Chapter 45

Present – Liz and Bernie – back in Leadville

Jens must have lost every bit of sanity! She was giving me shit about not telling her about Evelyn and Megan, then she drops a fucking atomic bombshell when she says, "Liz, I'll be back there in a day because the honeymoon is fricken over! I am finished with Ben and all men! Not only that, I'm getting an annulment!"

I can't believe it! My legs grow weak so I sit on the bed and ask, "Jens what the hell do you mean? Last time I talked to you sounded like things were going great."

She answers, "It was going great, but then I got a call from Daddy. He told me that he ran into Miranda at the Leadville jail and she was pregnant with Ben's baby!"

Almost automatically I defend Ben, "Jens, didn't you tell me that Ben couldn't get anyone pregnant?"

Jens argues, "Well, he sure figured out some way to get that female fricken dog pregnant."

This sure as hell doesn't sound right. Then I remember something else so I continue Ben's defense, "Jens, just when the hell was he able to do this? Until he decided to let us know where he was, no one, not even Mira, knew where he was. She sure as hell wasn't gone long enough to rendezvous with Ben. Not only that, I know for a fact that she had been visiting a fertility clinic in Denver. Hell, the police were even after her for going crazy and destroying part of the clinic."

The phone got really quiet then I heard some crying and Jens' voice cracks as she says, "Liz! Oh My God! I think you might be right! What did I do? Ben swore to me that he didn't do anything with Miranda but I didn't believe him, I called him a lying son of a beotch and ordered him to get out of my life forever."

I begin to 'grab at straws' and ask, "Is it too late to call Ben..."

Jens shreds the straws by interrupting, " ... Liz after I slapped him across the face, he actually fought back some tears and gave me the most hateful look I have ever seen. Then he turned and left the room leaving his suitcase and everything, even his mobile phone. So I can't call him."

I want to swear, but know it won't do any good then I have an idea, "Jens, perhaps we can call his credit card company and explain things to them, they might be able to tell us if he bought plane tickets."

Jens sounds a little better when she answers, "Thanks Liz that's a great idea. Could you do one more thing for me? Could you get the team together again and get them started on finding Ben."

She hangs up the phone, Bernie looks at me and starts, "Don't tell me..."

I don't even let him finish and interrupt, " ... Apparently Glen ran into a pregnant Mira in the Leadville jail. She told him she was carrying Ben's baby."

Bernie states the obvious, "Well, she was going to a fertility clinic so I guess it worked. But why didn't anyone else know about her going to the clinic, and why did she tell Glen it was Ben's baby?"

My brain does a double back flip, I snap my fingers at the result and answer, "Shit Bernie! This was her plan all along, to break up Jens and Ben."

Bernie gives me a questioning look and follows it with an excellent question, "Liz, I'm not sure that assumption is correct. If that was her plan don't you think she would have confronted everyone earlier and stopped the wedding?"

I think about his question and it makes a hell of a lot of sense. After a pause I say, "Well Jens wants me to get the team going on finding Ben."

I make one of the hardest phone calls of my life...

Present – Glen – Hunting for Ben

I get a call from my daughter and ask, "Weel, Ah hiner ye threw 'at dobber it oan his crease."

I about have a heart attack when she cries into the phone and says, "Daddy, we made a damn big mistake! I just talked to Liz and she told me Miranda had been going to a fertility clinic in Denver! So Ben didn't make her pregnant!"

I sputter, "Mah loove, hoo was Ah tae ken 'at an' hoo bad ur things?"

Jennifer continues to cry, "Daddy, it couldn't be worse! I really unloaded on him and told him I didn't know how many times he lied to me, called him so many bad names that I can't remember all of them and even slapped him. He walked out of the room and left everything here." She breaks down crying.

I make a promise that I have no idea how I will keep, "Mah princess, dornt fash yerse, Ah will fin' heem."

She doesn't even complain about the princess comment, hangs up the phone and I know I've been played by that Miranda bitch. I'm going to find her and make her suffer a hundred times more than she's made my princess suffer...

Present – Stacy and Samantha – at the building

Bill comes over and gives me some information, which I sort of expected, "Ms. Summers, after talking with Walt, the retired brew master, it's as we expected that reopening the brewery will require the entire building."

I question, "How much money will this adventure require?"

Bill smiles and says, "Well, because of your wisdom in leaving all the equipment here, surprisingly little. Plus, we're lucky that many of the brewery's previous workers are still in Leadville. So to get the brewery up and running will be about five-hundred thousand dollars. The only bad news I have about this 'adventure' is we can't use the original name of the beer because I contacted the previous owners and they refused to sell it."

I snap up that offer in a minute and say, "Bill, that sounds great to me, I sure never thought I would own a brewery. Now all that we need is a name."

Bill grins at me and suggests, "Walt and I talked about this and came up with what we think is a great name..."

He doesn't finish and I can tell he wants me to ask so I comply, "Are you going to make me beg?"

He continues the grin and relents, "Nope. Walt and I decided we would call the beer, 'Stacy's Summer Ale'."

I get the biggest smile and say, "Hey I like that name since it's a great wordplay on both my names. So, if it's real ale that means the yeast ferments on the top of the barrel and at a higher temperature. Is the brewery only doing one type of beer?"

Bill grins some more and gives additional information, "Oh no, they were setup to do six different beers and we also came up with a name for your second beer..."

Again Bill makes me wait so I stamp my foot in frustration and complain, "Bill..."

Bill holds up his hands and interrupts, " ... How about 'Grandmamma's Summer Stout'?"

I smile like crazy - Bill thought of not only me but Grandmamma so I nod, "Bill those are both excellent names. Now let's get moving on this."

I motion to Samantha, she begins to walk toward us and I continue, "Sam and I are going to town to talk with Sally about finding a new building for our base of operations, and we're going to get our hair finished while we're there. Please make all the arrangements with Walt and the other workers. Then call the contractors and get them lined up to start on remodeling the new building when we find it."

Samantha arrives right as Bill asks, "So should we give them the standard workers package? I ask because with the depressed economy here, we could get by paying them much less."

I slightly scold Bill, "You should know better than to ask me that. Of course we will give them the standard package."

Bill smiles and says, "That's one of the reasons I like working for you, we are all treated fairly and you never take advantage of situations."

Samantha asks...

"So Stacy, you're hiring new workers?"

Stacy smiles at me and answers, "That right, we're reopening the brewery and I need workers to run it. Now Sam, you and I need to head to town, to talk to Sally and get our hair finished."

I ask, "I thought we were doing this tomorrow?"

Stacy informs me, "Bill said that the brewery will use this whole building so we're going to talk with Sally about a new headquarters building and I figured we would kill two birds with one stone so we would have more time tomorrow."

I start to ask, "So tomorrow we're..."

Stacy interrupts, " ... Sam, tomorrow is a surprise so I'm not going to tell you about it. Now let's go and talk to Sally."

I was certainly curious about what Stacy had planned for tomorrow, but I knew she had made up her mind to not tell me...

Present – Alexi, Zarika, Yasmeen, Safia, Mira and Ira – the hunters become the prey

I can't hold back the tears. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before and if we don't escape then I can look forward to that continuing until I kill myself. Zarika looks at me, sees my tears and because she's still not gagged, laughs and taunts, "Now you know what that feels like you bastard."

Boris walks over and shocks Zarika with the cattle prod, she jumps like crazy and he demands, "Why the hell doesn't she have the ball gag in her mouth?"

One of the men walks over to Zarika, roughly pulls back her head but she offers, "Please if you don't put that in my mouth, I will do 'other' things with my mouth."

Boris laughs and answers, "Now that's a real whore talking. I'm going first and missy if you dare bite me, I will push this cattle prod all the way inside you and shock you until you die."

I start to turn away when Boris commands, "All of you watch this and learn, especially you Alexi. After I'm done with Zarika, I will have all of you perform the same."

I gather from the way Boris grunts that Zarika is doing something very special (much more special than Safia ever did for me). He doesn't last long, moves over to Yasmeen and says, "It's your turn bitch."

When Yasmeen does not perform as well as Zarika, Boris slaps her and says, "You're doing it all wrong." He stands up and makes good on his threat to Zarika by shocking Yasmeen until she passes out, then he roughly assaults her.

My sister Mira must do okay because he doesn't complain. He looks at my other sister Ira and says, "There's no way I trust you to do this." So he just shocks her for several minutes with the cattle prod.

Then unfortunately, it's my turn and I don't know what to do ... I try my best but receive many beatings for my poor performance.

Finally the torture is over, they put black cloth bags over our heads and roughly haul us outside and into a vehicle. Boris laughs and says, "The rest of you take the vans, since Alexi doesn't need it anymore, I'm taking his Bentley."

Present – Stacy and Samantha – in town

We drive to Sally's beauty shop, and find that she's holding 'court' telling all the other women about our building. We walk in, and overhear, " ... And Stacy, might even reopen the brewery." One of the women points to us, Sally turns to see who just came in, blushes and apologizes, "Sorry about that. I was just letting everyone know about all the good you've done at the old brewery."

I dismissively wave my hand and say, "Don't worry about it. But you do have the details wrong."

Sally displays some confusion and asks, "What do you mean?"

I tease her a little, "Well, we're leaving."

Sally's mouth falls open and she begs, "Please don't tell me you're leaving Leadville."

I grin at her and say, "Oh no! There's no way we're leaving Leadville. However, I was told that the brewery, which we are in the process of reopening, will use the whole building. So Sam and I are here to take you up on the offer to help us find a new building for our offices."