Chapter 14 rewrite

Somehow, Edmond fell back to sleep, quite possibly due to sheer exhaustion. He had pushed himself harder in the previous 24 hours than he had pushed himself in years. He awoke to pounding on the door. He opened his eyes to realize that there was light streaming in the window. This was totally unexpected. He managed to pull himself into his wheelchair, make sure he was covered up, unplug the charger, and then roll to the door. He was aware that he probably had the worst pillow hair of his entire life, but the noise at the door sounded urgent. He opened the door, not sure what to expect. Susan Russell was standing in the hallway, looking like she was on the verge of tears.
"Mr. Randolph, I am really worried now. Lena had invited me to church, and then she didn't show up. I'm not really much of a churchgoer, myself, but she is. She particularly wanted me to come this Sunday. I asked some other people at church, and they tell me she never misses church. She's there every Sunday unless she's out of town, and she always lets people know that she's going to be out of town. I didn't know who else to go to. I'm sorry I didn't trust you last night. Please help." The words just seemed to pour out of her. She obviously had given a lot of thought to what she was going to say, but she was so distraught that the sentences just didn't come out the way she had planned.
"Okay," Edmond said, "can you give me a few minutes to get cleaned up?" She nodded. "Why don't you wait in the lobby? I'll be down soon." She nodded, bit her lower lip, and then turned towards the elevators. He looked after her for a moment, and then closed the door and started getting ready. He felt for her, but finally, somebody else was feeling what he had been feeling.
When he wheeled into the lobby, she looked pensive. "I apologize for taking so long," he said. "Some things take longer than they used to."
She looked at his wheelchair, and nodded. "I understand."
"Do you know Mark’s last name? where he lives?" he asked.
She nodded. "His last name is Poppengale. He lives over on SW 37th street."
"Did you drive?"
"Yes."
They went out to the parking lot. It took a little while to work out getting his wheelchair folded up and in the back seat of her little bitty red car, and him in the passengers seat. Fortunately, he didn’t need a lot of legroom, since he didn't have any feeling in his legs, anyway. Soon, though, they were on their way. It didn't take very long to get to Mark's apartment, but, when they got there, no one answered the door. Polling the neighbors, they discovered that no one remembered seeing him since Thursday evening.
"Any idea where else he might have gone?"
"None," Susan responded. She put her head down, and bit her lip again. After a long pause, she jerked her ehad upright, and said, "Wait a minute! Mark's parents own some kind of business here in Portland."
"Where's the nearest place to get Internet access?" Ed asked. Soon they were at an Internet café. Edmond googled the terms Poppengale and Portland and got a string of hits. Poppengale Manufacturing had its own website, but there were also a number of websites that had been set up to protest the Poppengales. It seems that Mark’s family had manufactured in Portland for a lot of years, but then the plant unionized, and suddenly it was cheaper to manufacture in Singapore than in Portland. The Poppengales shut down the Portland plant, handing out thousands of pink slips, and opened up a new plant near Bedok, in Singapore.
"What happened to the old plant, here in Portland?" Edmond asked.
"I have no idea," Susan responded, "This is all new information to me. I didn't know what sort of work Mark's parents did, and this all happened before I moved here."
Edmond was able to find the address for the old plant, and accessed Multnomah County records on line to find out who the current owner was. It was still listed as Poppengale Manufacturing; apparently no other company had bought the property.
"I bet that's where he's got her," Edmond pronounced.
Susan nodded, and looked a the address. "That's close by," she said, "We could probably be there in fifteen minutes or less." They went back to her car, and headed towards the old plant.

Chapter 13 rewrite

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 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 actual 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 exterior doors (if she could find them!) might have deadbolts that required a key to open, even from the inside. As far as that goes, the basement door might be locked, she couldn’t be positive. Surely there was a window she would be able to get out, though, assuming that she could get out of the basement. 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 definitely be some form of 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 any 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 rewrite

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 had finally seemed that he was going to get a break, but 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. He lost consciousness, and 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 person 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 better 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 Lena. She was a sweet person, and she deserved better. He just hoped that he could find some way to help her. 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 rewrite

Lena hesitated a moment, and decided it was better to speak up. She didn’t think that Mark really wanted to hurt her, so she said, "I'm hungry."
He 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." He led her down the hall the other way, and turned into the third door on the right. 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. He handed her the knife, sprayed the pan with non-stick spray, and then started frying the fish. Lena started making some salad, and then paused. "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 sliced tomatoes, etc. She briefly considered hiding the knife on her person, but Mark might notice it 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 pretty darn good too. The tomatoes were the vine-ripened kind, and they had more flavor than the usual store-bought tomatoes.
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 really didn't mind. The silence felt a little awkward, but, then again, the whole situation was more than awkward. There really wasn’t anything she wanted to discuss with him, anyway, except for, possibly, when would he let her go, but she didn’t think she would like to hear what he had to say on that subject. 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 was this mysterious person that he was so worried about, 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. In order for her to develop an attachment to him, wouldn’t there have to be more contact than just an occasional meal together, shared in silence?

Chapter 10 rewrite

Edmond sat in Starbucks and sipped his coffee. Well, technically, it was a frappuccino. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, 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 the cost of it was a sizable portion of the cost of 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. That didn’t really surprise him too much. Part of the reason for his isolationism had been the fact that he didn’t like getting stared at in public, and, since the accident, it was hard for people not to stare. Finally, though, one of them, a pretty redhead with green eyes, came over to him.
"Are you him?"
Edmond, surprised by the question, suppressed a smile. He had expected a question more along the lines of, “What happened to you?” even though most people were too polite to ask that. "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. She and I come here a lot."
"Have you seen her?"
Susan shook her head. "Not today. 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 Mark nor Lena 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." She started to back away.
Edmond looked deep into her eyes, and tried to engage her, get her to look deep into his. “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 have happened to her friend, even though part of her was very much afraid that what Edmond was saying might actually be true.
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 rewrite

Edmond woke up. His stomach was growling. He hadn't eaten much lunch (somehow the sushi just hadn’t appealed to him), and it was now well past dinnertime. 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. Normally, he would have preferred to just sit at home and heat something up, but he found himself wanting to go out somewhere; maybe he would just accidentally run into somebody who knew something about where Lena was. He certainly wasn't going to 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. It was hard for him to order dinner, because at this point, he was simply hungry; he had no real appetite. He didn’t particularly want to eat, he just realized that he needed to. It didn’t matter too much to him what he ate, as long as it filled his belly. Eventually he settled on one of the daily specials.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 how hard 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. He had felt very frustrated in Chicago, because he realized that something needed to be done; now he was in Portland, and he was just as frustrated, because he didn’t know what 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...
He called the hotel concierge to ask about nearby coffee shops. He tried to come up with the best possible wording to try to find out where someone like Lena might choose to hang out, without giving away why he wanted to know, and without sounding like a pervert. “This is Edmond Randolph in 304. I’m a writer, here from Chicago, and I’m doing some research. Can you tell me where there would be a coffee shop close by that would be popular with people in their twenties?”
The concierge had several suggestions, but one in particular that he felt was close by and popular with IT professionals. Edmond asked him to make the appropriate transportation arrangements.

Chapter 8 rewrite

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 succumb 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 concerned that he might have killed her. How much longer would he have let her lie there? What if she had O.D.’d on whatever drug he had given her? Would he have called for an ambulance, and taken a chance of going to jail, or would he have just let her die, and then tried to hide the body? 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. The hallway was long, but the door to the basement and the bathroom door were close together. There were pictures hanging on the wall. Many of the pictures showed either a mother with a young son, or a family of three. The little boy looked so sweet and innocent; if Lena hadn't been concentrating on holding her bladder, she would have wondered how that little boy had grown up to be a kidnapper.
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 to stay with; not husband material, I guess. 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 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 he had parents in the local area, though (unless they weren't local anymore--she really didn't know where they were). 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. She tried to come up with some explanation for how he might think that this experience might convince her to even continue to like him. She remembered learning about Stockholm Syndrome in her college psychology class. In 1973, in Stockholm, some bank robbers in Stockholm held some of the bank employees hostage for six days. During their captivity, the hostages develop feelings of sympathy, possibly even affection, for their captors. The hostages actually spoke out in defense of the criminals after their release. What if she developed such an ailment? 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 not a beating, that really didn’t seem to be the way Mark wanted to operate (although, in his current mental state, anything was possible), but he would undoubtedly find some way to punish her. She guessed she had done the smart thing, after all.