Part 4: A Second Dash

Three days had past since my strange encounter with Rayven Rathmore. I was struggling with it. It had to have been a dream – there was no other explanation. The problem was that I had never had a dream that vivid or powerful before. Also, I had not been asleep, I had been in my car. I asked myself over and over: What do you call it when a person dreams and they are awake. The answer was disturbing – it was called crazy.

I had deliberately stayed away from Dashing since that strange night but that was a temporary solution. I really needed the money! Tomorrow night was Friday. I would Dash again then.

I did a late workout and got back to my apartment about four. I checked my mail and saw that my neighbor Anna was by the mailboxes going through the collection of junk mail that she had received. I sighed and went to my mailbox.

To be blunt Anna was a knockout. She lived on my floor two doors down from me. I had seen her when I had moved in about a year ago. She was pretty and checked just about every box on the list: long blonde hair, cheery personality, great body, and friendly in a damnable ‘little sister’ way. I had asked her to go for coffee and she made it very clear she wasn’t interested by being politely busy.

That was my story with women in general. I just wasn’t a guy that had luck with the ladies. It had been like that in high school, in college, and now after college. It sucked.

“Hi Michael,” said Anna as I approached the mailboxes. “How’s it going today?”

“Ah, pretty good,” I replied. She was wearing yoga pants, a sports top and a loose T-shirt. A tube holding her yoga mat was hanging from one of her shoulders. “How was yoga?” I continued.

“Pretty good. Hey, did you hear that rumbling last night in the parking lot?”

I thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think one of the guys farther down has a Harley.”

“It was annoying,” said Anna unhappily. “I like hot cars but Harleys not so much. All they do is make noise.”

I snorted. “Yeah I wonder if the three inch cock comes free with a Harley when you get one.”

Anna smiled mildly. My joke dropped like a brick. That’s just the way things went for me. “Yeah,” she said. “See ya Michael.”

“See you later.”

Christ I was a loser once in a while!

I tossed my mail on the beat up kitchen table I had gotten from my parents and saw a letter on top. It was from a law firm, Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe and I realized it must be about my information request regarding the Rathmore Trust. I tore it open.

Well, the denial wasn’t shocking. I crumpled up the letter and tossed it. The lawyers couldn’t do anything except confirm that the Trust existed. A research avenue had been closed. I grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat down, thinking. The Rathmore family had to be the Grantor – the entity that put money into the trust, obviously, Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe were the Trustees, they managed it, but a trust had to have a Beneficiary. Who was that in the case of the Rathmore Family?

More assets could always be added to a trust over time, especially in the case of a Living Trust which the Rathmore Family Trust was – I knew this much anyway. This type of trust would be a perfect vehicle for ... asset management for 133 years? For Rayven? Perhaps the beneficiary was an organization Rayven was part of if you accepted the unbelievable premise that she still existed. Even assets from before 1893 could be added...

I wasn’t a lawyer and frankly the more I thought about this whole thing the more unbelievable it became. Everything I was thinking about assumed that Rayven Rathmore was still alive which wasn’t possible anyway and ... I was starting to give myself a headache.

The night passed uneventfully. I spent it playing a modded video game ... you know the one – it has dragons, and draugr, and mountains. The next day was pretty normal. It was cool, cloudy, and kind of windy. Fall was coming quickly. To be honest, when I went live at 4:00 and started doing deliveries I was kind of nervous. The first four were typical, normal deliveries and the session seemed to be going well.

Then I made a stop and spent about $60 — I thought my purchase would come in useful later.

About 7:00 PM (again) I saw the order: one quart of cashew chicken with fried rice, two quarts of hunan beef with white rice, one quart of sweet and sour chicken with fried rice and an order of eggrolls, all from Sonny’s Noddle House to be delivered to 1013 Bogforest Road. The instructions indicated I needed to place the order inside the door of the Estate. The tip was $100.

An icy ball materialized in my stomach as I accepted the order. Stepping inside of Nebelgutt Estate was not my idea of an intelligent action. My curiosity was almost as strong as my sense of dread.

I was surprisingly calm as I drove to Nebelgutt. The darkness and gloom seemed to close in on me but ... it was going to be okay. I drove through the crumbling rusty gates down the rutted road that used to be the main drive. There were still pieces of flagstone to be avoided. To the left I saw the large pond that must have once been a reflecting pool again. On the other side was an overgrown mass of brambles, shrubs, and trees, a long abandoned garden perhaps. Strangely the building seemed dark.