into her purse for her cell phone. “I have to call Sharice.”

  “And you’d better protect yourself, Abby. I don’t like the idea of you ever having to see him again at that hospital.”

  “Believe me, I will be very careful. I always stay as far away from him as possible. Besides, in the psych ward, you’re never alone with someone. There’s a rule of three, so there will always be someone else around when I’m dealing with him.”

  “Better stick to that, girl,” Suz warns, smacking Abby’s knees to let her know she means business. While Abby talks with Sharice, she slips into her bedroom to begin unpacking and mull over a strategy to keep Abby safe from this prickly monster encased in a buff body.

  Chapter 66

  Fort Lewis

  Charles

  You bitch.

  You were supposed to be my arm candy, maybe even my little wife, if only to prove I could score every perk John had, but you fight me every step of the way. Ornery bitch…

  With a growl he pushes the weight bar high, arms extended, muscles howling with resistance. He likes to push himself to the edge, until his muscles feel like they’re going to snap like a rubber band. The edge gets his juices flowing, keeps him stoked.

  Excitement lives on the edge.

  Grunting, he brings the weight bar back and replaces it on the rack. There.

  He sits up and shoots a look at Abby Fitzgerald stretched out on the bed, her pale, full breasts buoyant beneath their rosy pink nipples, a thin veil barely covering the fluff of hair at the juncture of her thighs. She wants him. She definitely wants him.

  That’s why she’s being such a bitch, fighting him like this. Abby likes the fight.

  He walks past her, strutting before the mirror. His biceps are so pumped you can see the veins that wrap through his arms. His skin is shiny and pink, the muscles flush with blood. He strikes a pose before her, seething at the wanton pout on her lips.

  Yes, she wants him, but she’s stuck in her own uppity bitchiness. Snubbing him.

  He hates snubs. His old man used to treat him like a little shit, like a poor relation. Always expected him to wear the old, pilly clothes from his brother, the broken Razor scooter, the dirty running shoes with the Nike swish peeling off. John got them new the year before, but Charles got stuck with hand-me-downs.

  John always got everything new. John was the running back football star. John was the friggin’ second coming of Christ.

  That’s why he had to take John down. Too full of himself, an egotistical blimp, hogging the camera, the interviews, the limelight. John had to die, and he’d taken care of that, right?

  Then why did he get a Christmas card in December with a photo of his brother and his wife and kids sitting in red sweaters in front of the stone fireplace? Sweat beads on his upper lip, but he wipes it away, shakes off the confusion.

  No, no, he took care of him. That was done.

  And now was the time to reap the benefits. Cash in the chips.

  If Abby wasn’t going to play into his hand, he knew someone who would.

  Someone nubile and naive. Another accessory of John’s.

  The blond woman-child would be putty in his hands…and he would savor sculpting her from raw clay.

  Chapter 67

  Lakeside Clinic

  Madison

  Madison stretches and wiggles into the comfortable nooks of the leather sofa in Dr. Jump’s office. “Are you sure about this?” she asks him, craning her neck around to try and see him sitting behind her.

  “How does it feel, lying down?” he asks.

  “Weird.” She crosses her legs. “Cozy, but I’m used to looking at someone when I talk to them.” Besides, she thinks, I like to look at you. Dr. Jump is way older than any guy at school, but he’s buff under that lab coat. Madison is sure he pumps iron. Over her last few sessions she’s gotten a kick out of checking out his butt when he wasn’t looking.

  “It’s more traditional in therapy for the client not to view the therapist,” he says from behind her. “Let’s try this today, see if it works for you.”

  “Okay. But if I fall asleep, don’t blame me.”

  “I’ll wake you when your session is over. So how’s everything? What’s up at school?”

  “The usual. Normal kids striving to be popular. Popular kids worrying about being unseated. Geeks and nerds trying not to get bullied. Same-old same-old.”

  “And where does Madison fit into the grand scheme?”

  She sighs. “I don’t know.” What she doesn’t say is that she’s beginning to care less and less about school and friends and grades. Is that from the medication? Is that depression?

  She doesn’t want to ask, because then Dr. Jump might cut off her happy pills. It was weird how easy it was to get the pills in the first place. Way too easy.

  She said she was depressed and just like that he gives her a prescription for the cure. Well, sort of. The pills dull the pain for sure, but they dull everything else, too. They make her sluggish and slow, like her whole life is taking place underwater in a snow globe filled with viscous liquid. Very weird.

  She gave a few to Sienna and Ziggy and they thought it was awesome. Go figure.

  Sometimes she thinks that maybe she’ll stop taking them, but Chucky—Doc—keeps reminding her that it takes the medication awhile to work. So, she sticks with it.

  And that’s why she’s as relaxed as a jellyfish all the time. She yawns. Even right now, as Doc talks about something that happened to him in high school, she could drop right off to sleep.

  But she’s sort of in trouble with school. Junior year grades have a lot of weight for when you apply to college, and her four-point-oh is shot to hell right now. She’s got a paper overdue in American history that she hasn’t even started, and a big fat 54 percent in red ink on her last trig test.

&n
bsp; Oh, well.

  Doc is still hot, his voice a mellifluous charm in her ears. When all else fails, she’s got this.

  Unless Abby gets her way. She heard her mother talking on the phone last night, arguing with Abby about whether she should be in therapy with Doc. Mom had said something about cutting off the sessions.

  What was that about?

  Abby’s all worried and bent out of shape about something, but Madison is sure she’s overthinking it. Abby’s good at heart, but now that she’s almost finished with her psych master’s, she thinks she knows everything about therapy.

  If Abby really got the whole psychology thing, she would see how Doc helps Madison. She’d understand how good it feels to have an older, more mature guy listening to her problems. Doc is worlds apart from the guys at school. Skinny giraffes who trip over their own legs. The Emos and the Goths, ready to bleed black ink. Lazy jocks who think a good time is sitting home with an on-demand movie and cutting farts on the couch.

  She folds her hands on her lap, suddenly wondering who’s been on this couch before. Hopefully, nobody too gross.

  Sometimes Madison daydreams that Doc Jump is really into her in a mature, sensitive-guy sort of way. That he falls in love with her, lifts her off this couch, and carries her out the door to a cool mansion where they can live happily ever after with cute little sons who will never have to move to another house and never have to fight in a war. Sort of like that scene in An Officer and a Gentleman, which her mother melts over every time it’s on cable. Except, well, duh, in Madison’s version, he’s wearing scrubs instead of a U.S. Navy uniform.

  “You’re not talking much today,” he says. “What else is going on at school? Made any new friends lately?”

  “Girls or boys?” she asks.

  “Either one. Whatever you want to tell me, although one of these days, when you really trust me, you’ll start telling me about the boys you like at school.”

  “I’d tell you if there were any that didn’t disgust me,” she says.

  The first time he asked her about her sex life, she laughed and nervously told him a few lies because there was nothing else to say. She told him that she and Sienna had gotten naked for Ziggy and touched each other. She got that idea from a porn show she saw on cable at Sienna’s house.

  He actually believed her…and he seemed to be interested.

  Which made her a little nervous that he’d catch her in the lie, so she admitted that she was a virgin. And he seemed to like that, too.

  Now, he asks her, “Have you had any more sexual experiences with your friend Sienna?”

  “No,” she answers, feeling too lethargic to dream up something new. “And it’s not sex or anything. I mean, I’m not a lesbian.”

  “But you enjoyed touching another woman’s breasts?”

  “We just did it to get a rise out of Ziggy.” She folds her arms protectively, then, realizing what she just said, laughs. “That’s pretty funny. Get a rise out of him? Get it?”

  “Yes.” His voice is silky and dark, like chocolate fudge melting on her tongue. “You know, Madison, sexual needs and desires are a normal part of a healthy young woman’s life.”

  “I know that.” She senses him moving behind her. Moving a little closer? Whatever he’s doing, she has this feeling that he’s kind of into her, too.

  “Do you ever think about having sex with a man, Madison?” From his voice she can tell that he’s closer, almost leaning near her ear.

  “Sometimes,” she whispers, sure that he’s going to lean close enough to touch her. She closes her eyes, a tingle of anticipation dancing over her skin as she waits for it to happen.

  Instead, she gasps at the sharp jab of pain in her upper arm.

  What the crap was that?

  Her eyes flutter open, a hypodermic needle filling her scope. A swelling wave tingles up into her head…and then the room swims over her, swirling her down the drain.

  Chapter 68

  Lakeside Clinic

  Charles

  Just looking at her lying there. Her small breasts poking up at him through her T-shirt makes him hard as a rock.

  He checks the door behind him, fiddling around the knob for a lock. No! Son of a bitch! The goddamned door won’t lock. Stupid safety feature for psycho patients.

  But who would know if he jumped on top of the girl and humped her right here, right now? Nailed her on the couch?

  He squeezes her breasts, firm little mounds. Damn, he wants to do her, but the risk of getting caught is too great.

  What the hell was he thinking when he drugged her here? She’s going to have to be admitted now, and that means there’ll be lots of nurses and interns and staff around her, watching, watching all the time.

  He kneels beside her, pounds his forehead in frustration.

  Stupid, imbecile plan of his! He should have lured her somewhere else…his car or the park. He could have dragged her back into the thicket and had his way with her supple, lean body for hours. But no, he thought it would happen here. Idiot!

  Rage burns through him, flaring up from his loins and firing through his soul. Damn!

  Leaning close, her runs a finger over her fat lower lip, wishing her could dip inside that luscious mouth. His fingertips trail down, toying with her pert nipples once again, then framing her slightly rounded hips with both hands till his fingers sink into her tight little butt.

  Did she realize how it had inflamed him when she wriggled that little butt on the couch, nestling into the pockets of the leather?

  How he’d grown rock solid, eager to feel himself press against her tender flesh?

  He would take her another time, another day. But he would definitely have her.

  He goes to the phone and calls upstairs to the nursing staff in the psych ward. With any luck, he gave her the right dose of morphine, but the nurses could figure it out, hook her up on monitors, start fluids.

  “This is Dr. Jump. I’m in my office in the office wing, and one of my patients just had a meltdown. Yes, Madison Stanton. She’ll need to be admitted for observation.”

  Chapter 69

  Lakeside Hospital

  Abby

  So far this Monday morning, Abby has managed to avoid Dr. Jump at the hospital. She spent the morning leading a twelve-step meeting monitored by Dr. Holland, then attended a group therapy session during which Emjay Brown was very articulate, sharing anecdotes and describing feelings, encouraging another soldier to “let it out.”

  Now, meeting with him for therapeutic communication in the Day Room, she flips through his chart as he shares a joke with Jake, a soldier who is also suffering from PTSD. Emjay Brown has progressed well since the first day she saw him, heavily medicated and sleeping, here in the Day Room.

  “Tomorrow is a landmark of sorts for you, Emjay,” Abby says. “You’ll be setting recovery goals with some of the doctors.”

  “You mean, they’ll evaluate me,” Emjay says with his wry expression. “I never did like test day.”

  “You’ll do fine. You’ve embraced all the goals we established.” Looking down her list, she would give Emjay full points in all categories: developing positive coping actions, engaging in talk therapy, learning about his condition, practicing relaxation methods. “Good work, Emjay.”

  “I had a pretty good intern,” he jokes. “You are going to be there tomorrow, right?”

  Tomorrow…Abby isn’t sure how much longer she can take the strain of being in the same building with Dr. Jump. And once Jump finds out she didn’t turn in all those treatment plans, he might be terminating her internship, anyway. “I’m planning on it,” she tells Emjay.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to get out of here, but I don’t know if I’m cured yet.”

  “There’s no sudden insight or quick cure. Recovery is an ongoing, daily process, and you’re chiseling away at it, bit by bit.”

  “One day at a time.” His voice is low, melodic. “I suppose you want me to give you some more stories so’s you can fi
ll your clipboard?”

  “If you want. It is called talk therapy.”

  “I suppose we can do that.” He glances across the Day Room to Jake, the new soldier, who is playing solitaire. “Have you ever been on a chicken farm?”

  Coming from out of the blue, the question makes Abby smile. “No, although I’ve driven by them on the Delaware shore.” The only reason Abby remembers is because, even from fifty yards away, the stench from the long buildings can be unbearable.

  “I grew up on a chicken farm. Eastern Maryland.”

  “How was that?”

  He shakes his head. “Hated it. I signed on with the army just to get away.”

  “What were you trying to get away from?”

  “My old man liked his whiskey. Falling-down drunk half the time. It got to the point where I couldn’t leave, could never get away, ’cause I couldn’t count on him to take care of the chickens. Twice a day you have to go out culling in the chicken coops. You gag at the smell, chicken shit everywhere. Gets in your boots and your pores. They say eventually the ammonia burns a hole in your sinuses and you don’t smell it anymore, but that never happened to me. Nah, I smelled it every time I got downwind of the chicken coops, and stepping inside, it stings your throat…”

  He rubs his chin, wincing at the memory. “But you have to go inside, gotta walk through from one end to the other and pick out the dead chicks before they infect the others. Put ’em in a bucket or a bag and count the bodies. Their little chick bodies, all stiff. Legs in the air.” He squeezes his eyes shut, and Abby notices his cheeks are wet with tears.

  This is about more than raising chickens. She waits for him to continue, her gaze on his face, encouraging.

  “You need to keep count if you want to run a business.” He sucks in a breath. “Gotta keep count.”

  “It sounds like an unpleasant job.”