Chapter 153 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“Yeah. I don’t want you reliving those awful memories. Go inside your head, get the information needed, and come back. Don’t get lost in there,” Benne explained, “It is working, isn’t it?” He asked hopefully, and Celsie gave him a nod.

“Yeah, it is.”

“So tell me what led to his death,” Benne urged her when he glanced at the clock and realized that they didn’t have much time left to talk. He wasn’t sure she would willingly want to talk to him about it after now, so he wanted to know everything so he could better understand her.

“Hmm… It was our prom night, and I didn’t want to go to prom. There was no way I could tell my family that I wasn’t attending prom, so I pretended to fuss over my dress when the car came to pick us. I assured them that my date was coming over to pick me up, so Lucas left with his girlfriend, Rachel. Sonia knew I wanted to stay back at home, and she wanted to stay with me, but I urged her to go as I didn’t want to ruin prom for the both of us, especially her boyfriend who had been looking forward to it. That day coincidentally happened to be the anniversary of my parent’s wedding, so they were going out on a dinner date with plans of spending the night away from home,” Celsie said with a distant look in her eyes once again.

“Don’t tell me you were left in the house all by yourself?” Benne asked with a concerned frown as he was beginning to get a horror movie vibe from her story.

“I was. I dressed up and let my parents take pictures of me. They wanted to wait for my prom date to pick me up so they could get pictures of us, but I urged them to leave as they had booked a reservation and they were running late already. So no one knew I was going to be home alone,” Celsie explained.

“Sonia didn’t know your parents were going to be out that night?”

“I didn’t tell her. I knew she was going to want to stay home with me if I told her, so I kept it from her. It wouldn’t be the first time I was staying in my house alone, so what was the big deal?” Celsie asked with a rueful smile.

“I saw my parents off and while I stood there waiting for them to drive off, I noticed someone dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, standing in the shadows just across the house. I tried not to make a big deal out of it as the person wasn’t even looking at our house. I returned inside the house once my parents drove off, locked up the doors and windows, and turned off the lights before going back to my bedroom to take off the dress. Just as I was about to unzip my dress, I heard the sound of the doorbell, and I ran out thinking that my parents had probably forgotten something. I quickly turned on the lights and opened the door…”

Celsie abruptly stopped speaking when the memory of that night flooded her senses and left her breathless and immobilized.

“Celsie breathe,” Benne said, sitting up and pushing her forward so that her back was no longer resting on the couch when he noticed that her eyes were dilated and she was looking right ahead of her with her mouth hung slightly open as though she was trying to speak but no word was coming out.

Celsie could see him standing there again, dressed with the hoodie over his head and with a creepy smile pasted on his face.

“Hello, Celestia!” He greeted, waving his right hand, while his left hand remained behind him.

Seeing the creep standing there, Celsie panicked and quickly tried to shut the door, but he was faster. It was almost as if he had been anticipating her move. He quickly grabbed her arm with his right hand and before she knew what was going on, her back was pressed against his body and he brought his other hand which was holding a hankie that smelled of chloroform, and placed it under her nose. Her eyes involuntarily rolled back in her head and she lost consciousness.

“Celsie? Come on, look at me Celsie. You need to snap out of it, Celsie,” Benne called out in a worried voice, cupping her face in his hands as he knelt in front of her, urging her to come back to her senses, but before he could do anything else, she gasped out loudly and her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell forward.

To anyone else, she might just have fainted, but Benne didn’t need anyone to tell him that she was in shock. She was still very traumatized by the experience. So he quickly snatched up both his phone and the car key from the table and carried her out of the house immediately.

He had no idea about what he was going to do about all of this, but one thing he knew was that Celsie needed help.. She needed urgent psychological evaluation and help, and his being in her life under this guise wasn’t going to help either of them.

“Judging by all you have said, she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She is still in psychologic shock,” The doctor informed Benne, who was seated opposite him, staring at him without giving away his emotions.

Although Benne hadn’t given him the details of the nature of Celsie’s trauma, he had told the doctor that Celsie had been sharing a traumatic experience with him when she suddenly froze and fainted, “So what can be done?” Benne asked, his concern evident in his tone.

“Well, for starters she needs to see a psychotherapist. Is she your girlfriend?” The doctor asked curiously since it was the first time he was seeing Benne with a lady, and Benne sighed.

“She doesn’t even know who I am, so do me a favor and keep my identity to yourself. She is a staff here, and as far as we are concerned, I’m just her driver… At least for the time being. When can she leave here?” Benne asked, glancing at his wristwatch. It was past seven already, and knowing Celsie, she would want to go to work.

Although the doctor was very curious about how a person like the CEO ended up becoming one of his staff’s driver, he knew he couldn’t ask. They weren’t close enough for him to ask him such questions.

“I think we should let her rest for a while. Maybe when she is up I could talk to her if you don’t mind,” the doctor suggested, and Benne gave him a nod.

“See what you can do. And if she needs professional help, then get her the best you can find. Tell her the company will take care of the bill so she doesn’t have to worry about that,” Benne instructed the doctor who was under his payroll, as he stood up to leave the office.

Once he stepped out of the doctor’s office his phone started ringing, and he dipped his hand into his pocket to get it out. Seeing that it was Jade, he received the call at once, “Where have you been?”

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry I didn’t take your call yesterday. I was so busy with work that I lost track of time and I couldn’t even remember where I left my cellphone, until late at night, and then I didn’t want to disturb your sleep,” Jade explained apologetically as she yawned.

“It’s okay. I hope you’re fine?” Benne asked even though he could hear the tiredness in her voice.

“Sure I am. What about you? How is it going with Celsie?” Jade asked with a yawn as she looked around her office and ran her fingers through her short mop of pixie-cut hair.

“Everything is okay over here,” Benne lied since he was far from being okay himself. All he needed was a quiet place where he could sit down to think about all Celsie had said, and how he could resolve the mess he had gotten himself into.

“Great! Any good news from Harry yet?” She asked hopefully.

“That was the reason I was calling. Could you give Harry a call? He wants to ask you a couple of questions that could help him in finding your witness,” Benne said, making Jade sit up.

“Why not just give my contact number to him?” Jade asked with another yawn as she rubbed her eyelids which were still feeling kind of heavy. The whole of her body ached.

“That’s the third time you are yawning, are you sure you’re getting enough rest?” Benne asked with a concerned frown.

“I’m fine. I’m just feeling very exhausted,” Jade confessed as she stood up from her seat.

She couldn’t believe that she had worked all through the day and night, and had dozed off on her desk. She must have been really exhausted to have been knocked out that way. She needed to leave now so that she could go home and freshen up before the others started coming to work unless she wanted to be seen this way.

“You really need to take a break from work. If anything happens to you, I can assure you that your boss is going to get someone else to take over from where you stopped that very minute,” Benne said with a concerned frown.

“Spoken like the cold CEO that you are. I like to think he will replace me the next minute, not that same minute,” Jade teased, “Don’t worry, I’m going to get plenty of rest. Just ask Harry to give me a call,” Jade added and stifled the urge to yawn again as she picked up her handbag and looked inside it to be sure that her car key was in there, before turning off the light in her office and walking out.

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