Chapter 6

Well, at least now Edmond knew that someone interrupted her lunch yesterday. He couldn’t be sure that this individual was responsible for her disappearance, but it made sense. Of course, he didn’t know who this someone was, but it fit with his theory of a possessive boyfriend. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t any closer to finding her, and he was running out of things that he could check. He decided to go by her apartment building.
He would have liked to check for her car, but she had never told him what model car she drove. He had a pretty good idea that she didn’t drive it very much, because she was fortunate enough to be able to walk most of the time. That knowledge didn’t seem to be particularly helpful. It occurred to him to talk with the manager of the apartment complex, but there were two problems with that: they would probably think he was a nut; and they might not be there until Monday morning, anyway.
He had the driver drop him off in the parking lot. He drove his wheel chair up and down the aisles. He looked for a small car, because he figured that’s what she would drive, that looked like it had been sitting for some time. The futility of that frustrated him. He’s looking for a car, based on guesses. It was entirely possible that she walked to work so that she could save gas to burn in her Humvee after work.
He was really worried. She had been gone over 24 hours now. It was entirely possible that she was dead. He tried not to think about that. Somewhere inside of him he felt that she was still alive, but he had no way of knowing for how long... Somehow he had to find her, but he didn’t even know where to look.
“Are you okay?” a male voice asked. Edmond looked up. There was a young man standing nearby with a set of car keys in his hand. “You look sick.”
“I’m okay,” Edmond replied, “I’m just worried about a friend.” After a pause, he asked, “Do you live here?”
“Yes, I do,” the young man responded, with a quizzical look on his face.
“Maybe you know her then.” He pulled out a picture. “Her name is Lena Sandoval.”
The young man started to nod, but caught himself. “And you are?”
“My name is Edmond Randolph.”
“Oh, yeah, she told me about you. I like your ‘Wounded Statesman’ blog. I thought you were in Chicago, though.”
“I live in Chicago, yes. I came out here because of her, and now I can’t find her. I’m afraid something has happened to her.”
“I think she’s here. I saw her car…”
“She sometimes walks different places, though.”
“Let’s check her apartment.”
They headed to the building, and got on the elevator. On the way up, Ed asked the young man his name. “Oh, I’m sorry, my name is Jay.”
They got off on the eighth floor. Jay walked him to apartment 806, and they knocked on the door. “Man, I can’t believe she would just leave you hanging like that, man.”
“I don’t think it was her fault.”
They waited a few minutes for her to come to the door, and then knocked again. After a few minutes, Jay decided she wasn’t home. “I’m sure that was her car in the parking lot, though.”
“Do you know if she has any friends in the building she might be visiting?”
“I’m sure she does, but I don’t know who they are.”
“Can you show me her car?”
Jay nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Her car was a blue 2005 Mustang with a noticeable layer of dust on it, confirming both of Ed’s theories. There was no way of telling when she had driven it last, and nothing to indicate who else might have been in it. Basically, seeing the car didn’t help; it was just another dead end.
“Let me try calling her.” Jay pulled out a cell phone, and punched a few buttons. After a couple of seconds, he frowned. “That’s strange it went straight to voice mail. I’ve never known Lena to turn off her phone.” It occurred to Ed that the battery might be dead, or whoever had Lena had turned off the phone, but he didn’t want to voice either of those ideas. Now what?

Chapter 5

Lena opened her eyes slowly. Her body felt like one big muscle ache, and she couldn’t move her arms or legs. She couldn’t see much, either; it was dark. She could feel that she was lying on a rough, cold floor, probably concrete. There was a mélange of odors that she wasn’t familiar with, or maybe she was, just not together. Her brain felt fuzzy. She realized that she had been drugged. One more reason why she hated taking drugs. She didn’t take aspirin if she could possibly get around it.
She tried to look around, but, between the double vision and the limited lighting, she couldn’t tell anything about where she was. There was stuff around her, boxes and other miscellaneous items, but nothing that she could recognize. She tried to get a sense of how she was; as near as she could tell, through the lingering affects of the drug, she wasn’t really hurt. There might be few bruises here and there, but there was just the one, big body ache.
She tried to remember how she wound up here, but her memory was foggy. The last thing she remembered was getting into the car with him. He had seemed rational at the park, although a little excited, but when they got close to the car he just went quietly nuts. It had frightened her, and she tried to pull away, but he grabbed her and shoved into the car. The next thing she knew, she was here, wherever here was.
As the drugs faded, her body ache abated, but was gradually replaced by a pounding headache. She wondered briefly what he had given her, but knew that she wouldn’t be able to figure it out, with her limited knowledge of the effects of specific drugs. What ever it was, it left a bad taste in her mouth.
She tried to focus on whatever clues there were that he would come to this. Two months ago, he had seemed so romantic, doting on her every want and need. He had taken her to a flower show, and it was clear from his reactions that he wasn’t interested in the flowers. He had gotten her some very nice and thoughtful gifts. Some of those gifts had been somewhat expensive. Lately, though, he had been becoming much more possessive, which caused her to pull away. It had turned into a vicious cycle: he kept trying to push closer, and the more he pushed, the more she pulled away; the more she pulled away, the harder he pushed. It had gotten to be too much; she had been planning to tell him over dinner that she didn’t want to see him any more. Apparently he had realized this, and decided to take matters into his own hands.
She tried to make a list of people that would notice that she was missing. Her boss had offered to give her Friday afternoon off; she had declined, but when she didn’t come back after lunch, he would probably just assume that she had changed her mind. She hadn’t made dinner plans with anybody, because she had planned on breaking it off with Mark, so none of her friends would notice her missing right away. She didn’t have a roommate, so there was no help there. Her hands and feet were tied securely. Escape seemed unlikely, and a rescue was even less probable.
Suddenly she was wracked with hunger pains. Her belly had just realized that she was awake. She had eaten a small lunch at the park before, but she had no way of knowing how long ago that was, other than the feeling in her belly telling her that it had been yesterday. At the same time, the drugs were giving her a distinct queasy feeling. If she didn’t get something to settle her stomach soon, she was liable to make a big mess, right here on the floor, and she was just going to have to lie in it. She tried not to think about it.
Then her bladder woke up, and all she could do was cry.

Chapter 4

Getting off the plane and working his way through Portland International Airport turned out to be considerably less difficult than getting on the plane at O’Hare. Finding transportation suited to his needs was a little on the difficult side, but it had proved to be doable. Riding down I-405 towards a hotel near Lena’s apartment building, he tried once again to formulate a plan. He had come all this way, and he still didn’t know what he could do. He remembered that she had mentioned a sushi bar nearby, maybe someone there would remember her and be able to help.
“Excuse me,” he called out to the driver, “do you know where there is a sushi bar near the hotel?”
The driver nodded. “Yes sir, there’s one about a mile this side of the hotel. I’ll point it out as we get close.”
“Thanks.”
Shortly thereafter, went from I-405 to Sunset Highway, and headed down a surface street, Murray Boulevard, then onto Cornell Road. Not too long thereafter, the driver pointed out a sushi bar on the right. About a mile and a half later, he turned right into the hotel. After a certain amount of flummoxing around, he was back in his wheelchair, with his baggage, in the lobby of the hotel. Once again, he had to endure the stares of those around him; one more reason why he would have preferred his isolationism. Still, there was something he had to do, and he going to do it, even if he still wasn’t clear how to go about it. His plan was to get settled into his room, and then get a ride to the Sushi bar.
The desk clerk averted his eyes, but got him checked in, and then had a bellhop take Ed’s baggage to his suite. Ed glanced around the room; it was bigger than his apartment. That was a little depressing. It was also much brighter than his apartment. He didn’t like that either, but he reminded himself that he wouldn’t be staying here long. He hoped. He tipped the bellhop, and he got a sense of where things were in the room, stuffed the room card in the wheelchair saddlebag, and left.
At the sushi bar, he looked at the sushi. He had never eaten sushi before, but Lena had told him that she really liked it, and he felt that he had to eat some now, or no one would talk to him. The waitress noticed the look in his eye, after she walked past him three times to deal with other customers, and also noticed that he hadn’t touched the sushi that she had set in front of him. “What’s the matter, hon?” Ed wasn’t used to such familiarity, but he understood it. “Is this your first time eating sushi?”
Ed nodded, and pulled out one of the pictures that he had printed out. “Lena wanted me to try it.” That wasn’t a lie, she did. Of course, she had intended for him to try it in Chicago, but here he was in Portland.
“Lena? Oh, yes, I’ve seen her in here.”
Ed looked up. “About how often does she come in?”

”She comes in here on Fridays a lot, but she wasn’t in here last night.”
“Alone?”

”Oh, no, almost never. She almost always comes in here with friends.” The waitress paused. “Say, what is this? Who are you, and why are you asking so many questions?”
Ed wasn’t sure how to respond, and the long pause before he did certainly wasn’t helping his credibility. “My name is Ed Randolph. I’m a friend of Lena’s, and usually we at least chat briefly on Friday afternoons, but yesterday I didn’t hear from her, so I’m a little worried. I wish I could find her.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ed, she comes in here pretty frequently, but not often enough that I would really know when to expect her. She was in here last week, so probably not for the next few days, but I don’t know.”
Ed nodded. “I understand. Thanks for your help.” He eyeballed a sushi roll, and finally put it in his mouth. It wasn’t as bad as he had expected.
“When I see Lena, I’ll tell her that you were in here. And that you tried the sushi.”
Ed nodded. He wanted to say thanks, but not until he swallowed, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to swallow.
Next stop would be the park, except he wasn’t sure which park, and he wasn’t sure how well his wheelchair could handle park turf. There was a park right across the street from the sushi bar, but he didn’t think that was the one. It was hard for him to judge, but he really didn’t think that this was within walking distance of where she worked. He had located two parks that were much closer. Neither one of them seemed particularly enjoyable to him, but he’d been content to sit in a dark musty apartment for a very long time. From what he had been able to find out on-line, one had a moderate grassy expanse and a couple of tennis courts, while the other one was larger, had more trees, also had tennis courts in the western part of the park, but had high-tension wires running through the eastern part of the park, and somehow didn’t seem to have as much grass. The larger park was easier to get to from where she worked, so he decided to check that out.
When he arrived at the park, he was relieved to see that it hadn’t rained recently, so he wasn’t likely to get his wheelchair stuck in the mud; he might still get stuck, but at least it wouldn’t be because of the mud. He managed to roll around on the ground fairly easily. He wasn’t sure what he should be looking for, but here he was. Maybe signs of a struggle? He noticed some guys tossing a Frisbee, and noticed that they were kicking up dirt and leaving footprints that might look to him like there had been a struggle there if he hadn’t seen for himself what had happened.
“You look disappointed.”
He looked up. A young, blonde woman with a big dog on a leash was standing, looking at him. She spoke again, “Is the park not what you had expected?”
“No, actually, it’s pretty much exactly what I had expected. I had hoped to see a friend here, though.” He pulled out the picture of Lena.
“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”
Ed laughed, for the first time in a long time. “No, she’s a lot young for me, but when I say friend, I mean friend, I don’t mean girlfriend.”
The woman smiled. “Yeah, I’ve seen her here before. In fact, she comes here a lot.”
The dog came over and started sniffing at Ed.
“Are you here a lot?” he asked.
“Yes, I just live over there.” She pointed to a house nearby. “Even when I’m not here, I’m usually at home, with a view of the park.”
“Could you tell me when was the last time you saw her?”
“She was here yesterday. She likes to bring her lunch here, and eat in the park.”
Ed nodded, “Yeah, she told me that. I was hoping she was having lunch here today.”
The blonde woman shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her here on a Saturday. Just Monday through Friday.”
“Did anything unusual happen yesterday?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it. There was a guy that showed up here; I’ve never seen him before. He talked to her for a little while, and they left together. She didn’t seem happy about it.”
“Can you describe the guy?”

”He had brown hair, medium build. Sorry, there’s not much else I can tell you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the help”
He headed back to the car.

Chapter 3

He had lived on his own, sequestered in his cluttered little apartment, by his own choice, for years. There had been a few details to work out about the arrangements in the beginning, but it had worked to his satisfaction up until now. Suddenly he was in a situation that no one believed him about; he could not get one solitary person on the outside to treat this seriously. It may very well be up to him, but wasn’t sure what he could do, even if he left his apartment.
He went back through her E-mails. She mentioned that she lived within walking distance of work, and that often saved her gas money, when the weather was nice. She had also mentioned a park near her work. She had said that it was very pretty, lots of trees and grass, and a few benches. It was a good place to take a brown-bag lunch and sit in the sun, let the wind blow her hair. It almost made him wish that he had a spot like that. If someone had kidnapped her in the park, people leaving work would think she just took off at lunch because her car wasn’t in the parking lot. They might have no idea that she was even missing.
He checked his PayPal tip jar. There was more money than he had expected. He had money in the bank, too. Was he really considering doing something? In some ways, the idea frightened him; he hadn’t seen the sun in years, but staying in the apartment suddenly seemed unbearable. What if the police were right? What if it were just a fluke that she hadn’t E-mailed him? If he flew out to Portland, and nothing had happened to her, she would think he was a stalker. That would definitely cost him a friend. But he couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing.
He logged onto a travel agent website and booked a one-way flight to Portland, noting that he was in a wheelchair and had special needs. He checked the balance on the checkcard that he used to pay Peapod; it looked like it would be enough to pay for his needs in Portland for a few days and still buy a return flight ticket. Of course, that would mean finding the physical card; he only used it on-line up until now, and hadn’t needed the card since he entered the information into the computer. He loaded up his printer with the best quality paper he had, and printed out several copies of the picture he had of Lena. The enormity of what he was doing astounded him, yet he felt he had no choice.
He needed to get packed, and to gather up what little cash he had, and get to the airport. It would really be a waste if he had made all these preparations and then missed the flight.
Somewhere in the midst of all the preparations, he came up with the joke he needed for The Gag Reflex: Dr. Bob: I crossed a lightning bug with a cockroach. Reporter: What did you get? Dr. Bob: I don’t know, but every time it lights up, it runs and hides under the refrigerator. He had no idea why that popped into his head, but there it was, and he able to finish that blog.
Soon the limousine service was at the door, and he gathered up his things, and took a long look at the small, dark apartment that he had not left in almost ten years. Suddenly it seemed outright claustrophobic. He opened the door, and the limo driver, after recoiling slightly, picked up his bags and they left.
It was a long, quiet ride to O’Hare. There was so much he hadn’t seen in so long, but right now, none of it seemed important. It seemed like the road construction crews were working on the same parts of the same roads as the last time he was out. When they finally reached the airport, he tipped the driver, and also tipped a skycap to check his bags. Wheeling his chair to the check-in counter, he picked up his E-ticket and boarding pass. Airport security was ridiculous. Did they really think that he was hiding explosives in his shoes? Not that mattered. He couldn’t walk, anyway, what difference did it really make if he was wearing shoes? When he finally got through security, then he went to the gate, and they had to get a special wheelchair for him. Regular wheelchairs don’t fit down the aisle of a commercial airliner. He hadn’t realized when he left the house how much he would have to endure just to get on an airplane. Up until he arrived at the airport, he had thought his hardest time would be dealing with the outside. Now it looked like the airport might be the worst of it.
It was a long flight. He was hungry. When did they stop serving meals on long flights? It seemed like with the fare increases over the last ten years, there should have been more amenities on the flight, instead of less. There was satellite radio, but that really didn’t impress Ed much. Maybe if he had been traveling for pleasure, it would have been different. He really didn’t feel like listening to music, and radio talk shows even less.Eventually the captain came on the public address system, announcing that they would be landing soon. Ed hoped that getting off the plane wouldn’t be as bad as getting on it had been.

Chapter 2

He heard the squeal of tires, glass shattering, the screams of his wife and son crying out in fear and in pain, and then he woke up. He lay there for several seconds, piecing together reality. It was the drunk driver nightmare again. Maybe nightmare was the wrong word, since this was not a creation of his subconscious; this was reliving, in a dream, the worst moment of his entire life. The dream happened less frequently than it used to, but it would probably never completely stop. There was something different about it this time, though. He fought his own memory, trying to place what had changed in the dream, and it came to him: Lena was in the car. It didn’t make sense; Lena had just recently turned twenty-seven, making her the same age as Edmond Jr. would have been, if. Yet, in the dream, she was an adult, and Eddie was just a teenager. At least, it seemed that way to him. He hadn’t actually seen her in the dream, more felt her presence, and yet, somehow he knew. Why was she in the dream at all? Maybe because at some subconscious level, he believed that she was in serious danger.
He glanced at the clock. 2:14 AM. If she hadn’t E-mailed by now, then she wasn’t going to. He reached for his wheelchair. It hadn’t finished recharging, but he had to check his E-mail. He unplugged the wheelchair, pulled himself into it, then pulled the charger onto his lap. He wheeled over to the computer, and plugged the charger into an outlet close by. Logging onto the computer, he found that there was, in fact, still no E-mail from Lena. He looked back through the last few E-mails he had received from her, trying to find clues that might explain this curious silence. There had been a guy that she had been seeing. She never mentioned his name, and she objected strenuously when Ed had tried to apply the initials “BF” to him; “He’s not my boyfriend, he’s just a friend that I go out with sometimes.” Still, it was pretty clear that the guy thought he was Lena’s boyfriend, even if Lena didn’t think so. Lately, he seemed to be getting a little possessive. Lena didn’t think it was serious, but combined with the out-of-character lack of E-mail, it had Edmond worried.
He looked up the number for the Portland Oregon police department. He decided to call them, even though he wasn’t sure what he could tell them. He wasn’t even sure if she lived in Portland itself, or one of its many suburbs. Still, he had to try.
“Portland City Police Department.”
“Yes, my name is Edmond Randolph, and I’d like to report a missing person.”
“What is the missing person’s name?”
“Lena.”
“Does Lena have a last name, sir?”
“I don’t know her last name.”
There was a long pause before the voice on the other end resumed. “How long has Lena been missing, sir?”
“A few hours.”
“Do you have Lena’s address?”“No.”
“How exactly do you know Lena, sir?”
“We met over the internet. I’m a blogger in Chicago, and she reads my blog, and has been E-mailing me daily for almost a year, but yesterday, she didn’t send any E-mail.”
Edmond was beginning to feel embarrassed. He had no real information, but he was certain something had happened, and that the police should get involved. He briefly considered describing his dream, but he realized that wouldn’t really help his case.
“Mr. Randolph, is Lena a legal adult?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Our policy concerning adults is that we don’t consider them missing for at least forty-eight hours. Mr. Randolph, she may have just gone away fro the week-end, and forgotten to let you know. Maybe she has lost her internet connection. I wouldn’t worry about her, Mr. Randolph. Most of the time, these people show back up in a day or two.”
As he hung up the phone, Ed felt very frustrated. It was clear that whoever he had spoken to thought he was a nutcase. They were polite about it, but they weren’t going to do anything for Lena. He couldn’t really blame them. He was no less concerned for Lena’s safety, though.It occurred to him that there might be a way to trace her E-mails. He googled the phrase, “E-mail tracker” and got several hits. Going down the list, he discovered that some of these trackers were free, while others were pay by the use. He decided to try one of the free ones first, and if it didn’t work, then he would cough up money to see what he could find out. The first E-mail tracker identified an IP address for her latest E-mail, and then indicated that the address was registered to the Portland Public Library. The next-latest E-mail was also sent from the library. If she didn’t E-mail him from her home computer, then he didn’t know if he could ever find her. The third most recent E-mail was sent from a company called Total Web Design. That must be where she worked. A quick internet search turned up a phone number for Total Web Design. A quick phone call resulted in a recorded voice saying that office hours are from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday. Great. That would be 11:00 AM Chicago time, two days from now. He went back to the E-mail she had sent on Sunday. Surely that one wasn’t sent from the library or from work… Bingo. The IP address translated to an apartment building on NW 143rd Avenue. Now we’re getting somewhere. He started cruising Anywho dot com for Lena’s on NW 143rd Avenue. Unfortunately, Anywho expects you to know at least a partial last name. He checked for Lena A. nothing. Lena B. nothing. He kept trying different last initials, in hopes that something would pop up. When he got to Lena G, there was a hit for a Lena Gibson, but she was listed as being 79, and she was in the wrong block of NW 143rd Avenue, anyway. At Lena S, though, there was a Lena Sandoval in the right block. Just to be sure, he continued on through the alphabet, but he got no more hits. So, unless Lena was an internet ‘handle,’ he now knew her last name, and what apartment complex she lived in. He wasn’t sure what good any of that information did, though.

On the Lookout for Lena (Chapter 1)

The only light in the room was the glow of the computer monitor. Edmond liked it that way, though. The light only reminded him of everything that he had lost. There was enough light from the monitor to see the keyboard, and that was all he needed. Somewhere in the back of his head was the realization that this was bad for his eyes, but it seemed oddly fitting that, after all that had happened, he should lose his eyesight, too. Checking the RSS feed from CNN, he got the last bit of information that he needed for his political blog, “The Wounded Statesman.” That would allow him to finish that up. He still needed one more joke to round out “The Gag Reflex.” That blog title was a bad pun, but it seemed to draw in a lot of people, and it had a certain appropriateness, since a lot of the jokes in that blog were bad puns. “Maybe there’s joke in my inbox,” he thought. Opening his E-mail account, he scanned the subject lines. As usual, there was a lot of spam. That’s an occupational hazard, when one posts one’s E-mail address on one’s blogs. Still, he depended on the income from the blogs, which meant that he had to respond to the concerns of his readers, which, in turn, meant that his E-mail address had to be posted on his blogs.
“That’s odd,” he thought. There was nothing there from Lena. Lena sent something every day. A lot of times it was just one of those religious things that gets sent around—“Remember that God loves you!” (as if God loved Edmond) but she always included some personal message with it. She might tell him a little bit about her day, and ask him how his day had been going, but always something. There were a lot of readers that just forwarded on to him any mildly amusing or religious tripe chain E-mail that they had received, but Lena always made it personal. That’s why she was his favorite cyber-friend.
He really didn’t know a lot about Lena; he wasn’t even sure that was her real name. She had told him that she had immigrated to the US from the Republic of the Philippines just a few years ago, and she had E-mailed him a picture, so he knew that she was very pretty. Part of him wished that he could meet her in person, but he knew that he could never allow that to happen.
Maybe he just missed it. He clicked the ‘search E-mail’ button, and typed in ‘Lena,’ but the only messages that popped up were the ones he had already read. There was one from yesterday, and the one from Wednesday; one each day, going back almost a year. 347 messages, but not one from today.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door. Checking the time on the computer monitor, he realized that it was about time for Peapod to show up with his weekly grocery delivery. Backing the motorized wheelchair away from the keyboard, he turned and headed for the door. Once again, it hit him that there was a tremendous irony of having a security peephole in the apartment door. He would have to be able to stand to see through it, and he hadn’t been able to stand in years. He reached up and put the chain across, and then unlocked the door and opened it to the length of the chain. “Peapod,” the delivery person called out. He closed the door, took the chain off, and then swung the door wide. The delivery person came in, well used to the routine by now, took the groceries into the kitchen. He flipped the light on, and put everything away, never really looking at Edmond. Edmond blinked rapidly several times, having been working in the dark for a while. He fished in his pocket for a tip, because putting the groceries away wasn’t really part of the job. He didn’t blame the Peapod guy for not wanting to look at him; he didn’t like looking at himself, that’s why the lights had been off.
Locking the door behind the Peapod guy, and turning the light off, he returned to his computer. His mind went back to wondering why there was no message from Lena yet today. Granted, there was a two-hour time difference between Chicago and Portland, but she had always sent him something before this time of day. Maybe she got held up. He tried to push his concern to the back of his mind, but he couldn’t shake the thought that she was in trouble, and he was the only one who knew about it. It was hard to come up with a joke for his gag blog when all he could think about was a pretty little Filipina that he had never met.