Chapter 1: The Switch

Randy owned a relatively nice restaurant in a not so nice area. It was a popular spot for dates and family dinners. They even got the occasional birthday party. It was called The Joy after Randy’s late wife named Joy. The restaurant was important to Randy because it had always been his wife’s dream to open a restaurant but recently the amount of bills and stresses made Randy want to pull the plug and move on with his life. Business was declining steadily and any hopes Randy might have harbored of creating a chain of Joys was quickly fading.

Randy had just closed after another disappointing Friday night. He sent his employees home and finished locking up by himself. He locked the front door and turned off all the lights in the front of the building. When he walked into the kitchen to leave through the back door, Randy noticed one of his employees had forgotten to take out the trash. Mumbling something indecipherable to himself, Randy picked up the huge bag and lugged it out to the dumpster in the alley.

The alley only had one dim yellow light that cast a strange glow over the concrete ground. A light drizzle had started thirty minutes ago so the ground was wet and the trash that littered the area was soggy. The dumpster was pushed against the wall and Randy lugged the trash to it. The smell grew in intensity as he walked closed and Randy was attempting to hold his breath so he wouldn’t gag. With a final heave, he threw the bag into the dumpster and wiped his hands on his slacks.

Moving away from the dumpster, Randy surveyed the area around him with mild disgust. It had seemed like such a beautiful idea to open a restaurant in his wife’s name five years ago but now it was just a burden. He still loved Joy with all his heart and knew he would never move onto another woman but this restaurant was dragging him down and making him unhappy. Joy never would have wanted that for him.

A gurgling sound to his right startled Randy out of his thoughts. He jumped and turned to see what it was, his shoulders hunching defensively. The sight of a young woman lying on the ground, blood coloring the ground around her red, increased his fear and Randy was frozen for a moment. When she opened her eyes, revealing a startling green but also the amount of pain she was in, Randy was jerked back into reality and he immediately pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

After that night Randy officially closed The Joy and moved back to the town where he and his wife had met. He spent the rest of his working days at a retail store and then spent his time golfing and with his grand children after he retired. Every year on their anniversary, Randy bought a plane ticket and visited Joy’s gravesite.

Roslyn Gates, the girl he had found that night, was not so lucky. She died early the next day at twenty one years because of a blow to her head. The police wanted to classify it as a robbery but her wallet was found in her pocket containing the $120 she had withdrawn from the bank the day before. A little research showed that she had no living family and all of her neighbors said she kept to herself. No one knew anything about Roslyn Gates except that she was now dead.

One thing that was known about Roslyn was that she wanted her organs to be donated so when she was pronounced dead, Dr. Jake asked for her heart for a certain patient he had in mind. His request was granted and while the other surgeons removed the heart of Roslyn Gates and inspected it for any flaws, cardiologist Dr. Jake called the parents of Rianne Paul to let them know their prayers had been answered.

Rianne’s heart was in end stage organ failure and she had been waiting for a new heart for years. Given barely two years to live by previous doctors, Rianne’s parents had taken her to Dr. Jake. Christiaan Jake had formed a soft spot for Rianne the first time he saw her. Normally a removed and hardened doctor because of years of seeing people die, something about her natural sweetness and innocence had made him want to save her life more than any other patient he had come across. Most of his patients were old men who had eaten one too many rare prime ribs but Rianne was a happy seventeen year old girl without a care in the world except that her life was being cut short. Dr. Jake knew this girl deserved to live.

Rianne had been dealing with her heart problems from the time she was born. She almost didn’t live to see her first birthday. The doctors believed she was out of the woods after she turned five and Rianne spent ten years believing she would live a healthy long life. When she was fifteen though, Rianne collapsed in the middle of a school dance. After being rushed to the hospital it was discovered that her disease had returned worse than before.

Keeping her disease a secret from her friends, Rianne continued to live a normal life except for the weekly trips to the hospital. Rianne became more outgoing and tried to experience as much of life as she could. Despite her parents’ and doctors’ protests Rianne took up surfing during the summer and snowboarding during the winter. She was known as dare devil to her friends but they didn’t find out until her sixteenth birthday why Rianne had become this way.

Rianne’s parents threw her the biggest sweet sixteenth birthday they could. With a DJ, live performance by Rianne’s favorite band and a guest list including Rianne’s entire school, it was the biggest party that town had seen. It also had the saddest ending.

Rianne had been going into the bathroom to check her hair and makeup when she collapsed. She was taken to the hospital and was in a coma for two days, her heart barely supporting her. The secret was out and Rianne had more visitors during those two days and the following week than the hospital had ever seen. When Rianne finally woke up she was informed that not only was her heart condition getting steadily worse but that if she survived the next week then she would only have two years left to live at the most.

It was then that the Paul family approached Dr. Jake. Ever since they had been trying every medicine to help Rianne but nothing had worked. Now was their chance though and that night, Rianne Paul received Roslyn Gates’ heart.

If Rianne was nervous before the procedure, she didn’t show it. In fact, Dr. Jake had never met someone as brave as Rianne always appeared to be and it amazed him. He gave her the immunosuppressant medication so her body wouldn’t reject the new organ and explained the procedure while she took it. Rianne seemed to be paying close attention but really, her mind was elsewhere. What Rianne was really wondering about was if she would live to go to prom in two months. She had never expected to make it to her senior prom but now with a new heart maybe she would. Maybe she would be able to graduate high school and go to college. Maybe she would be able to get married and have children. They were dreams she had given up on long ago and the hope that they might actually occur seemed like a dangerous thought.

Once Dr. Jake finished his explanation, Rianne was given a general anesthetic. While unconscious, she dreams of going to prom with a date and a limo and a beautiful dress. No boy had asked Rianne out since her sixteenth birthday because everyone knew she would be gone soon anyways. Even her once close friends had become distant to prepare themselves for the blow of her death. Hopefully, Rianne would be able to prove them wrong.

The surgery went well and Rianne’s original heart was removed and replaced with Roslyn’s healthy one. Dr. Jack watched the entire thing anxiously from the viewing room. Mr. and Mrs. Paul were in the waiting room, dreading and hoping for any news. Finally the heart was in place and all that was left to do was restart it and get Rianne off the cardiopulmonary bypass. Dr. Jack watched as the new heart began to beat on its own, open and exposed in Rianne’s chest; one weak beat, then another with more strength. The surgeons began to congratulate each other when they heard thunder rumble outside. Mr. and Mrs. Paul were startled by a flash of lighting outside the window and the dark clouds that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Fifteen miles away, walking down the street, was Tony Mark. Looking up at the sky and the malicious weather, he only smiled. Roslyn has done something to piss Pat off again, he thought happily and continued to walk towards her apartment. When he saw the police standing outside the building he immediately changed his mind and ducked into the nearby alley. Even though the officers stood at least twenty feet away, Tony could hear them perfectly.

“Poor girl didn’t have any friends or family that we can find. They are just going to cremate her body,” one officer said. Tony’s heart beat accelerated, fearing the worse.

“What was her name again? Roslyn? Maybe we should start asking the local businesses if they ever saw her with anybody. Seems a shame to not be able to let her friends know she was murdered,” the second police officer said. Tony almost fell over as realization of what had happened. Roslyn was dead, killed most likely by Pat or one of his goons. But then why was Pat angry enough to cause this storm? Maybe Roslyn wasn’t really dead.

After making sure the officer’s were gone, Tony made his was up to Roslyn’s apartment and slipped inside. Her place was still a mess like it was every time he came over. He knew he had to get something in particular out of there before the police could find it. If- when Roslyn came back she was going to need it untouched by the police.

Going into her bedroom, Tony opened the closet and opened the vault in the back. Roslyn had only told him the code in case of emergencies and he figured this was as big of an emergency as it got. Taking what was inside and putting it in his pocket, Tony closed and locked the vault again then fled the building to search the local hospitals and morgues.