Losing Penny (29 page)

Penny tried to spit, but she gagged as he
pushed the cloth deeper. She didn’t recognize the antiseptic or the
feel of the man who held her pinned against his chest. The smell
burned her nose and her vision became hazy. When her body relaxed,
the man let go, and Penny fell forward and hit her head against a
building. His hands grabbed her wrist and jerked her sleeve up to
her elbow. When a needle pricked her arm, she struggled against the
pain and the hands, but within seconds a tide of warm lassitude
spread through her.

They stole away before morning light in a
ship laden with the spoils of his father’s victories and carrying
the burden his last defeat. Before nightfall they met the monster.
She rose from the water, backlit by the dying day’s sun, a hideous
silhouette of destruction.

From
Hans and the Sunstone

When the ref
called halftime, Drake felt odd to be moving without a donkey
between his thighs. Funny how only twenty minutes of donkey riding
could alter your stride. Hoping his land-legs would soon return,
Drake wobbled after Penny. He hadn’t been able to talk to her alone
since Richard had arrived.

He lost sight of her in the parking lot when
the lights went out. The Ferris wheel cars rocked, a few children
began to cry, and a coyote howled in the distance.

“Penny?” Drake called, whirling around in the
dark. He spotted a tall, heavyset man wearing a white lab coat and
carrying something over his shoulder. Something wasn’t right about
that man. Drake stood on his toes and again caught sight of the man
near the cotton candy machine. With a hammering heart, Drake
realized the man wasn’t wearing a lab coat, but a chef’s coat. He
hurried after him while fumbling in his pocket for his phone. Drake
pressed the first button, his breathing grew ragged while he waited
for a response.

“Dad,” Drake gasped, “I need your help.”
Without any further preamble, he explained about Penny, the Lurk,
and his suspicions about the man in the chef’s coat. For once his
dad didn’t interrupt or criticize.

“I’ll call the police, you follow that coat,”
his dad said.

“I don’t even know if he has Penny.”

His dad cut him off. “You have to follow your
heart, son. Sometimes when you don’t know what to do, you just have
to do what
feels
right.”

“Mom,” Drake said. “Call Mom.”

“I don’t think I can do that, son.”

“What about doing what feels right? Calling
Mom is the right thing to do,” Drake said with force. “She’ll tell
Andrea, Trevor, and the others. Dad, I need all the help I can
get.”

It was Viking time.

Relaxation techniques are important tools to
have in today’s chaotic world, but they need to be practiced to be
developed. Learn to listen to and focus on your breath. Visualize a
calm and peaceful place, and learn to incorporate the power of all
your senses.

From
Losing Penny and Pounds

Penny thought
about struggling, but she didn’t have the strength. Despite rising
goose bumps and racked nerves, she kept her body wet-noodle limp.
When the man shifted her in his arms, she tried to peek at him, but
her eyelids, as if they were in league with the man and the drugs,
wouldn’t cooperate.

Sometime later she woke in a car with vinyl
seats that smelled of Swiss cheese and wine. It felt like they were
careening down a canyon road. Penny let the car’s swaying control
her movements. Rocking with each hairpin turn, she thought about
death without fear or sadness. The drugs had muted any panic, and
she found she could consider loss—even torture—from a spectator’s
perspective. It was almost as if she’d already died.

***

Penny came to with her face in drool and her
head full of wool. She rubbed her tongue over her gritty teeth and
rolled her head to look at the stars twinkling through the boughs
of oaks. An owl winged past the moon, and his shadow fell across
her face. She didn’t know if she’d been sleeping for hours or
days.

The car, listing to one side so that her head
sat lower than her feet, was stopped in a lot bordering a towering
canyon wall. A thick marine layer blew in from the coast, and it
billowed and puffed under the lone streetlight. Scraggly pines and
tangles of blackberry bushes bordered the guardrail that kept the
canyon foliage from spilling into the parking area.

Her limbs felt detached from her torso; it
was as if they belonged to someone else. She wiggled her fingers
and found that they worked despite tingling and stiffness. She
didn’t try to sit up. Penny couldn’t form a coherent thought, let
alone a plan for escape or a rational for the kidnapping. The
strange sense of ease still flooded her body, but instead of being
at peace, Penny grew increasingly frustrated with the debilitating
apathy. She shifted her legs; they were sweaty and sticky.

Penny tried to make sense of her surroundings
when a flash of light accompanied a sudden cool breeze brushed over
her face. Strong arms freed her and she floated through the air on
her back. She didn’t feel fear or surprise at being airborne. She
hovered in the damp dark until she felt a jolt. She looked around
as she descended onto a bed. Faint moonlight touched her face and
she buried her face into a pillow. Hands lifted her up and she felt
a shock of cold followed quickly by warmth.

A hot finger touched her slightly parted lips
to make sure she was still breathing. She wanted to say something.
She wanted him to stay. She didn’t want to be left alone in the
dark.

***

Penny woke up shivering. She simultaneously
felt hot and cold. Blood pounded in her head and zipped through her
veins. Her vision blurred when she tried to open her eyes. The
floor and ceiling tipped like a listing ship, and the walls seemed
to breathe. Penny wanted to vomit. Her mouth tasted sour and felt
dry.

Someone shifted in the room and she focused
on Allen. He slept with his chin tucked against his chest, still
wearing the white chef coat. His black hair curled around his ears,
and dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin. She wondered how long
he’d been there and where had he come from. He belonged in Laguna
at the Ritz. Why was he in Rose Arbor? As she stared at him,
confused and drug-dazed, the pieces of the puzzle shifted. Allen
was the Lurk.

She used to be like him—large yet invisible.
At times it was as if no one saw her. She remembered how she often
felt forgotten, just like she sometimes forgot about Allen when he
was right beside her. But she had learned to do the same thing with
her body that she did with food; turned it from bland to magical
with the combination of techniques and ingredients. It wasn’t fair
or right for society to not notice her when she was large, and it
was ironic that when she was smaller people paid more attention to
her.

She felt sorry for Allen. She had found a way
out, but he was stuck in a cycle of invisible desperation that led
him to do the unthinkable. She remembered all their conversations
as well as the constant impression that he wasn’t really there
because he blended so well into the background that she often
forgot he was in the room.

She wore a cotton and lace nightie—Allen had
taken off her sundress and neatly folded it on a bedside table. She
stretched on the bed and found that her numb limbs worked, but her
head began to swim again when she tried to sit up. As she fell back
asleep, she thought of Drake and his first kiss.

***

Murky green scales oozing with sea foam rose
before him, and the monster snarled her warning. “What have we to
do with thee?” Hans called with words braver than his soul.

From
Hans and the Sunstone

Drake stopped
running in the parking lot. He wanted to open every car door and
trunk. He was confident that Penny and her Lurk were somewhere
close, but he didn’t know where to start. He slowly turned into the
lot, watching the townsfolk, searching their faces. If only cars
wore a chef coats. That chef’s coat niggled in the back of his
mind. Who would wear such a thing to Frontier Days? Only a chef. A
demented chef.

Penny had only mentioned one chef—Allen.

“Drake!” Andrea called, waving from the
school gates. He lifted his hand in a half-hearted salute and
watched as his mom, Don Marx, Melinda, and Trevor caught up to
Andrea. Drake was surprised and angry that Melinda would even show
her face. He couldn’t help but blame her, because he was pretty
sure she posted Penny’s picture all over the Internet. A big dark
Mercedes spun into the lot, spewing gravel. His dad had arrived.
The war council would now start.

“It’s not much—just a hunch,” Drake
explained.

His dad nodded, lifted his finger, and said,
“Excuse me.” Turning his back on them, he punched numbers into his
phone.

Mia frowned at her husband’s back then turned
to Drake. “What do you want us to do, dear?”

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “Other than the
Allen and chef coat connection—I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll need a car,” Don Marx said.

“Daddy, not everything is about cars,”
Melinda said.

Don ignored her and turned away with his
phone out.

Melinda reached out and put her hand on
Drake’s arm. “I know you must hate me, but I’m really, really
sorry.”

Drake just looked at her hand on his arm and
frowned. “This isn’t the time, Melinda.”

“I just…I feel responsible,” Melinda
sputtered, just not to Drake, but to everyone. “I’m not used to
that…I don’t like it.”

“It’s all right, baby,” her father said. “You
didn’t know about the creeper.”

Drake seethed. He wanted to scream, “He’s not
a creeper, he’s a lurk!” But that was just semantics, and for once
Drake realized that actual words didn’t matter.

His dad returned to the circle of people in
the parking lot. “I just talked to the Seattle chief of police. He
ran a credit card report on an Allen Porter for me.”

Don Marx snorted. “There’s got to be million
Allen Porter’s in the world.”

“It’s all we’ve got, Dad,” Trevor said in a
hard voice.

“Well,” Malcolm said, “this Allen Porter is a
chef at the Ritz Carlton, and it turns out that he flew into
Sea-Tac yesterday and is currently staying at the Strand
Hotel.”

“Let’s go,” Trevor said.

Don Marx held up his hand. “I’ve called for a
Suburban.”

“We don’t have time, Dad,” Trevor
growled.

“Oh! Trevor!” Melinda bounced in excitement.
“You could fly us in a helicopter!”

Trevor rolled his eyes. “I can’t just fly a
helicopter into Seattle and buzz the Strand Hotel!”

Melinda studied her shoes.

Mia pointed across the lot. “Look, here comes
the car!”

The big, black Suburban rolled in and Don
Marx strode over to talk to the driver. They exchanged keys then
Don handed them to Trevor. While everyone piled in—Drake in the
front passenger seat, Drake’s parents in the second row, and Andrea
and Melinda in the back—Trevor and his dad held a heated
conversation. Finally Trevor got into the driver’s seat.

“Where’s Daddy going?” Melinda asked, leaning
over the back seat.

Trevor cleared his throat but didn’t answer.
He turned the ignition and the car roared to life. “The Strand
Hotel?” he asked Drake.

Because he didn’t have a better idea, Drake
nodded.

“Chief Sprague said he can’t help us,”
Malcolm said. “At least not right away.”

“Why not?” Andrea asked.

“They can’t just barge into a man’s hotel
room on speculation—” his dad answered. “And it turns out Allen
Porter’s dad is a big deal in the restaurant/hotel world. No one
wants to get on his bad side, especially if they don’t have a just
cause.”

“Hotel security?” Drake asked, swallowing
back his disappointment.

“Sprague is calling the Strand and he said
he’d call me back.”

Mia looked at her husband with new
appreciation.

Drake’s mind raced as the dark countryside
flashed past his window. Somewhere between Rose Arbor and Seattle
it occurred to him that he could gather help and execute a plan to
save Penny, even though he had been powerless when it came to
saving a little girl named Missy.

Maybe he wasn’t the spoiled and lazy
professor he had always thought he was. Maybe his secret about who
he really was and who he really could be wasn’t a secret at all.
Maybe, when faced with a monster, he could be the hero.

It’s not wrong to give in to the occasional
indulgence. There are psychological as well as physical benefits to
letting go of the tight grip you have on your diet.

From
Losing Penny and Pounds

Penny opened one
eye and caught Allen staring at her. He sat in a chair directly
opposite of her bed, still in his chef’s coat.

“Finally, you’re awake,” Allen said with a
happy sigh. “I ordered some beef Wellington with steamed
vegetables, rice pilaf, and a very lovely tiramisu for dessert.
It’s not the Ritz, of course, but The Strand does run a decent
kitchen.”

Penny sat up, her head swimming. She looked
down at the needle prick on her arm. None of this seemed
right—Allen wouldn’t hurt her. She pushed her hair away from her
face and tried to gather her mushy thoughts.

“You’re so skinny now I hardly recognized
you,” Allen said, standing and fussing over the food trays. “But we
should be able to fatten you up again soon enough.”

“Allen, don’t think I don’t love beef
Wellington and tiramisu—”

“You’re favorites, right?” Allen beamed at
her.