Red Noon Read online

  When Eddie burst into Justin’s office with a clanking of his door bouncing against the wall and then swinging back with a bang of a shut she felt her eyes widen.

  “Should I go?” She looked at both men. Justin looked as shocked as she was. She would bet if she looked out the glass windows into the main office a lot of the workers probably had their eyes peaking to see what was going on. She refrained from looking, which was fine since Eddie went and shut the vertical blinds completely.

  “This,” he said as he marched back to the desk. “Somebody, a friend that shall not be named for her own safety, sent me this.”

  “I should go,” Shell said.

  “Stay,” Justin looked puzzled and then angered. It wasn’t until he slammed the lid on the laptop so hard that she thought it might break that he took a deep breath and spoke again.

  “This involves you.”

  Her first thoughts were, ‘oh crap what did I do now,’ type thing but she knew she hadn’t done anything.

  “It would appear somebody, and I’m sure it’s from within these walls, has sent a picture of you leaving the office to a…well…anti interracial dating site. They’ve said some nasty things about you, and it has apparently gone viral. Even on YouTube they are flashing your picture and loads of hate speech per this article.”

  He opened the lid and turned the computer so she could see it. The title alone would have turned her off. Since when was she dating anybody? Last she checked she was happily single and loving her life, traveling, designing, working the best job ever, and just being alive happily not coupled.

  “Well it’s not true. The only guys I’m really talking to are you and Eddie. We are all business but sometimes we talk about you and your kids or Eddie and his new baby, but clearly we’re not dating.”

  “We know that part. You’re very private and guarded but you have opened up to both of us. It doesn’t matter anyway so long as you’re not dating somebody who is a threat to you. Eddie and I both think of you like a daughter.”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “You guys do realize I’m not a twenty-something woman right?”

  They both laughed. “Well I’m old enough to be your father; my oldest daughter is only six years under your thirty-five. Eddie…well, he’s coming up on forty so he’s not, but we both see you as young, with so much ahead of you and you’re like family to both of us.”

  She smiled. Those words warmed her heart considerably. She lost both her parents in a plane crash when she was thirty-two. She was on the flight with them coming back from Milan, Venice and Rome, Italy. It was their trip as a family and the exact spot where she and her mother had joked about her insane amount of fabric buying. Her father had even gotten her into one of the fashion houses on a tour, and that was a major accomplishment because they didn’t do tours.

  The plane had crashed on landing. Out of the two hundred seventy-four passengers on board only twenty survived. Her parents weren’t among the survivors but she was. For a while she had wished she had died with them, but then she realized that wasn’t what they would want for her. She did sell the house and skip state. There was no way in the world she could stay in South Dakota without them. Every street, every city, every ranch she passed was a memory of them and she just couldn’t handle facing that memory without them. A move, a new job and a focus outside of her pain had helped her to move forward after the devastation.

  “You guys are awesome, but don’t let this rattle your cage. I don’t even spend time online so what do I care?”

  Eddie nearly growled. “I care. And I’m calling the damn lawyer to get somebody on this.”

  “Um,” she said in a little girl type moan. “I think you meant dam of the three letter persuasion and not the four letter kind right.” Her wide eyes bucked to astronomical levels at least made his lips crack a smile.

  “I love this kid,” Justin said.

  “Me too. And we are going to fix this.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. I shall let you do what you all do. But since I’m like family to you all you can’t go stressing yourself into a heart attack over this. Let’s just let lawyers do what they do and forget about the people who think I’m some uppity white-girl wanna be too stuck up for some imaginative black man they have conjured up to love and support and respect me if I would just open my arms to him.”

  Both men laughed again. “You are so much like my daughter—laid back and go with the flow.”

  She shrugged again. “I wasn’t always so laid back. The plane crash changed me. After mourning the loss of my family I had to realize life is just too short to live with stress, fear, and regrets. I won’t let anybody steal my joy from me.”

  Both men smiled at her with sympathy and compassion in their eyes. Eddie patted her shoulder while Justin reached across the small space where her hand was on the desk to pat her hand.

  “Now, you go deal with lawyers and Justin and I have to deal with the errant dangling D,” she said as she tapped the printout of the article in discussion before the storm about her blew in. This article had to go in June’s magazine and that meant it was going to print in less than forty-eight hours. It would have to get final approval, but it would still need to be mailed out early enough for everybody to get it so this was pretty much their final approval process. There was no way they were going to trash over forty-eight hundred early deliveries just because somebody dropped the ball. It wasn’t her company but even she knew that would be financially stupid.

  Shelia had worked the full day but she hit the gym that night with a fury. She was a little angry. Her picture was online. She didn’t have any pictures there because there wasn’t a need for them to be there. She didn’t even advertise her fashionable skills either. She was a private person and always had been and some idiot had decided to take a picture of her and post it online with lies. Jeeze, a person couldn’t even walk from door to car without somebody being an inconsiderate rat jerk.

  She did agree with both men that it had to come from within. Nobody really knew her. She didn’t socialize much in the state at all and it had been a while since she had really spent time in South Dakota for anything. Friends emailed her to see how she was doing, but she never wanted to go back to visit so it wasn’t as if they would know much about her life and drive all the way here to take a picture and slander her and then go for broke on libel and put the lies in writing. They weren’t those kind of people. Plus most of her friends there thought she should marry a Lakota anyway.

  By the time she finished beating the red and white bag like it stole something from her she was hot, sweating like what her mother would call a six shooter, and exhausted. She had driven to the gym, which was good because had she ran there she wouldn’t be getting home without a nap on the ground beneath her.

  Maybe she should take a trip back to reservation this year. She had missed a lot of the festivities she normally went to. She had missed some of her friends, but at the same time it would make her think a lot of her father. He always took her to see the tribal grounds, learn about her heritage and the goodness that was within her. She would sit on his lap and watch the dances. She had even learned some of the language that even some of the younger generation wasn’t sitting quietly to learn.

  She wanted to stay away, but she knew she had to go back. Being away from there was like throwing away the history he had left for her. She decided after getting back and taking a hot shower that she was going to readjust her summer trip from August in the Keys to going back home, seeing some friends and losing herself in the memory of her father’s people.

  Shelia crawled into bed and thought about the weird feeling she got while leaving the gym. It was like somebody was watching her or something. She had checked her surroundings but she didn’t see anything unordinary so she shrugged it off. “Maybe you’re getting paranoid somebody else is going to snap a picture of you and post it online,” she said as she closed her eyes. “Life is too short for paranoia, Shell,” she chuckled as she
drifted off to sleep.

  Present Day

  Shelia’s eyes fluttered open. She was sore. Her wrists were hurting from the bindings. Her head lulled back to look up and she saw silver steal chains linked with what felt like a wiry rope anchored to her wrists. Seeing as though it felt as if they were cutting into her she figured that meant they were shackled so tight to keep her from being able to get loose and to make sure the wiry fibers sliced up her wrists if she tried.

  She stood completely on her feet. Being unconscious had her slouched as far as the bindings would allow, but being awake meant she could take some of the pressure off her arms and wrists by letting her legs support her.

  She remembered going back to her car. She was going to pull the car into the garage because while she had thought of going back out to restock some of her fruit in the refrigerator she wasn’t in the mood after all. She wasn’t all that hungry either so she figured pulling the car in would be best. Apparently some kids had gone around putting Crazy Glue on the windows and doors of cars that were parked in the driveway one night. She never left hers in the driveway, but when she got home her remote wasn’t working. She figured she would call to get it fixed the next day, but she wasn’t going to leave the car out there.

  Of course cleaning up the mail she had picked up from the Post Office and sorting through voicemail messages from friends of her father whose children had brought their attention to the fiasco all those lies had brought on had warped her brain. She had gone out like she was going to go to the store for something. With purse in hand, keys, and a garage door still down she still would have had to go back in the house, put up the door and then take the car inside. She was not going to go shopping so locking up and putting on the alarm was absentminded to say the least.

  She never expected to get attacked. She definitely didn’t expect for two men to come at her. And she really would have never expected to end up chained up in some fool’s basement. Who were these guys and why had they taken her?

  She looked up to the gray ceiling above her and prayed to the ancestors in the heavens not to let them kill her. Her father had said they would become the stars above her and watch over her after they died just as their ancestors had done before so she hoped there was something to it that was truth because she needed saving right now. She had seen the one man’s face and she knew nothing good could come of that. The anger in his eyes, that evilness to him, made her know that if they hadn’t planned to kill her before they surely weren’t going to let her live now.

  Shelia heard the twisting of the door knob, the squeaking of the hinges as it opened and closed and then a loud thud, thud, thud sound as if Goliath was coming down. Fear seized in her heart. She would have preferred it if she stayed down there alone than if anybody came down, especially one of these guys. Judging from the heavy thudding sound she would say it was the bigger guy that attacked her first. The second guy’s body had been skinnier pressed against hers as he held her with a vice like grip waiting for the bigger guy to get on his feet and do something to her, probably hit her she assumed, but at the time she wasn’t thinking she was just fighting for her life. A lot of good fighting had done her if she still ended up their captive. Nobody had come to her defense, but how could they? Most people were either sleep or lost in the nightly news or something. She didn’t remember any lights being on in the houses, but then she wasn’t looking for it either. Her next door neighbor to the left of her house had security cameras. She had hoped it had caught something, something that he could give to the cops—provided the cops even knew she was missing.

  The monster of a man who attacked her first sauntered toward her. He was tall, heavy and he looked a mix of angry and determined. He kept the steady gait, long legs reaching her in a nanosecond despite his slower pace.

  “You broke my nose,” he glared at her.

  “No I didn’t. You would need a doctor to reset it if I had.” She tried to comfort him. Her attempt failed to comfort, but definitely seemed to anger him as his fist connected with her face. She felt her lip split on the side and felt the warmth of liquid slowly stream out of it. The impact had jarred her, causing her to twist sideways which dug the grating part of the rope into her wrists and caused more pain.

  She felt his fingers slip into her hair and curl into a fist before he yanked her head back. “I said you broke my nose.”

  She hadn’t broken his nose, but now she wished she had. She wished she had jutted the bone right up into his brain and killed him.

  “Say something!” He screamed near inches from her face. His rancid breath made her nauseous. It was like there was a volcano of liquid ready to erupt out of her every time he puffed another bile filled word forcing his breath into her face.

  She obviously hadn’t said anything fast enough for him because his fist connected with her stomach hard, causing a sound of pain to escape her. He laughed haughtily.

  “I’m going to have some fun right now. Gotta’ keep you looking pretty in the face for boss man so no more fists to the face—for now.” His fingers untwined from her hair and he swiftly hit her open palm in the face. “But that don’t mean I can’t slap you around if I want.” He laughed. She saw him unlatching his belt and pulling it from the loops on his jeans. The black leather with the basic cheep looking buckle didn’t clank to the floor and he hadn’t gone for the button on his pants. There was only one thing it could signify and when she saw him wrapping the large leather strap around his hand once, then twice for a good grip she knew what that meant. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this man had absolutely no sexual desire for her; he wanted to beat her. He was going to beat her.

  He walked behind her and with only one pregnant pause, as if he was trying to decide where to start his attack, he slashed her with the belt, over and over again. She wanted to be defiant, not to yell, not to give him satisfaction but the pain of the leather pounding against her back, her behind, her thighs and her hips had her screaming in pain as her body twisted as if it were trying to get away. Escape was not possible with her bindings. Each twist dug the steely rope into her wrists even more, drawing blood that trickled down her arms and dripped onto chest covering her shirt in a ruby liquid. She was bleeding. Drop by drop her own blood stained her clothes giving her an ample visual reminders of just how bad things had become, and how much worse she was sure they would get.

  He laughed with each cry that she yelled. Nobody had helped her. There weren’t any windows. She had no idea where they had taken her, how long she had been out or if she was even still in Arizona. She could be in the desert somewhere, or in the mountains, or anywhere, but wherever it was it couldn’t be anywhere near other humans because they would have heard her screaming; they would have called the police.

  He hit her so much she thought her skin was on fire. When he stopped she wanted to thank God, but she couldn’t. She could only think of what stopping meant. Maybe he was trying to think of what other angle he could hit her from. Maybe he was unwrapping the belt so that he could wrap it from the smooth end and beat her with the buckle. She felt tears sliding down her face with such high velocity that she thought she would cry herself to death from sheer dehydration.

  He walked around to the front of her and hit her across her chest and stomach and she twisted more, causing more cuts into her wrists. It felt like forever before he dropped the belt to the floor. She feared what he would use this time, but fear of being beat turned into fear of being raped when he tugged at her fitted shirt-vest and ripped it from her body.

  “Trash day,” he said happily. “Gotta’ take the trash out before the neighbors wake up.”

  She watched as he wrapped her shirt in the rug that was off to the side of her. It already had some blood on it. Had they done this before? No, it wasn’t enough blood for that. It had to be the blood that dripped out of his nose or something. Had he brought her into this—house? Yes, it had to be a house given the fact he said it was trash day and he mentioned neighbors waking up.
So either nobody could hear her screaming from what she was now sure was a basement, or nobody cared enough to call 9-1-1. Either way, she was stuck in hell without escape. It was still either the same night or early the next morning which meant she hadn’t been missing long enough for anybody to really know and file a report. She could be dead by noon and nobody would even know she was missing.

  She heard him trudging up the stairs and the door squeak open and closed once more.

  “God please help me?” She cried. She was in so much pain right now, felt so much fear and desperation that she wondered if she would survive this. She was still bleeding from all the cuts from the twisting. She couldn’t see her back but the heat of the flame of pain made her wonder if the leather had torn through her shirt and flesh while he was beating her like a dead horse just for the fun of it. Tears turned into sobs of sorrow. Sorrow turned into finality. There was no way she was going to make it out of this alive.

  It wasn’t long before the door opened and closed again, before that beast they called a man came back down the stairs, picked up his belt and started beating her again. Each time the strap hit her back now, without the protection of the thin layer of fabric her shirt had provided as comfort, it hurt even more. Her bra strap felt as if it were being beaten in to her flesh, like the hooks and eyes would become imbedded in her skin. She couldn’t curtail the screams no matter how much she didn’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing he was hurting her.