Chapter 24

 

 

Drew sent Marta away when my mother and Caroline left the next day. This too was sort of his routine. The honeymoon phase, as Deidra called it. We spent the next four days in total love, unable to get enough of each other. Drew was so attentive towards me, always telling me he loved me, touching, kissing and holding me tight all night long. Drew did love me. I know Drew loved me. He loved me the only way he knew how. And as repulsive as it sounds, I’d take it.

We didn’t discuss any of that with Deidra come Thursday. We continued where we’d left off, right after I took care of him when he was sick.

“So things started to change after that? This is when you knew you were in love with your wife?” Deidra asked Drew.

Drew studied me briefly, trying to find the right place to start. Placing my hand in his as he smiled at me.

 “Not exactly. I didn’t let her know that anyway. I went back to being me, and Morgan went back to doing what I told her to do. Some nights, I struggled, some nights were easy.  Callaway helped with the crazy thoughts of me falling in love with Morgan. He started insisting we have a baby, he needed a grandchild.”

“That’s why you were so persistent on me stopping my shots?” I asked.

“Yes, he’d been after me for months. That’s when you ran. That’s why you left, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t ready for a child?” Deidra asked.

“I wasn’t ready to have Drew’s child. I was afraid of—of, well, I didn’t want a baby to be—”

“You were afraid of having a monster like me,” Drew stated.

I nodded, not wanting to do this. Drew and I had just spent an amazing past few days together and this was going to ruin it. I hated therapy more and more.

“You were willing to force her to have your child?” Deidra asked.

“I wasn’t about to have a family with Morgan. It would never work, and I didn’t want a child to be put in the middle of this fucked up shit. I wouldn’t hear of it. Of course Mr. Callaway was going to make sure it happened. He threatened, demanding Morgan have a baby, if I didn’t do it. What the hell was he going to say to her? Have a baby or you won’t get any money either? She didn’t even know she had money,” Drew explained, got up and walked to the window, sliding his hands in his pockets. “I wished a million times over I never mentioned it to her. I felt like that was the ending factor, the one that pushed her over the edge. Of course she wouldn’t want to bring a baby into this mess. Who in their right mind would?

Derik drove her over to the library the day after I demanded that she was indeed going to have a baby. I never thought a thing about it when Rebecca asked if Derik could take her. She said she didn’t feel well, that was a legitimate reason. Why would I think anything different?

I was doing some research in my office that afternoon when my phone rang.

‘What’s up?’ I asked, seeing Derik’s name. I looked at the clock on the corner of my screen, thinking they should have been back by now.

‘Dude, I’m sorry man. She was right there.’

‘Will you stop with the dude and man shit. I tell you this every single day,’ I scolded Derik.” Drew paused to face the room, and he said to me, “He always talked like that, didn’t he Morgan?” 

“Yes,” I answered, dropping my eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a second,” Deidra requested, when Drew started to talk again.

I looked up to her and then to Drew, wondering what he’d said that made her want him to stop. She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at me.

“What was that, Morgan?”

“What?”

“You went totally stiff when Drew mentioned Derik. Why?”

Again I looked to Drew.

“We’re not discussing that,” Drew demanded.

“Morgan, did you have a thing with Derik?” Deidra pressed on.

I wrung my hands and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to talk about this either.

“Morgan?” she coaxed.

“She doesn’t want to talk about Derik,” Drew demanded.

“We’re not moving on until we talk about Derik. Derik seems to be an issue here. Why is Derik an issue? Where is Derik now?”

“Sunshine Villa,” I quietly answered.

“Sunshine Villa?” she asked.

“It’s a nursing home,” I answered.

“Okay, and you’re sad because he’s ill?”

“I made him ill,” I said, letting the guilt devour me.

“What do you mean?”

I looked over to Drew, wearing an expression that I couldn’t read. I could read all of Drew’s expressions. I couldn’t read this one.

“Derik is where he belongs,” Drew piped in. “Derik raped Morgan, and I didn’t protect her,” Drew sadly spoke.

Drew felt guilty for not protecting me from Derik. “It wasn’t your fault, Drew,” I assured him.

“It was my fault. Derik gave me many signs of his intentions towards you. I didn’t read those signs the way I should have. I should have protected you.”

“Who was supposed to protect her from you?” Deidra asked.

Drew looked to the floor. Son of a bitch. I didn’t want this. Wishing I would have never pushed him into this. I breathed a sigh of regret.

“Can we continue, please,” I begged, wanting off the subject of Derik.

Deidra raised her eyebrows and waved her hand to Drew to continue. “You were saying Derik called you,” she reminded.

“Yes, he did. ‘Drew, listen to me. Morgan is gone,’ Derik yelled in the phone.

I stood up. ‘What do you mean, Morgan is gone?’

‘I mean she’s gone. I’ve looked everywhere. She went into the bathroom and just vanished. I was right here, right outside the door.’

‘Find her. Now!’

‘She’s gone, Drew. I’ve looked everywhere.’

‘How long?’

‘Thirty minutes or so.’

I hung up the phone and turned to my computer, hoping her phone was turned on, and on her. YES! It was. I looked at the road, trying to pinpoint where the little red dot was on the map. It looked like it was the highway, heading to the airport. I watched it, dialing the number for the airport. She would have had to use the credit card she carried. I could find out where she was flying by that.

Dropping the phone, I watched the little red dot disappear in front of my eyes. No Morgan Kelley had a flight, my card hadn’t been charged, and she was gone. How could she just be gone? She didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the area except the little neighborhood where she’d gone to the library.

Rebecca knew something. She had to. I knew she did. Morgan wouldn’t have done this on her own. That’s why she didn’t want to take her to the library. She knew she was going to run. Rebecca of course feigned ignorance, swearing she knew nothing. I had no way to tell whether she did or not. I should have paid more attention to the cameras. I shouldn’t have let them go to the library alone, watch movies together, cook, nothing. I should have kept them apart like I did when Morgan first came.”

“And you think that would have been better than where you are now?” Deidra interrupted.

I wanted her to shut up. I’d never heard any of this. I didn’t know how Drew felt when I left.

 Drew didn’t respond. He kept right on narrating his story as if she’d never said a word. “Derik pretty much ran my company for the next few months. I would sign my name, give him my okay, and did a lot of blaming. She was in his hands. He let her run. Everything I thought of came up with a dead end. I was sure it was her in the library camera, wearing the wig and the tattooed arm. What I wasn’t sure of, was which one of the librarians or people helped her. The cab that the camera showed her getting into was unidentified. I had nothing.

I even went to Rebecca in California a few months later, begging her to tell me something, anything. She answered the door holding a very pregnant belly, promising that she didn’t know where Morgan was.

Her father was no help. He wanted more money to help me find her, like he could do that. The social worker that I’d worked with—to get Justin—all but told me to go to hell. A few of her cousins told me they heard she’d moved to Florida. I didn’t believe that either. Where the fuck was she? And Callaway, shit, I was coming up with everything possible to hold him off,” Drew explained, running his hands through his hair as though he was frustrated all over again. “Callaway yelled in the phone, ‘Where is my granddaughter?’ when I explained to him for the third time in five months that we would not be attending the Christmas festivities. Morgan didn’t want to fly home. She wanted me to come to her in France. She wanted to spend Christmas in France, I explained. At least I could use the excuse of going to her. I could avoid the festivities as well.

‘Nonsense. She should be with her family during the holidays. I want to talk to her,’ Callaway persisted.

‘Okay, I’ll call you when I get there. Morgan thinks I am her only family, remember?’

‘Yeah, well I still think she should be home for Christmas.’

‘I will tell her how upset you are that she’s not here.’

‘No, no, don’t do that. Just go there and give her the best Christmas she’s ever had.’

‘I will, sir,’ I lied to him for the thousandth time.

The English literature bullshit was fairly easy to get away with. Randal knew how much she liked history and the English behind it.

Morgan literally vanished in thin air. She was nowhere to be found. I knew she had to be hiding out someplace where she didn’t need any identification. She didn’t even have a credit card. How the hell was she eating?

That mystery was solved during the meeting with the accountant for the next quarter. I would have figured it out sooner had I not opted out of attending the last time. I sat alone after the realization of the donated money news and searched every record for the past two years. Shaking my head, I laughed. I laughed a full blown throw your head back laugh. I underestimated her too. Morgan wasn’t such a dumb hillbilly after all.”

Drew looked back at me with a proud smile. I beamed with pride.  

“Seventeen thousand dollars to Lisa Fitzgerald’s soup and shelter. Searching for Lisa Fitzgerald and the shelter, I found out—to no surprise—that she and the organization never existed. Thousands of dollars was unaccounted for, all donated to various societies or nonexistent people. She did have money. She had a shit ton of my money, thousands.”

“My money,” I corrected, getting another smile.

Drew continued, “What the fuck was I supposed to do now?  Callaway wasn’t doing so well, but he knew what the hell was going on. I couldn’t hide the fact that Morgan was missing forever. He wanted to see her. He wouldn’t stop until he did.

‘Yes!’ I yelled to the empty office. I’d go to her. I’d leave Vegas and go to my wife. I didn’t really need to live there to work. I could do that anywhere or just jump on a plane and head back when I needed to. It may not have been the perfect solution, but it would hold Callaway off a bit. It wasn’t like he could travel to France to find us or anything. 

I settled in New York never giving up on finding Morgan. She had to be somewhere, I just couldn’t figure out where. Derik held down business in Vegas and I traveled…a lot, avoiding Callaway as much as I could.”

“And you just picked up, went on living without her?” Deidra asked.

Drew snorted, shaking his head.  “Living without Morgan was a bit more challenging than I’d ever considered. Actually, I never considered it at all. Never did I think she would just be gone. I’m not sure what it was I was missing about her though, I mean it wasn’t like we were an authentic couple or anything. We’d never had that kind of relationship. Morgan was there to do what I needed Morgan to do and that was it. I didn’t understand why I was having such a hard time with it? It wasn’t like I’d ever loved her or anything. Love her—humph. I’d probably send her to the hospital for a few days if I found her; that’s what I tried to tell myself anyway,” Drew stated, trying to keep me comfortable while he described life without me. “It was over a year and a half since I’d seen my wife or heard from Skyler.”

Great, Skyler, lovely. Here we go again.

 

 “I’d heard that Skyler was seeing the son of Malibu, one of my biggest competitors in the jewelry industry. It was sort of like that rule of your friend dating your ex, you just didn’t to that. She betrayed me as well, and I wanted to see her again too, just to show her what a stupid bitch I thought she was.

I got my wish when I’d flown home to deal with a security problem at one of the Vegas stores. Walking out of a restaurant on Tropicana, I ran right into her.

‘I’ll catch up with you later, Derik,’ I excused Derik to talk to Skyler.

He smiled, nodded, and walked away, flagging a cab. Skyler looked amazing, as beautiful as she’d ever been.

That’s nice, Drew.

Deidra knew what I was thinking and gave me the look. As hard as it was, I kept my mouth shut, biting my bottom lip to keep from saying what I was dying to say.  

“I flirted, ‘How are you?’ taking her hand. She let me and ran her thumb over the back of my hand.

‘I’m doing very well, Drew? How are you? I heard you’ve been living in France with your little girlfriend.’

Snickering, I corrected her. ‘She’s my wife, and yes, we’ve been doing some traveling.’

‘Is she here?’

‘No, she stayed back. She’s taking some classes and didn’t want to leave right now. I’m only here for a couple days.’

‘Me too.’

‘You’re not living around here?’

‘No, we’ve been in Chicago for a few months now. I’m just home for my dad’s birthday.’

Turning her hand in mine, I brushed the back of her ring finger. ‘No ring?’

She smiled a weak smile. I knew Kyle Bentley pretty well, she’d be lucky if he ever gave her a ring.

‘Why do you care? You married someone else.’

‘I did, but she’s not here. Come over tonight,’ I asked Skyler.”

“Great, let’s talk about fucking Skyler again,” I angrily spoke up.

“Morgan, just listen, okay,” Drew coaxed.

 Pouting, I crossed my arms and dropped to the back of the sofa.

Drew continued, “She asked, ‘Over where? To the mansion?’

‘Yeah, that’s where I’m staying,’ I informed her.”