The Rescuer Ch. 04

"It's ok. It took me awhile to lug everything over here! Especially all by myself! But I did it! Look in the corner! Behind the chair! There's two ice chests full of stuff! It wasn't easy, getting everything over the walls, from the lower roofs over where I was really supposed to have watched the Reveal from! Maybe Ellie would refill everyone's glasses? There's no need to go all the way back down to the garden for more champagne! Or if you need to use a phone, there's one behind that cardboard box! I took it too from where they had plugged it in, over there. Then I plugged it in here, and it even had a dial tone! I'm sure it works! See! I moved it all over here! Everything that they setup for me! It's all here!"

Ellie apparently didn't hear the most frightening and potentially troubling details, but her usually distracted mind did hear the request for her to play waitress again, and didn't seem to mind doing it.

Sure enough, there were three more bottles of the excellent vintage, although one of them was completely empty and had been turned upside down in the ice. As Ellie fumbled the cork back out of the half empty bottle, Carissa let her fingers drift across the thick safety robe hung over the back of the single available chair.

Maybe Maureen and Everett could take turns sitting in it?

"Go ahead. Pick up the robe. You'll see! Drake was careful but hated wearing one of those! He was lucky because he could just wear that beat up old tux, because underneath it he wore a body suit lined with Kevlar! But everyone else, including me, always wore one of these robes during the tear downs and reassemblies. Better than armor! Or a shark suit! That's what one of the New Zealander guys was using, to carry the finished segments into the tent! I'm the only one that ever seemed to get scratched though! Sometimes I would forget to put my robe back on, and go down in between the arms, to check on a loose connection! That can really get you hurt! See?"

The poor girl lifted up the hem of her dress, much more than most women ever would, and two places on her upper right thigh looked like they had fine red cuts there. Then she turned around and lowered her dress off of her left shoulder, to let them all see a single long red line along the ribs right next to the side of her breast.

Everett quickly turned away, because the girl didn't quite have her dress all the way back up, by the time she turned around. The nipple wasn't pierced, and that caused Carissa to revise her initial evaluation of the girl upwards considerably. No tattoos. No tribal markings. Not even pierced ears, or any sort of even normal jewelry on her whatsoever.

When she got caught looking between those strong smooth legs... wondering if what was down there hadn't been pierced either... the strange girl only smiled and pointed to the robe on the chair again.

"... I don't believe in anything like that... why permanently put something on your body... or even worse - thru it... that you can't ever change... that's what clothes are for... and since what I like best constantly changes... I'd come to eventually hate my own body... if I covered it with something I came to regret later... besides... I hardly like wearing any clothes at all... even my own newer designs... that are selling so well in the stores... "

Everett smiled a bit at that speech, since he agreed about tatoos and piercings. It was still one of the few things in the corporate employee handbook that was probably never going to change. By the time she actually picked up the robe off the chair, Carissa had already convinced herself it had to be extremely heavy.

The thick damp robe was actually much lighter than she thought was possible for normal protective gear.

"... it's made from a special spun fabric... tiny ribbons and not tiny threads... your company actually helped get the manufacturer's production facilities get going last year... HE said it was something he had recommended you guys bid on... those robes were practically the first things made from the cloth coming off the new assembly line... the barbs never ever get all the way thru to your skin... but if you trip and fall on to a hook... or forget and turn around too quickly and bump into the bottom side of a segment... while your deep within a nest of arms... the hooks push the soft fabric into your skin deep... and that's when you get bruises everywhere... "

Looking down at the chair again, as she hefted up the entire damp robe, Carissa found a second garment was underneath it. Perfectly clean and wrinkle free. Suddenly Maureen looked like she was having a heart attack. Unfortunately her own innocent question made things get much worse.

A lot worse.

"Whose was supposed to be wearing this one?"

The girl smiled, like a child that had just gotten caught with a stolen piece of candy, that was already in their mouth.

"... oh... that one is mine... I made a fuss... and didn't wear it tonight... I wanted to feel whatever the audience was actually experiencing... and since I couldn't handle being crushed up against all those strangers in those chairs down there... I fought with HIM until he let me have my way... I've just worn my dress up here all night... "

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Everett knew that he had gone just as pale as Maureen had!

Wherever this reckless girl was actually supposed to have watched performance from, that rational plan clearly hadn't been followed!

The suspicion and fear of where she had probably done the observing, clearly shocked his old friend to a degree that was unwise for her health. Jenny was alarmed by all of their reactions and tried to frantically explain fast enough, to help alleviate Maureen's sudden bout of shakiness.

"... It's okay... I didn't need the robe... I never get cold... so the first part of the night I was fine... and then I couldn't stand the thought of wearing it with all those flames so close to the roof... HE is like me that way... it's like HE never gets cold... and HE was already so miserable in his robe... from running across the roof tops to free the stuck canvases... and from searching everywhere for me... looking for where I had gone to... I swear that I wasn't actually hiding from everyone... I'd already hauled up all this stuff long before HE slid down off the Exhibit Hall's roof... so I made HIM stay with me here... nothing bad happened to me... it couldn't... because I stayed close to HIM... "

Jenny finally seemed to realize how upset they all were with her, and how pale Maureen kept getting. Ellie quickly grabbed the chair, and placed the folded robe on the seat for extra padding. His old friend sat down on it with hardly any resistance at all, mainly because she was saving her energy to be able to express her horrifically serious and honest anger.

"I'll kill HIM this time! I really will! Running across the rooftops had been bad enough! Climbing up the slippery smooth steel arch of the Exhibit Hall was even worse! But to risk them BOTH getting killed, being so close to the front edge of the terrace, DURING the lightning performance? I'll kill him! Tomorrow! If I get to feeling better! But definitely by the end of next week! I promise! I'll kill him! Such a risk! For them both! Damn him!"

Carissa seemed to be the only one left out of the secret, and his more glamorous assistant hated to appear slow at this sort of thing. Her normally confident and lyrical voice was as rough as a sick and petulant child's.

"Exactly who is this HE Jenny keeps referring to? Are you saying that Jenny was right HERE during both of the finales? That's insane! Who would want to be this close to getting killed! The flames fanning out above the audiences heads, during the second finale's explosion, were only five feet above the roof here! Look at all the spatters of molten copper that the lightning spread out all over these tiles! I'm surprised that Jenny's dress isn't covered in burn marks! Why am I the only one that doesn't seem to know the name of the irresponsible idiot, who was put in charge of guarding our guest of honor?"

The Artist tried to fill Carissa in, but Jenny's's next words only made things worse.

"... of course you know him!.... he's no stranger to you!... his last name is all over that tall building next to that huge mall... and on the hospital wing his family donated last year too... It's... "

Maureen's voice cracked with emotion and desperation, as she yelled out frantically.

"JENNY! NO! You made a promise! You don't EVER say his real name out loud! Not where other people might here you!"

The dark eyes closed with the already forming tears, from being yelled at. The bright confident countenance of a few seconds ago melted completely back away. The voice quavered, as the troubled mind tried to rally any way it thought it could. The wet eyes opened back up and tried again.

"... well then... let me tell Carissa the other one... his other name... doesn't she already know it too?... I mean... Lowell told me that she was supposed to have met him this week... in Everett's office?... you mean she really has never met... met... m-met... "

Ellie quickly reached over and pulled the shaking girl to her chest. The sob's of the clearly exhausted young woman got buried into the shoulder of his shyer assistant's dress.

But Carissa wasn't going to give up so easily either. She obviously was still thinking, and distracted by worrying that something really bad had happened to Drake. Or that they were all working together to hide that fact from her. Jenny had already said that it might be weeks, before the man that had taken center stage would be fully healed and getting around normally! Any further proof, of something else secretly having gone terribly wrong with tonight's event, was just too much for Carissa!

Especially if she thought she was being deliberately lied to about it.

And thus maybe even about Drake's true condition as well?

Everett held his breath in the tense silence, until Maureen sighed in both emotional and physical pain, and finally gave Carissa a clue. He agreed that it would have been much worse to have just told her outright, since his assistant's pride had already been hurt enough tonight.

She needed at least the chance to work out the truth for herself.

"I did give Ellie a hint earlier, and a moment or two later, she got it. All I said was that Drake wasn't the only eccentric madman in town. Then I looked along the roof edges, where the canvases had gotten freed, then the top of the Exhibit Hall. You already have more clues than she did, when Ellie figured out the answer. Jenny just told you that he has two names he goes by! You know better than anyone, that he can't put either of those names on any project he's involved in! That's why I had to trick everyone into believing that Jenny should be given sole credit for the statue! But keep your damn voices down! All of you!"

The lovely clear blue eyes he loved to look at every day at work, turned dark and cloudy with extreme anger. Trying her best, Carissa kept her voice at least a little lower than the murderous shout she wanted to scream out!

"The Senior Trustee is behind all of this mess? He was actually HERE tonight? Damn him! After all the secret negotiations I went thru on the VIP guest list? Everything I tried to do failed! None of his family would come here tonight! Not if a single member of the Trust was on the list! Even though his wife had to stay home, I almost had Avery to the point he was going to accept his tickets and come alone! Then the Family pulled that stunt, saying they wouldn't even be in the same building with HIM, and then none of THEM showed up any way? Anthony promised me that he would be in the front row tonight! He doesn't come, but his uninvited cousin does? And gets Jenny almost killed! Look at the back of that robe! It has melted copper all over it! Jenny! Just how close were you to the lightning strike!"

The poor girl sobbed even harder into Ellie's shoulder, but honestly and immediately pointed blindly towards the terrace wall, barely in front of all the gear that had been dragged across the rooftop. The tall warehouse lights shining down on the party down below, made the molten copper droplets cast glittering reflections, wherever they had landed.

One spot was suspiciously clear of the little lights.

Twenty feet?

Actually, a hell of a lot less than TEN feet!

That's how close Jenny had been standing... virtually naked against the elements... and the splashes of hot metal.

"... when he finally found me... I was standing right next to the column that eventually got broken... actually hiding and leaning up against it... I refused to budge... I held on to it and wouldn't let go... I said that I would scream really loud... loud enough that people would look up... and I would've... if he tried to pull me away from there... at least right then... and that would've ruined everything... but he was patient... as the performance went on... he slowly coaxed me closer to the chair I'd brought... and right before the lightning hit... he seemed to know something was about to go wrong... he KNEW it was coming... and he tackled me to the ground and covered me up completely with his own body... that's why the copper splashes are only on one side of the robe... he SAVED me... AGAIN... Maureen don't be mad at him... I'm the only one that broke my word tonight... I'm the one that snuck over here... and I did that as soon as they locked me up on the roof... and I was finally all by myself... I wanted to be alone up here... at least after Drake had to go on stage... and Lowell had to leave this afternoon... that's when HE said he was going to change his mind and be here... FOR ME... no matter what the cost... and HE was... he was right here... right up until you opened up the door a few minutes ago... but he's gone now... and I have no idea where he went... or even how he got off the roof... I swear... he never went thru the other counting room door... or left from the door back where I was supposed to have watched the performance from... way over there by the front of the street... he just vanished... one second he was here.. then he wasn't... it was like he fell thru a hole in the roof... I'm all alone... all alone again... "

While everyone else was trying to comfort the emotionally distraught artist, Everett looked back along all the rooftops. But since he apparently wasn't needed to take his turn holding Jenny, yet, he walked closer to the western edge of the terrace. After checking each nook and cranny, he finally got an unobstructed view of where the artist was supposed to have watched the performance from.

Worse... he saw absolutely no sign that anyone had ever been up here with Jenny... and he had to consider the fact that her visit with the Senior Trustee might have been just another wild figment of her rather considerable imagination.

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I waited until I saw Maureen sit down... and knew how angry she was at me... but my grandfather's oldest living close friend looked to be all right.

The ancient cover plate over the old clothes chute, that had first served the tenants of the boarding house over a century ago, hadn't been easy for me to find. Months ago I had come up here when the roof was being repaired, and broke thru the old layers of tar paper, and put on a brand new cover plate of my own design.

The roofers had just assumed it had been added by one of the air conditioning crews, as an access panel, and had worked around it. I'd added enough huge false bolts along the edges of the steel, to make it look like a truly tedious job to remove the plate. No one would ever want to work that hard, especially when I made sure to strip some of the threads!

But while it might have looked immovable without an hour's worth of work, and a blow torch, the whole thing was a fake.

A little catch, underneath an edge and covered up with a little dirt, released the latch and the whole plate just lifted up on some very well oiled and hidden hinges. It was a tight fit for me now, especially these days. There used to be clothes lines on the roof, so the maids at the boarding house could dry clothes and sheets up here in the hot sun.

After folding some of the items and putting them in baskets to carry down the now non-existent stairs to the fourth floor... others would be put in clean bags and thrown down the chute... to be recovered from the basement later.

That's where I was headed, but hopefully I would make a much slower trip, than the old bags of clean clothes had.

As a child, I had played around all over my grandfather's newest investment, while his architects argued about how best to repurpose the building that was old even way back then. I was barely tall enough to reach it, but I'd found a forgotten access to the chute, in a third floor closet, and rather typically I climbed right in.

Anthony almost got his wish that day, when I discovered there was no where to go but down. My hatch slammed shut and jammed, and the other floor's hatches had been walled over decades earlier. I had to climb all the way down, until I could use the rungs of mostly ruined wooden ladder in the twenty foot tall basement.

The problem with repeating that same journey today was, there was no ladder at all down there anymore. Just a mysterious hole in the ceiling, and a bone breaking drop to the hard brick floor, if I should screw up and fall at any point in my four story climb downwards. I gave Jenny once last secret regretful look, right before I swung my legs down into the tiny chute. After I found enough of the tricky footing, I lowered the hatch back down over my head and re-secured the little spring loaded latch from the inside.

Now I just had to climb down the tricky old shaft for four floors in the pitch black darkness... and not fall into the basement... so my body wouldn't found with a broken neck when the museum's offices opened back up on Monday.

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"Did you hear that? There it is again! I told you that this creepy room was haunted!"

Dan actually looked scared for a moment! It was true that this one room, on the fourth floor of the old boarding house, was almost always empty because it was so spooky. The entire top level of this corner of the museum complex had mostly been left intact. Like the uppermost floor in all those other buildings, here only the ceilings here had been lowered and replastered. All the other old fashioned woodwork had been left intact.

Older homes had so much more character!

They were never anything like the small soulless square box, of a barely off campus efficiency apartment, that she still suffered in every night when she went home. Dan had kept rather politely pestering her, to let him come over some weekend, but she'd always refused. Now that the museum, that they both worked at, was finally wrapping up the grand opening? And the Reveal's after party was finally winding down? At least a little?

Debbie was beginning to run out of excuses to let Dan visit her there!

She knew that they had gotten really close over the last year, and working together so much, but after the holidays she'd sort of teased him a bit too much! Things were very sexual between them now, but so many 'normal' things were still off limits! By their mutual agreement! Not many of her old or new friends, would be able to understand the strange dichotomy of their very open and intimate, yet somehow severely limited relationship.

She liked Dan, and loved how passionate he was about the museum, but there was still something severely lacking in her own private life.

Something so very important that they BOTH honestly believed that he might never be able to provide her.

Debbie knew that her entire history of dating men had been truly awful, and her few experiments with women hadn't been all that much better.