Thrice Rescued

Vera said, "I went into foster care at age 2. My dad had disappeared. My mom died of cancer. I didn't have any relatives who were willing to take me in. It wasn't a pleasant experience. I bounced around like a pinball. I was lucky to get out of the system and not end up in jail. Fortunately, I had teachers who watched out for me and a decent caseworker. They got me the scholarship to attend here. I'm majoring in accounting. I plan to find a job that will provide me with the maximum financial security that I can get with an accounting degree. I figure the world will always need bean counters, so I'll never lack for work."

"Good plan," I replied. "I'm majoring in history and education. Gunny H is a high school teacher and Mrs. H is a guidance counselor. They rescued me from a really bad foster home and got me straightened out. I served in the Marine Corps for four years after high school, which I why I'm just a freshman now."

We continued to talk as we turned back to the lab work. When we finished the lab, I asked Vera, "Would you like to go get something to eat? I'm starving."

"My budget doesn't really let me eat anywhere but the dining hall."

"Come on, it's on me. No pressure, but let me do this, one foster kid to another. I've got the wherewithal. You can reciprocate sometime when you're flush." And with that, Vera entered my life as something other than a lab partner.

For the rest of the semester, I worked on opening Vera up further. We weren't dating, but we became study buddies, spending considerable time together in the library. I had learned to cook from Mrs. H, so I had Vera over for a home cooked meal at least twice a week. We caught a few college sports events together and I took her out to dinner one evening. In all that time, I never so much as touched her, except to help her off or on with her coat.

The schedule that the Hopkins had put me on had left very little time for dating in high school. I'd dated some in the Marine Corps, but it was more hook-ups than anything resembling a relationship. So, I really didn't have much in the way of relationship building skills to fall back on. It was clear Vera didn't either. Although she had opened up to a degree, there was always a barrier keeping me from really getting inside the castle keep. I could tell she was driven primarily by a need to feel secure, financially, physically, and emotionally. She wasn't going to let anyone in to disturb that security. Getting her to a point where we could have a real relationship was going to be a challenge. But despite that, perhaps because I understood why she was that way, I kept trying. I found myself falling in love with her, as stupid as that sounds.

It was Christmas break that finally changed our entire dynamic, moving us from friends to lovers. The college closed completely for three weeks at Christmas, beginning the week before the holiday and continuing through the week after New Year's. I hadn't really thought about what Vera was going to do over that the break, until she knocked on my door with a garbage bag full of her stuff in hand. "Davie," she said, "Can I stay with you over Christmas break? They're closing the dorm tonight and I don't have enough money for a hotel."

"Shit," I thought. "What an idiot I am. Vera doesn't have any place to go over the holidays. I should have been the one asking her to come stay with me. I'm a jackass!"

"Sure," I said. "Let me put clean sheets on the bed. You can sleep there. I'll sleep out here on the sofa. I've done it plenty of times when I've fallen asleep in front of the TV. I'll get you some towels and a washcloth."

"I'm not going to put you out of your own bed. We can share. I trust you not to try to take advantage of me. After all, we're both foster kids and we've both probably shared a bed before."

Vera did have a point, although it had been a long time since I'd shared a bed with anyone except a hook-up. And there hadn't been any of them for almost a year, between my recovery from my injuries and the first semester of college. But if she was willing, I was willing. "Who knows?" I told myself. "Maybe we can be more than just friends."

I helped her move her stuff into my bedroom, cleared a drawer and some closet space for her clothes and welcomed her to Chez Davie. Our first night was a bit awkward. I'd been accustomed to sprawling all over the double bed, something that wouldn't work with Vera sharing it. I didn't own any pajamas, generally sleeping in boxer shorts and a t-shirt. That wasn't going to work either, so I went to bed in a pair of sweatpants over my boxers. Vera must have had a great deal of faith in my sense of self-restraint because she popped out of the bathroom in t-shirt and a skimpy pair of shorts. From the bounce under the t-shirt, it was clear there was nothing on underneath. I was hard before she even hit the bed.

I tried. I really did. I started the night rolled over on the edge of the bed facing away from Vera. I don't know when or how it happened, but by morning I was rolled over and spooning her, with my arm draped over her hugging her close to me with my hand on her breast. When I awoke, I was hard as a rock and poking into her ass.

Apparently, Vera had been awake for a while. "I'm so sorry," I told her. "I didn't mean to be a pervert."

Vera laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's nice having someone cuddle up to me. I don't think I've ever just snuggled with someone before. I could get used to this." And with that, she rolled over, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me, morning breath and all.

I wasn't prepared for that, or for what followed. Without so much as a "by your leave" Vera sat up and pulled her t-shirt off over her head, tossing it onto the floor beside her. Then she rolled over on top of me and resumed our kiss, forcing her tongue into my mouth. I was tempted. I mean really, really tempted, to follow where she was leading, but at the last minute, virtue triumphed (at least for the moment) over vice. I pushed her away and said, "Vera, you don't have to do this. I'm your friend. I'm not looking to have you repay me for crashing here by sleeping with me. I won't do this unless you are serious about our having a relationship. I'm not going to blow our friendship over a quick hookup. I really like you. I'd love for us to be more than friends. But we are not going to be fuck buddies or a one-night stand. You mean too much to me for us to do something like that."

I knew from my foster care days that a lot of foster care kids, particularly girls, treated sex as just an extended form of handshake, something to get them what they wanted or a way to say thank you to someone who'd done something for them. It could be completely meaningless. Just a way to earn points or get out of trouble. My time with Gunny and Mrs. H had given me a different perspective. I'd seen the two of them in a meaningful, loving relationship and I wanted one of them for my own. In my mind, I had begun to picture Vera as the other person in that relationship, foolish as that might be.

I don't think anyone had ever told Vera "no" to an offer of sex. I had no idea how long she'd been sexually active, but I was pretty sure that she had not been seeing anyone since starting school. As far as I could tell, I was her only friend on campus. The only reason she'd let me inside the walls she'd erected was our common foster kid background.

Vera stared at me for a long while. Then she said, "Davie, sometimes you are just too nice for your own good. Here I am offering you the chance to enjoy me and you're turning me down. Are you for real?"

"It isn't easy for me to do. I'm extremely fond of you. Perhaps even a bit in love with you. I've fanaticized about being with you. But until you feel the same way about me that I feel about you, the answer is going to be 'No!'"

"If I told you that I'm a little bit in love with you, too, would you do it?"

"Only if I believed you were being honest with me and not just trying to make me feel good about doing it."

"You are an exasperating man, Davie Derr." And with that, she got out of bed, picked up her t-shirt, and walked into the bathroom with a change of clothes to shower and brush her teeth. When she finished, I did the same.

Things were a bit frosty between us for the rest of the day. That night, instead of the t-shirt and shorts, Vera went to bed in a set of sweats. There was still nothing on underneath as nearly as I could tell, but I think she was making a statement. The following morning, I went out for a run, taking my phone. When I finished, I called Mrs. H.

"Hi Mrs. H. Are we still on for Christmas dinner?"

"Of course, Davie. Why would you even ask?"

"I know it's rude, but do you think there's room for one more at the table? My lab partner from biology is a foster kid and she has nowhere to go for Christmas. She's bunking with me over the break because the dorms are closed. I'd hate to leave her all alone on Christmas Day."

"The more, the merrier. Bring her along. We'll make sure she enjoys a nice dinner and some time with our family."

"Thanks Mrs. H. Can we bring anything?"

"Just the two of you. See you then."

"Bye."

Later that day, I went out to pick up a pizza. On the way, I stopped at a local jewelry store and bought a small necklace with a tiny figurine dangling from the chain. Since Vera was going to join the Hopkins clan for Christmas Day, I wanted to make sure she had a present to open. I didn't know it at the time, but that necklace would turn out to be the first Christmas present she'd ever received that hadn't come from a foster care agency or charity.

CHAPTER THREE

The gift of that necklace turned out to be the nudge that tipped Vera's and my relationship over the edge from friends to lovers. When I handed her the present, she opened it, then started to cry. And then she jumped into my lap in front of everyone and kissed me like I'd never been kissed before. When we got back to my apartment that night, she dragged me into the bedroom and told me that she wanted us to have a relationship. It had been over a year and a half for me, and I don't know how long for her, but we quickly proved that good sex comes from the heart and not the groin.

Vera never did move back into the dorm. When the dorms reopened, we moved all her stuff into my apartment and began living together. I'm not sure Gunny and Mrs. H were completely on board with our being together. They had reservations about how quickly we'd moved from being lab partners to living together, but they were happy for us and accepted Vera as part of the family.

The next three and a half years sped by. Vera did spectacularly well in her accounting studies, graduating at the top of her class and landing an incredible job with a big four accounting firm in Philadelphia. I managed to find a teaching position at a suburban high school, teaching history to ninth and tenth graders. We were married shortly after graduation. Just a small wedding, with Gunny H as my best man and Mrs. H as the matron of honor. At the reception, Gunny H handed me a card. When I opened it, there was a check in the amount of all the foster care payments he and Mrs. H had received for my care. With those funds as a down payment, we bought a small house near a SEPTA train line into the city, allowing Vera to commute by rail. Her hours were a lot longer than mine, and she had to travel regularly to audit clients, but we were almost deliriously happy. For the first time since I'd met her, Vera seemed settled, confident in our relationship and secure in where she was in her life.

We'd been married about four and a half years when Vera's firm was engaged by the U.S. Government to conduct an audit of a major defense contractor accused by a whistleblower of a massive fraudulent billing on a cost-plus contract. The whistleblower's claim was that the contractor had faked hundreds of millions, perhaps even a billion, dollars in costs, with a select group of executives pocketing the payments. The contractor was located in the Midwest and Vera's team spent weeks at a time, seven days a week, conducting the audit. She'd leave on a Sunday evening and be gone two or three weeks, then return home, recharge for a week, and go off again. She had gotten into the habit of giving me a wild evening of sex before each trip, and an equally wild evening upon return. We would speak every day while she was gone, engaging in phone sex if she was alone in her room or office, or just catching up if others were around. It wasn't perfect, but Vera was excited to be working on such an important project and the feedback from her bosses was overwhelmingly positive. This was the kind of project that could vault her toward a partnership sooner rather than later.

The whistleblower was an accountant in his early 30s named Richard Wilson. He was the mid-level staffer primarily responsible for the accounting and billing on the cost-plus contract. He had stumbled across payments to a subcontractor he had not recognized. When he had pulled a copy of the contract, he found that the services being invoiced were duplicative of another subcontractor. A methodical man, he'd dug deeper, discovering that the phony contractor was owned by a Cayman Islands corporation. With the help of a friend who was extremely tech savvy, he'd hacked into the computers of the Cayman Island's law firm that had established the Cayman Islands parent corporation and discovered that it was owned by four senior executives of the defense contractor. At that point, he'd engaged an attorney and filed a whistleblower claim against the defense contractor. All hell had broken loose.

Vera spent days with Richard on each trip, following the trail of invoices and payments. He was entitled to a high eight figure or low nine figure payout if the whistleblower claim proved out, which it eventually did. I had no idea at the time, but Richard had developed a serious interest in Vera. And when Vera recognized that Richard was looking at an enormous award when the investigation was completed, she began to think that he offered a far more secure future than that which we shared.

You can't blow the lid off a claim of that size without creating enemies. Richard created a host of them. Unfortunately for him (and ultimately, for me), some of them decided to deal with their problem by eliminating the source. After the third unsuccessful attempt on his life, the feds finally decided Richard needed to go into witness protection. Richard agreed but set one condition. He wanted Vera to go with him.

Sometimes the husband really is the last to know. I would only discover years later what had been going through Vera's mind when she agreed to accompany Richard into the witness protection program. It wasn't the money, per se, but rather the security that the money offered combined with the oversight and protection of the U.S. Marshal's service. Vera's insecurities from a childhood spent in foster care overcame any qualms she might have about abandoning me.

The day Vera disappeared started out like any other day when she was leaving to continue performing the audit. We'd engaged in wild monkey sex for hours the night before. It was almost as if she were trying to make sure I was taken care of for a long term. Our lovemaking had been even more intense than the usual goodbye sex we'd had prior to earlier trips. We'd been talking about having a child and Vera had stopped taking her birth control pills shortly before her previous trip. I put the additional fervor of our lovemaking down to her attempting to get pregnant before the trip. The following morning she'd caught the train for the office with her bags and briefcase and I'd gone off to school. It was the last time I ever saw or spoke to her.

The security cameras in front of Vera's office would later show her leaving the office as if heading for the airport. A black SUV with temporary tags picked her up and whisked her away. When I didn't hear from her for a couple of days, I began to be concerned. Phone calls went to voice mail. Emails went unopened. Text messages weren't generating a response. This had never happened before. I became very worried that something had happened.

I finally called Vera's office to find out what was going on. They told me that she was on vacation. Vacation? No way. She'd been clear she was flying out to the Midwest after working all day. Had they heard from her? No, they hadn't.

Now frantic with worry, I reported Vera as a missing person. The local police were sympathetic, but not convinced that my concerns were warranted. After all, Vera was an adult. Had we quarreled? Did she have a lover? Perhaps she'd lost her phone. Or maybe she was just too busy to deal with a concerned husband.

When it became clear that her phone was out of service, her laptop untraceable, her credit cards unused and our bank accounts untapped, the cops finally began to take me more seriously. Vera's employer turned over the recorded footage from the security cameras outside their offices, which revealed Vera entering the SUV. The temporary tags proved to be fake. No such tag number existed. Now the cops began a more extensive investigation. They questioned me for hours before confirming that I'd been in an after-school department meeting with ten other teachers at the time Vera had entered the vehicle. They searched all through our house, investigated our finances, and concluded that there was no evidence at all of what had happened to my wife. She had just vanished from the face of the earth, a 21^st Century Judge Crater.

I melted down completely. Although I'd recognized early in our marriage that Vera's feelings for me might never rise to the same level as mine for her, I had been sure she'd loved me as much as she was able to, given the limitations resulting from her extensive foster care background. I couldn't believe that Vera had just left me. She'd taken none of the things that had meaning for her, except my first Christmas present, the necklace which she never removed even if she were wearing other jewelry. As I became more and more convinced that something terrible had happened to her, I began to drink to numb the pain. The school district had given me a leave of absence to deal with the loss and the school year was nearly over, so I would have the entire summer to recover from my loss. Or, I'd have the time to drink myself into a stupor on a regular basis. I chose the latter.

When Vera had first disappeared, I'd been in daily contact with the Hopkins. As the time passed and there were no signs of what had happened to her, the contacts became less frequent. As I continued to spiral downwards, my contacts became sporadic. By the end of July that summer, I hadn't spoken to either Hopkins in almost a month. Mrs. H was concerned and so she did what she did best when she was concerned. She sent Gunny H over to find out how I was doing.

I'd gone through the better part of a bottle of Jack Daniels the preceding evening and was passed out on the couch when Gunny H arrived. Initially, he rang the doorbell, which I ignored. Then he knocked. When I didn't respond, he began banging on the door and shouting. "Goddammit Marine, open this fucking door right now!" I was astonished and more than a little afraid. In all the years I'd known him, I'd never heard him raise his voice or swear. I did the only possible thing. I opened the door.

Gunny H took one look around my living room and asked, "What in God's name happened here?" It was a reasonable question. The living room and the kitchen both wore a collection of dirty dishes, carryout food boxes (some still half full and rotting), and empty liquor bottles. I hadn't showered, shaved, or changed clothing for at least a week.

"You stink. Upstairs, now!" Gunny dragged me up the stairs and tossed me into the shower, still fully clothed.