Finding the Guru

By Tory Rize

A headless corpse... A lovely stranger in Central Park... A therapist who knows more than she's telling. Michael Morson - handsome, brilliant, and the master of his own business empire at 28 - is about to watch his glittering life unravel to the stark skeleton of secrets beneath. Death has dogged his footsteps since his childhood, and now it wants Michael to surrender to its sinister embrace. Over and over again, seemingly random people and events summon him back to the age of thirteen, to face the most horrific day of his life: the day his foster-mother's blood painted the carpet red, staining his shoes and his soul. Driven by twisted fantasies and ever more dangerous realities, Michael is forced to admit that his mind is no longer his own. And towering over everything is the shadow of his grandfather, Frank Morson, whose tainted fortune marked young Michael with this legacy of murder and madness. The die is cast - Michael's quest has begun - and the role he plays now, living a lie to find the truth, will take all his wits and courage. The terrifying journey into his grandfather's past reveals deeper mysteries and conspiracies, all leading to the shadowy spider at the center of the web: the Guru who never shows his face, but claims the whole world as his toy...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tory Rize
• Release date: Sep 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370625420

Tory Rize

Tory Rize was born in Russia, but then moved to Latvia where she got Master Degree in Human Resource Management. Now she lives in Northamptonshire, England with her family.Finding the Guru... is her first book from the trilogy. There will be two another books: Killing the Guru.. and Being the Guru.

Book preview

FINDING THE GURU

by Tory Rize

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter 1

New York, 2006

So, Michael – let’s get back to your childhood memories. How did you get along with your mother? Your birth mother, I mean.

The man on the receiving end of these words tensed visibly, clearly not having expected such a question. His whole appearance showed he was used to being in control of whatever situation he faced. Right now, though, he had to accept that managing other people wasn’t the same as getting his own emotions and memories under control. This was exactly what had brought Michael Morson to the office of Bill Hughes, one of New York’s top psychoanalysts. So, after a little reflection, he answered the question.

Don’t remember much about her. All my memories are based on some far-off sensations of her body heat, her hugs, the scent of her hair, and the way she’d look at me and smile sometimes. Anything else I know about her is just what I heard from my foster-mother, Caitlin.

The analyst watched his patient closely. Though it was their third session, he still couldn’t tell if Michael really had any confidence in him as a professional. Bill got the persistent impression that the man was showing him a false front. Deciding not to waste any time on his personal doubts, however, he moved on to the next question.

Can you recall any details? What happened in between your mom dying and Caitlin adopting you?

Michael leaned back in his chair, lost in memories for a few seconds, and then continued his story.

"She died when I was five. The official cause of death was a drug overdose. Reckon that’s how it was, all right. We were living in Santa Cruz, in the mansion my grandfather had there before moving to New York. It was always full of shady people, with parties every day, drinks by the pool, and music on all the time.

"I’d wake up in the morning, run to the kitchen, and usually end up having breakfast amidst piles of dirty dishes, Chinese takeaway or pizza boxes, and all the other trash they’d leave around the first floor after every party. There would often be total strangers lying down or sitting around in the kitchen and living room, hungover or still high. Sometimes they couldn’t even speak coherently or figure out where they were.

"After breakfast I’d go to the pool, because the morning was the only time I had it to myself. Everyone from last night’s party was usually gone by lunchtime, but around four o’clock we’d see a new batch of trust fund babies, burning through the money of their rich parents, or their hangers-on. And that’s how it went, day after day. Though my mother never paid me much attention, she did tell me not to swim in the pool unless there was an adult around, so I’d just sit on the edge and dangle my feet in the water. Then I’d go to the garden and play there, mostly all on my own.

Nobody could have kept track of all the people who’d drop by our house at all hours. Sometimes I’d go in the bathroom when I thought it was empty and catch someone snorting coke. Never saw Laura, my mom, doing drugs – but I reckon that was just her way of keeping that part of her life away from me.

Bill was glad to make even the slightest dent in the walls that his patient put so much effort into keeping up. Deep down, however, Michael was probably longing to cross those imaginary protective walls of his. It showed in the fact that this young man, with so many questions about himself and his past, was sitting in a therapist’s office.

Hoping to build on their budding rapport, Bill went on. Why didn’t you stay with your grandfather after your mom died? Seems to me he could have looked after you.

Michael shrugged slightly, as if this question baffled him too.

"By then, Granddad had given up on bringing Laura to her senses. She was living the high life at his expense, with no intention of doing anything serious like getting a job, going to college, or being a good mother. Just before she died, he threatened to quit funding her well-heeled, carefree lifestyle. I heard them having a row in the living room. She was so drunk she could hardly string two words together. Granddad gave up, slamming out of the house in a temper. Didn’t see him again till the funeral.

"After she died, there was the question of where I’d live and who would take me. Given Laura’s lifestyle, there was no way to find out who my father was, and Granddad was too busy with his financial empire to have any time for me. So, Caitlin, his P.A., formally adopted me. She moved from New York to our home in California and took over raising me: helping me with my homework or taking me to shows, the circus, fun parks, and fairs. She’d bake a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving Day and chocolate cookies on weekends, and I’d always get my favourite marshmallows to give me a lift before anything really important. Thanks to Caitlin, I started making friends. She showed me how to get along with other kids. I’d see Granddad sometimes, whenever he could spare his grandson a few hours.

Anyway, that’s how things were till I was thirteen, when I found Caitlin’s body in our house. After that I went to live with Granddad in New York.

And how did you get along with your grandfather?

Michael glanced at his watch. Though he’d paid for the session already and still had fifteen minutes to go, he decided that was enough for today. He’d already parted the too-heavy curtain separating thirteen-year-old Michael Morson from the man he was now. After making another appointment for next week, Michael said goodbye and headed for the elevator.

The therapist remained seated in his office, where everything bore witness to its owner’s prosperity. The fees he charged were very substantial, but fully justified. His professional skills and reputation were worth it. That’s why Bill Hughes was surrounded by expensive designer furniture and custom accessories, helping to create a special psychological space where his patients could feel safe.

Then again, like any analyst in Manhattan, Bill had plenty of inner fears and problems of his own. In this office and its adjacent garden room, he could usually calm down and gather his thoughts – but today this eluded him.

Over and over again, he read through his notes about the client who’d just left. His childhood memories didn’t seem like anything to disconcert a professional accustomed to dealing with childhood trauma due to parental abuse, humiliation, incest, or crime-related memories. He’d heard it all. The footprints of the past in the subconscious of some patients were worthy of a novel. But most of them were paranoid, or introverts, though there were some who walked the edge between fury and resolve to retaliate with actions that could heal or muffle the wounds caused by their past.

And in each case, these were real people with their own thoughts and feelings and storms of emotion, longing for relief and striving to understand why they’d been chosen to bear these trials. Each had their own reasons for being in Bill’s office. Each sought to shed their mental burdens, get their inner self under control, and move on feeling mostly, if not entirely, happy.

But Michael Morson had neither excess emotions nor any desire for awareness and acceptance. His was a well-polished and well-rehearsed story. Like an actor going on stage to play the same role night after night, he fully controlled not just every word, but every emotion as well. But instead of earning applause, Michael paid a price for each performance, while receiving some reward that only he could understand. Bill was troubled by these thoughts but decided to avoid jumping to conclusions and wait until their next session.

New York, June 2006

Michael Morson woke up early in his Upper East Side apartment. Outside, dawn was breaking. Sunbeams slipped through the tightly drawn curtains like an incoming tide, closer and closer to his bed. He turned to look at the bedside table, where the clock read five. Despite being so well-organized and together, he still found it hard to get up in the morning. So, to keep himself from turning off the alarm while still asleep, Michael never used the alarm on the clock beside his bed. He found a better solution for himself by installing a digital panel, with a built-in electronic clock, at the door to his bathroom. This meant that when he wanted to turn off the piercing alarm, he had to get up and walk to the bathroom door, and after that it made more sense to get straight in the shower instead of going back to bed.

Then again, waking up wasn’t really his problem. He suffered from insomnia, tossing and turning for hours before he’d fall asleep, an endless waterfall of thoughts rushing through his mind. Whenever he did manage to fall into a light and fragile sleep, he’d see visions that he would rather not have seen, or at least not remembered in the morning. But he did remember.

Sometimes the details, people, or seasons would change in his dreams, but the ending was always the same.

He’s thirteen years old. He gets off a yellow school bus and walks toward the enormous wrought-iron gates of the mansion where he’s lived all his life, first with his mother, Laura, and after her death with Caitlin. A long gravel driveway leads up to the house, bordered on either side by creamy-white roses planted in memory of Laura.

Seven years ago, on the first anniversary of his mother's death, he and Caitlin had planted these flowers on the mansion’s huge grounds. This was a very important occasion for Michael. Caitlin seemed to have spun a thread that let him keep his mother’s memory alive in his heart: the mother who had loved him, after all, if not quite as much as she’d loved cocaine and her footloose lifestyle.

But today, once he passed through the gate, each step along the driveway seemed to come with thorn pricks from those lovingly planted roses. A few of their petals had already fallen, and the sweet scent of flowers warmed by the Californian sunshine wafted through the air.

Sitting down in the middle of the driveway, Michael took off his backpack. Then he removed his schoolbooks, placed them neatly under a rosebush, and suddenly started frantically scooping up gravel from the driveway and piling it into the backpack. Many of the pebbles were firmly lodged in the ground and reluctant to shift. He had to make an effort to get them out. A few sharp-edged pebbles got under his fingernails and scratched up the thin skin of his fingers. But this only lent him strength, and he started working even faster.

When he figured it was enough, he put on the backpack again and finally calmed down. The weight of the gravel on his back kept him from walking very fast, but at least now there seemed to be a reason why every step toward his house was as hard as the road to Calvary.

At the top of the front steps, he stopped before the heavy door with its griffin’s-head brass knob. This two-story house had belonged to his grandfather. Built in Georgian Colonial style, it started out as a two-story symmetrical structure with a white-columned portico. Over time, Frank Morson rebuilt the house, turning it into a respectable Neocolonial villa. Now the facade was done in natural stone, the drawing room and the hallway were moved to the centre of the building, and all the bedrooms were on the first floor, up the luxurious marble staircase. Frank also replaced the glass-panelled front door with a heavy greenish metal door, to match the roof tile.

When Frank moved to New York, his daughter Laura stayed in this house. And after a great many parties, the house lost some of its internal and external luster. Now it was in need of repairs, with patchy plasterwork and crumbling foundations. The mansion was too big; its upkeep required not only money, but also a lot of effort. After Caitlin arrived, though, it did get cosier on the inside.

Since home security was a priority for her, she bricked up the back door straight away and always kept the front door locked. Michael fully shared her preference for closed doors. After living with Laura and having uninvited guests in the house all the time, life with Caitlin felt calm, measured, and safe.

But now the door was ajar, putting him on his guard. There weren’t any cars parked near the gates, and Betty and Pete – the couple who looked after their home and garden – had left a week ago to visit family in Colorado. So, Michael knew for sure that the door should be closed, but also that once he got inside, Caitlin would have his dinner ready and help him with his homework later. But today the usual routine was going wrong.

With the gravel-filled backpack getting too heavy for him, Michael had no choice but to push open the door and go inside. As the door swung wide and he saw the living room, his back was aching unbearably. He started to take off the backpack, but his hands jerked, and the heavy bag thudded to the marble floor. Its fabric ripped. Pebbles clattered out in all directions.

Finally startled into full awareness by the sound of falling pebbles, he realized at once that the green carpet on the stairs, put there by Laura years ago to keep little Michael from slipping and falling, was now stained blood-red.

The boy set one foot on the first step and felt it sink into puddled blood. Recoiling a little, he withdrew his foot from the stair to the floor. A footprint remained on the blood-soaked carpet. He felt like running away, but something within urged him upward. Barely able to move his legs, Michael started upstairs to the first floor, each step accompanied by the disgusting squelch of his feet on blood-soaked carpet. The door to Caitlin’s room was ajar as well. Michael entered the room – and his screams echoed through the empty house.

When he came to, the police were already in the house. Beside him was the doctor who had brought him round. The police said that what he’d seen in his foster-mother’s room had sent him into shock, and he’d probably run around the house aimlessly, since his bloody footprints were everywhere. Then he’d somehow managed to call 911 before passing out.

It turned out that his memories of what had happened were completely blocked. All he could remember was coming in through the gates, filling his backpack with gravel, and going upstairs. A lawyer insisted that he shouldn’t be shown any photos, and from then on every effort was made to shield Michael from anything linked to that day’s events. His grandfather brought him to New York, and the topic of Caitlin’s death was carefully avoided.

Michael often had this dream but could never remember exactly what it was he’d seen in his foster-mother’s room. As he grew up, he read a lot of books with various descriptions of murder scenes. He also paid attention to news footage and police reports. All this, along with countless movies where such things were plot favorites, lodged firmly in his mind and painted every manner of picture for him. But all this was merely his imagination. Reality remained hidden away in the depths of his memory.

At some point he became obsessed with the idea of piecing together his memories to make an overall picture. Bit by bit, he collected his fragmentary flashbacks, listening to the voices he heard within, trying to separate belonged to him alone from what he’d overheard or seen in the everyday world around him – but this jigsaw still refused to come together.

***

Michael James Morson, heir to his grandfather Frank Morson’s billion-dollar empire, seemed like a golden boy – but everyone in his social circles knew that his family was stalked by misfortune. First his mother overdosed; then his foster-mother became the victim of a homicidal maniac.

After this series of troubles, he spent a few quiet years with his grandfather in New York.

Frank Morson spent most of his time at his Financial District office, so Michael was left to the care of the housekeeper and chauffeur. In contrast to his mother, Laura, Michael never wanted to live it up on the elder Morson’s money. Just the opposite: his needs were modest and he took little interest in having fun.

He did his best to gain the trust and respect of his powerful relative, taking every opportunity to show interest in his business affairs. Frank Morson soon took a liking to his grandson. Though his initial view of him had been skewed by his relationship with his daughter, who’d had no ambition at all, over the years Frank came to realize that Michael probably could become a worthy heir to his billion-dollar fortune.

Four years after Caitlin’s murder, Michael had changed from a nervous thirteen-year-old to a serious young man and a potential successor at the Morson Global corporation. As the years passed, some degree of trust developed in his relationship with his grandfather, and Michael felt safe at last. All the same, he was still plagued by insomnia and nightmares about Caitlin’s death, along with another fear: the realization that someday Frank would also be gone, leaving him alone again. Yet Michael believed that by inheriting such a fortune, he would at least be able to ensure his physical safety.

In his own way, Frank Morson did understand his grandson’s concerns – though he disliked discussing the subject, since he didn’t believe in showing any emotional weakness. Nevertheless, aware of the trauma his grandson had experienced, he sent him to a therapist.

After a couple of years of regular sessions, Michael was able to push his memories up to the point of getting off the school bus on the day Caitlin was murdered. He just wasn’t ready to go any further. Even this progress with his memory, slow as it was, brought him some relief and made the nightmares come less often. Yet his wish to remember Caitlin on the last day of her life grew with every passing day. Michael never could work out how this could be achieved through talk alone. He failed to discover the answer to his question.

Just before his eighteenth birthday, he found himself alone again. Life softened the blow a little this time. His grandfather was using his private plane. An hour and a half out of New York, flying through cloud cover over the Appalachians, the aircraft crashed into the Blue Ridge scarp, part of the Blue Ridge range. Surrounded by thick mountain fog, the pilot lost control due to low visibility; after hitting a cliff, the plane crashed into a narrow and impassable mountain gorge.

Michael was personally involved in the rescue operation, but all he managed to do was find the crash site. It was completely inaccessible from the ground and from the air. So this time, Michael could only look at the rock-covered wreckage of what had been a splendid business aircraft worth thirteen million dollars. But no amount of millions could have preserved the life of his last remaining relative, protecting him from such a disaster.

And yet for Michael it was practically a gift, since deep down he could leave a little room for hoping that Frank Morson hadn’t been on that plane at all, and might walk back into his life one day. Once again, news stories and movies helped him out. After all, despite their family’s rather unfortunate history, the elder Morson had defied death and come home before. All the same, this stayed no more than an idea for the last remaining Morson. Michael had no real grounds for believing that his grandfather would ever return.

He hardly slept at all for next few years. The vast bulk of Morson Global crashed down to rest on his shoulders, and the corporation hadn’t been doing well for several years. Although he didn’t have full control officially until reaching adulthood, Michael immersed himself in the process of running this challenging business. He was also well aware of needing to get a proper education – otherwise, he would always be dependent on the knowledge and experience of others. Those people wouldn’t always be loyal to him, and there would surely come a time when they sought to sell their services for more than he paid them.

In his very first year of managing Morson Global, his suspicions proved justified. A few mercenary financial analysts and brokers, people he’d hired in an effort to update the company, nearly left his whole business vulnerable. Due to their actions, Morson Global’s share price plummeted. Competitors swooped in like hungry vultures, and any further mistakes could have led to a complete collapse within days. It was then that Michael, though lacking even a superficial knowledge of finances, first discovered his ability to predict the financial market situation. He ended up having to take charge of legal as well as financial affairs.

To learn how to run the corporation he’d inherited, Michael enrolled in a Business School program at Columbia University, diligently attending all the classes, lectures, and seminars, and reading hundreds of books on business and finance. He graduated at the top of his class, earning a Bachelor’s degree and then an MBA. Within a couple of years he’d managed to give Morson Global a new lease of life, so the fortune inherited from his grandfather actually multiplied rather than shrinking.

New York, June 2006

Michael was sitting in his office on the 60th floor of the American International Building. For Morson Global’s founder, this 290-meter skyscraper in Lower Manhattan had been the architectural reflection of his inner state of mind. It was built in the skyscraper race era for oil tycoon Henry L. Doherty - a deciding factor for Michael’s grandfather when he was choosing an office in New York. Doherty was something of an idol for him: a self-made man whose business talents had left a mark in the history of the oil sector.

Even though the overall building belonged to America’s biggest insurance company, Frank Morson had bought out the whole 60th floor in the early 1960s. Back then, the skyscraper was still called the Cities Service Building, and belonged directly to Doherty’s oil company. Morson Global leased only part of the floor at first, but when Frank started expanding his spheres of influence in business and his company started growing rapidly, he was able to buy the entire floor. Though the price was sky-high, this acquisition proved remarkably advantageous.

When Cities Service moved its headquarters from New York to Oklahoma in 1976 and ownership of the building passed to an insurance company that wanted to buy it all, Frank received an offer far higher than his initial investment. But he never intended this particular asset – one of many properties among his empire’s assets. Few estate agents in Manhattan were unaware of Frank’s disinclination to part with that office – yet offers kept coming in with enviable regularity. Just as regularly, Frank refused.

As for Michael, this Pine Street building with the neo-Gothic spire reaching high into the sky and an observatory on the 66th floor was his architectural alter ego. That’s how he saw himself: having clear life goals, aiming high, and being able to rise among others. Like this building – sometimes heading the list of America’s tallest buildings, then moving down the ranking, only to rise into the top ten again within a few years – Michael Morson also rose and fell on all kinds of rankings and lists. This much was certain, though: he was always a high-profile figure in the business world, no less noticeable than the American International Building among skyscrapers.

The windows of his office faced southeast, offering stunning views of Long Island, separated from Manhattan by the East River. Every day he got this bird's-eye view of the city, and the oddity of his own life-path never ceased to surprise him.

He was twenty-eight years old today. Ten of those years had been spent running Morson Global, very successfully. Though he couldn’t be described as handsome, he did have the charisma of a strong, confident leader: someone capable of achieving his goals regardless of all the difficulties he’d had to overcome since childhood. All this, of course, was seasoned with the magnetic attraction of his multimillion-dollar fortune.

Michael himself firmly believed, however, that in this era filled with brands, labels, and all kinds of advertising, just following the fashion and beauty industry’s reasonable trends would be enough to let anyone look and feel confident and well-dressed on