The Abduction of Stephanie

Chapter 10

HEY GUYS I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHO YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER IS TO THIS POINT IN THE STORY. IS IT THE ABDUCTED STEPHANIE OR IS SHE GETTING WHAT SHE DESERVES? IS IT RAY? IT CAN'T BE RAY RIGHT? HOW ABOUT MELODY OR RAINE? OR MAYBE IT IS STILL THE SENSOUS MISS SIMPSON. LET ME KNOW.

 The weather is sweltering in Scarborough, Arizona and Ray walks towards the house with a just a single duffle bag over his shoulder, carrying the few possessions he has. Possessions, which include shorts and tee shirts, a single pair of jeans with holes in the knees, one hooded sweatshirt, a week’s worth of socks and underwear, a toothbrush and two dollars and thirty-seven cents.   The house is on the outskirts of the desert and you can see cacti along the roadside and it’s to be Ray’s seventh house in the last six years. The house is new, probably built within the last five years. It stands four stories high and is white with green shutters. Caltrop flowers and Lilacs have freshly bloomed in the garden on the front lawn and Ray can’t seem to take his eyes off them or the house, he has never seen anything like it. Would this be the place he would finally call home?  

The inside is even more attractive with its marble countertops and glass chandeliers that hang from the cathedral ceilings. The kitchen is larger than any room he has ever stayed in and the entire house has large bay windows. There is a winding staircase that leads to the room he will be staying in and his room has a large waterbed and is decorated with many things a sixteen-year-old boy would like. There are posters of Arizona Wildcats players on the wall, a desk for him to do his schoolwork, an indoor basketball hoop on the wall and the room even has a television. Ray could definitely get used to this.  

Mr. and Mrs. Miller seem like good people at first, they have been foster parents before and living here definitely has to be better than living in an orphanage, getting his hands slapped by nuns with rulers and must be better than his last foster family that slapped him around every chance they got. The Millers were an older couple, probably in their sixties and already a bit hard of hearing. Ray heard that they foster other children because they weren’t able to have children of their own. That is fine with Ray, who will not have to share all of the cool things in the house with any other children.   Ray sets his bag down on the bedroom floor and jumps backwards onto the waterbed. It is so much more comfortable than the beds he is used to sleeping in. It has a fancy blue comforter and has been made up just right, or it had been until Ray jumped on top of it. The pillows were soft and smelled of lavender; in fact the whole house seemed to smell like a combination of lavender and lemon pledge. Yes he could definitely get used to this.  

Ray gets up from the bed and pulls out the picture of his mother. In the picture she is wearing a white sundress and walking along a beach, though Ray isn’t exactly sure which beach and has no knowledge of who had taken the picture. Her curly blonde hair flails in the wind as her bare feet truffle through the cool evening sand. When he looks into her hazel eyes Ray still believes that he can see the purity and innocence of the only mother he has ever known.

  He was only six years old when the men came bursting through the door of their tiny one bedroom apartment. They were big guys weighing at least three hundred pounds each. One had a beard and the other had tattoos all down his arms. Both of them were carrying guns. Only instead of calling his mother by her name, Raven, they called her names like hooker, prostitute and junkie. “Where’s my money?”shouted the man with the beard. “I don’t have it. Please just give me a few more days,” said Raven holding back tears. “That’s what you said last time. Time is up,” said the man with the tattoos, pointing a gun at Stephanie.“Either you pay up now or one of you dies. So who’s it gonna be? You or the kid.” “Kill me if you have to but please don’t hurt my boy” said Raven stepping in front of Ray. The man with the beard grabbed Ray and he could only watch as the man with the tattoos opened fire on his mother, he saw the bullet go through her skull and saw her land in a pool of cold blood. The men ran off never to be seen again and Ray stood over his mother shaking, traumatized over the events that had just occurred. He remained there until the police came and the next day he was placed in the care of the system.  

Ray never met his father. His mother wasn’t even sure who he was. When he was young she used to tell him that he lived in France but by the time he was five he knew she was lying. So now ten years later he has lived in more residences than he can count, with no parents to rely on. No mother, no father, only memories. He kisses the photo of his mother and sets it on the nightstand next to the bed. Ray climbs out of the waterbed and starts to unpack. He sets the clothes in dresser drawers and the toothbrush in his own private bathroom. He opens the door to the walk in closet and sees rows and rows of brand name clothing all with the tags still on them and finally after all the years of bouncing around it looks like he has a place he can call home.  

Ray is exhausted and sets his head down on the pillow to get some sleep. He has the usually recurring nightmare of that awful night she was murdered, sacrificing her life for the life of her son and for this Ray will always be grateful. His mother may have been a junkie and a prostitute but Ray knows she was only doing what was necessary to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates. To Ray she wasn’t a sinner, she was an angel, an angel that he misses very much. After a night of tossing and turning Ray is awakened by the sound of songbirds followed by Mrs. Miller’s voice. “Ray breakfast!” she shouts. Ray grabs a pair of shorts, brushes his teeth, stopping to stare at his reflection in the mirror for a brief moment and heads downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast is delicious. It consists of bacon and eggs and sausage and pancakes. It’s the best meal Ray has had in years. “Thank you for breakfast Mrs. Miller,”says Ray trying to be polite.  

Mr. Miller sits reading the sports page and has hardly said a word the entire meal. Every now and then he would circle a horse on the paper, hoping to hit it big at the track. Not that he needed any more money, but gambling just gave him a rush. Mr. Miller is a good man when he is winning but it was when he was losing that he lost his temper, and eventually he took it out on Ray just like all the others.  

After school Mr. Miller would slap him around, blaming him every time his horse didn’t win, place, or show. Mr. Miller would shout, “You are bad luck. Ever since you came to us I haven’t won a damn thing. Now do your chores!” Mr. Miller would make Ray clean the entire mansion, from scrubbing the kitchen floors with a toothbrush to washing his unmentionables in the laundry to cleaning the all seven bathrooms in the house. Ray soon grew tired of being treated like Cinderella’s brother and decided he wasn’t going to live like this anymore. No more being abused, no more being treated like crap, no more of this awful life.  

One night after dinner Ray grabs all of his belongings and shoves them into the duffle bag, being sure not to forget the picture of his mother. He waits until the Millers are asleep and tiptoes through the house, trying to make as little noise as possible. He nearly knocks over a vase but catches it just before it hits the floor. He sets the vase back down on the end table and heads out the door.   Ray walks a couple of blocks before realizing he barely has enough money for a bus ticket and definitely doesn’t have enough to get him very far. He continues to walk aimlessly through the dirt roads, continuing for what seems like miles, the whole time vowing that if he ever has a child he would treat that child better than he has been treated over the years. He would love that child more than life itself and protect that child from danger and evil. No one would ever harm his child and if they did there would be a price to pay, they would have to answer to him.  

Ray continues walking for a couple more blocks and approaches a diner. Ray hardly touched his dinner and has built up an appetite but he can’t afford a meal. With an empty stomach he decides to continue past the restaurant but then something stops him dead in his tracks. Something more beautiful and more admirable than anything he has ever seen.  

Ray stands outside the window and can’t help staring. There is a young woman in the window with long blonde curls that hang well beyond her shoulder blades. Her hazel eyes transforming like that of a chameleon every time she takes a step, green, then brown, then green again. Ray stands and watches as the young girl pours a customer another cup of coffee. The waitress is tall with long slender legs. She is wearing a red apron that says Jenny’s Placeover her pink shirt and black skirt. He watches as she takes another woman’s order, showing off her near perfect smile as she jots down the order. She puts the pad in her apron pocket and sticks the pen in her hair and Ray knows now that he has to meet her. He moves closer to the plate glass window, watching her, mesmerized by the gracefulness with which she walks. She turns towards him and he sees a nametag pinned to her chest that reads “Helen.”