Hell Within -- Chapter Seven: The Birthright -- scenes 4-6

-4-

Mandy and Paul walked in utter silence as they crossed the concrete catwalk into the courthouse parking deck. Mandy was dying to find out more about what he knew of her father, but Paul didn’t look as though he wanted to talk.

This was a curious mood for Paul. She’d never seen him go inside himself as he had.

But as soon as she approached her car, her reservations were forgotten.

"What in the hell are you doing?" she blasted.

Paul, who had been looking at the concrete as he walked, looked up sharply.

A Dillard’s Locksmithing truck was parked beside her Escort station wagon, and her mother seemed to be writing the man a check as a Wood County deputy looked on leaning against the locksmith’s truck with his arms folded.

Terra looked up and smirked.

"I’ve found a buyer for my Escort."

Mandy’s mouth fell open, and she looked at Paul for help. Paul gave her a meek look, and then eyed her mother.

"That’s my car!"

Terra shook her head and held up the title. "Your name isn’t on this."

Mandy looked back at Paul. "I worked all summer to pay for that car!"

Paul bit his lower lip and looked back at Terra.

"You’re not gonna get away with this," he said.

"She’s stealing my car," Mandy pleaded to the deputy. "Aren’t you going to do anything about this?"

The deputy stood up straight and eyed Terra with disgust. "The title is in her name."

Mandy marched past Paul and over to the driver’s side door of her car with her key in hand. Terra stepped over in front of her, and Mandy shoved her to the ground.

Both the deputy and Paul sprung into action grasping Mandy by the arms and pulling her back.

Terra stood up and dusted herself off eyeing the deputy.

"I’d like to press charges for assault and battery," she said.

The deputy smirked. "Do you have any marks to prove that?"

Terra huffed. "You just saw it with your own eyes!"

"I didn’t see anything." He looked at the locksmith. "You see anything, Vinny?"

The locksmith looked down at the ground. "I had my back turned. I was putting my tools away."

"Oh, well that’s just great," Terra snapped.

Paul stepped in front of Mandy scowling. "Take the car and leave."

He looked back at Mandy. "In one month’s time, you’ll be giving her back every dime that she paid for it."

Terra’s eyes glimmered with amusement. "Good luck proving that she paid for it."

Paul looked back at her. "Oh, we will."

Terra sneered at him, and then got in the car.

Mandy watched helplessly as her mother drove away. She wanted to grab her by the neck and rip her throat out.

Once her mother was safely away, the deputy released her and patted her on the back.

"I’m sorry about that, but if you’d left in that car, she could have had you arrested for grand theft auto."

Mandy didn’t want to talk.

The deputy nodded and looked at Paul.

"Be good," he said, and then he sighed and started back toward the courthouse.

Paul stepped in front of Mandy and lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Don’t ever attack her like that again."

Mandy smacked his hand away looked down and folded her arms again.

"Hey," Paul said, stepping into her field of vision. Mandy looked away from him again.

"You and I are going to get her."

-5-

At Paul’s insistence, Mandy went on to school even though she was worthless all day, and after a highly-degrading bus ride back to the practice, Mandy retired to the upstairs loft where she parked her nose in her algebra book.

After an hour of not solving a single one of her homework problems, there was a loud knock at the front door downstairs. She dropped her pencil on her desk, stood up, and trotted down the stairs thinking that Paul had left for the day.

But halfway down the stairs, she found that assumption to be incorrect.

Paul opened the front door, and two men wearing dress slacks and polo shirts stepped inside uninvited followed by a sheriff’s deputy.

"Are you Dr. Paul Ambrose?"

"Yes."

Mandy stopped on the bottom step with a pang of anxiety shooting through her chest.

"I’m Detective Tom Davis from the sheriff’s office, and we have a warrant to search your upstairs loft."

The detective handed Paul a folded sheet of paper.

"What’s going on?" Mandy blurted.

Paul looked at her. The emotion his eyes conveyed was yet another that she’d not seen from him before. It was concern -- not for himself but for her.

"Another one of your mother’s efforts to rattle you."

Mandy glared at the detective. "A search warrant based on what?"

The detective nodded to the other polo-shirt-wearing man beside him, who started past him and up the stairs. Mandy turned to follow.

"No ma’am," the detective said.

Mandy gave him a helpless look.

"While he’s up there, you need to stay right here where I can see you."

Mandy felt cold all of the sudden. She eyed Paul with her hands clenched.

"I’m gonna kill her."

The deputy stepped toward her, plucked his sunglasses off his face and rubbed his full, brown mustache.

"Ma’am, if I were you, I’d be real careful what you say."

Paul stood up straight. "And how would you feel, Tommy?"

The detective gave him a disgusted look.

"Only my friends call me Tommy, and you sure ain’t one of them."

Paul gave him a knowing smile, and then he took a seat in one of the four Victorian chairs that sat in the corners of his waiting room and crossed his legs.

Ten minutes and twelve nervous breakdowns later, the other detected trotted down the stairs holding several evidence bags full of her underclothes -- clothes that had come from her dirty hamper -- and her diary in gloved hands.

"Where do you think you going with that?"

Tom Davis encroached her.

"Now you just cool your jets, little lady."

She looked to Paul. "That’s my diary and my panties!"

"I’m sure Tommy will be certain to return all of them to you once he’s finished looking for his wild goose."

Tom Davis gave Paul a shit-eating grin. "I wouldn’t count on it, and if I were you, Mr. Ambrose, I’d keep myself handy."

Paul slapped his right knee, stood up, stepped over to the door, and opened it.

"As delighted and honored as we are by your surprise visit, I’m afraid that both Mandy and I have much to accomplish before tomorrow."

Tom gave him a confused look. "We know the way out."

Paul nodded as if the detective’s response gave him great pleasure. "Don’t be a stranger," he added.

Tom gave him a shit-eating-grin again. "Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that."

And the officers filed out the door, and Paul closed it and locked it behind him. Then he returned to his chair in the waiting room and sighed hard.

"How can they just come in here and take my personal things?" Mandy demanded.

Paul rubbed his face and looked straight toward the opposite wall.

"They’re police. They can’t do anything without probable cause."

"And what would that be?"

Paul looked at her.

"You heard everything that I did."

Mandy frowned.

"You know something that you’re not telling me."

Paul grunted with frustration, stood up, and disappeared back into his office closing the door behind him and leaving Mandy alone with her thoughts.

-6-

Mandy had a serious case of the butterflies.

It had been three months since she was beaten within an inch of her life and landed in the hospital for a month. She had only met him once while she was in the hospital, and their meeting was brief.

He smiled when she walked through the door and stretched out his hand for her to shake, but Mandy only looked at him. Oddly, he seemed to be wearing the same clothes -- a light blue polo shirt with a pair of khaki slacks.

Déjà vu all over again.

But this time, he was up to no good. She sensed that -- with all else going on -- her mother must be at the root of this.

"I don’t know if you remember me," he said. "I’m Will Fisk from Family and Children Services?"

She nodded sheepishly and eyed the counselor’s secretary -- one of those old hippies who had never given up the cause -- her salt-and-pepper hair still back-length and ironed flat -- no makeup -- Native American-like jewelry.

The look Mandy gave her was supposed to communicate her misgiving, but the secretary -- who insisted on the students calling her Tammy because she didn’t like a power title like Mr. or Mrs. -- only gave her a dumb, dental assistant grin.

"Is there someplace Mandy and I can talk in private?" Will Fisk asked Tammy.

Tammy pointed at the first office behind them, and Will looked at her and smiled.

"Shall we?" he said stretching out a hand toward the door.

Mandy walked in the office and sat down in the chair before the desk. Will came in behind her, closed the door, and then sat down behind the desk pulling out a notepad and a pen. And he looked up to her and smiled warmly.

"You look totally different than you did the last time I saw you."

"Thanks, I think."

Will nodded. "That was a complement. You look much more -- together."

Mandy gave him a cautious nod.

He looked down at his pad. "So have you had anymore trouble out of your mother?"

"Not since Davy tried to kill me and went to jail, but I guess you already knew that."

He nodded.

"How are your grades holding out?"

Mandy sat up straight. "Well, despite being out of school for nearly a month, it looks like I’m not only going to pass this year but turn in the best grades I’ve had since the second grade."

"That’s terrific!"

She looked down. "My teachers have been very understanding, and Paul has helped me out a lot."

He frowned and looked at her. "Paul?"

"Dr. Ambrose."

"Oh," he said, and then he scribbled something that she couldn’t see on his pad.

"So how are you and Dr. Ambrose getting along?"

Mandy studied him hard, but he had a poker face. She sat back in her chair.

"Not too good right now."

"Why?"

"Since yesterday, he’s been distant and moody. Mom’s pulling every dirty trick in the book to try to get at both of us."

He sighed and looked up.

"Like what?"

"Yesterday, she stole my car. I worked all last summer to pay for it, but it was titled in her name because I’m a minor."

Will shook his head and wrote something on his pad.

"What else?"

"The cops came to the practice the other day with a search warrant for my loft, and left with a bunch of my dirty clothes."

He laughed humorlessly.

"So what’s she trying to pull?"

She scratched her head.

"No one will tell me anything. I get the feeling they’re all trying to keep me away from it."

He nodded and scribbled on his pad some more.

"So you’re still living in the loft?"

"Yeah."

He bunched his lips together and looked up at her.

"How often is Paul around?"

She waved. "He’s a workaholic. He drives in from Habersham County every morning before I get up, and he doesn’t leave until sometimes after ten."

He smiled warmly. "Seems like it’d be a lot easier for him to just stay there."

She nodded. "He said that’s what he used to do before I moved in up there."

He searched her face.

"What about the weekends?"

"He doesn’t see patients, if that’s what you mean. He’s around though."

He nodded and resumed his note-taking.

"I think he still doesn’t completely trust me to be there by myself."

"Have you been to his house?"

"I stayed there a couple of nights when we were having all that trouble with Davy, and I’ve been there once or twice since. But I don’t go there often. It’s kind of uncomfortable."

He looked up sharply.

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "It’s Paul’s home. He’s lived there forever; it’s kind of his fortress of solitude. I’m afraid to touch anything."

He nodded and scribbled.

"Are you still seeing him for therapeutic purposes?"

She shook her head. "Paul said that became an ethical issue the moment he became my interim guardian."

He scanned his notes pressing the end of his pen to his bottom lip, and then he looked up at her.

"So at this point, how would you characterize your relationship with Dr. Ambrose?"

She blinked at him. "I don’t understand."

"Is he like a father, a mentor, a good friend, a brother. . . ."

She didn't know how to answer.

"What’s this about?"

He dropped his pad and pen and held his hands up. "I’m just making sure that someone is looking out for you in the best way possible."

She bit her bottom lip. "On the off chance that my mother is responsible for this visit, please give her a message for me."

He gave her an interrogative expression.

"Tell her she can suck my dick."

He busted out in brittle laughter, but Mandy didn’t think it was funny at all.

Will collected himself and leaned forward.

"Listen, my job is not to go around tearing up people’s lives. I never set out to jerk a knot in someone’s tail unless I’m pretty damn sure it’s warranted."

She nodded. "I’m glad to hear that. For the first time in my life, I have people behind me that don’t beat me down, and my mother’s doing everything she can to drag me back down. And right now, it looks like she’s gonna get away with it."

He shook his head tightly. "She’s not getting away with anything."

Mandy’s eyes welled up and she looked away.

"Hey, I realize that right now, you don’t trust me as far as you can pick me up and throw me, but I’m trying to look out for you."

Mandy wiped both of her eyes with the index finger of her right hand and looked down at her lap.

"Okay, I’m just gonna ask you one more thing, and then you can go back to class and hopefully forget you ever saw me here today."

She nodded without looking at him.

"Is there anything I need to know about you and Dr. Ambrose?"

(Continue to scenes 7-)