Chapter 13

The concrete was cold and hard. Lena struggled to find a comfortable position, but her bindings made it difficult to move, and there wasn't much hope that she could ever really be comfortable on this hard floor, anyway. She couldn't sleep on her back, because her hands were tied behind her back. Lying on her side minimized her contact with the cold, hard floor, but then her neck wasn't comfortable with the downward slope to her head. At least her belly was full, and her bladder was empty. She tried to fall asleep.
Part of her wanted to take a shower, but she couldn’t be sure how Mark would react to such a request. She had showered yesterday morning before work (or was that the day before yesterday?), but a lot had happened since then. She felt sticky and dirty. She may not look all that bad; her reflection in the mirror hadn’t looked awful. Still, maybe if she worked up a good stink, then Mark would be more inclined to let her go. Then again, he might insist on washing her himself, and she definitely didn’t want that. The issue of personal hygiene could become very complicated. She decided that she would allow herself to get a little funkier, and then try to negotiate some personal time alone in the shower.
It seemed to her that, if Mark was planning on winning her over, he was going about it completely the wrong way. She had actually liked the guy, or maybe just felt sorry for him, but now she felt an actually hatred growing inside of her. She didn’t want to hate him; he had genuinely been nice to her at one time. Not so nice that she wanted to continue to date him, but, still. She was grateful that he hadn't raped her, but, if he kept her tied up in the basement whenever he didn’t feel like dealing with her, then she would soon hate him almost as much as if he had.
She realized that Mark hadn't watched her very carefully when they were in the kitchen. Perhaps he thought that as long as he had the gun, there was nothing she could do. Her options were definitely limited, but, what if she had grabbed two knives, and then had hidden one when he wasn't looking? Then she would be able to cut herself loose, and maybe try to escape. Of course, she wouldn't be able to tell where he was in the house, or whether he was awake or asleep, or even if she would be able to find her way out of the house. So far, she knew where the kitchen and the bathroom were. The doors might have deadbolts that required a key to open, even from the inside. Surely there was a window she would be able to get out, though. If she got caught, there was no telling what he would do to her. If he came back downstairs and found that she had cut her ropes, there would be retribution. At the very least, he would watch her more carefully in the future, and be careful not to give her another chance to escape. She couldn't afford to waste whatever opportunity she got. It would have to be an all or nothing effort. That meant that, if he caught her trying to escape, she would have to be prepared to plunge the knife into him before he got the chance to shoot her. She didn’t have that much hate for him, at least not yet, but she was determined to not let him keep her here ant longer than absolutely necessary. The waves of nausea that hit her had nothing to do with the drugs that he had slipped her.

Chapter 12

Edmond got back to the hotel, and plugged his wheelchair into the charger, and then climbed into bed. He tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, frustrated that it finally seemed like he was going to get a break, and then it just evaporated in his face. He finally drifted off to sleep, and soon found himself driving. His feet were working the gas and the brake, and, for some reason, that didn't seem at all abnormal to him. He turned, and spoke to his wife. He saw his son in the back seat out of the corner of his eye. Looking back at the road, he saw the green light ahead, and the intersection was clear. As he pulled into the intersection, though, there was a sound of screeching tires and broken glass, and the car lurched to the left as they were hit by another vehicle from the right side, a vehicle that was traveling absurdly fast. His left arm somehow became entangled in the door. He started to look to his right, to try to get a sense of what was happening, but Lena's hand was over his eyes, and she whispered to him, "Don't look, don't look." Part of him wanted to see, but he found himself trusting Lena, and somewhere deep down inside him, there was a knowledge that he knew what he would see if he looked, and it was something he had seen too many times already. The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital, and the doctor was trying to assess how severe the damage to his spine was. He asked about his wife and son, and the doctor looked away, and then, said, "We need to concentrate on getting you better, now." It was the sort of non-answer answer that told one exactly what the answerer was trying not to say. Not that Edmond really needed confirmation; he didn’t just suspect the worst, he knew. Edmond woke up, and realized that his ear was wet. In fact, the whole pillow was wet. Then he understood that it was because he was weeping uncontrollably. It was the same nightmare he'd had many times before, but he had never gotten to the part in the hospital before, he had always awakened right after the crash. There was an understanding that Lena had made the difference this time, in fact, in retrospect, he realized that he had even felt her presence beside him in the hospital, as the doctor sidestepped his question. If only he knew where to find Mark... He swapped pillows, placing the wet one on the other side of the bed, and putting the dry one under his head. He grabbed some tissue from the nightstand, and wiped his eyes, and then blew his nose. If he had been able to develop a level of trust with Susan, he might be on his way to finding Lena, now. Of course, his wheelchair battery would probably be dead by now, and he would be stranded. At least he would be close, though. He reflected momentarily on the apparent absurdity of his situation. Two days ago, he had been in his apartment, just like any other day, not suspecting that he would leave anytime soon. Yesterday (or was it the day before? he wasn't entirely sure whether this was Saturday night or Sunday morning) his life changed forever, because of someone he had never met. Now he couldn’t even go to sleep without dreaming about her. The good news was, that the recurring nightmare that had plagued him for years was becoming less troubling, because of her. She was a sweet person, and she deserved better. He just hoped that he could find some way to make that happen. It wasn’t going to happen tonight, though; he was going to have to try something else in the morning. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. The thoughts just wouldn't stop running through his head, though, even the ones that he knew were useless. In fact, all of the thoughts running through his head now were useless.

Chapter 11

Lena hesitated, and then said, "I'm hungry." Mark looked at her, and said, "I suppose you are. I've eaten twice since the last time you ate, and I don't think you finished your lunch yesterday." There was a long pause, and then Mark asked, "So, what would you be willing to do for a meal, now?" Lena crossed her arms, and glared at him in silence. Mark laughed, "I guess that means you haven't fallen in love with me, yet. That's okay; you will. In the meantime, though, I think we need to keep your strength up. Come on, let's go in the kitchen." In the kitchen, Mark got out lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, garbanzo beans, mushrooms, and some Pollock. "Is fish and salad okay with you?" Lena nodded. Mark got out a knife and a frying pan, sprayed the pan with non-stick spray, and then started frying the fish. He handed her the knife, and Lena started making some salad. "Am I making salad for one or two?" "I'm okay," Mark said, "On second thought, go ahead and make two salads. I don't want you to have to eat alone." Lena's mind began to work. Mark had said that his mother would be out of the country for months, and yet, he had felt the need to keep Lena tied up in the basement. Obviously he was afraid that somebody would come by, but whom? Then again, here she was in the kitchen, so maybe whoever it was had already come and gone. Would they be back? She had to assume not any time soon, but, maybe later today, or tomorrow. Mark would probably try to keep her from figuring out who it was, and what their schedule would be. She looked at the knife in her hand, and wondered if she had a chance to plunge it into him before he shot her. She remembered hearing the expression, "Hot lead faster than cold steel." and decided against trying anything. He had his back to her, but she probably didn't really have much chance to sneak up behind him. Poking around in the cabinets, she found some salad bowls, and started putting chopped lettuce into them, followed by tomatoes, etc. She briefly considered hiding the knife on her person, but Mark would notice them missing. She set out the two bowls of salad and waited for the fish to be ready. After a few minutes, Mark turned off the burner and transferred the fish to a plate, and set it in front of her. She wasn't really a big fan of fried Pollock (it tended to be kind of greasy), but, as hungry as she was, this fish was delicious. The salad was good too. They ate in silence. This was probably another reason why Mark kept getting dumped. He never had been much of a conversationalist. This time, she didn't mind. After they finished eating, he put the pan, the knife, and the bowls in the sink, and then he led her back to the basement, and tied her up again. Apparently, he was still afraid that somebody might be coming by. Who were they, and would they help her if she found a way to get their attention? Then again, maybe he wasn't expecting anyone, and he was just being careful. In any case, she didn't think this was the way that Stockholm Syndrome worked.

Chapter 10

Edmond sat in Starbucks and sipped his coffee. Well, technically, it was a frappuccino. He wasn't entirely sure what it was, but it tasted sort of like coffee, and a lot of other people had been ordering them, so he figured he would try it. It wasn't bad, but, for a man who was used to drinking Maxwell House, black, it was different. And, considering it cost almost as much as a can of Maxwell House, he didn't think he'd be drinking frappuccino much in the future. As he sat, though, a couple of young women kept looking over at him. Finally, one of them came over to him.
"Are you him?"
Edmond suppressed a smile. "Him who?"
She giggled. "Edmond Randolph. The blogger."
He nodded. "Yes, that's me. And you are?"
"My name is Susan Russell."
"May I ask how you know me, Susan?"
"Lena Sandoval told me about your 'Gag Reflex' blog, and then Jay called me earlier, and let me know that you were in town."
"You know Lena?"
"Yeah, we work together. We come here a lot."
"Have you seen her?"
"No. Jay told me that you were looking for her. I don't know what's happened to her. It's not like her to miss Friday and Saturday night. Sometimes she misses one or the other, usually because of her allergies, but almost never both."
Edmond nodded, taking it in. Part of him wanted to grab her and shake some real information out of her, but he didn't want to wind up in jail. He didn't imagine that Portland jails were particularly wheelchair friendly. Not to mention if he spent the night in jail, he wouldn't be able to charge his wheelchair, and he'd be stuck in the hotel room tomorrow, waiting for it to charge. Funny that he thought of it as being stuck in the room; he'd been stuck in his apartment for years, and that had never bothered him. Now being stuck indoors, even in a nice hotel room, seemed like a prison sentence.
"I think maybe she and Mark went somewhere, but I would have thought that she would have told me."
Edmond's ears picked up. "Who is Mark?"
"Mark is her boyfriend." She paused, "Well, not her boyfriend, exactly, she keeps saying that they're friends, but they do hang out a lot. More than most friends, I think." "I see. Yeah, she's mentioned Mark to me, but never by name. Why do you think that they are off together?"
"Well, nobody's seen him, either. I know some people over where he works, and he took yesterday afternoon off, just like Lena did."
"Lena wasn't at work yesterday afternoon?"
"No. It was kind of weird, though, Tim offered her the afternoon off, but she said she needed to finish up a project, but then she didn't come back after lunch. Tim just laughed about it, and said that it was a woman's prerogative to change her mind."
Edmond nodded. It all seemed to fit together. Now, if he could just get a line on Mark, he might be able to accomplish something.
"Neither one of them are answering their cell phones, either."
Edmond leaned towards Susan, and asked quietly, "Do you know Mark's last name?"
Susan gulped. "I think maybe I've said too much."
“Susan, I’m not a stalker. I’m worried about Lena; I’m afraid something has happened to her. I’d like to talk to Mark about where she is. If the two of them went off for the weekend somewhere, well, that’s their business. I don’t want to interfere with that, believe me. I don’t want to interfere with Lena’s personal life at all, I just want to make sure that she’s okay.”
Susan shook her head. Part of her didn’t want to accept that something bad might happen to her friend. Once again, the mental image of a jail cell kept Edmond from grabbing her and shaking her. He had to force himself to remain calm.
Edmond told her where he was staying. “If you change your mind,” he told her, “come and talk to me.”

Chapter 9

Edmond woke up. His stomach was growling. He hadn't eaten much lunch, and it was now well past dinner time. He considered trying to go out somewhere (but where?), and he thought about calling room service. He checked the charge on his wheelchair, and it was still kind of low. If he went out, he might get stranded somewhere. He would like to go out somewhere; maybe he would just accidentally run into somebody who knew something about where Lena was. He certainly couldn't find anything out here in the room. At the same time, he wasn't sure he could learn anything if he did go out anyway. Everywhere he had gone, he had just hit dead ends.
He called room service.
He stopped to consider. He had met this guy, Jay. That seemed to be as close to Lena as he was going to get. Of course, he only had Jay's word that his name was even Jay. He didn't know of any reason why the guy might have lied about it, unless he were the kidnapper, and thought that Lena might have told Edmond enough that he could figure out that this was the guy he should be looking for. That didn't really make sense, though. Ed didn't know anything about any of Lena's friends, and if he had a name of the kidnapper... No, Jay was almost certainly telling the truth. He really had no reason to lie, even if he was the guilty party.
When the food came, Edmond ate slowly, and thought some more. No matter what he thought, though, he couldn't reach any real conclusions. Something had happened to Lena, it appeared that she had been kidnapped, but he couldn't really be sure about that. If she had been kidnapped, he thought it was the guy that he thought of as Lena's boyfriend, even though he knew Lena didn't think of him that way. If that were the case, he didn't have a clue who the guy was or where he might have taken her. He was beginning to think that he should have stayed in Chicago, for all the good he was doing here. He knew he couldn't have stayed at home, though, even though he had never actually met Lena, she had come to mean a great deal to him. Something of a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dreary life. He had to do something to help find her, even if he didn't know what else he could do.
By the time he finished eating, there was enough of a charge on the wheelchair that he felt confident that he could go out for a little while. He could plug the chair back in when he got back, and it would be fully charged in the morning. But where would he go? He should find someplace where young people hung out, like a Starbuck's. That might be just the thing. He wasn't sure that it would help, but he had to try something. This whole adventure was an exercise in desperation, anyway. The worst thing that could happen is that he spend too much money on some frou-frou latte or something...

Chapter 8

Lena heard someone coming down the stairs. She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not. She had managed to hold her bladder, and keep down her last meal, but she felt certain that pretty soon, she would succomb to one or the other. Her head was almost clear, now, but she still ached. It wasn’t easy for her to move, tied the way she was, but she managed to crane her neck to see that it was Mark that she had heard. “Well, you’re awake, finally,” he said. “I was beginning to think that I had overdosed you.” He didn’t seem particularly upset that he might have killed her. Lena contemplated asking him what he wanted with her, but she was a little afraid to find out. Besides, her bladder was about to burst. “I have to go to the bathroom.” “Well, I guess we can’t have you making a mess in Mom’s basement.” He pulled a gun from behind him somewhere, and waved it in her general direction. She almost wet herself. “Don’t try anything stupid. You’ll regret it.” He untied her, and led her up the stairs. When he reached the top of the stairs, he turned right and led her down to the second door on the left. He let her into the bathroom, and allowed her to close the door behind her. She pulled down her pants, and plopped herself down on the toilet and let go. She felt very relieved. She looked around for a window. There was one, but it was small. She might be able to fit through, but how far could she get before he started shooting at her? She finished her business, pulled up her pants, and went to the window. There was a view of beautiful coastline, and not much else. There wasn’t even any indication that there was another beach house nearby. She didn’t think that she would even get far enough for anyone to be able to hear her screaming for help. She washed her hands and opened the door. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, as Mark began tying her up again. “Because I’m tired. I’ve done everything right. I’ve been a perfect gentleman, not just with you, but with the other girls I’ve dated. But, eventually, each of you decides that I’m just not good enough. Just about the time that I feel comfortable in a relationship, I get dumped. You are not going to dump me, Lena. You are going to stay here until you learn to love me.” If Lena hadn’t been afraid of what might happen if she argued with him, she would have pointed out that it had been a while since he had been a gentleman with her. At first, yes, he was romantic and charming and, well, nice. He had been gentle. Somewhere along the line though, he had, in his words, gotten comfortable with the relationship. He stopped treating her like a lady, and treated her more like, well, property. As if he owned her. As if she belonged to him. As if her feelings no longer mattered. If this was his usual pattern, no wonder he kept getting dumped. He said that she had been in mom’s basement, though. She hadn’t realized that his parents were local, though. In all the time that they had been dating, she had never met them. Obviously his mom wasn’t home, but she would come back eventually. He couldn’t keep her here forever. Nervously, she broached the subject, “When will your mom be back?” Mark laughed. “She’s out of the country. She won’t be back for months. By the time she gets back, you and I will be married.” He’d lost it. You don’t convince somebody to marry you by kidnapping them. Unless he’s counting on Stockholm syndrome, but she didn’t think that was going to work. What if it did? She could wind up in a marriage with him… Her stomach began churning. The nausea intensified; for a minute, she thought she was going to hurl, but the thought of hurling took her mind off of the possible wedding and she was able to marshal the self-control to keep the contents of her stomach to herself. Almost immediately, she regretted it. She tried to imagine the look on his face if she had puked all over him, but, then, she couldn’t help but imagine the beating she would receive afterwards. Maybe she had done the right thing, after all.

Chapter 7

Jay made a few more calls, and then turned and eyed Ed suspiciously. “No one that I know has seen Lena, and she didn’t mention that you were coming to anyone. A lot of us read one or more of your blogs. Lena would have known that we would have liked to know that you were coming.” Edmond considered the statement for a moment, realizing that every second he didn’t answer just made him seem more suspicious, but also aware that it seemed like he had lied already, because he let Jay think that Lena had invited him to come visit . “The truth is, Lena didn’t know I was coming. She had communicated with me very regularly for several months now, and yesterday she didn’t. Call me paranoid if you want to, but I am very much afraid that something bad has happened to her. I couldn’t get anyone here to pay any attention to me from Chicago. I didn’t know what else to do but fly out here.” It was now Jay’s turn to consider. He, understandably, felt that he had been misled, but, at the same time, he thought it over, and came to the conclusion that the old guy in the wheelchair hadn’t actually lied to him, just knowingly allowed him to think something that Edmond had known wasn’t true. All the same, he didn't like it. “I’ve gotta go,” he muttered, and strode towards his car. “Jay,” Ed called out, “thanks for your help. I’m sure Lena would appreciate it, too.” Jay muttered something under his breath and waved a hand in what could have been an obscene gesture. The charge was getting low on Ed’s wheelchair. He needed to get back to the hotel. He headed towards the apartment building lobby to call for a ride. Back at the hotel, he hooked up the charger and tried to think. He’d done a lot of digging, but he hadn’t really turned up anything. Someone interrupted her lunch yesterday, and that seemed to be the last time anyone had seen her. He had only a vague description of that person, who might, or might not, have kidnapped her. That description could be Jay. He hoped it wasn’t Jay, but, then again, maybe if it was, now that he knew somebody was looking for her, maybe he would let her go. Then again, he might just kill her, and hide the body somewhere. Ed didn’t know what to think. He was afraid that he might have made things worse by talking to Jay. He wanted to lie down, but there wasn’t a wall outlet close to the bed. He wouldn’t be able to let the chair charge and go from the chair to the bed. That was bad. That meant that, either he was going to have to work out an extremely difficult method of getting from the chair to the bed, or he wouldn’t be able to charge the chair overnight. He called room service and asked them to bring up an extension cord. That should solve the problem. The guy from room service didn’t really get it at first, but Edmond showed him how he needed to plug the chair in to charge it, and explained that he needed to be able to climb into bed from the chair after plugging it in. Once that was done, Edmond got into bed, and realized that the toll of not sleeping well the night before had caught up to him. It was only 4:00 PM (6:00 PM Chicago time), and he was out. He did not sleep well, though; he had too much on his mind. Still, he slept better than he had the night before.
He dreamed that Lena was calling to him, "Edmond! Edmond! You're my only hope, Edmond!" He woke up troubled, and dimly aware that he really didn''t know what Lena's voice sounded like, he had never spoken to her. It also occurred to him that he would rather dream about Lena than the accident, but then he felt guilty, because she was in serious trouble, and here he was thinking that at least that got his mind off of his own problems. Maybe God had good reason to hate Edmond.