Coming Home (Norris Lake Series) (12 page)

Waving Caitlyn pulled out of the parking lot and drove towards down the street towards the Kroger.  Mentally she started making out her grocery list in her head....dog food, milk, Diet Coke, Pepto-Bismol….

That evening Caitlyn opened up her laptop and began to read her email.   She read through the note twice.  She smiled inwardly.  His English structure and grammar made it difficult to comprehend but after so many years, she’d learned to interpret his words and intent.  He was exceptionally brilliant with numbers but woefully bad at writing.  Her professor’s hat aside, her heart was confused, beating yet still.  She was unsure what to do so she did nothing.  Turning off the computer, she left the note unanswered.

Chapter 7

Dominic stood outside the apartment and knocked loudly on the door.  He listened intently but there was no answer.  He pounded again harder fist clenched. 

She hadn’t even had the decency to answer his email.  She couldn’t just ignore him like this, could she?  He deserved a response, didn’t he?  He wasn’t a man to be disregarded.  Furious, he stomped up the steps. 

“I know someone’s in there,” he shouted,” I saw your shadow through the window when I drove up.  I am not leaving here until you open this door or until I break it down”.  He paused listening again.  His breaths came harder and faster as his agitation and fury rose to a dangerous level.  He grabbed the door knob and twisted it violently back and forth then stepped back and thrust his shoulder against the door.  There was a loud crack as the joints protested against the pressure.  He kicked the door and pounded once again. 

“Open the door.  I am going to break it in and if I have to do that I am going to kill you,” he threatened. 

“Jeez.  Shut up out there won’t you?” a voice called from inside the condo.  “I am coming.”  Dominic could hear the sound of a deadbolt being dislodged and a chain unfastened.

Michael opened the door.   "What do you want?" he said faking a yawn. 

"I am looking for Caitlyn, Michael.  Where is she?" the anger in his voice barely contained. 

"I don’t know where she is Dominic,” Michael stated and started to close the door.  Dominic put his hand on the door and pushed against it stopping Michael from closing it in his face. 

"Is she here, Michael?  I have the right to see her.  She may be your sister but she is my wife,” he growled and he shoved the door roughly back forcing his way into the apartment.  Michael stepped back quickly, fully aware that Dominic had a mean streak and was coming through the door like a bull through tissue paper. 

"You can look Dominic but she isn’t here." 

"I will.”  He shoved past Michael striding angrily towards the back bedroom of the apartment.  He looked in the large walk-in closet and in the front bedroom.  He examined the back bathroom and jerked open the second bedroom door.  Standing in the center of the room, he realized that his wife was not hiding at her brother’s.  None of her things were in sight.  There must be a way to find out where she is.  On the nightstand next to the bed there was a pad of paper with a phone number and Caitlyn’s name.  He ripped off the top sheet and stuffed it in his front pocket.  Michael walked down the hallway stopping a safe distance from his brother-in-law. 

"She’s not here and the way you have treated her I don’t blame her for not wanting to see you. What kind of husband can you be when all you care about is yourself?" 

"You bastard, if it wasn’t for you and your damn family meddling in her life and putting those stupid ideas in her head, she wouldn’t have left me in the first place."  Dominic stepped menacingly towards Michael his fists clenched. 

"Get out, Dominic before I call the police,” Michael stammered but stood his ground. 

"You just go ahead and call the police and see if I care.  I will find her and when I do I will make her sorry for ever listening to your type in the first place.  Across the hall, Michael’s neighbor stepped into the doorway, a cordless phone in one hand.  She was a small older woman in a yellow sweat suit, who seemed to mean business.

"Yes, this is an emergency.  We need the police.  There is a man here threatening my neighbor.  He forced his way into the apartment,” the neighbor said into the phone keeping the police dispatcher on the line. 

"Young man, you heard me.  The police are on their way. You had better leave." 

Dominic turned towards his brother-in-law finally losing his temper.

"You stupid bastard!  I will find her,” he shouted striding out the front door and climbing into his convertible black Viper and squealing the tires as he sped away from the apartment. 

"Thank you Mrs. Whitney.  Thank you for calling the police for me.  I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t done that." 

"He’s dangerous isn’t he?"  Mrs. Whitney said as she put an arm around Michael’s shoulders. 

"Yes," Michael said, unwelcome tears of relief forming in his eyes "and he is looking for my sister."   Michael wiped his eyes and walked back into his apartment. 

Later that evening, Dominic pulled the paper out of his pocket and looked at the phone number.  He swerved his Viper into the first convenience store he saw, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number.  The number rang.  He let it ring ten times before he realized that there wouldn’t be answer.  Dominic had a feeling though that this was where his wife was staying.  Now he needed to find out where she was.  How would he do that?  And he needed to find the address without her finding out about it.  When he showed up he wanted her to be surprised. 

Hours later, Dominic sat quietly in his car his head resting against the side glass of the driver’s window.  He held a half-empty bottle of Booker’s, a very expensive bourbon, in one hand and a smoldering cigarette butt in the other.  His phone rang waking him from an inebriated stupor.  His head lolled forward as he searched his suit coat pockets for the ringing.

“Hello,” he slurred. 

“Are you okay, honey?” she inquired caringly. 

“Yeah I’m okay mom,” Dominic stated miserably.

“Do I need to come get you?  You sound as if you might need a ride,” she inquired tenderly not wanting to say that he sounded drunk. 

“No I don’t need you to come get me.  I am at home. “ 

“Okay, baby, do you want to talk about it yet?” 

“No, mom.  I don’t want to talk.  I don’t know what to do.  I am so angry I can’t stand myself and I hate her for leaving the way she did.  She’s a cowardly bitch.” 

“Now, Dominic, you know you don’t feel that way.  You know you love her and she loves you.  You both just need some time to work it out.  But, baby, I don't know what to say.  It’s just that I feel that Caitlyn would still want to try to work things out regardless of what’s happened because she does love you very much. Whether ya'll can get over what is past, who knows.  I just ask that if you want to try, please make sure you follow through and give her a little time to work through her issues. Do you want to talk to your father?” 

“No, I don’ want to talk to Dad.” 

He could hear his father shouting in the background.  “Let her go.  She’s not good enough for you anyway.  You’re better off without her.  Women are nothing but trouble.  Anything that bleeds that much every month and doesn’t die is just plain evil!”                “Ignore him, Dom, he’s not feeling well this evening.”

“Yeah, mom, I understand.  I gotta go.  Thanks for checking on me.”  Dom hung up the phone.  He knew his father was drunk.  He was a mean old bastard in every sense of the word, never giving Dom an inch but taking a yard every chance he could get.  Dom had been belittled and beaten throughout his youth until he’d been able to escape home.  His only consolation and the reason he kept in contact with them was his mother.  He loved her and she cared about him.

Dominic got out of his car and walked up the drive way to his empty house. He walked into the house not bothering to turn on the lights and staggered back to his office.  Flipping on his PC, he began to write.

Chapter 8

Sarah Jackson merged on to the interstate a big truck in front of her the lights flashing oversize load.  Looking in her rear view mirror she realized she was caught between two oversize loaded trucks.  One was zipping by on her left of the two lane highway doing well over 70 miles per hour.  She looked down at her speedometer. Yep, she was doing 70.  She was barely able to keep up with the herd in the little old car that she drove.  It was a 1995 Nissan Sentra that got great gas mileage but boy she didn’t want to push it over 70 too often.  In fact, she and the little car had a deal.  She didn’t drive over 70 and it didn’t break down; so far so good.

The mist was burning off the trees as she drove I-24 east into Nashville through stone walls that were chiseled away from the mountain to make the interstate.  It was a divided highway. She couldn’t see the other lanes but she knew the cars were there, packed as tight as sardines headed towards Clarksville and the Fort Campbell army base. 

The summer was over and there would be an early fall.  When she’d opened her door that morning, to let the cat in she could feel the chill in the air; a sure sign of the impending cold temperatures.  It was getting darker earlier in the evenings and was pitch black when she left for work this morning.  The days were getting shorter and she couldn’t wait for the end of daylight savings time. 

She had the defroster on wide open to warm the little car up and get rid of all of the condensation on the windows.  Her headlights were on and she was speeding toward a place she didn’t want to be.  She was heading for work in the Bellsouth building downtown better known as the Batman building because the top of it looked like Batman’s headpiece.  In fact the whole town referred to the building as the Batman building for as long as she could remember.    

The sky was clear, which was a nice change.  It had poured rain steadily all day Monday.  It was promising to be a sunny day and for a Tuesday that was the only positive aspect.  Tuesdays were so close to the beginning of the week, they needed all the help they could get. 

She listed to WLAC talk radio for the weather report and drive in report from U-turn Laverne.  At least Sarah was going to beat most of the traffic.  She loved listening to talk radio since it was the only time she got the news.  She didn’t have time in the mornings or evenings to read the paper or watch the news channel due to her hours.   She went to work early and got home late, a sure sign of a workaholic. 

She looked down and the sound of the radio talk show host started pulsing in and out.  “Dang,” she said to herself, the radio’s going to go out again.  It happened almost every morning for no reason at all.  The promise she and the car had about breaking down obviously didn’t extend to the radio.  Often the radio signal just disappeared as if turned off with the flip of a switch.  Maybe it had to do with the check engine light that kept coming on. 

“Dang it.”  There it went again, she thought, as silence filled the vehicle.  She thumped her hand against the dashboard hoping to jar it back on; but no such luck.  So she drove in the silence weaving in and out of traffic. She had another 15 minutes to work.  Without any distractions to fill her mind, she started to dream about her upcoming day off. 

In a couple of weeks she was going to go back to east Tennessee and visit her parents.  They lived in a little town outside of Norris.  She always looked forward to seeing her friends from high school though she knew only a couple of them remained.  She was certainly going to take advantage of her uncle’s houseboat and get in one last day of sunning herself before the summer was totally over. 

“Darn it,” she thought. I wonder what’s going on in the world today.  It could be the end of the world and she would be the only person without the news.  She’d never know because the dang radio kept going out.  Hell a comet could be ready to hit and she wouldn’t know. 

“Dang radio!”  She sighed again looking at all of the
brake lights as she merged from I24 on to 65 south and saw the downtown skyline.  She longed for the days when she’d lived in Norris and her life was much easier. 

She remembered high school and her friends and their parties; they were big dreamers.  Weren’t they were going to be famous and go on cruises and see the world and make a difference?  In the end it really hadn’t turned out that way and she really wasn’t sure where it had gone wrong. 

Maybe it had been during college when she had majored in a subject she really didn’t like because her parents thought it provided a solid basis for future employment.  Instead of doing something she had a passion for she’d become an accountant and taken the easy way out. 

Now day after day, she did the same thing posting entries and creating financial analyses.  Her co-workers and managers said she was good at it but it wasn’t her passion.  She longed for the time when she could stop doing it and become an artist or a teacher, something that at least seemed more interesting looking in from the outside.  But she couldn’t because she was tied into a 6-digit salary and knew that any type of drastic change that she was thinking of would cut that salary in half. 

The years and the days were getting shorter.  She was over 40 and if someday didn’t come soon; her life was going to be over.  She thought about her friends back in Norris, what they were doing and how their lives had turned out.  They’d been a close group at one time but had broken up after one horrible incident.  She thought about Beth. She missed her friend, wondering if somehow if life would have been different if Beth hadn’t disappeared that night.  She’d start looking at degree programs and work toward another profession…maybe a teacher or a museum curator…  She had it…an art teacher. She’d start doing some investigating this weekend!

Exiting the interstate at Shelby Avenue, she took a left at the light and then a right.  She parked in the coliseum parking and boarded one of the little yellow shuttles for a ride downtown to her building.  She sat on the short bus in silence and kept thinking about her life.  She wondered if other people had the same epiphanies when their radios didn’t work.