Chapter 1: A Knock on the Door

Gerald Morgan was a very organized, careful man who led a disciplined, structured life. It was no accident that he was a CPA. He had discovered early in life that he preferred the nicely ordered, rule-bound existence of accounting to anything more adventurous. Gerald's desire for order extended into his personal life as well. All of his tools in the garage were hung in their proper place on a big pegboard, and he got quite upset when one of them was missing. He went through the same exercise routine every evening before bed Before he went to bed, he would carefully lay out the clothes he was planning on wearing the next day so that getting dressed would be a cut-and-dried process. He and his equally organized wife Susan had raised two fine daughters, both of whom were now in college (accounting majors, on scholarships of course).

So Gerald was probably the least likely person you could think of to do something totally bizarre when confronted with an unusual situation. But as his life had become more and more predictable, Gerald had felt something slowly building up inside of him, like the magma inside a long-dormant volcano. He was beginning to feel the need for some sort of release from that pressure, but he had no idea what that could be. Then on a warm night in early October, Mt. Gerald exploded.

It was three o'clock in the morning. Gerald was sound asleep. He always went to bed right after the eleven o'clock news and slept straight through until his alarm went off at seven thirty each morning. But this was an unusual night for Gerald. For the first time in over twenty years, he was alone in the house at night. His youngest daughter had gone off to college a few months before, and now his wife was away on a business trip. His first night alone in his bed had proved to be a bit of a challenge for him, but this was the second night, and he was already used to the empty space beside him.

Then he awoke suddenly, unsure of why he was awake. He glanced over at his wife's side of the bed and quickly remembered that he was alone. Then he then realized that what had wakened him was the sound of someone knocking loudly and persistently on the front door. Whoever had been knocking was now using the door bell. Gerald felt a sudden feeling of panic; with his wife and both of his children out of town, he was convinced that the person at his door was a law enforcement office with some awful news.

Without thinking he quickly threw on some pants and ran to the door. His heart was pounding as he fumbled with the lock and threw it open. And there on his doorstep, with a hand still pressing the doorbell, was a young lady who looked like she was being pursued by the hounds of hell.

She was crying, her clothes were in disarray, and she was shivering. Gerald knew it was not cold enough for her to be shivering from the cold, so it appeared it was fear that had her in its grip.

"Please, sir," she begged, "can I come in for a moment. Someone is chasing me." The mystery girl glanced over her shoulder as if she expected her tormentor to appear at any moment.

Gerald realized that he had to make a quick decision. He could easily have slammed the door in her face and let her deal with her own problem, but he knew that he could not do that. Instead he motioned for her to come in, and closed the door quickly behind her.

Now that she was inside, he could see that she was about the same age as his youngest daughter, and even resembled her a bit; the same blonde hair, parted in the middle and hanging down below her shoulders. She was tall and slender like Sandy also. Gerald knew that he had made the right decision. If Sandy had somehow found herself in this kind of situation, he would have wanted someone like him to come to her rescue.

"What's going on?" he asked her.

"I went to some clubs with my roommates... and we met some guys... and we ended up back at their house." She took a deep breath and continued with her story. "Then things got a little crazy. I don't know if somebody slipped something into my drink or what happened, but I found myself lying on a bed with one of the guys pawing me and trying to pull my panties off. My jeans were already off, and I don't know how that happened. I realized that I was about to be raped, so I screamed and clawed his face. I guess I got him good, because he ran out of the room cursing. Then I grabbed my clothes, threw them on, and ran out of the bedroom."

Gerald had led her into the living room while she was talking. He told her to sit on the sofa while he went into the kitchen and got her a glass of water.

"Thank you, sir," she said when he brought her the glass. She took a sip and started talking again. "I heard some voices from somewhere in the house, but I couldn't find my friends, so I ran out the front door. When I got outside I realized that I didn't know where I was. I stood there in the driveway for a few seconds, then the front door flew open and two guys started running toward me. One of them was yelling, 'There's the bitch that cut me. Let's get her and teach her a lesson.' That's when I took off running. I ran through a couple of yards and jumped over a fence. I didn't care what was on the other side; I just had to get away from those creeps. When I got to this street, I slowed down to catch my breath and try to figure out what to do. Then I heard a car coming, so I hid between two houses. It was those guys, looking for me. After they went down the street, I started knocking on doors. Nobody answered that the first two houses, then I found you."

While Gerald was dealing with the bizarre story that the distraught young lady was telling him, Kim Hall was sitting in her car about half a block away. Kim was nervously waiting to see if the outrageous scheme she and her friend Mary had come up with would work. Kim was a good friend of Gerald's youngest daughter Sandy, and she knew the Morgan family very well. Gerald and Susan had always welcomed all of their daughter's friends into their house, not only because they were nice people, but because they liked knowing who their kids were hanging out with. And when everybody gathered at the Morgan house, which happened often, they didn't need to worry about where their kids were.

Kim had been coming to their home with Sandy for more than four years. She really liked Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. They were cool, but not too cool; involved, but not too involved. Kim had been one of the few kids in the group that took an interest when Mr. Morgan had shown them his coin collection. Most of Sandy's friends found that kind of boring, but Kim was intrigued by how much certain coins could gain in value. Encouraged by her enthusiasm, Gerald had spend a lot of time with her, explaining what makes some coins more valuable than others, and the ins and outs of coin trading. Kim's interest had peaked when she found out that some of the coins in his collection, the ones he kept in a safe, were worth several thousand dollars.