Episode 3: The Stranger & The Shrew

Episode 3
THE STRANGER AND THE SHREW

Patrick Donovan was by no means a happy man. And it wasn't only for the fact that his step-sister, Angela had been in a train accident. He was generally an unhappy man and that was mostly attributed to the fact that his wife had the emotional capacity of a goldfish. Why he hadn't seen it before he was married, he didn't know. His sister had tried to warn him but he was so in love with being in love that her true personality had somehow manage to elude him.

Today Carly was in high form and already ranting about her favorite subject -- Angela. If Angela wasn't taking his affection away from Carly, she was doing some other unworthy thing that Carly had to express her opinion on.

"Honey," his wife's voice dripped with a practiced syrupy sweetness that spoke of how she was used to getting her own way no matter what the circumstance. If people didn't offer their cooperation, Carly found a way to manipulate them into giving her what she wanted. If this had been a talent, Patrick would say she was very good at it... probably an expert.

When he didn't answer immediately to her bellow, Carly sputtered in annoyance letting him know that she was ignoring her yet again. It was a sound he was very familiar with.

"Honey! Why are we driving up here?" her annoyance was at a peak. "I think Angela can find her own way home from the train station!"

Patrick lifted his eyes skyward in a salute God had to be familiar with. Then he asked of his creator the same questions he repeatedly asked himself. "Why me, God?"

The baby gurgled from the backseat smiling at him with her bright eyes and he had his answer. That was why. Suzie was why he was in this mess. He loved her so much that he chose to live in hell rather than leave that precious infant without a father or a family. That little baby was exactly why he found himself in a loveless marriage with a shrew of a wife. He finally realized he still hadn't answered her question, when she huffed indigently from the passenger seat.

"Why are we coming up here? Did you not watch the same tv broadcast that I did? Did you not hear that Angela's train derailed and many were presumed dead? If you had actually bothered to pay attention, you would know these details already."

"Patrick, you know how I am with details. I lothe them. Other people tell me all I need to know. So why should I bother paying attention to the media?"

Patrick fumed. Carly really didn't understand. "She could be dead. Dead. Do you understand me? And if she's injured, I don't want her to be up here alone."

"You really give your sister way to much attention, Patrick. I can't believe the way you fawn over her. You talk to her every other day and you don't even live in the same town any more! And what is worse is that she takes all your attention away from me and Suzie."

Translated, that in Carly-speak meant that she resented Patrick's relationship with his sister and would go to any lengths to destroy that bond, even if it meant letting Angela die in a ditch after a train accident.

"You really are cold." Patrick raised his voice a notch sending Suzie into a crying fit.

"Now look what you've done! It's taken me all night to settle her down. If she keeps this up, I'm not going to be the one sitting up with her tonight."

Gee, there was a threat he hadn't heard before.

"Maybe if I'm lucky, she'll be dead and her damn monkey will finally be off my back!"

That was nearly the last straw for Patrick. "I can't believe you just said that. She's my sister, for God's sake! You act like she is some lover I've taken behind your back. She could be injured and I'm going to find her, with or without you."

Carly's resentment simmered. "Well then, why didn't you just say so in the first place? Nora had asked me to come and see her newly decorated living room..."

"You'd rather see Nora's living room than see if my sister is alive and safe? You really are a piece of work!"

***

Emile DeYoung loved riding her uncle's horses. She had learned to ride before she walked, so it was now second nature to saddle up one of her favorites and exercise them around the pasture. Today, she was taking her favorite horse, Flamethrower out for a jaunt. She could only go as far as the back fields, but her uncle promised to take her out farther tomorrow.

She was halfway back home when she noticed a woman kneeling on the side of the road that lead to her family's ranch.

"Hey, lady," Emile called out. "Are you all right?"

The woman looked at her in confusion holding her hand against her head. Her eyes looked funny, Emile thought as she dismounted and came closer.

"What?" The woman looked confused and it was beginning to scare Emile. "Don't I look all right?"

"Yeah, you look just peachy. Your hair is kinda crooked. You've got mud on your clothes.... What happened to you?"

"I.. I.. don't know." The woman pulled her hand slowly away from her head. It was covered in blood.

***

Rand Boyd mucked the last stall and put his shovel aside with satisfaction. He liked a job well done. And this job had needed to be done. It had been a month of Sundays since the last time he had a chance to tend to his horses like this. Usually, he left the dirty stuff to Rio.

As he exited the barn, he could hear his niece, Emile, shouting for him from the yard. It wasn't until he reached the front porch that he noticed that Emile's screams had become more insistent.

His immediate thought was that her horse had thrown her and she was in pain in a ditch somewhere on the property. Rand ran toward the sound of her shrieks.

His heart started beating in his chest again when he realized it wasn't Emile in the ditch... it was someone else.

"What happened?" Rand ran to the woman's side and laid two fingers on the inside of her wrist. The pulse was thready, but there.

"I didn't get a chance to ask her that. She seemed kinda out of it then she lost her balance and fell. I swear I didn't push her." Emile's face was flushed with concern.

"I know you didn't, sweetheart."

Emile leaned over getting a closer look at the woman. "I think there is something wrong with her head. It's bleeding."

Rand checked the wound. Emile was right. It was bleeding.

He looked down his empty drive and didn't notice a car of any kind. It was a pretty far walk from town. He wondered what she was doing out here and how she had come to be out here in the first place.

"Hey, kiddo? Go get your grandma and tell her to bring the cordless out here." Rand used his training to check for broken bones.

"You gonna call 911?"

"No," he said in desperation. "I'm going to call Patrick."

***

Patrick couldn't believe what he was hearing. It had taken him two hours to get information about Angela from the railroad authorities.

"What do you mean you can't find her body? My sister is alive, isn't she? The news broadcast led me to believe there were survivors."

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of such bad news," the man said. "There was only one survivor, and her name wasn't Angela Seraph."

"NO! You have to be mistaken." Patrick grasped for any sliver of hope he could. "If you haven't found her body, that means she could be alive?"

"Could be, but doubtful. I've seen too many of these to try and give anyone false hope. We'll let you know as soon as we recover the body. It's only a matter of time now."

The pain he felt that afternoon was the worse pain he had ever experienced. It was only made worse by his wife screaming his name at the top of her lungs and Suzie crying her eyes out.

Yeah, baby, that's how I feel too, he wanted to say, but he didn't.

"Patrick!" Carly bellowed from the front stoop outside the train depot. "Your cell phone is ringing and it woke up the baby again!"

Patrick sighed as a tear slipped down his cheek. "God forbid, she answer the damn thing herself!"