‘Please don’t hurt my daughter’ Jack quickly texted back.
‘Meet me and I will let her go. No police.’
‘Where?’
Jack watched as the next two text messages came across his phone, instructing him to go to an abandoned warehouse in the lower west end. He drove the speed limit, not wanting to be pulled over on the way there, afraid if he was detained by getting pulled over, Charley would be dead.
He turned down the alley to the old bakery and turned off his car.
“I’m here,” he shouted. “Let my daughter go.”
“We have some things to discuss first,” a woman’s voice yelled from the shadows. “Come in the white door below and take the steps to the third level.”
Every instinct Jack had told him to flee, not go into that building, but he didn’t have a choice. He opened the door and quietly slipped inside.
Once he reached the third level, Jack stopped at the top of the steps, turning quickly but it was too late. The needle slipped into the flesh of his neck and everything went black.
“Hello, Jack,” a woman’s voice said as he began to wake. His vision was blurred as he looked up at her. All he could see was a black motorcycle helmet with the visor down.
“Where’s my daughter,” Jack demanded.
“Oh, she isn’t here. She never was. Charley is a nice little girl. Too bad she has you for a father, but not for long.”
“What the hell is this about?” Jack shouted with a raspy voice.
“I think you know. You just don’t want to believe it. Would you like a little visual help?”
Jane reached up and pulled off the motorcycle helmet, allowing her long dark brown hair to fall over her shoulders.
His eyes widened, unable to believe she was alive as she picked up his phone. “What’s the password?” Jane asked.
“I’ll never fucking tell you,” Jack said and tried to spit in her face but his mouth was too dry. Jane picked up a syringe lying on the table and held it over his eye.
“Do you know what Drano does if you inject it into someone’s eye? No? Me either, let’s find out.”
There was anger in her eyes as she looked at Jack and inched the needle closer and closer until there was barely a quarter of an inch between his eye and the tip of the needle.
“It’s cabin,” he said quickly. “The password is cabin.”
Jane typed the password into his phone and went through the pictures stored on the micro SD card until she found pictures he had taken at the cabin, pictures of Jack, Greg, and Bill posing with her.
“Nice,” she said and pulled a transfer cord out of her jacket pocket and moved the pictures to her phone. “Your wife will get a kick out of these.”
“No, please, I am begging you.”
She leaned closer to Jack until her lips barely touched his ear. “I seem to remember begging, begging you to stop, and you laughed. You thought it was funny. It isn’t so funny now, is it?” Jane whispered. She stood and looked at him. Her eyes were dead and lifeless, like a doll’s eyes, like a woman who had lost her soul.
Jane had thought about this moment for a long time and had planned carefully down to the smallest detail. She never went home after escaping the cabin. As far as the rest of the world knew, Jane Scott was dead. She was just another young woman who had become a statistic.
Without warning, Jane shoved the syringe into Jack’s eye and depressed the plunger. A thin smile came to her lips as he screamed and passed out.
Jane sat in a chair copying the photos to her phone. She would print them out, cut her face out of the pictures, and pin them up all over town, at Jack’s clinic, and send them to his wife. She also decided to take pictures of Jack as she tortured him and include them in the little packet she was preparing to have delivered to his lovely wife.
When Jack came to, he began screaming loudly. Jane shook her head. “We can’t have that,” she said coldly, then picked up a pair of scissors and cut out his tongue. She then took a heated iron and seared the wound closed. Jane couldn’t have her prize bleeding to death before she was done. Jack immediately passed out.
“Wake up,” she shouted, slapping Jack across the face. “Don’t you want to be awake? Don’t you want to know what’s happening?”
His eyes were filled with fear as Jack watched Jane roll an IV bag stand over to the table where he was tied down with duct tape. He watched as she picked up the bottle of Drano and added it to the saline solution.
“Not too much,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to die right away.”
Jack struggled, but could not free himself as Jane slipped the IV into the top of his hand then sat down in the chair.
“I had a life before I met you. I had a family. I had a fiancé before you took my life away from me. I hope it was worth it. Was it worth it, Jack, now that you have some free time to think about it?”
His body stiffened as the Drano dripped into his vein. His back arched then collapsed as Jack’s eyes rolled back in their sockets.
Jane slowly reached up and turned the IV off. She wanted him to suffer just as she had. She picked up his keys, walked down the steps, and went to Jack’s car, then drove it inside the building and made a call.
“The car will be at the market in the morning with the keys in it. You need to chop it as quickly as possible.”
She turned off the disposable phone. In the morning she would drop off the car, take the bus to where she left her motorcycle, and come back to finish Jack Stryker.
Jonathan sat drinking an espresso while watching the morning news on the overhead television at the Daily Grind. It was a regular haunt for him, on the way to the firm each morning. He would drink a cup of coffee and then pick up two lattes to go, one for him and one for Sherri.
He read the ticker as it scrolled across the bottom of the screen until he saw a picture of Jack Stryker on the screen. Jonathan stood and walked over to the television, reading the closed captioning as it scrolled up the screen.
“Shit,” he said beneath his breath and grabbed his coat before running out the door.
Chapter Ten
Letters and Photos
“Good morning, Jack,” Jane said as she leaned over her captive, looking into his eyes with little emotion. When he didn’t open his eyes, she struck him across the face. “That’s better. I suppose I should thank you and your friends. Bill Hyndes or James Griggs might not feel the same way when they find out what I have done, but then again, who knows. It might just be a turn on.”
Jane’s eyes slowly scanned the length of Jack’s body. “What’s wrong, Jack? It doesn’t make you hard when you’re the one being abused? I guess it’s not a turn on for you when you don’t hold the power, when you aren’t hurting a defenseless woman that you drugged? Should I shed a little tear for you?”
Jane picked up the syringe, filled it full of Drano, and injected it directly into Jack’s vocal cords, pausing to wink at him before picking up a pocket knife.
“Just a little Drano to paralyze the vocal cords, you see, I want you to be awake as long as possible, and I can’t have you screaming. I want you to feel the pain. I want you to know what I am doing until the last possible moment. But don’t worry, Jack, I’ll make sure your wife gets pictures of this too.”
Two hours later, Jack Stryker was dead. Jane had collected everything from the crime scene and slipped it into her backpack. She had been meticulous, making certain all of her skin was covered at all times so not a single piece of her DNA was left at the scene. She left a typed letter on his chest as Jane walked away and readied herself for the next target, Bill Hyndes.
Jane drove to the far end of Manhattan to a place where she could toss the evidence into an incinerator. She stopped at a payphone, made a single call to the Herald, and told them where Jack Stryker’s body could be found, and hung up the phone before driving to the bay to watch the sun rise over the ocean.
Jonathan Masby drove straight to his office only to find Penny Stryker
weeping uncontrollably as Sherri attempt to console her.
“Oh, Jonathan,” she said between her sobs, nearly falling into his arms. In her hand, she was grasping a manilla envelope.
“Sherri, would you get Mrs. Stryker some water please?” he asked. His secretary immediately rushed to the water cooler as Jonathan escorted Penny into his office.
One she was seated, she handed Jonathan the envelope and burst into tears again. Jonathan slowly pulled the contents out of the envelope and read the letter sitting on top of a pile of pictures, a letter that was made from cut out pieces of magazines.
‘Thought you might like to know the type of man I saved you from living with the rest of your life.’
“How many people have handled this?” Jonathan asked and reached into his desk drawer for a pair of white gloves, which he sometimes needed for handling very old probate papers and wills.
“No one, just you and me, that’s all.”
He nodded his head, slowly, looking at the pictures one by one. Jonathan closed his eyes as he saw Jane posed in various states of undress and being raped by his friends in the pictures.
Jane, he thought until he came to the pictures taken of Jack as he was tortured. Jonathan abruptly ran from the room and vomited in the waste can outside the door. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth before rejoining Penny Stryker in his office and sitting at his desk. The last item was a map with a crude skull and crossbones drawn on it.
“We need to call the police,” Jonathan began.
“What do they want? Is it money? Are they holding Jack for ransom? I’ll pay whatever they want.” Penny broke down once more, sobbing into her hands.
Jonathan pressed the button on the intercom. “Can you call the police, Sherri?”
“Of course, is everything okay?” she asked.
“No, Sherri, I don’t think it is.”
An hour later, Jonathan watched as Penny was taken away in the ambulance. He stood on the steps to the law firm waiting for the detective to finish talking to Jack’s wife.
Keep calm, he got what he deserved, Jonathan thought as the Detective approached.
“Detective Halloran,” he said, offering his hand.
Jonathan reached forward and shook his hand, noting how firm his handshake was. “Jonathan Masby.”
“Could we talk in your office?”
Jonathan motioned for the detective to follow him inside and follow him down the hall. Once the door to his office was closed, Jonathan sat at his desk as the Detective took a seat in the same chair Penny had sat in only a few moments ago.
“Did Jack have any enemies?” Detective Halloran asked, taking his pen and a small notepad out of his pocket.
“Not that I am aware, Jack was a nice guy, a good husband and father, I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to do this to him.”
The Detective watched Jonathan closely, wondering how they were connected.
“So is Mrs. Stryker your client?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Jack and I went to college together. She panicked and didn’t know what to do, so Penny came here.” Jonathan attempted to look as distraught as possible.
“You don’t seem too upset about the pictures,” the Detective said. Jonathan sighed.
“I worked for the District Attorney’s Office before becoming a partner here. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate on some of the things I saw there. You learn to detach yourself. I just can’t believe anyone would do something like that to Jack. I guess it’s harder to believe when it’s someone you know.”
He looked at Jonathan, then looked around the office. “Yeah, you’re right about that. When I worked a beat and my partner got shot, it took a few days for it to settle in that he was dead.”
“I just don’t understand. Jack would do anything for anybody. He didn’t come from money, and I think that made him humble. Jack was all about helping his fellow man. I just can’t fathom that he would have done anything like this.”
“Does the girl in the photograph look familiar to you?”
“No,” Jonathan lied, “I have never seen her before. They don’t look familiar. Maybe if their faces were visible instead of the pictures being from the back it would help, but they don’t resemble anyone I know or remember Jack keeping tabs with during college.”
“So you weren’t close after you graduated?”
“Not really, Jack’s practice is about an hour away. I take the train every day. Sometimes an hour can be worlds apart, I guess.”
Detective Halloran stood and shook Jonathan’s hand. “I’ll be in touch. If you remember anything, even if it doesn’t seem like it would be important, be sure to call me.” He handed Jonathan his card before beginning to leave. “You’re the attorney who handled that big sex trafficking case last month, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Jonathan said, wondering where this new line of questioning was going.
“Then you have seen some sick shit,” the Detective said and shook his head as he stepped into the hallway.
Jonathan sighed once Detective Halloran was gone. Jane was alive, out there somewhere, and she was getting her revenge.
“Everything okay?” Sherri asked as she rounded the corner.
“Yes and no,” Jonathan said, attempting to force a smile. He walked to the window and stared at the street below. Manhattan was a long way from Wyoming…
Two days later, an envelope arrived at the precinct addressed to the Missing Persons Division. Detective Halloran put on a pair of gloves before opening the envelope, sensing it was from whoever had abducted Dr. Jack Stryker. He knew this was about to be a vengeance killing. A ransom note or demand had never arrived, and by the pictures sent to the doctor’s wife, Halloran knew someone was making a point, they wanted the world to know what Stryker had done.
He thumbed through the pictures, seeing Jack Stryker in various states of torture. The contents of the envelope contained no insight into who had kidnapped Jack or what the motive was behind it, other than it being very personal. At this point, all they could assume was the killer was somehow related to one of the women in the pictures included in the envelope. This time the woman was different, she wasn’t the dark haired woman in the pictures sent to Penny Stryker. It appeared her husband had a secret life, one that she knew nothing about, nor did anyone else for that matter.
His phone rang unexpectedly. Halloran looked at the extension. It was the call he had been waiting on from the coroner.
“Did you get the cause of death,” Halloran asked.
“It was pretty obvious once the autopsy began. He was suffocated.”
“Suffocated? I thought you said there were trace elements of toxins in his blood that required further testing.”
“There was but that wasn’t what killed Jack Stryker.”
“For God’s sake, spit it out,” Halloran said, quickly becoming irritated.
In his life working as a corner, Carl Peterson had seen countless ways that people could die, but never anything like what he saw today. He cleared his throat, considering the best way to say it without sounding crass.
“An item was lodged in his throat.”
“Carl,” Halloran began and stopped.
“Whoever did this, was angry, Detective Halloran. This was incredibly personal…”
Halloran listened closely as the details were given to him, then hung up the phone, knowing that all the other men in those photographs were about to meet the same fate.
Chapter Eleven
Computer Programming
Jane moved continuously, never staying in one place too long. She sought out small coffee shops and diners for employment, careful to choose ones owned by women to whom she could plead her case. Her lie was carefully woven, concerning being on the run from an abusive husband who had beat her within inches of her life. She looked for sympathetic women, women who were close to the age of her mother, women who would look at her and see their own daughter. Thus far, her strategy had worked. J
ane made enough money to live and plot her revenge.
The life she had before being kidnapped was long gone. Her family did not exist to Jane, neither did her fiancé or her friends. The only person she continued to stay in contact with was the woman who found her standing alongside the road, half naked, beaten, and near death… Kathleen.
Kathleen was actively working to create a new identity for Jane. She understood that the young woman she once took into her home would never look back. A small part of Jane longed or anonymity, a life where everything that happened to her would fade into the past like a bad dream, but there was a longing inside Jane, a longing to avenge the women who had endured the same nightmare.
As she fastened the backpack onto her motorcycle, all Jane could think about was Seattle.
“You know you don’t have to go,” Carol said as she approached with a bag filled with sandwiches. “I was in your shoes once, you could stay as long as you need.”
“Thanks,” Jane said, taking the bag and securing it inside her backpack. She looked up at the sign perched over the diner. The paint was worn, weathered with time, and needed attention. The lettering of White’s Wayside Diner was barely visible.
“Honey, not everyone escapes. There is no shame in running.”
Jane nodded her head. “I have something I have to take care of in Seattle. Maybe when I come back through, I’ll stop for a while.”
Carol smiled as Jane faded into the distance. She knew she would never see her again.
Nearly two years had passed since the abduction of the young woman named Jane who haunted Jonathan’s dreams on a nightly basis. He was the darling of Manhattan and a key player to the prosecutor during the many trials against various sex trafficking kingpins. In each girl’s face, he saw Jane and wondered where she was.
Bill Hyndes had nearly forgotten about the young woman they had kidnapped and assumed her vendetta had come to an end with the murder of Jack. He was still designing specialized computer software for growing companies within the industry. He was busy working on a program for a new company set to open in the downtown area of Seattle that was to be part of a new online gaming industry. It was a huge job and the payout was going to be more than Bill had made in the last year.
The Collectors: Revenge Becomes Her Page 10