I've been a freelance artist for around 20 years. For the past two weeks I've been working on the photography for Biola Youth Theatre. It's an intense time commitment, but I'll be back to a more reasonable schedule in the next couple of days.
What is it about teenage girls that makes them say - I look so ugly or I hate how I look in that photo - no matter how beautiful, whimsical or dramatic the shot?
It weighs on me more than it should.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Cyn - Chapter 1
For a couple of days I've swum in doubt. I've slept fitfully in the quagmire of uncertainty. The prospect of failure is a rich breading ground for confusion. I've worked on Cyn for several years - admittedly the first couple aimlessly. Now I'm wondering if I should put it on hold and put my efforts toward The J.A.S.O.N. File.
I'm looking for clarity. Below I've posted the first chapter. I covet your opinion. The genre is a romantic adventure. The story is based on reality, not fantasy and designed simply to entertain. My goal is to provide a good clean read.
Please post your comments - if you want to do it anonymously that's fine.
I realize it's difficult to read in this format. Feel free to copy and paste into a format that's more comfortable for you. Remember this is copy written material and for your personal review only. ©J.R. Hetrick 2009
Chapter 1
Sara didn’t expect Dallas to be home. She slipped past his Mercedes, wondering what he would think of her new tennis outfit. She came into the kitchen from the garage, he spun, shocked to see her.
“Sara!” he said, clearly caught off guard, “I thought you were going to be at Corner Brook all afternoon.”
“Beth Anne had her luncheon today. I couldn’t handle two hours of her, ‘I’m the center of the universe’ luncheon.” She looked at him and saw confusion in his eyes. Obviously uncomfortable, he held a thick manila folder with fidgeting hands. The look on his face showed frustration and something uncomfortable like panic. “What’s going on? I expected you to be on your way to Paris by now,” she said, forgetting all about the luncheon.
He let out a long involuntary sigh. This was not how he’d intended to deliver the news. She wasn’t making it easier, in her little tennis dress, another new one no doubt. He’d been caught only a few minutes before he was about to disappear from her life for good. It was almost a clean getaway, but now Dallas would have to make the break while looking into her tearful eyes. He looked at the folder, the vehicle intended to deliver the shocking news. He thought about simply handing it to her, saying, ‘Here, read this,’ and walk away but her presence demanded an answer.
He was about to speak when the door bell suddenly echoed through the house and distracted them from the moment. Mercifully for Dallas, his ride to the airport had arrived; he rushed at the opportunity. Eagerly he darted toward the front door, dropping the folder on the white tile counter.
"That’s my limo," he threw the comment over his shoulder. Why couldn’t the driver have been here five minutes ago? he thought.
“Dallas, what’s going on?”
“Look, I have to go. I’m sorry, there’s no easy way to do this. It’s the last time we’ll see each other.” He hoped to throw her off guard, to stun her into silence, “It’s all in the folder, Sara, I can’t,” his resolve shaken; he fumbled for words “It’s difficult. I don’t know. Look, I’m no good for you. Like I said, it’s all in the folder.”
A line of pelicans swept past their large panoramic windows, accenting a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. Neither noticed.
“Dallas?” she asked hollowly, as if talking to a stranger, not her husband of ten years. There was an odd taste of steel in her mouth. Confusion pounded in her head, her throat became dry, and tears glossed her eyes. “What are you talking about? Don’t just walk away from me. You can't...”
Dallas had been planning this for almost a year, but his resolve weakened at the sight of his wife’s broken face. He determined not to look at her again, maybe that would be easier. The desperation in her voice almost caused him to stop, but he set his resolve and kept moving toward the door. All he had to do now was get to the car. There could be no turning back; regardless of the pain, he had to keep going. He’d made this choice a long time ago. Dallas eagerly grabbed the door handle and swung one of the large double doors open. A small man in a neatly pressed black suit stood at attention.
“I’m in a hurry,” Dallas snapped at the driver, his back to Sara. The command triggered immediate action as the limo driver grabbed the luggage from the foyer, sped down the walkway, popped the trunk, expertly inserted the bags and was waiting with an open door in a few seconds.
“Dallas, what are you doing? Don’t just walk away from me.” The words were weak and broken on her shattered voice.
“It’s all in the folder,” he spoke in stride, gaining confidence. He hopped quickly into the limo, the door slammed, the driver scurried to the wheel and the large car backed into the street, then disappeared down the incline. Skirting houses perched along the ocean cliffs of Laguna Beach, California, the black limousine disappeared.
Sara stood alone on the walkway, her hands trembling. She knew that in the past year things had slowly changed - an absence in his kiss, the briefness of his hug, a distant preoccupation (she attributed to work pressures) but this caught her completely off guard. In disbelief she stood, hoping somehow she would wake up and this would be some sort of sick joke. Minutes ticked silently past, the car didn’t return, she didn’t wake. Slowly it sunk in. Her life had taken a sudden dramatic turn and she couldn’t process it. Fear and confusion burned hot through her body.
She wanted to run after him and ask a million questions. He’d thrown the unbelievable information at her so callously and it sounded final. He looked so determined. Sara took a deep breath, then looked around the neighborhood, as if she had forgotten it was there, suddenly she felt vulnerable, standing alone in the yard. Were the eyes of Laguna witnessing the birth of a new scandal? Sara could almost feel the judgmental eyes peering down. A gardener up the street blew leaves from one yard to the next. She saw no one else and decided to go back inside.
Closing the door behind her, Sara made her way to the kitchen and stood in front of the folder. Her hands felt heavy and she couldn’t bring herself to open it, as if somehow leaving it closed would keep the inevitable from happening. She walked instead to the refrigerator and poured a shaky glass of orange juice. Without drinking any she set it down and returned to the ominous file. It held something awful. She knew it from the look on his face, even if he’d spoken not a word. ‘Dallas, what have you done?’ she asked herself.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the folder, avoiding the details of a script she didn’t want to play out. The curtain rose on a new episode of her life as she slowly turned the cover with a polished red fingernail. A typed letter from Dallas lay neatly at the top. She picked it up, closed the folder, and turned her back to the counter. As she read, she slowly slid down the front of the cabinet until she was sitting on the floor.
Dear Sara,
I regret that you must receive this information in such a cold way, but that’s what I’ve become, cold. We go about our lives as two strangers bumping around in a life that seems so perfect to people seeing it from the outside. It’s not perfect, Sara - far from it, and I think we both know it.
I’m divorcing you without contention. You get everything. I am starting over. I know you deserve more detail, but that’s all I can give you. Communicate with my lawyer. His contact information is enclosed.
There’s no reason to make this difficult. I’m not coming back. The house, the money, the cars - all of it is yours.
Dallas
The late evening sun shone through the window and cast a warm yellow glow on her face. Tears, which had been held back by confusion, flowed freely and glistened down her flushed cheeks. The house felt enormously empty, but it had been empty for a long time. Dusk ushered in a deep and profound loneliness, like she'd never felt before. After sitting on the kitchen floor for twenty minutes, she stood up from the cold white tiles as the sun disappeared. Fiery red clouds on the seascape reflected light from a source that had moved on. A moment of beauty, fading into a moonless night. Sara picked up the folder and went to Dallas’s patio office. Sago palms - dramatically lit - bordered the backyard. The pool glowed from a blue light as wave patterns reflected beneath the awnings.
She wanted to talk with someone. She needed to talk to someone, but the loneliness only became more pronounced as she came to the realization that she truly had no one close she could call. She sat in the glass office, looking over her beautiful backyard. Grecian urns, well - manicured hedges and the sound of the ocean crashing below - it looked perfect, but it was a thin facade. She had many friends, but no confidantes. The realization crept in like a thief.
Her mind shuffled through names and faces. Several people came to mind, but they were all social friends. Dallas cautioned against becoming intimate with anyone because it could put them in a vulnerable position. They made no effort to get to know anyone beyond current events and social chatter. Her social life was active, but it was superficial and agenda oriented. Sara began to process another disturbing thought. What would her ‘friends’ think?
It was difficult to understand why Dallas would do something so dramatic. The rumors would burst through Corner Brook like water through a reservoir dam. This was exactly the type of thing he normally went out of his way to avoid.
They worked hard to rise to this social level; Sara's magnificent Laguna home was vastly different from her humble beginnings. Born in central California to parents who were perpetual students, Sara was an only child. Her parents worked endlessly on individual Ph.D.’s with Sara underfoot. They made sure she was warm and fed, but never “babied” her. They were unconventional and treated Sara more like an adult than a child, exposing her to classic literature and the arts when she was very young. She was their only child because they didn't have time for more.
The first decade of her life was lean. They lived in tiny apartments, friends' spare rooms and anything else they could manage. The summer Sara turned nine, the family spent six months living in a dilapidated Volkswagen van. They "camped" along the central California coast. Many nights cold ocean gales buffeted the little van, but they had plenty of blankets and together they made it through. Her parents studied and worked their way through school. Eventually able to rent a small house within walking distance of Stanford University, her parents both landed jobs as professors in the English department.
Sara read incessantly and excelled in school. Her parents wanted her to follow their path and go into education. They encouraged her to go for a doctorate and were openly disappointed when she dropped out of Stanford after the spring semester of her sophomore year. She'd met a boy named Dallas and followed him to Southern California.
It was a brisk early spring morning in Palo Alto. A wet breeze brought a chill along the drizzled streets. In a quaint place called the Cool Café, Sara sat reading Crime and Punishment at a table by herself. This was a popular college hangout with backpacked students strewn about, drinking lattés, flirting and trying to study. Dallas entered and sat at the only open table, which happened to be next to Sara. He was tall, with thick wavy hair. His dark eyes seemed to light up as they glanced at one another. Sara smiled politely and went back to reading about Rodya and his guilt. She didn't know who he was, but he was handsome and carried himself with confidence. A group of girls noticed him and immediately began whispering and created a small scene.
“Hi, Dallas!” two blondes spoke at the same time. He looked at them and grinned. “Hi ladies,” he said, enjoying the recognition. Sara looked at the group of girls who were giddy and giggly, acting as if he were a movie star. The two girls came over and asked for autographs. Sara recognized a few of the girls in the group, fellow freshmen. They crowded around his small table, inches from where Sara sat.
"Great game Saturday."
"My name is Erica."
"Are you going to the rally tonight?"
The comments bounced around like ping pong balls as the girls shot questions before he had a chance to answer any of them. Sara tried to ignore the gush. She wasn’t interested in some local sports hero or whatever it was that made them fawn all over him. She turned her back and kept reading. Soon, the girls returned to their table comparing napkins.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Sara in a soft voice. She looked at him. “I don’t like it either.”
“I bet you don’t,” Sara said with a light sarcastic smile.
“Okay, you caught me, it's not so bad,” he said smiling back, Sara returned to her book. Her lack of enthusiasm intrigued him, but he picked up a copy of The Stanford Daily and began to read, as if he were through talking with her. He wasn't, and after a few minutes, with the admiring freshmen stealing glances, he leaned over partially hidden behind the paper.
“Who did it?” he asked.
“Excuse me,” she looked up; his brown eyes smiled and flirted with her. Sara found humor in his adoring fans who held their signed napkins, fuming with jealousy. Who was the girl he was talking to? She knew that very girl in the group believed they had a chance with the most eligible and desirable man on campus.
“The crime,” he said gesturing toward the title of her book.
“You’ll have to read the book for yourself," Sara said, looking up briefly then back to the pages, her shoulder length brunette hair falling and hiding the smile on her face, "I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.”
“Russian authors don’t exactly write page turners. Tolstoy didn’t keep me at the edge of my seat and I doubt Dostoyevsky will do much better. Is it true he wrote Crime and Punishment to pay off a debt?”
“I can see that I’m not going to get any reading done,” Sara said closing the book, acting playfully perturbed, but she was intrigued. She could feel the frustrated female eyes from across the room.
“Sorry, are you in an exciting part?” He put the paper down.
“No, you’re right, there are no exciting parts. Well, except for the murder scene where Raskolnikov...”
“No, don’t tell me. You’ll ruin it,” he said, cutting her off.
“I wouldn’t want to do that and yes, I think he did write it to pay off some kind of debt.”
They talked for a few more minutes; it was the least she could do for the group of girls who obviously wished they could trade places with her.
"I have a class in twenty minutes," she said, as she stood, unzipped her backpack and stuffed the book in. "It was nice chatting with you."
“I’m heading that way,” he said, “mind if I walk with you?”
“Okay, but I’m not going to ask you to carry my books or anything.”
“That’s okay, they’re too heavy for me anyway.” Sara laughed at his wit.
The girls stared without looking as they walked past.
“So, star struck girls ask you for autographs. Why is that?” she asked once they were outside.
“They think it’s a big deal that I threw the winning touchdown against UCLA and put our team in the Rose bowl last January.”
“Well, well, the one and only Dallas Mongomery! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”
“So you have heard of me?”
“I’ve heard of you, but I’m sorry I don’t follow football much,” she spoke as they strolled along a crooked path. “Are you going to play professionally?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Don’t tell the girls back there, they’ll be heart broken.”
“Tell me about it! It’s good to talk with someone who isn’t trying to get close to me for selfish reasons,” he smiled at her. “You aren’t, are you?”
“I was until I found out you aren’t going to play professionally!” Conversation came easily as two very different worlds came together. “Mind if I ask why you aren’t going to play professionally? I imagine a Rose bowl quarterback would be sought after aggressively by the professional teams.”
“You're right but, it’s a volatile, fickle game that grinds you down. I hurt my knee playing in the Rose bowl game and my value went way down. My phone stopped ringing, everyone was speculating whether it was career ending, was I prone to injury, could I hold up physically in the NFL? Playing college ball was a dream beyond any I could imagine. I had the privilege of being the starting quarterback in a Rose bowl game.” They paused in front of her building. “That’s enough for me. I’m interested in business and something more predictable than the NFL, but the money does make it hard to walk away. I'll get my millions another way.”
Sara was impressed.
“Well, this is me,” she said, gesturing to ornate double doors, “thanks for walking me to class and good luck to you.”
“No problem, I’m afraid I did most of the talking, sorry about that.”
“I ask questions so I don’t have to talk about myself, something I learned from my father. Well, I need to go. Have a good day.” She began to ascend smooth stone steps.
“You too,” he said, “maybe we could meet in the coffee shop sometime and I can ask the questions.”
“I’d like that, but asking the questions is my thing, I'm not sure I'm ready to give it up,” she said, pulling the door open. “I’ll be there again before class on Thursday.” She disappeared into the building nonchalantly, but was interested in seeing him again. He stood in the moment thinking he would wait for her to get out of class, but realized it would look sad and pathetic. He took note of the time and bounded away looking forward to Thursday.
When Thursday came they both showed up early and walked into The Cool together. The girls didn't approach him for autographs, but they noticed he was with that girl again and took careful note. This was hot university news - who was the new girl with the quarterback? Dallas and Sara picked up where they left off. He asked the questions this time and they got to know each other. They met like this for several Thursdays before Dallas asked her on their first real date.
They enjoyed dating and getting to know each other that spring. Dallas graduated and received a generous offer from Logan Aerospace in Southern California. He moved into a small apartment close to Disneyland midsummer. He worked long hours and began work on an MBA. The long distance relationship was difficult, but they talked, wrote letters and got together on several weekends. They were falling in love and Sara found herself thinking about him all the time. She missed him and hoped that the fall semester would be a good distraction, but she couldn't keep her mind on her studies. On Christmas day, in a gazebo with a beautiful view of Laguna beach and the Pacific Ocean, Dallas asked Sara to marry him. They were married two weeks after Sara’s sophomore year ended. They promised each other that Sara would finish her degree when Dallas completed his MBA, but their lives became busy and she never found the time to go back. Dallas was driven and worked hard, but he understood the value of good relationships. Who you aligned with was a central key to success. He moved quickly through the ranks and at thirty-three became one of the youngest division managers Logan Aerospace had ever seen.
His parents had divorced when he was in grade school. His father remarried, moved away and Dallas hardly knew him. When his mother remarried, during Dallas’s junior year of high school, his new stepfather didn’t want to have anything to do with "another man's son." Dallas studied hard and received a football scholarship to Stanford. His mother and stepfather never saw him play. Not having family at the games, hurt more than he cared to admit. The underlying pain caused by the void drove him. Proving himself to an elusive ghost, looking for approval that never came, he kept pushing. Maybe the next level would hold some satisfaction.
Sara immersed herself in the social scene. Most of it she didn’t care for, but tennis became a great outlet. She played every chance she could. It kept her in great shape. It was never referred to directly, but she knew that Dallas expected her to keep up her appearance. Their lives were all about presentation, a persona of success was the first step. Dallas knew how to carry himself in a way that drew people to him. When he walked into a party with her on his arm, he wanted heads to turn. They did.
Sara had become an accomplished socialite, though the pettiness and backbiting at times were unbearable. Dallas leaving like this would be a scandal. It would circulate in whispers from jeweled ear to jeweled ear, at fundraisers and cocktail parties. It would eventually replace the tired prattle going around about John, the prominent bank president, who ran off with the cute coed who checked out paddlewheel boats at the club. Most would passively chatter on about it, simply to be included in the conversation, glad it wasn’t about them. For a few it would be sport. They would root out details, make assumptions and fill in blanks, then perpetuate exaggerations with enough truth to be believable.
Andrea was the closest thing Sara had to a friend. They would gravitate to each other at various functions and have a good laugh over the pretentious nonsense going on around them. She related to Andrea - they had more in common and were the same age, younger than most of the others. In the end, even Andrea was little more than a social acquaintance, not an intimate friend with whom she could share something so devastating and raw, at least not now.
From the time she left Stanford she had little contact with her parents. They attended the wedding, but protested in their petty way by saying almost nothing. Currently they were six months into a two year journey around the globe. Their great research sabbatical. With no itinerary, they could be anywhere. It was their great escape, the trip for which they had worked and saved, as if they had hung a great ‘do not disturb’ sign on their lives. They had always focused on their own pursuits. She had no one to call, no one to pour her heart out to, no one to be vulnerable with. Sara was alone.
The folder sat closed in front of her on Dallas’s neatly organized desk. She opened it and began to read. The legalese was daunting, but Dallas had left her everything. She couldn't understand; baffled and numb, she tried to make sense of it. He had worked hard, he was diligent and proud of his accomplishments. How could he walk away?
Dallas said he had grown cold - what did it really mean? Obviously something or someone had become his new passion. He was the kind of man who was relentless in the pursuit of what he wanted. Something had stolen her husband and Sara was determined to find the answer. Since they'd met, she knew him to be predictable and calculating; it was impossible to believe he would simply walk away without a plan. There had to be something more. She began to go through his desk. For the past year most of his meager time at home was spent in his home office. Meticulous files were neatly organized in alphabetical folders. One by one she pulled them out and familiarized herself with a side of him she had not known. Perhaps that was part of the problem. She hadn’t made an effort to learn what he did for a living. She knew he was a senior manager at Logan Aerospace. A few hundred employees reported to him, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Other than questions like, ‘How was your day?’ she made no effort to learn more. She was proud of him, she had told him many times. He had provided a good life for her. Why hadn’t she shown more interest in his work, the place he spent most of his time, his very occupation? She was a good wife, but she could have been better. Why hadn’t she? They were so whimsical and flirtatious at the beginning of their marriage. Little by little, responsibility and obligation stole their energy, consumed their time and took away the very things that made them want to take this journey together. She sifted through the papers of a stranger. Her handsome quarterback, her prince, her rock was a thin mist of illusion. She shared in the erosion of course, but felt it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed. They could fix this. They could get the love back. It couldn't be whisked away in a slick black limo and stack of papers. It was impossible to process. It made no sense.
After an hour of thumbing through his files she made a discovery. In a folder marked QC Specs, she found something that obviously didn’t fit with the business documents. Hidden between the pages of a thick stapled report was a small delicate note card. It had a floral motif, distinctly feminine. It was personal, handwritten with elegant swooping letters. There was a short message:
Dallas!
Superb job!
You’re the greatest!
XXO
Cyn!
She slowly brought it to her face and smelled it. As she breathed deeply the faded scent of expensive perfume faintly drifted into her senses and lit a fire of determination in Sara’s heart. She imagined Dallas enjoying the scent. He was doing all of this for a woman with a delicate hand and exquisite taste in perfume. A woman who drew stupid little hearts and thought he was "the greatest." She wondered if he’d bought the perfume for her. He'd never given her any; in fact, Dallas wasn't the most sensitive gift giver. She looked down the hall at the big screen television he gave "her" a few Christmases before.
Her name was Cyn and Sara was beginning to hate her. She wanted to tear apart the note and throw it in the trash, but instead shoved it in the folder with the divorce papers. Her unbridled imagination galloped recklessly, flashing to illicit encounters, secret vacations, and long lunches at beachside cafes. It began to make sense. Why hadn’t Sara been more attentive? Why hadn’t she surprised him at lunch for a romantic tryst? Women always noticed him, but she was used to it. For the past year he was on the road much of the time; maybe he had an entire family somewhere, anything was possible. She fought against her lifelong habit of blaming herself. At the moment she was losing.
The loneliness and guilt had weight. Sadness overwhelmed her and she cried, deep convulsing sobs that took her breath away. She tried to push the intrusive images away, but they attacked her like Huns swarming the Great Wall. Was he with her now, happy, laughing, running hand in hand, as if they were models in a corny phone commercial, dressed in white, the ocean delicately splashing at their ankles?
Exhausted, the deep pain eventually melded with an anger Sara had never experienced. Midnight approached, the surf crashed on the California shore far below, the methodical sound didn’t carry its usual tranquility. There had to be more clues, answers to the myriad questions. She needed information that would give her truth and confirm or deny the devastating images.
Glancing in the shredder bin she discovered the remains of a demolished computer CD. In the confusion and despair she had not looked through his computer. She jiggled the mouse and the sleeping machine awoke. The desktop picture was of the two of them posing in front of an old building in Ireland during their last vacation a year and a half earlier. She had put it there for him and the only reason it remained was because he didn’t know how to change it. She defiantly changed it to a stock picture of the Grand Canyon.
Scrawling through files she found little that was personal. Business memos he’d written, boring emails about meeting times and project updates. She grew tired of looking through the monotonous drudgery that was his professional life. She looked in the recycle bin, it was empty, but something occurred to her. Sara knew that Dallas thought if you put something in the recycle bin and clicked empty, the data was gone. He was a division head, but knew little of how a computer worked and the ample IT department enabled his incompetence. He had more important things to do than fiddle with desktops and recycle bins, a simple phone call took care of it. At home he turned to Sara to deal with anything beyond the very basic.
Sara had taken several computer classes and was the designated creator of flyers and websites for many of her clubs. She was very savvy and decided to run a program to look for files that had been slated for deletion. Within minutes a list of “deleted” files were ordered into a neat column. She began with the most recent because they had the least chance of not being damaged.
Destroy this CD once you’ve read it, the document began. Sara glanced at the shredder. He got that part right, she thought to herself. He hadn’t simply read the file from the cd, however; he had copied it to his hard drive then thrown it in the trash.
Even though parts of the message were missing Sara found detailed directions from the airport in Boise, Idaho to a Featherstone Lake. Take the small boat named Isabelle due west from the dock. Look for a large boulder resting at the end of the point; just north of it is a small dock, the cabin is... The sentence was incomplete. This was interesting. There was another document with nothing more than seven numbers, perhaps a combination. Sara pasted what she retrieved into a new document and printed it.
In the dark Idaho night Doug Collins wound along a narrow mountain road. The plan was in motion. He nervously tapped the pistol in his jacket pocket. It was the first time he had ever carried a gun and he couldn’t stop touching it.
He felt like he'd been driving forever, almost turning around several times thinking he must have missed a turn. He pulled into a turnout and checked the directions Dallas had given him earlier in the day. Checking his mileage against the directions, he decided to keep going. He felt some relief when he finally turned into The Dry Creek motel. Doug flipped off the headlights of his rental car and slowed to a crawl, trying to keep the noise down. Gravel crunched loudly, he moved his head from side to side scanning for anyone that might be watching. Blue neon reflected the distorted word "otel" across his hood as he stopped next to the only car parked in front of the small motel.
The motel was the only building he’d seen in the past forty-five minutes. It took forever, but there was no mistaking this was the place. Nestled among tall pine trees, Doug had to fight a haunting urge to turn and drive away. The stark remoteness made him feel uneasy. Beyond the island of light, a velvet night stretched for miles and miles.
He turned off the engine and waited a minute, paranoid. Branches swayed in the neon glow, animating shadows across his bug splattered windshield. It’s not too late, he told himself. Leave now. But he knew he couldn’t. He needed the money, Dallas and Cyndi were counting on him. Doug summoned the courage to continue. He got out of the car and cautiously headed toward a faded blue door. A tarnished brass "C" hung upside down, barely holding on by a worn brass brad.
Glancing side to side he stepped onto the buckled sidewalk. Tapping lightly on the door he checked the window of the next room to see if there was any movement. He saw none, but still imagined someone peering at him from the blackness. The dangling C moved as the door opened slightly. Long blonde hair fell across sultry blue eyes. The door swung quickly open, she stepped aside. Her slippered feet gave way to shapely tanned legs, khaki shorts and an untucked, loose fitting light pink button down.
"Come in," she whispered. "Hurry."
He stepped in.
“You’re late,” she said, as she pushed the door closed behind him and slid the flimsy gold safety chain into its track. The stale punch of ancient cigarette smoke filled his nostrils as he sat in a worn chair. She gracefully placed herself on the corner of the bed across from him.
“Sorry,” Doug spoke softly. “I couldn’t tell if I was being followed, so I doubled back several times. I have to admit, because I wasn’t familiar with the Boise area, I got lost.” He paused, then added “several times.”
He realized almost for the first time, that he was alone in a motel room with Cyndi. He found it awkward to look directly into her eyes for any length of time. His eyes fell away as if they knew a long look would blush his cheeks and he would giggle like a little girl. She definitely had a power over him. He realized the attention this stunning woman showed him was a major reason he had allowed himself to get caught up in this whole shady thing. It was invigorating to be around Cyn.
She smiled, accustomed to turning grown men into nervous school boys. She knew what she was doing, this was her element and she was a master manipulator.
“Well, if they started following you, they probably stopped because you seemed to be going nowhere,” she said, and then added, “I hope you’re ready for this.” She placed her hand lightly on his knee, leaning in, “It’s going to change your life. There’s no reason to be nervous, Dallas has taken care of everything. We just need your help for this one little part.”
“Cyndi,” he said, boldly holding the gaze, pleased that he didn’t blush and giggle, “you can count on me.”
“I knew I could,” she stood and touched his shoulder before she walked around the bed. “The rest is simple.” Cyndi produced an attaché from behind the faded paisley nineteen sixties bedspread. “Wait here until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, the room is paid for. Do not leave. Follow the instructions you received from Dallas when you get to the lake. At that point you are playing their game. Someone will be watching you. They have gone through great trouble to make this switch look innocent. No one will be at the cabin, but they will be watching with a remote camera. If you don't do it exactly as they say, well...” She paused and moved closer, her hand resting on his, her perfume gently wafting in his face. “Doug, these are bad people, we have something they want and they are willing to do anything to get it. As long as we cooperate, the money will be ours; don’t make any mistakes or get any heroic ideas.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “The documents are in here.” She tapped the attaché as she stepped back.
Doug was frightened, but he tried not to show it. Cyndi sensed the fear and was happy about it. She had him exactly where she wanted him.
“Relax,” she said, massaging his shoulders, “in two days you’ll be a rich man.” He melted at her touch, but tried not to show it. He dropped his head and enjoyed her expert hands.
“Those debts will be gone, Doug. The collectors will be gone. You’ll be free.” Her voice was soothing. She stopped rubbing, kicked her slippers into an open suitcase and slipped on a pair of smart heels.
“I owe Dallas and you so much for what you’ve done for me. Thank you for this opportunity. I won’t let you down.”
“Doug, you’re a sweetheart. We trust you,” she smiled and zipped her suitcase closed. “I’m leaving now. The less we’re together, the better. Hold tight here until it’s time to go to Featherstone. There’s food in the red cooler, the blue one has ice, sodas and water. They have satellite television. You should be very comfortable until it's time to go.”
He liked the way she called him sweetheart. “I’m ready for this Cyndi. I won’t let you down,” he repeated himself.
“When you return from the cabin with the new cases, they will be locked and contain a GPS. When we meet back here, I’ll deactivate it and you’ll have your share of the money, no more questions asked. You’ll be on your own at that point. I’ll see you back here the day after tomorrow, early morning.” Cyndi lied about the GPS, it would help keep him honest. She turned her head with a flip that spun blonde hair around her shoulders, the way he had admired hundreds of times around the offices of Logan Aerospace.
“Good bye, Cyndi.”
“Good bye, Doug, stay alert,” she said and quickly left the room, her presence lingering. Doug savored it for a minute, then pulled out a bag of Ruffles and flipped on the television, a faint smile on his face. His life was about to change, forever.
He had no idea he would never see Cyndi again.
Thank you for taking time to help.
Have an outrageous day and let me know if you have any questions.
Jerry
I'm looking for clarity. Below I've posted the first chapter. I covet your opinion. The genre is a romantic adventure. The story is based on reality, not fantasy and designed simply to entertain. My goal is to provide a good clean read.
Please post your comments - if you want to do it anonymously that's fine.
I realize it's difficult to read in this format. Feel free to copy and paste into a format that's more comfortable for you. Remember this is copy written material and for your personal review only. ©J.R. Hetrick 2009
Chapter 1
Sara didn’t expect Dallas to be home. She slipped past his Mercedes, wondering what he would think of her new tennis outfit. She came into the kitchen from the garage, he spun, shocked to see her.
“Sara!” he said, clearly caught off guard, “I thought you were going to be at Corner Brook all afternoon.”
“Beth Anne had her luncheon today. I couldn’t handle two hours of her, ‘I’m the center of the universe’ luncheon.” She looked at him and saw confusion in his eyes. Obviously uncomfortable, he held a thick manila folder with fidgeting hands. The look on his face showed frustration and something uncomfortable like panic. “What’s going on? I expected you to be on your way to Paris by now,” she said, forgetting all about the luncheon.
He let out a long involuntary sigh. This was not how he’d intended to deliver the news. She wasn’t making it easier, in her little tennis dress, another new one no doubt. He’d been caught only a few minutes before he was about to disappear from her life for good. It was almost a clean getaway, but now Dallas would have to make the break while looking into her tearful eyes. He looked at the folder, the vehicle intended to deliver the shocking news. He thought about simply handing it to her, saying, ‘Here, read this,’ and walk away but her presence demanded an answer.
He was about to speak when the door bell suddenly echoed through the house and distracted them from the moment. Mercifully for Dallas, his ride to the airport had arrived; he rushed at the opportunity. Eagerly he darted toward the front door, dropping the folder on the white tile counter.
"That’s my limo," he threw the comment over his shoulder. Why couldn’t the driver have been here five minutes ago? he thought.
“Dallas, what’s going on?”
“Look, I have to go. I’m sorry, there’s no easy way to do this. It’s the last time we’ll see each other.” He hoped to throw her off guard, to stun her into silence, “It’s all in the folder, Sara, I can’t,” his resolve shaken; he fumbled for words “It’s difficult. I don’t know. Look, I’m no good for you. Like I said, it’s all in the folder.”
A line of pelicans swept past their large panoramic windows, accenting a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. Neither noticed.
“Dallas?” she asked hollowly, as if talking to a stranger, not her husband of ten years. There was an odd taste of steel in her mouth. Confusion pounded in her head, her throat became dry, and tears glossed her eyes. “What are you talking about? Don’t just walk away from me. You can't...”
Dallas had been planning this for almost a year, but his resolve weakened at the sight of his wife’s broken face. He determined not to look at her again, maybe that would be easier. The desperation in her voice almost caused him to stop, but he set his resolve and kept moving toward the door. All he had to do now was get to the car. There could be no turning back; regardless of the pain, he had to keep going. He’d made this choice a long time ago. Dallas eagerly grabbed the door handle and swung one of the large double doors open. A small man in a neatly pressed black suit stood at attention.
“I’m in a hurry,” Dallas snapped at the driver, his back to Sara. The command triggered immediate action as the limo driver grabbed the luggage from the foyer, sped down the walkway, popped the trunk, expertly inserted the bags and was waiting with an open door in a few seconds.
“Dallas, what are you doing? Don’t just walk away from me.” The words were weak and broken on her shattered voice.
“It’s all in the folder,” he spoke in stride, gaining confidence. He hopped quickly into the limo, the door slammed, the driver scurried to the wheel and the large car backed into the street, then disappeared down the incline. Skirting houses perched along the ocean cliffs of Laguna Beach, California, the black limousine disappeared.
Sara stood alone on the walkway, her hands trembling. She knew that in the past year things had slowly changed - an absence in his kiss, the briefness of his hug, a distant preoccupation (she attributed to work pressures) but this caught her completely off guard. In disbelief she stood, hoping somehow she would wake up and this would be some sort of sick joke. Minutes ticked silently past, the car didn’t return, she didn’t wake. Slowly it sunk in. Her life had taken a sudden dramatic turn and she couldn’t process it. Fear and confusion burned hot through her body.
She wanted to run after him and ask a million questions. He’d thrown the unbelievable information at her so callously and it sounded final. He looked so determined. Sara took a deep breath, then looked around the neighborhood, as if she had forgotten it was there, suddenly she felt vulnerable, standing alone in the yard. Were the eyes of Laguna witnessing the birth of a new scandal? Sara could almost feel the judgmental eyes peering down. A gardener up the street blew leaves from one yard to the next. She saw no one else and decided to go back inside.
Closing the door behind her, Sara made her way to the kitchen and stood in front of the folder. Her hands felt heavy and she couldn’t bring herself to open it, as if somehow leaving it closed would keep the inevitable from happening. She walked instead to the refrigerator and poured a shaky glass of orange juice. Without drinking any she set it down and returned to the ominous file. It held something awful. She knew it from the look on his face, even if he’d spoken not a word. ‘Dallas, what have you done?’ she asked herself.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the folder, avoiding the details of a script she didn’t want to play out. The curtain rose on a new episode of her life as she slowly turned the cover with a polished red fingernail. A typed letter from Dallas lay neatly at the top. She picked it up, closed the folder, and turned her back to the counter. As she read, she slowly slid down the front of the cabinet until she was sitting on the floor.
Dear Sara,
I regret that you must receive this information in such a cold way, but that’s what I’ve become, cold. We go about our lives as two strangers bumping around in a life that seems so perfect to people seeing it from the outside. It’s not perfect, Sara - far from it, and I think we both know it.
I’m divorcing you without contention. You get everything. I am starting over. I know you deserve more detail, but that’s all I can give you. Communicate with my lawyer. His contact information is enclosed.
There’s no reason to make this difficult. I’m not coming back. The house, the money, the cars - all of it is yours.
Dallas
The late evening sun shone through the window and cast a warm yellow glow on her face. Tears, which had been held back by confusion, flowed freely and glistened down her flushed cheeks. The house felt enormously empty, but it had been empty for a long time. Dusk ushered in a deep and profound loneliness, like she'd never felt before. After sitting on the kitchen floor for twenty minutes, she stood up from the cold white tiles as the sun disappeared. Fiery red clouds on the seascape reflected light from a source that had moved on. A moment of beauty, fading into a moonless night. Sara picked up the folder and went to Dallas’s patio office. Sago palms - dramatically lit - bordered the backyard. The pool glowed from a blue light as wave patterns reflected beneath the awnings.
She wanted to talk with someone. She needed to talk to someone, but the loneliness only became more pronounced as she came to the realization that she truly had no one close she could call. She sat in the glass office, looking over her beautiful backyard. Grecian urns, well - manicured hedges and the sound of the ocean crashing below - it looked perfect, but it was a thin facade. She had many friends, but no confidantes. The realization crept in like a thief.
Her mind shuffled through names and faces. Several people came to mind, but they were all social friends. Dallas cautioned against becoming intimate with anyone because it could put them in a vulnerable position. They made no effort to get to know anyone beyond current events and social chatter. Her social life was active, but it was superficial and agenda oriented. Sara began to process another disturbing thought. What would her ‘friends’ think?
It was difficult to understand why Dallas would do something so dramatic. The rumors would burst through Corner Brook like water through a reservoir dam. This was exactly the type of thing he normally went out of his way to avoid.
They worked hard to rise to this social level; Sara's magnificent Laguna home was vastly different from her humble beginnings. Born in central California to parents who were perpetual students, Sara was an only child. Her parents worked endlessly on individual Ph.D.’s with Sara underfoot. They made sure she was warm and fed, but never “babied” her. They were unconventional and treated Sara more like an adult than a child, exposing her to classic literature and the arts when she was very young. She was their only child because they didn't have time for more.
The first decade of her life was lean. They lived in tiny apartments, friends' spare rooms and anything else they could manage. The summer Sara turned nine, the family spent six months living in a dilapidated Volkswagen van. They "camped" along the central California coast. Many nights cold ocean gales buffeted the little van, but they had plenty of blankets and together they made it through. Her parents studied and worked their way through school. Eventually able to rent a small house within walking distance of Stanford University, her parents both landed jobs as professors in the English department.
Sara read incessantly and excelled in school. Her parents wanted her to follow their path and go into education. They encouraged her to go for a doctorate and were openly disappointed when she dropped out of Stanford after the spring semester of her sophomore year. She'd met a boy named Dallas and followed him to Southern California.
It was a brisk early spring morning in Palo Alto. A wet breeze brought a chill along the drizzled streets. In a quaint place called the Cool Café, Sara sat reading Crime and Punishment at a table by herself. This was a popular college hangout with backpacked students strewn about, drinking lattés, flirting and trying to study. Dallas entered and sat at the only open table, which happened to be next to Sara. He was tall, with thick wavy hair. His dark eyes seemed to light up as they glanced at one another. Sara smiled politely and went back to reading about Rodya and his guilt. She didn't know who he was, but he was handsome and carried himself with confidence. A group of girls noticed him and immediately began whispering and created a small scene.
“Hi, Dallas!” two blondes spoke at the same time. He looked at them and grinned. “Hi ladies,” he said, enjoying the recognition. Sara looked at the group of girls who were giddy and giggly, acting as if he were a movie star. The two girls came over and asked for autographs. Sara recognized a few of the girls in the group, fellow freshmen. They crowded around his small table, inches from where Sara sat.
"Great game Saturday."
"My name is Erica."
"Are you going to the rally tonight?"
The comments bounced around like ping pong balls as the girls shot questions before he had a chance to answer any of them. Sara tried to ignore the gush. She wasn’t interested in some local sports hero or whatever it was that made them fawn all over him. She turned her back and kept reading. Soon, the girls returned to their table comparing napkins.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Sara in a soft voice. She looked at him. “I don’t like it either.”
“I bet you don’t,” Sara said with a light sarcastic smile.
“Okay, you caught me, it's not so bad,” he said smiling back, Sara returned to her book. Her lack of enthusiasm intrigued him, but he picked up a copy of The Stanford Daily and began to read, as if he were through talking with her. He wasn't, and after a few minutes, with the admiring freshmen stealing glances, he leaned over partially hidden behind the paper.
“Who did it?” he asked.
“Excuse me,” she looked up; his brown eyes smiled and flirted with her. Sara found humor in his adoring fans who held their signed napkins, fuming with jealousy. Who was the girl he was talking to? She knew that very girl in the group believed they had a chance with the most eligible and desirable man on campus.
“The crime,” he said gesturing toward the title of her book.
“You’ll have to read the book for yourself," Sara said, looking up briefly then back to the pages, her shoulder length brunette hair falling and hiding the smile on her face, "I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.”
“Russian authors don’t exactly write page turners. Tolstoy didn’t keep me at the edge of my seat and I doubt Dostoyevsky will do much better. Is it true he wrote Crime and Punishment to pay off a debt?”
“I can see that I’m not going to get any reading done,” Sara said closing the book, acting playfully perturbed, but she was intrigued. She could feel the frustrated female eyes from across the room.
“Sorry, are you in an exciting part?” He put the paper down.
“No, you’re right, there are no exciting parts. Well, except for the murder scene where Raskolnikov...”
“No, don’t tell me. You’ll ruin it,” he said, cutting her off.
“I wouldn’t want to do that and yes, I think he did write it to pay off some kind of debt.”
They talked for a few more minutes; it was the least she could do for the group of girls who obviously wished they could trade places with her.
"I have a class in twenty minutes," she said, as she stood, unzipped her backpack and stuffed the book in. "It was nice chatting with you."
“I’m heading that way,” he said, “mind if I walk with you?”
“Okay, but I’m not going to ask you to carry my books or anything.”
“That’s okay, they’re too heavy for me anyway.” Sara laughed at his wit.
The girls stared without looking as they walked past.
“So, star struck girls ask you for autographs. Why is that?” she asked once they were outside.
“They think it’s a big deal that I threw the winning touchdown against UCLA and put our team in the Rose bowl last January.”
“Well, well, the one and only Dallas Mongomery! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”
“So you have heard of me?”
“I’ve heard of you, but I’m sorry I don’t follow football much,” she spoke as they strolled along a crooked path. “Are you going to play professionally?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Don’t tell the girls back there, they’ll be heart broken.”
“Tell me about it! It’s good to talk with someone who isn’t trying to get close to me for selfish reasons,” he smiled at her. “You aren’t, are you?”
“I was until I found out you aren’t going to play professionally!” Conversation came easily as two very different worlds came together. “Mind if I ask why you aren’t going to play professionally? I imagine a Rose bowl quarterback would be sought after aggressively by the professional teams.”
“You're right but, it’s a volatile, fickle game that grinds you down. I hurt my knee playing in the Rose bowl game and my value went way down. My phone stopped ringing, everyone was speculating whether it was career ending, was I prone to injury, could I hold up physically in the NFL? Playing college ball was a dream beyond any I could imagine. I had the privilege of being the starting quarterback in a Rose bowl game.” They paused in front of her building. “That’s enough for me. I’m interested in business and something more predictable than the NFL, but the money does make it hard to walk away. I'll get my millions another way.”
Sara was impressed.
“Well, this is me,” she said, gesturing to ornate double doors, “thanks for walking me to class and good luck to you.”
“No problem, I’m afraid I did most of the talking, sorry about that.”
“I ask questions so I don’t have to talk about myself, something I learned from my father. Well, I need to go. Have a good day.” She began to ascend smooth stone steps.
“You too,” he said, “maybe we could meet in the coffee shop sometime and I can ask the questions.”
“I’d like that, but asking the questions is my thing, I'm not sure I'm ready to give it up,” she said, pulling the door open. “I’ll be there again before class on Thursday.” She disappeared into the building nonchalantly, but was interested in seeing him again. He stood in the moment thinking he would wait for her to get out of class, but realized it would look sad and pathetic. He took note of the time and bounded away looking forward to Thursday.
When Thursday came they both showed up early and walked into The Cool together. The girls didn't approach him for autographs, but they noticed he was with that girl again and took careful note. This was hot university news - who was the new girl with the quarterback? Dallas and Sara picked up where they left off. He asked the questions this time and they got to know each other. They met like this for several Thursdays before Dallas asked her on their first real date.
They enjoyed dating and getting to know each other that spring. Dallas graduated and received a generous offer from Logan Aerospace in Southern California. He moved into a small apartment close to Disneyland midsummer. He worked long hours and began work on an MBA. The long distance relationship was difficult, but they talked, wrote letters and got together on several weekends. They were falling in love and Sara found herself thinking about him all the time. She missed him and hoped that the fall semester would be a good distraction, but she couldn't keep her mind on her studies. On Christmas day, in a gazebo with a beautiful view of Laguna beach and the Pacific Ocean, Dallas asked Sara to marry him. They were married two weeks after Sara’s sophomore year ended. They promised each other that Sara would finish her degree when Dallas completed his MBA, but their lives became busy and she never found the time to go back. Dallas was driven and worked hard, but he understood the value of good relationships. Who you aligned with was a central key to success. He moved quickly through the ranks and at thirty-three became one of the youngest division managers Logan Aerospace had ever seen.
His parents had divorced when he was in grade school. His father remarried, moved away and Dallas hardly knew him. When his mother remarried, during Dallas’s junior year of high school, his new stepfather didn’t want to have anything to do with "another man's son." Dallas studied hard and received a football scholarship to Stanford. His mother and stepfather never saw him play. Not having family at the games, hurt more than he cared to admit. The underlying pain caused by the void drove him. Proving himself to an elusive ghost, looking for approval that never came, he kept pushing. Maybe the next level would hold some satisfaction.
Sara immersed herself in the social scene. Most of it she didn’t care for, but tennis became a great outlet. She played every chance she could. It kept her in great shape. It was never referred to directly, but she knew that Dallas expected her to keep up her appearance. Their lives were all about presentation, a persona of success was the first step. Dallas knew how to carry himself in a way that drew people to him. When he walked into a party with her on his arm, he wanted heads to turn. They did.
Sara had become an accomplished socialite, though the pettiness and backbiting at times were unbearable. Dallas leaving like this would be a scandal. It would circulate in whispers from jeweled ear to jeweled ear, at fundraisers and cocktail parties. It would eventually replace the tired prattle going around about John, the prominent bank president, who ran off with the cute coed who checked out paddlewheel boats at the club. Most would passively chatter on about it, simply to be included in the conversation, glad it wasn’t about them. For a few it would be sport. They would root out details, make assumptions and fill in blanks, then perpetuate exaggerations with enough truth to be believable.
Andrea was the closest thing Sara had to a friend. They would gravitate to each other at various functions and have a good laugh over the pretentious nonsense going on around them. She related to Andrea - they had more in common and were the same age, younger than most of the others. In the end, even Andrea was little more than a social acquaintance, not an intimate friend with whom she could share something so devastating and raw, at least not now.
From the time she left Stanford she had little contact with her parents. They attended the wedding, but protested in their petty way by saying almost nothing. Currently they were six months into a two year journey around the globe. Their great research sabbatical. With no itinerary, they could be anywhere. It was their great escape, the trip for which they had worked and saved, as if they had hung a great ‘do not disturb’ sign on their lives. They had always focused on their own pursuits. She had no one to call, no one to pour her heart out to, no one to be vulnerable with. Sara was alone.
The folder sat closed in front of her on Dallas’s neatly organized desk. She opened it and began to read. The legalese was daunting, but Dallas had left her everything. She couldn't understand; baffled and numb, she tried to make sense of it. He had worked hard, he was diligent and proud of his accomplishments. How could he walk away?
Dallas said he had grown cold - what did it really mean? Obviously something or someone had become his new passion. He was the kind of man who was relentless in the pursuit of what he wanted. Something had stolen her husband and Sara was determined to find the answer. Since they'd met, she knew him to be predictable and calculating; it was impossible to believe he would simply walk away without a plan. There had to be something more. She began to go through his desk. For the past year most of his meager time at home was spent in his home office. Meticulous files were neatly organized in alphabetical folders. One by one she pulled them out and familiarized herself with a side of him she had not known. Perhaps that was part of the problem. She hadn’t made an effort to learn what he did for a living. She knew he was a senior manager at Logan Aerospace. A few hundred employees reported to him, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Other than questions like, ‘How was your day?’ she made no effort to learn more. She was proud of him, she had told him many times. He had provided a good life for her. Why hadn’t she shown more interest in his work, the place he spent most of his time, his very occupation? She was a good wife, but she could have been better. Why hadn’t she? They were so whimsical and flirtatious at the beginning of their marriage. Little by little, responsibility and obligation stole their energy, consumed their time and took away the very things that made them want to take this journey together. She sifted through the papers of a stranger. Her handsome quarterback, her prince, her rock was a thin mist of illusion. She shared in the erosion of course, but felt it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed. They could fix this. They could get the love back. It couldn't be whisked away in a slick black limo and stack of papers. It was impossible to process. It made no sense.
After an hour of thumbing through his files she made a discovery. In a folder marked QC Specs, she found something that obviously didn’t fit with the business documents. Hidden between the pages of a thick stapled report was a small delicate note card. It had a floral motif, distinctly feminine. It was personal, handwritten with elegant swooping letters. There was a short message:
Dallas!
Superb job!
You’re the greatest!
XXO
Cyn!
She slowly brought it to her face and smelled it. As she breathed deeply the faded scent of expensive perfume faintly drifted into her senses and lit a fire of determination in Sara’s heart. She imagined Dallas enjoying the scent. He was doing all of this for a woman with a delicate hand and exquisite taste in perfume. A woman who drew stupid little hearts and thought he was "the greatest." She wondered if he’d bought the perfume for her. He'd never given her any; in fact, Dallas wasn't the most sensitive gift giver. She looked down the hall at the big screen television he gave "her" a few Christmases before.
Her name was Cyn and Sara was beginning to hate her. She wanted to tear apart the note and throw it in the trash, but instead shoved it in the folder with the divorce papers. Her unbridled imagination galloped recklessly, flashing to illicit encounters, secret vacations, and long lunches at beachside cafes. It began to make sense. Why hadn’t Sara been more attentive? Why hadn’t she surprised him at lunch for a romantic tryst? Women always noticed him, but she was used to it. For the past year he was on the road much of the time; maybe he had an entire family somewhere, anything was possible. She fought against her lifelong habit of blaming herself. At the moment she was losing.
The loneliness and guilt had weight. Sadness overwhelmed her and she cried, deep convulsing sobs that took her breath away. She tried to push the intrusive images away, but they attacked her like Huns swarming the Great Wall. Was he with her now, happy, laughing, running hand in hand, as if they were models in a corny phone commercial, dressed in white, the ocean delicately splashing at their ankles?
Exhausted, the deep pain eventually melded with an anger Sara had never experienced. Midnight approached, the surf crashed on the California shore far below, the methodical sound didn’t carry its usual tranquility. There had to be more clues, answers to the myriad questions. She needed information that would give her truth and confirm or deny the devastating images.
Glancing in the shredder bin she discovered the remains of a demolished computer CD. In the confusion and despair she had not looked through his computer. She jiggled the mouse and the sleeping machine awoke. The desktop picture was of the two of them posing in front of an old building in Ireland during their last vacation a year and a half earlier. She had put it there for him and the only reason it remained was because he didn’t know how to change it. She defiantly changed it to a stock picture of the Grand Canyon.
Scrawling through files she found little that was personal. Business memos he’d written, boring emails about meeting times and project updates. She grew tired of looking through the monotonous drudgery that was his professional life. She looked in the recycle bin, it was empty, but something occurred to her. Sara knew that Dallas thought if you put something in the recycle bin and clicked empty, the data was gone. He was a division head, but knew little of how a computer worked and the ample IT department enabled his incompetence. He had more important things to do than fiddle with desktops and recycle bins, a simple phone call took care of it. At home he turned to Sara to deal with anything beyond the very basic.
Sara had taken several computer classes and was the designated creator of flyers and websites for many of her clubs. She was very savvy and decided to run a program to look for files that had been slated for deletion. Within minutes a list of “deleted” files were ordered into a neat column. She began with the most recent because they had the least chance of not being damaged.
Destroy this CD once you’ve read it, the document began. Sara glanced at the shredder. He got that part right, she thought to herself. He hadn’t simply read the file from the cd, however; he had copied it to his hard drive then thrown it in the trash.
Even though parts of the message were missing Sara found detailed directions from the airport in Boise, Idaho to a Featherstone Lake. Take the small boat named Isabelle due west from the dock. Look for a large boulder resting at the end of the point; just north of it is a small dock, the cabin is... The sentence was incomplete. This was interesting. There was another document with nothing more than seven numbers, perhaps a combination. Sara pasted what she retrieved into a new document and printed it.
In the dark Idaho night Doug Collins wound along a narrow mountain road. The plan was in motion. He nervously tapped the pistol in his jacket pocket. It was the first time he had ever carried a gun and he couldn’t stop touching it.
He felt like he'd been driving forever, almost turning around several times thinking he must have missed a turn. He pulled into a turnout and checked the directions Dallas had given him earlier in the day. Checking his mileage against the directions, he decided to keep going. He felt some relief when he finally turned into The Dry Creek motel. Doug flipped off the headlights of his rental car and slowed to a crawl, trying to keep the noise down. Gravel crunched loudly, he moved his head from side to side scanning for anyone that might be watching. Blue neon reflected the distorted word "otel" across his hood as he stopped next to the only car parked in front of the small motel.
The motel was the only building he’d seen in the past forty-five minutes. It took forever, but there was no mistaking this was the place. Nestled among tall pine trees, Doug had to fight a haunting urge to turn and drive away. The stark remoteness made him feel uneasy. Beyond the island of light, a velvet night stretched for miles and miles.
He turned off the engine and waited a minute, paranoid. Branches swayed in the neon glow, animating shadows across his bug splattered windshield. It’s not too late, he told himself. Leave now. But he knew he couldn’t. He needed the money, Dallas and Cyndi were counting on him. Doug summoned the courage to continue. He got out of the car and cautiously headed toward a faded blue door. A tarnished brass "C" hung upside down, barely holding on by a worn brass brad.
Glancing side to side he stepped onto the buckled sidewalk. Tapping lightly on the door he checked the window of the next room to see if there was any movement. He saw none, but still imagined someone peering at him from the blackness. The dangling C moved as the door opened slightly. Long blonde hair fell across sultry blue eyes. The door swung quickly open, she stepped aside. Her slippered feet gave way to shapely tanned legs, khaki shorts and an untucked, loose fitting light pink button down.
"Come in," she whispered. "Hurry."
He stepped in.
“You’re late,” she said, as she pushed the door closed behind him and slid the flimsy gold safety chain into its track. The stale punch of ancient cigarette smoke filled his nostrils as he sat in a worn chair. She gracefully placed herself on the corner of the bed across from him.
“Sorry,” Doug spoke softly. “I couldn’t tell if I was being followed, so I doubled back several times. I have to admit, because I wasn’t familiar with the Boise area, I got lost.” He paused, then added “several times.”
He realized almost for the first time, that he was alone in a motel room with Cyndi. He found it awkward to look directly into her eyes for any length of time. His eyes fell away as if they knew a long look would blush his cheeks and he would giggle like a little girl. She definitely had a power over him. He realized the attention this stunning woman showed him was a major reason he had allowed himself to get caught up in this whole shady thing. It was invigorating to be around Cyn.
She smiled, accustomed to turning grown men into nervous school boys. She knew what she was doing, this was her element and she was a master manipulator.
“Well, if they started following you, they probably stopped because you seemed to be going nowhere,” she said, and then added, “I hope you’re ready for this.” She placed her hand lightly on his knee, leaning in, “It’s going to change your life. There’s no reason to be nervous, Dallas has taken care of everything. We just need your help for this one little part.”
“Cyndi,” he said, boldly holding the gaze, pleased that he didn’t blush and giggle, “you can count on me.”
“I knew I could,” she stood and touched his shoulder before she walked around the bed. “The rest is simple.” Cyndi produced an attaché from behind the faded paisley nineteen sixties bedspread. “Wait here until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, the room is paid for. Do not leave. Follow the instructions you received from Dallas when you get to the lake. At that point you are playing their game. Someone will be watching you. They have gone through great trouble to make this switch look innocent. No one will be at the cabin, but they will be watching with a remote camera. If you don't do it exactly as they say, well...” She paused and moved closer, her hand resting on his, her perfume gently wafting in his face. “Doug, these are bad people, we have something they want and they are willing to do anything to get it. As long as we cooperate, the money will be ours; don’t make any mistakes or get any heroic ideas.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “The documents are in here.” She tapped the attaché as she stepped back.
Doug was frightened, but he tried not to show it. Cyndi sensed the fear and was happy about it. She had him exactly where she wanted him.
“Relax,” she said, massaging his shoulders, “in two days you’ll be a rich man.” He melted at her touch, but tried not to show it. He dropped his head and enjoyed her expert hands.
“Those debts will be gone, Doug. The collectors will be gone. You’ll be free.” Her voice was soothing. She stopped rubbing, kicked her slippers into an open suitcase and slipped on a pair of smart heels.
“I owe Dallas and you so much for what you’ve done for me. Thank you for this opportunity. I won’t let you down.”
“Doug, you’re a sweetheart. We trust you,” she smiled and zipped her suitcase closed. “I’m leaving now. The less we’re together, the better. Hold tight here until it’s time to go to Featherstone. There’s food in the red cooler, the blue one has ice, sodas and water. They have satellite television. You should be very comfortable until it's time to go.”
He liked the way she called him sweetheart. “I’m ready for this Cyndi. I won’t let you down,” he repeated himself.
“When you return from the cabin with the new cases, they will be locked and contain a GPS. When we meet back here, I’ll deactivate it and you’ll have your share of the money, no more questions asked. You’ll be on your own at that point. I’ll see you back here the day after tomorrow, early morning.” Cyndi lied about the GPS, it would help keep him honest. She turned her head with a flip that spun blonde hair around her shoulders, the way he had admired hundreds of times around the offices of Logan Aerospace.
“Good bye, Cyndi.”
“Good bye, Doug, stay alert,” she said and quickly left the room, her presence lingering. Doug savored it for a minute, then pulled out a bag of Ruffles and flipped on the television, a faint smile on his face. His life was about to change, forever.
He had no idea he would never see Cyndi again.
Thank you for taking time to help.
Have an outrageous day and let me know if you have any questions.
Jerry
Monday, January 04, 2010
Falling Trees
There is a phrase that causes some to contemplate and act as if it is a deep intellectual quandary. The phrase is, "If a tree fell in the woods and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound?" Because trees are only known to exist in the earth's atmosphere, and sound is created by movement in that atmosphere, it is the moving tree that causes the sound and not the presence of a device to accept the vibration caused by the movement. This obnoxious little phrase suggests that sound is an idea relative to human perception. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to see it, did it fall? If a tree wafts a gentle scent and no one was there to smell it? If a tree had a rough exterior and no one was there to feel it? Such foolishness - I wonder, if I write this and no one reads it, did I write it at all?
^Just something I was thinking about.^
I had a great Christmas break, full of family and fun. I hope you did too. I received the manuscript for Cyn from Lori (who graciously edited it) and hope to have it ready for submission by the end of the month.
^Just something I was thinking about.^
I had a great Christmas break, full of family and fun. I hope you did too. I received the manuscript for Cyn from Lori (who graciously edited it) and hope to have it ready for submission by the end of the month.
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