Saving Scotty (3 page)

Chapter 4

Nick

My breath started coming faster and faster, and, suddenly, my headache was forgotten. At least for the time being. Paul Lucas. That was the name of Scotty’s foster father. I mean, when she told the story to me about him and what he was doing to her she used an assumed name – Sam Johnson. But she repeatedly slipped up and said the word “Paul,” and she also slipped later on and referred to him as “Mr. Lucas.”

I took a deep breath, not wanting to completely go off on this poor receptionist who was innocent of any wrong-doing. So, I slowly and deliberately said “Paul Lucas. Could you please let me speak to the physician in charge of this?”

The receptionist looked at her computer screen. “That would be Dr. Bullox. He’s doing rounds right now. If you could please take a seat in the waiting room, I’ll alert him to come and talk to you as soon as he is free.”

“Free. Okay, how long will that be?”

“Probably a couple of hours,” she said. “That’s typically how long it takes.”

I put my hands on my head, willing the head to stop throbbing. I had to think clearly. Scotty was in the clutches of that man, and two hours would be too long to wait to try to track her down.

I nodded my head at the receptionist. I sat down in the waiting room, and tried hard to decompress. Panicking right at that moment wouldn’t do anybody any good
, so I took several deep breaths and worked on getting a plan together to find Scotty ASAP.

Okay, Nick, just relax.
I looked at the clock, realizing that it was already 3 PM. My night class started at 6. I was going to have to find somebody to cover for me, which was completely unprofessional, I knew. But saving Scotty took precedence over anything else, right at that moment.

First things first.
I looked on my phone for my roster of other instructors, and called the first three that was on the list. I got voice mail for all of them. But, on the fourth one, Jewell Bass, I struck gold.

“Jewell, this is Nick O’Hara.”

“Oh, hello, Nick. How are you?”

“Fine. Listen, I have an emergency. I can’t teach tonight. Can you cover?”

“Yes, sure. What is the course?”

“It’s a history of a
rchitecture course. History of Architecture, Urbanism and Art, Level II.”

“Can teach that in my sleep. Sure, I’ve got nothing going on tonight. What’s the emergency? I mean, do you need me to cover for you on Thursday night too?”

“Oh, god, could you? You don’t know how much I would appreciate that.”

“I certainly can. What is your Thursday course?”

“Environmental Systems, Level II.”

“Not a problem.”

“You’re a godsend. I owe you.”

“Well, if I need a cover, I can count on you, huh?”

“Any time.”

I got off the phone, and took another deep breath. I was going to try to get some painkillers from the ER, but that would take too long, and, besides, I didn’t need to be doped up. I needed to think clearly. So, getting rid of this headache
without taking prescription level painkillers was going to be my next order of business.

I took several deep breaths, and then looked on my phone about how to get rid of a splitting headache without taking drugs. I found an article about pressure points, and tried everything that was suggested. To my relief, these pressure points actually worked, and my headache was reduced to more of a dull roar, as opposed to a raging inferno.

Okay, now Nick, you took care of the really pressing things.
It was like what they say about oxygen on airplanes – if you are a parent, you are supposed to give yourself oxygen first, and then attend to your child. In this case, I needed to take care of the immediate problems, so that I could think of the long-term problem.

Which was, essentially, that Scotty was with a man that I didn’t know the first thing about. Where he lived, where he worked. Nothing. This was going to be challenging, but I knew that I would rise to it.

I had to. Scotty’s well-being, possibly her life, depended upon my thinking clearly and deliberately.

Now that my mind was cleared, and I wasn’t worried about leaving a room full of students without an instructor, I was able to continue on with a plan. I needed to find this guy’s address. Of course, I knew that there was very little chance that Scotty would actually be at this guy’s house, or apartment, because I doubted that he would be that stupid to take her there. But that was the only thing that I had to go on just then.

So, I started with the obvious things. I looked for his Facebook page, and actually found it. He had posted pictures of himself on various beaches, skiing, and places that I recognized from my extensive travels to Europe. And then I looked at his wall, in the hopes that I could glean something from what his friends were saying to him.

What I was really hoping for was some kind of posting from a disgruntled girlfriend or wife, somebody that I could contact to get as much dirt on this guy as I could. That would be ideal. I needed to find out everything about this guy – the homes that he had around the world,
his favorite vacation spots, anything at all. Because something told me that he was taking my Scotty to someplace far away. I didn’t know why I thought that, but I guess I just figured that would be logical.

One thing was for sure – this Paul guy was not going to take her to another hospital. No, Paul wanted her for his own sadistic purposes. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered.

Unfortunately, there were hundreds of posts and even more replies to his posts.
This is going to take awhile.
I read through each post carefully, paying particular attention to the comments that he received when he posted pictures of himself on vacations.

I soon realized that this guy had homes all over the world. There was a home in Greece, one in Italy and one in
Saint Croix. At least, that was what I gathered from looking at his page. He was quite the braggart – he had to post any time he was in one of magnificent homes, just so everybody could know just how rich and special he was.

Probably
over-compensating for something.

I wrote down a few names of some of the people who commented a lot, and would plan on finding them somehow to pick their brain on this Paul asshole. I had no idea exactly how I would do that. I only knew that it had to be done.

Also, I was able to find out where he worked. He wasn’t a trader anymore, but a hedge fund manager for a large investment firm in town.

Too bad he doesn’t work at Goldman
. Than it would be too easy just to talk to Nate about him.

But, then again, it was
a pretty small community when it came to investment managers. Nate might know him, or know somebody who does. So, talking to Nate would be a definite possibility.

Then, suddenly, it hit me. His status was single, not married. I could contact his ex-wife, Elle. Surely she would tell me where he might be. Would it be that easy? It would
be if Elle just happened to have the last name of Lucas. Otherwise, it would be another needle in a haystack. All that Scotty told me about Elle was that she was a lobbyist in Washington, DC, for environmental and human rights causes.

I sighed. There was an off-off-off chance that Elle might be one of Paul’s Facebook friends. But, since they were divorced, that was highly unlikely.

I scoured the list of Facebook friends and saw nobody with the first name of Elle in the roster.

So, the best and most logical step, right now, would be to call Nate. That would be where my network would begin to find out more about this guy so that I could get some kind of handle on where he might have taken my beautiful Scotty.

Chapter 5

Scotty

The plane was finally beginning to land, and I felt the ice-cold well of fear coming up through my throat. We had been on this plane for about 8 hours. I had no idea where he was taking me, but I knew that it was someplace that was a long way from New York City.

I wondered if I ever would see Nick again. That was where my mind went to, first. Nick. The man who betrayed me, after he made me fall head over heels in love with him. Yet, I still
was
head over heels in love with him. So, the thought of never seeing him again was devastating to me.

I was going to be with this man, isolated. With nobody to help me. Nobody to hear me scream. With a broken leg.

All I could think was that I would rather die.

Mr. Lucas was staring at me, an amused look on his face. “You know, Scotty, I always dreamed about this reunion with you. And you grew up to be such a hotty. I always knew that you would. Even as a little girl, I always knew that you would grow into a hot and sexy woman. And, you are.” He took another sip of his whiskey, and then threw away the cocktail napkin. “This is going to be fun.”

I raised my chin as defiantly as I could. Inside, I was screaming. Outside, I was shaking uncontrollably, and I also realized that I was crying uncontrollably as well. I could feel the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. They tasted salty on my tongue.

When I felt the wheels hit the runway, and the plane come a halt, I started to panic. I started
hyperventilating. I wanted to fight back, so much, but I felt so incapacitated. I know that I was still feeling the effects of the painkillers, because I was a bit hazy. And I once again felt like I was 13, being overpowered by Mr. Lucas.

I cursed the fact that I was so small. I cursed the fact that I had a broken leg.

Most of all, though, I cursed Nick. This was his fault. If he didn’t take up with that witch, none of this would have happened. If he just would’ve left me alone, when I asked him to, none of this would’ve happened. I was in this predicament because I was so upset about Nick that I didn’t pay attention to the street when I was crossing it. Also, I wouldn’t have been in that street, in the first place, if I didn’t walk in on Nick and that woman, both of them stark naked on her couch.

I couldn’t bring myself to say her name, even in my head.

I desperately looked at Ruth, who, as Mr. Lucas’ employee, probably would be no help at all. She did look sympathetic, but I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t going to help me.

Finally, the door was opened. Mr. Lucas made a move towards me, to put me into a wheelchair to take me off of the plane.

I made one last stand. “Don’t, leave me alone, leave me alone, don’t!” I screamed, futilely, watching Ruth, who was just standing aside, shaking her head. I started to hit Mr. Lucas and pull his hair, like a wildcat.

But, of course, Mr. Lucas was unfettered by my burst of defiance. He simply carried me onto the wheelchair, without a word, and strapped me in.

He leaned down and whispered “now, now, Scotty, if you keep this up, I’m going to have to give you a sedative. A more powerful one. Then you really will be helpless. But I don’t want to do that. It would be so much less fun for me if you’re unconscious.”

I started to feel that there was nothing that could be done. Once again, I was at his mercy. I couldn’t run. I could scream,
but nobody would hear me, and the ones who would, wouldn’t do anything to help me. They depended upon Mr. Lucas for their livelihood. They were essentially paid to keep their mouths shut.

So, just like I thought on the plane, I would have to go into my alternate reality. I trained myself to do this during many of the years when I was with Mr. Lucas. I simply trained myself to leave my body during those nights when Mr. Lucas was raping me. To go to someplace that was happy for me.

Of course, when I was a young girl, I really didn’t have too many happy memories to draw upon. But there were times when I was with my mother that were somewhat happy. There were actually months when she didn’t drink at all. I was really young, but I think that she went to meetings and had a sponsor. And she was really wonderful during those times.

I always thought that, every time she got sober, she was finally cured. She wouldn’t drink anymore. She would find a job and bake cookies and take me to school and help me with my homework. She wouldn’t bring around anymore strange men. She would be a mother for me.

And she did try. I know she did. She taught me how to play the game of
Life,
and also taught me how to play Spades and Hearts. She sang songs to me that she made up, and they always made me laugh. She even baked cookies for me, once in a blue moon. They were always out of a mix, never from scratch, but I didn’t care. She was doing normal mom things, for once in her life, and that was good enough for me.

But s
he didn’t read to me, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I knew why – she couldn’t read. At all. I never knew that she was illiterate until one day when I was visiting her, and she was completely incoherent. She acted differently than when she was drunk, however, and I soon found out that she was taking meds which were not prescribed to her correctly. I asked her if she had read the pamphlet that came with the drug, and she hung her head.

“No, Scotty, I didn’t.” She looked very shameful.

“Well, mother, don’t you know that you have to read that before you take anything for the first time?”

She started to cry. “I can’t read.”

I just looked at her. “Well, you probably are having trouble right now, in your state. So, let me read it to you.”

“No, Scotty, you don’t understand. I can’t read. At all. I never learned.”

I was stunned. And then I put my arm around her, while she cried. “Mom, it’s okay. Really, it’s okay. You aren’t alone. There are lots of people who never learned to read. I’ll help you, mom. I’ll help you learn to read.”

I was 19 years old, and I never knew that my mother was illiterate.

This revelation was followed by months of my coming over and working with her with rudimentary books. I found some books in the library about teaching adults to read, and I devoured them. She became like my project. I even enrolled her in a night course, after finding out which ones were low or no cost, and went with her as often as I could.

Those times were some of the best times of my life, just because I was hanging out with my mother and she was off the bottle
. I was very focused upon school, of course, but I found time for her, because she was trying to do something to really better herself. That warranted my attention.

During those months, we talked like girlfriends and we bonded. I learned more about her and her life during those
months than I had ever known before. And she not only seemed to really care about me, but she actually
did
care about me during this time.

Of course, it all went to hell after a little while. She had a glass of wine one night, “to calm her nerves.”

“One drink, Scotty, ain’t going to hurt nothin’.”

I sighed, knowing that it was the beginning of the end. And, of course, I was right. She was right back to where she was before, worse than ever.

She never did learn how to read, either.

So, as I looked at Mr. Lucas, knowing what was going to happen, I thought about drawing on some of the happy times with my mother as comfort. And some of the happy times with Jack.

I tried not to think about the one that I really wanted to dream about. Nick. I wanted to close my eyes and dream about him, as I was being wheeled from the plane to the waiting Rolls Royce SUV that was parked on the tarmac. I wanted to get lost in the memories of him and me together. We were only together for a short time, really, before I caught him with that woman. But those were, by far, the most magical days of my entire life. I don’t think that my feet touched the ground the entire time that we were together as a couple.

But thinking about Nick was just too painful for me, now. I was completely raw thinking about what he did. And I couldn’t very well think about the good times without also seeing him and
that woman naked on the couch.

So, I would have to draw on other memories to protect my fragile mind.

That night, when I was set up in a glorious bedroom in a gorgeous and sprawling glass home on a sunny beach, far away from New York and everyone I knew there, and Mr. Lucas came into my room and proceeded to undress me, I accessed my happy place. I had to.

When he shoved his manhood inside of me, murmuring about how badly he had wanted this for the past nine years, I was someplace far, far away.

I barely even felt it.