Welcome back to the Spectral Advocate bonus, The Commitment. The original intent was to explain Cal’s appearance in Bethesda when he runs into Ben Riley. The initial draft never went into detail, though subsequent drafts connected Abigail Winslow to the Cooper Massacre as the real reason for his visit.

Enjoy Part 2 of this Spectral Advocate bonus.

The Commitment Part 2

“Liar,” Caryn Roberts hissed at the stranger across the table.

Cal straightened in his chair, clearing his throat loudly. Part of him wished he had some water or that some was available but it would have been one more thing to mention to apparition floating on the chair in front of him. He shrugged lightly. “That would be my reaction too. But I’m not.”

Caryn stood, screaming, “I’m not dead. Are you insane?”

“The thought had occurred,” Cal replied, regretting it immediately. She scoffed at the comment, frantically pacing the room in an effort to prove her existence to him. He wished it had been a question of sanity. It bedeviled him, the memory of the accident over the curve near his parent’s estate. The voices in the hospital and the psych treatments that followed at his father’s request. The constant questions it brought up for him. Through it all the evidence remained. As clearly as it did right now with Caryn Roberts.

It was a gift, he reminded himself. One he never wanted. Not the idiot rich kid, unsure how to appreciate the newfound wealth of his family or what it meant to the definition of the term. So much time spent angry and resentful, instead of working to put their lives back together. The way it had been before. By the time of his accident it was too late. Too much had changed since those days. He had changed. On days like this, however, he wondered if there was a way to go back, a way to switch off that part of his brain that saw things so differently than everyone else, the one that knew there was a deeper meaning to the world than others did, and the one that saw the deeper pain within it all.

Especially when it came to days like this with Caryn Roberts.

“Honestly, I hate this part,” Cal continued while the ghostly specter of Drew Roberts’ former bride paced the vacant dining room of the home they once shared. “Let me ask you a question, though. When was the last time you put out your cigarette?”

Caryn stopped at the query, momentarily pausing the drag on her habit forming phallic symbol and staring at it intently. Then the anger returned to the man across the table. “What the hell are you…?”

“We’ve been talking for awhile now,” Cal straightened in the chair. He checked the gold watch around his left wrist more for emphasis than a need to know the hour of the day. “Mind you, I’m no smoker but the way you’ve been puffing, that thing should have been a nub in the ashtray five minutes ago. Don’t you think?”

“So what if I take my…”

Cal shook his head, glancing around the room. “Where is the ashtray by the way? The one filled with that reminder pack from all the worry about your husband? Maybe packed up with the rest of the place? Caryn…”

She was in front of him in an instant, her wide eyes screaming louder than her disembodied voice. Anything to fight what was being told to her. “Don’t you dare call me…”

“Bad news, remember?” Cal said plainly. He hated to do it, to antagonize at the moment of clarity with his host, but he needed to move forward. He needed to make her see what was happening. “You died.”

The screaming visage of Caryn Roberts took a step back at Cal’s assertion. She took a puff from the cigarette, stopping halfway through, the smoke wafting over her. She stared at the cloud gathered, the trail running from the lit end of the cigarette. Cal stayed quiet, letting her questioning gaze tell the story for him. Slowly, Caryn moved back to the chair and sat back down. Her legs crossed once more, her head low to the ground. The beauty was faded, the reflection of younger days gone with the illusion of her current state.

“You came here to tell me that?” she asked bitterly.

“No,” Cal replied. His voice was soft. Sympathetic. “I was hoping you knew that. Makes everything else go a little smoother. But it does explain a few other things, so there is that.”

“What are you…?” The question rose angrily from her cracked lips, no longer lush and full. She held it back, eyes on the young man at the table. “Why are you here?”

“For Drew,” Cal said, hands folded in front of him. “He’s getting married. Well, remarried.”

“That… How?” Cal felt the chill fill the room. Caryn shook her head fiercely, unable to process more after everything she had been told. “That son of a bitch.”

Cal’s hands moved closer to the briefcase. “Not really fair there.”

“It’s been days,” Caryn yelled. Her words ripped through the room, a torrent of wind and rage flowing around her guest. “Who was it? That blond that was here? Her or that friend she was with, the one with the tattoo over her cleavage?”

Cal held up a finger, refusing to look at the woman across the table. He opened the briefcase, reaching within for a small file. It smacked hard on the table. Two photos slipped out of the shabbily kept folder, which he moved to the center of the plastic tabletop for his host to get a better view. A woman with blond hair was captured in one and one with black in the other. Cal pointed to the images. “You mean Jessica Stafford and Patricia Jacobs?”

Caryn refused to look. “I didn’t catch their names.”

“No. You were busy doing other things. Recognize these?” Cal pushed the images closer. Each one taken from the official police report he had been able to procure from Drew Roberts. Each woman had been marred with long scratch marks long their skin. Deep and thick from a brutal assault, though neither could identify their attacker. Both now simply carried her branding, unique to each of them. Jessica’s arm read the word “WHORE” lengthwise. Patricia received the worse of the two, engraved with the word “TRAMP” over her angel wing tattoo on her chest. “Do you even remember doing this?”

Caryn scoffed. “Like I would…”

“You did,” Cal persisted, feeling the temperature of the home continue to drop. It wasn’t from the fading daylight outside or the freezing temperatures of the December winter in Maryland. He kept his focus on the images and the woman now staring directly at them. “And no, they don’t even know Drew. They just bought his house.”

“His…?” Caryn tried to find the right words. The shock of the statement. “Now you listen…”

Cal stopped her. “You think it’s been days, Caryn?”

“It has been days!”

The young attorney hesitated. He knew where they were headed. He had seen it dozens of times before, though each one brought its own challenges. As well as more than a few risks. Mostly to him. He was really hoping for a simple discussion. Cal licked his lip lightly.

“It’s been eight years.”

In an instant the windows froze over. The chill ripped into Cal, up his arms, down his spine to his toes. The tears in the wallpaper lining the room tore and shred in large claw marks. The dusty floor crystallized from the changes, spinning outward further and further from the woman across the table. All that remained in the frozen lake that was once a dining room was the table and the two seated at it.

“No.”

Cal took a breath, filling his lungs with the deep cold. “Listen, Caryn.” He tried to reach out, though he knew the futility in it. The woman in the tight dress now looked frayed and frazzled. The makeup that adorned her skin now tore away in drips and drabs, discoloring her already pale skin. The woman in her early twenties was gone, replaced by the diseased and crippled form she left the earth with. Her head remained fixed on the ground, staring at her non-existent reflection though to her Cal believed the image was clear. Still, Cal tried to reason with her. “I know this is difficult…”

“Are you dead too?”

Cal ran his hand along the back of his neck. “No, but…”

“Your spouse ditching you for some skank while you’re cooling underground?” Caryn moved closer, not in rhythmic steps as she had when she entered the room, but the shifting of someone unable to remain in check. Her emotions seeped into the temperature of the room, into her appearance to the young attorney from upstate New York. Even her voice changed with each passing word, growing deeper and omnipresent rather than from a fixed point.

Cal straightened in the chair, refusing to take the bait. His hand slid closer to the briefcase. “That’s not exactly what…”

“I gave him everything,” she screamed, shattering the wooden railing running the length of the stairs. The two photos spread on the table were caught in a whirlwind before being shredded from view by unseen hands. Scraps scattered along the frozen floor.

“Caryn,” Cal called out in a quiet voice. His hand remained near the briefcase.

The shifting became incessant. From the right to the left of him, her hands scraping and picking at his flesh, but never assaulting him. She was testing her boundaries, testing him in the moment and he let her.

“Love. Devotion. Heart. Soul. Body,” she railed, her voice booming from the vaulted ceiling overhead. “That is commitment! Where is his? Answer me!”

“You have to stop,” Cal said with closed eyes. “Please.”

“Or what?”

Cal slowly stood, his hand reaching into the briefcase. “Please.”

He opened his eyes to see her across the table once more. No longer beautiful. No longer radiant even with the plume of smoke rising from her never-ending cigarette. She was twisted with each word, with each feeling that cut through her. The revelation of her death. Of Drew’s promise to another without her. A life without her. A spirit no longer haunted but vengeful in its presence, shaping the world around her rage.

The sunken chasms that were once her eyes screamed at him, “What will you do, lawyer?”

Cal refused to back down, feeling her immaterial claws digging into his sides. “Two people are hurt, Caryn. It could have been worse but it doesn’t change things.”

His hand returned from the briefcase carrying a single sheet of paper. He kept it low to the table, letting it settle on the cool surface before placing his hand firmly upon it to keep it in place. His eyes, however, never left the vicious ghost before him. He refused to give her the moment, the thrill of another victim. Hers, though, wide and black as night stared intently at the paper. Curiosity crept in at what was held on the opposite side of the single sheet held between them.

“And what do you think that will do?”

Cal’s eyes thinned. “End this, I’m afraid. One way or another.”

The initial conception of the DSA brought with it bonuses for each story. A short story, a scripted deleted scene, and in the case of The Bridge there was The Grissom File. Spectral Advocate introduced Cal Cooper, but never went as far as explaining why he was in Bethesda in the first place (in the initial draft, that is).

Presented here, for the first time anywhere, is the original bonus story The Commitment. It explains Cal’s reason for being in the Bethesda area. I’ve never shown this to anyone.

A warning: I thought about editing the piece, fleshing it out and really tweaking the prose. Like I said, this comes from 2015 Lou, a much different soul than I am today (I hope). At the end of the day, I decided to let the story stand as it is.

Here is the first of three parts. I hope you enjoy it.

The Commitment Chapter One

Cal Cooper always wanted to visit Washington, DC. He was one of those kids that looked forward to the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning. A point of pride every time it passed his lips. Seeing the history involved, the pieces of the puzzle that built the country, was fascinating to him. Even the secrets. Especially the secrets.

Then he grew up. Slowly, at first, with the stumbling blocks of adolescence. The fading of innocence. Joy turning to cynicism. Dreams were the last to fade. Always the last. Dreams of visiting the capital took a back seat to college, to a career, and to life in general. When his family passed all dreams left him.

Then the call came.

Drew Roberts was an old client of Cal’s father. At least, that was how the relationship started. Friendship came out of it. Close at first then slowly distant as the years went by. Life again, infecting things. The last time Cal last saw the man, a good looking man with a thick beard, was at his college graduation party. His father was shopping him around as the next great attorney for the state of New York. A dismal nightmare that Cal was sad to unburden his father of soon after. Things were not the same between them after that.

Drew didn’t know any of that. Hell, he didn’t even know Cal’s father had passed when he reached out to him. The call came through a proxy line Cal had set up after he lost his family. A way to keep in touch with the people that had disappeared from their lives over the years. A catch-all for the lost friends, relationships, and more. It was also a way to hold onto his father’s voice a little longer, the last message being left by him before the end.

When Drew called, Cal dropped everything. The desperation in his voice was enough to signal the need behind the call. He had been distraught. Rambling about his wife. He was looking for advice. Cal offered more.

He offered help.

His offer brought him outside DC in a small suburb in Maryland. The home of Drew Roberts had been left in shambles over the years. A broken gutter swung loosely along the corner of the stained and cracked siding of the home. Chipped paint ran along the metal door, a deep red contrasted against the snow piled up on the small porch. It was not exactly the Lincoln Memorial or the White House tour Cal had dreamed of as a child. It was where he needed to be instead of where he wanted to be.

That was his life.

It was enough for Calvin Coolidge Cooper.

Taking a deep breath, letting the winter air fill his lungs – a saltier mixture than he was used to as a New Yorker – Cal moved for the door, stepping inside the vacant property.

He worked quickly upon entering. Placing his briefcase near the entrance to the large open space of the dining room, Cal found the folding table leaning against the peeling wallpaper. Webs lined the corners of the room. Dust covered the floor, the table, the chairs, everything. Wiping it lightly to remain quiet, Cal lifted the small folding table and opened it in the middle of the room. The legs creaked but he kept his movements slow and controlled to minimize the echoes through the large, empty domicile. Then the young attorney from Albany grabbed the two stacking chairs in the corner of the room. He wiped the first clean and opened it on the far side of the table before doing the same with his own.

Looking upon his work with satisfaction, Cal retrieved his briefcase and placed it on the table. The clasps came undone with the flick of a finger, yet he kept the case closed for the moment. Taking a deep breath, Cal sat down in the chair. Dust filled his nostrils and he fought back a sneeze. Everything had to be done right. The right way. The right timing.

Cal sat in the chair, tucking it close to the table. Daylight broke through the webs over the windows leading to the kitchen of the home. It offered a unique look into the home. A home that looked like it had seen love. Wall decorations, the markings on the wallpaper from old photos long since removed, even the small nicks along the railing leading upstairs all told the story of the Roberts home.

A story Cal was hoping to close before the end of the day.

Cal tapped the table. It was a solid, plastic tabletop. Sturdy. He raised his hands so they hovered a foot over the table before slamming them down at full speed. Once, twice, then a third. The sound echoing throughout the vaulted ceilings of the dining room and spreading outward to encompass the entire home. After the third impromptu knock, Cal settled back into the chair and waited.

Not for long.

Around the corner of the room she came. Slow, deliberate steps. Soundless in her bare feet, she entered from the living room on the far side of the table. A tight dress showed off her curves, small but prominent on her slight body. A trail of smoke followed her into the room, the cigarette held loosely between her fingers. Caryn Roberts, wife to Drew Roberts, looked beautiful in the daylight.

Beautiful and angry, looking at the strange man with the messy brown hair sitting in her home. “What do you want?”

Cal cleared his throat, trying to fix his tie along his chest. He pointed to the chair knowingly. “Mrs. Roberts? Caryn Roberts?”

“Yes?” she asked impatiently.

The young attorney nodded. “Cal Cooper. I was hoping to…”

“Leave,” she said, pointing to the door. The dark red door with the chipped paint and lack of weather stripping to block the cool breeze cutting through the home. Not that Caryn noticed, even in her revealing dress.

“I’m sorry?” Cal asked, unsure.

“This is my house,” Caryn continued, taking a drag of her cigarette between breaths. “You come in here like you own it.”

“I did knock,” Cal joked. It fell flat against the wide eyes of his host.

“Did I answer?”

“Good point,” Cal replied. He sat down despite the disdain on Caryn’s face. “If you could please join me for a moment, I might…”

Caryn moved for the table. Her steps were light but she made a show of them, dramatically taking her time to reach him. She leaned hard over the table, blowing the smoke from her cigarette into Cal’s face.

“Banker?”

Cal didn’t flinch, flashing a smile. “Lawyer.”

“Same difference,” Caryn snapped, before sitting across from him. She kept her legs crossed and the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Vultures.”

“I’ll be honest,” Cal said, smiling. “I’m not a very good one so try not to judge too harshly.”

Her eyes thinned. “This is the part where we share a laugh, right? We laugh. Then I sit and hear about whatever horrible news you’ve come to bring me. Is that it?”

Cal waited a long moment, mulling over the question. He played with his tie and slid his chair closer to the table. Relaxing, he nodded. “Mostly.”

Caryn took a drag, pulling the cigarette away as the smoke filled the air around her. “It’s been days.”

“Excuse me?” Cal asked, suddenly confused.

“This is about Drew, isn’t it? I haven’t seen him in days and now you come here.”

“Days?” The question escaped his lips before he knew it was formed. He felt his hands tense and the tie tighten against his neck. Letting them fall away to the table, he faked a smile to keep his host talking.

“I’ve started smoking again because of it,” Caryn Roberts continued, holding the cigarette in front of him. “He made me quit after our wedding. Wanted it sooner but planning a wedding without a fix? Might as well have blindfolded me and shot me out of a cannon to the altar for all the good I would have been. But he’s gone and there was this pack. The reminder pack, you know? The one that stares at you telling you that you beat this. You beat me. Be proud. Yeah, I won all right.”

“Mrs. Roberts,” Cal called out quietly.

“Caryn,” she waved him off. “Come with bad news, at least pretend to be someone who gives a crap about me. No one else seems to. Don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a friend around here. And Drew? You know him.”

“I did,” Cal confirmed with a nod. His eyes remained on the table. “A friend of my father.”

She smiled at that. A quick smile that faded, pointing hard at him. “Talks about Drew well, I hope. Always hated friends that talked ill behind his back.”

“Actually, no,” Cal said. He caught her stare, holding it for a long moment. “My father’s dead.”

Caryn looked away quickly. “Just like my Drew.”

Cal shook his head. “I’m sorry, Caryn, but…”

“How did it happen?” she asked forcefully. “Why are you the first to tell me? The police should have…”

“Caryn,” Cal interrupted. His hands were clasped tight in front of him.

She refused to stop, puffing hard on the cigarette. “I felt it, you know? When he left me. So just tell me already. Tell me he’s dead, so I can…”

“He’s not.”

“What?” her eyes blinked hard at the statement. “Drew? He’s…”

“Not dead,” Cal repeated. His tongue ran along the back of teeth. He took short breaths, hesitant to continue yet completely aware it was too late to walk away now. Not after the call from Drew Roberts. Not after what Cal learned about Caryn. “Right. I’m sorry. I thought you’d understand what this was about by now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Caryn yelled. He had worn out the little bit welcome he had been extended by the well-dressed woman. “Understand what?”

“Drew’s not dead. You are.”