Page 21 of A Burning Rage

Cynthia Morton has the decency to look away, avoiding my gaze altogether. Richard, on the other hand, looks right at me, his expression a mixture of annoyance and condescension.

What are you up to, Richard?

The Mortons pass us without a word and enter the room.

Troy steps out into the hallway. “They’re about to start.”

Taking a deep breath, Beth pulls away from me and straightens her jacket. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she says as she walks into the room.

The hearing room is set up much like a courtroom, but instead of a judge seated at the front of the room, there’s a long mahogany table where three individuals sit facing the room, one African-American woman probably in her sixties, along with two Caucasian men, one silver haired and one perhaps in his early forties.

Facing the long table are two smaller ones separated by a mahogany podium. Troy is standing at one of the smaller tables. He motions for me and Beth to join him. The other smaller table is currently unoccupied.

Behind the tables is a wooden railing, and behind that are two rows of wooden chairs currently occupied by Sam, Cooper, and Tyler on one side, and Andrew’s parents on the other.

I glance back at Richard Morton, and he meets my gaze. His expression is stoic, revealing nothing of what he’s feeling. His wife is seated beside him, her expression carefully neutral, giving away nothing. I notice, though, she has a death grip on her husband’s coat sleeve.

I can imagine what the Mortons are feeling. Their only child has been locked up for nearly five years. I’m sure they want him to come home, whether he’s ready to or not.

I pull out a chair for Beth, and she sits between me and Troy.

The African-American woman seated at the front of the room picks up a landline, pushes a button, and speaks quietly into the mouthpiece. Shortly after she hangs up the phone, a side door opens.

Beth reaches blindly for my hand as three people walk into the room. The first one is Dr. Rhona Masterson, who looks to be in her late-forties or early fifties. She’s dressed professionally in an emerald green business suit with a white blouse and is carrying a burgundy portfolio in the crook of her arm. Her brown hair, liberally threaded with gray, is pulled back in a tight bun.

Andrew follows her, dressed in a gray hospital jumper. He shuffles slowly into the room, escorted by a hospital staff member dressed in navy blue scrubs. Andrew’s gaze bounces wildly around the room until it settles on his parents’ faces.

Andrew’s brown hair is buzzed short. As he approaches the second smaller table, he finally notices Beth. He stares at her with expressionless, dull eyes. It’s impossible to guess what he’s thinking.

Does he feel remorse for what he did to her? That’s the real question here.

As Andrew takes a seat beside his psychiatrist, Beth digs her fingernails into my arm. He’s sitting maybe twenty feet away from her.

I catch her looking at him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to be obvious. Andrew doesn’t have any such qualms. He stares openly at her, almost as if he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. When Dr. Masterson says something to him, he redirects his gaze to the front of the room.

I squeeze Beth’s hand, and she grips mine so tightly I feel my circulation cut off.

As the African-American woman calls for the hearing to begin, the room goes silent.

Chapter 8 – Beth

He looks a bit older and thinner, and his head is practically shaved, but other than that, Andrew hasn’t changed much from the young medical school student I knew. He’d come so many times to the Special Collections room at the library where I worked as a reference librarian. I spent a lot of time with him, helping him find sources for his research assignments.

He was always a polite, softly spoken young man who never gave me any reason to fear him.

And then, one day, without warning, he pushed his way into the secured Special Collections room and began to attack me with a viciousness I’d never imagined. I ended up in the emergency room at the hospital, and then I spent months recuperating at Shane’s secluded estate in Kenilworth, north of Chicago.

At the time of the attack, Andrew admitted he was doing it to get revenge on Shane. He chose me because I was the easier target, and because he didn’t dare attack Shane directly. He was afraid of Shane.

And now, here I am, five years later, finally facing my attacker. I never got a chance to face him in court, as the judge declared him mentally incompetent and ordered that he be incarcerated in a mental hospital instead of standing trial.

My stomach is in knots, and I feel flushed all over. I can feel my anxiety skyrocketing as my body prepares to go into flight or fight mode.

When I feel his eyes on me, I glance over at him, and we make eye contact for the first time since the assault. He stares right at me, and I find myself looking into a pair of cold, lifeless eyes.

He’s not the same young man I remember.

A shiver runs down my spine, chilling me to the bone.