After he left, I leaned against the wall in pain, praying that this torture wouldn’t last. My body was shaking from the pain and I wished I would just pass out. As dusk fell, I started to hear squeaks coming from around me. My fear skyrocketed and the terror of what awaited me in the dark had me squinting, trying to make out anything that moved. Soon it was dark and I couldn’t see anything. Something rubbed against my leg and I shrieked, kicking out to scare off whatever was lurking. Something pinched me and I was quite sure it was a rat coming to take a bite of my skin. They could smell the blood on me and were coming to feast on me. My chest tightened as I tried not to cry, but with every kick at something that tried crawling on me, I started to cry a little harder.
My body was tired and I started to drift off, but I would jolt awake every time something brushed against me. The panic was increasing every hour and I prayed for daylight. Bugs started to crawl over my neck and down my shirt. I would scream and trying to wriggle my body to get them off, but they just kept crawling over me. I was sobbing so hard, wondering how my life had come to this. Would this be my end? Would I die in this hole with bugs crawling all over me, slowly eating me alive?
Finally, dawn came and it wasn’t quite so dark down here. The mice and insects were still around, but at least I could see now and it staved off some of the panic. Now I just had to figure out how to get out of here and survive until I could escape.
CHAPTER TWO
Cole
I woke from my dream, breathing heavily and unsure of where I was. It took a few minutes to orient myself and realize that I wasn’t in danger. My dreams from the military always left me feeling drained for the day. I looked over at the clock, seeing it was only four in the morning. I got out of bed and went down the hall to put on some coffee, but when I got to the kitchen, I decided a good, long run would help most. Going to the pantry, I pulled out some protein bars and then grabbed some bottled water, then headed to my bedroom. I ate as I got dressed in my running pants and a sweatshirt. After putting on my running shoes, I stepped into the crisp morning air and stretched for a few minutes before taking off at a steady pace down the road.
I had moved to the country a few months ago. My buddy, Jack, had a place in the country about twenty minutes on the other side of town. Whenever I went to his house, I found that I really enjoyed the solitude. I decided to trade in my apartment for a small, craftsman style house in the country. I still hadn’t found a job since returning from the military three years ago. I actually wasn’t even looking. I’d done some odd jobs around town, but I mostly spent my days at my parents’ house building furniture in my dad’s workshop.
I was collecting disability from the military for PTSD and seeing a therapist once a week. She suggested that I do something constructive with my hands to help work out my frustrations. I had taken up woodworking six months after I’d returned and hadn’t stopped yet. It was relaxing and I liked being close to my parents. They didn’t pressure me to talk or go find a job. They seemed to understand that I just needed time to readjust at my own pace. In their minds, as long as I was being productive with my day, I was making progress. Dad was retired and liked to build furniture as a hobby, so he taught me and after the first year, I was coming up with my own designs. We even built on an addition to the workshop so that we each had our own space. We had a little side business going and I was making some money that way.
After my nightmares last night, I decided to run to my parents’ house this morning. I usually did when I had bad nights. They lived about ten miles from me and I felt the demons calming in my head by the time I got there. They always knew that if I showed up early and without a vehicle, I’d had a rough night. My mom, Patricia, would cook a big breakfast and make sure she sent something home with me for dinner. My dad, David, would work in the same space as me for the day, never asking questions, but being there just in case I needed him. Some people would find that intrusive, but Dad had been in the military and he understood what I was going through. It was reassuring that I would always have this with my parents.
I slowed to a walk as I got to their driveway. Dad stepped out onto the porch a few minutes later with a cup of coffee in each hand. We sat on the porch chairs and enjoyed the sunrise together. When he was almost done with his coffee, Dad finally spoke.
“We’ve got a few new orders that came in last night. We have two orders for a dining room table and one order for a patio table and chairs. They want a couple of loungers also.”
“Did they give any specifications?”
“Just what size they would like. All of them left the designs up to us. They all gave a general idea of what they would like, but mostly told us to do whatever we wanted.”
I nodded. I preferred it that way. I could let my hands do the work and let my brain do the designing. If I had a cookie cutter plan, it was too easy to let my mind wander to things I didn’t need to think about. I got to work and began cutting the pieces to size. True to form, dad stayed by my side the whole day and I felt something ease in my chest. Around five, I decided I was done for the day.
“I’m gonna hit the road. I’m beat.”
“I’ll give you a ride home. Your mom made you a casserole to take home. Let me grab the keys.” Dad went inside and I walked towards the truck. When wee pulled into my driveway about twenty minutes later, dad got out and grabbed the casserole and handed it to me.
I pulled him in for a guy hug. He really was great and I knew I couldn’t ever express how grateful I was for what my parents had done for me.
✯✯✯✯✯
A few days later, Sean stopped by before his shift.
“What’s up, Sean? What brings you out so early in the morning?”
“Can we go inside for a few minutes?”
“Sure. You want some coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I got two mugs out of the cupboard and poured us both a cup. Sean looked like he had a lot on his mind and was maybe even a little nervous to talk to me. I brought the mugs over and sat down at the table, resting my right ankle across my left knee.
“So, tell me what this is about.”
Sean pulled a folder out of his work bag and placed it on the table.
“I need you to take a look at this for me.”
“What is it?” I asked as I grabbed the folder and pulled it closer.
“It’s my sister’s file, along with the murders that are linked to her case.”
I was about to open the folder, but I paused at that last part.
“Um, I’m not sure I want to see this. Sean, I’m just starting to get my head on straight. This probably isn’t a good idea for me.”
Sean sighed, “Look, I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I haven’t caught a break on this case in over two years. Every lead has gone dry. I need a fresh set of eyes to look at it.”
“This isn’t legal, Sean. You could get in a lot of trouble for handing this over to me.”
“I know. I was thinking we could meet a few times a week and go over the files together. Maybe you’ll catch something I missed.”
“I wish I could help, but I don’t think I can handle this right now.”
Sean nodded and looked down at the table. “Cara isn’t doing too good. Her nightmares are worse than ever and she won’t leave the house. She’s scared to answer the phone. I don’t know what else I can do for her. I think the only way she’ll ever get over this is if this guy is caught. I have to try something else.”
I sat there for a few minutes thinking it over. If I got involved in this, it could set back my recovery. I wasn’t really doing all that great, but I was functioning. The first six months I was home, I was barely getting out of bed. Did I really want to risk having that kind of set back? My parents would be devastated. Then again, seeing Sean so torn up was difficult and I couldn’t sit back and watch my friend rip himself apart over this. He obviously needed help. Sean had been the one to come to my house every morning for two months and drag me out of bed and make me
live. How could I turn my back on him now?
“I’ll help you out, but there may be things I can’t handle. I don’t know how much I’m gonna be able to take. I can’t go back to the way it was when I first got back.” Sean nodded his head in understanding.
“Just look at what you can and if you feel yourself slipping, let me know and I’ll see if one of the other guys can help.”
“I actually think it would be best if you brought Sebastian in on this too. Maybe the three of us can find some time to get together and go over this.”
“I’ll talk to him and see what he says.” Sean paused for a moment, seeming to contemplate what he wanted to say next. “You know he still wants you to come work with him, right?”
“I can’t do it. My days of working in that field are over. I’ll never touch a gun again, if I can help it. I just want to live in peace. I’ve got that now. I’m not fixed, but I’m getting there.”
Sean stood and tapped the folder. “I’ll leave this here, but don’t leave it laying around. Do you have a safe you can lock it in?”
I nodded. “I’ll start looking through it right away. I’ll see if Pop can do without me for a few days.”
We shook hands and Sean left to go to work. I figured I’d better call Dad and let him know I’d be out for a few days. I wasn’t sure I’d be up to much after reading this file. I turned and stared at the file, not wanting to know all the details. I’d heard what had happened to Cara, but reading all the details and seeing the photos was totally different. If it would help Cara, I’d do whatever I could. I grabbed some paper and pens from my office and then spread everything out on the kitchen table to go through. I read through all the paperwork and made my own notes, then separating it into piles for later review.
Sean’s sister, Cara, had been abducted from a gas station late at night after a shift at the hospital. She had been missing for ten days and had escaped when a farmer had stopped by his field and heard her screaming for help in the basement of an abandoned farm house. Her abductor hadn’t been around at the time. She had been sliced up multiple times, but never enough to cause her to bleed to death. It was as if her abductor just wanted to cause pain. She had been fed every other day and given the smallest amounts of water, enough to keep her alive. The police weren’t able to find prints in the farm house and hadn’t found any DNA that matched anyone in the police database. They had, however, discovered that his DNA had been found at seven other murder scenes, eight murders in total, throughout the surrounding counties over the past twenty years. The first murder scene had all the same details as the other murder scenes, but no DNA. Each murder was several years apart. Cara had been the last victim.
I opened the files on the murder victims and started to compare my notes on Cara to the other files. The other women had all been abducted when they were alone in a deserted area. They had all been found tortured and starving. Most of the women had been missing anywhere from nine months to eighteen months. That would explain the gap in murders. He held one woman captive and tortured her for a year or so and then took a break and scoped out his next victim.
One was jogging in the morning and never returned home to her boyfriend. She had been missing ten months when she was found on the same trail that she had disappeared from. The police believe that she died somewhere else and was placed on the trail to be found. Because of this, there was no DNA evidence to add to her file on her attacker. However, the details of her torture and starvation matched the other cases.
Another went missing while looking for her dog in the woods behind her house. It was later discovered that the dog had been mutilated in the woods. It was assumed that her abductor had taken the dog as a way to lure her out of the house and into the woods. She was found deeper in the woods fourteen months later. She was tied to a tree and appeared to have had her final torture there. The coroner’s report stated that her time of death was three weeks prior.
The third woman was married and had been taken from her house in the middle of the night when her husband worked the late shift. They lived outside of town, so there were no witnesses. She had been missing for twelve months when she was found in a car in a junk yard in late summer. Based on the smell and condition of the car, she had spent at least six months of her captivity in that car. The junk yard had been closed for two years and was being looked at by potential buyers when she was found.
The police weren’t sure at first if the fourth and fifth victims were related because they were abducted together. It was the only known double murder related to the other cases. They were taken after their car broke down on a back road home from another town after a day of shopping. They were held the longest, at just over eighteen months. When they were found, they had been holding one another at a pavilion at the state park in the middle of winter. It was assumed that their captor let them go with the false hope that they would make it out alive. According to the coroner’s report, they were so emaciated and their injuries were so severe that they probably only survived an hour outside before they succumbed to their injuries.
The sixth woman was found in her house. She had been a shut in and didn’t have any family or friends. There is no timeline on how long she had been tortured, but there were stations of torture set up all around her house. The coroner could only say that her injuries suggested that she had endured torture for around a year. The police found a lot of DNA at that crime scene and even a few partial prints, but still nothing that would identify him.
The seventh woman was abducted after returning home from grocery shopping. Her car was still running and the groceries were still in the trunk. There was a blood trail with her, meaning that she had been able to fight back. Her brother had come over to fix something at the house and had discovered the scene. She was found in a ravine and her captor’s DNA was found in her mouth, which means she must have bitten him soon before she died.
The eighth victim was never found. Her DNA and his were found in a motel room that you book by the hour. She was a drifter and had stopped in for a few nights. Since her body was never found, she was still being listed as missing, but it had been five years since her abduction, so officers were treating her as a murder victim based on the timeline of the other victims.
The coroner’s reports all listed that the women died from succumbing to their injuries. It would appear that their captor had starved and tortured them until their bodies gave out. Cara had been lucky. She had endured torture, but nothing compared to what the other women had gone through.
I shut the folder and squeezed my eyes shut, running a hand over my face. I had notes scattered all over the table and papers stacked according to which victim the information pertained to. I’d been going over the files for most of the day and I didn’t think I could stomach any more. I carefully and neatly loaded all the files and put them in the safe in my office.
That night, my worst dreams came back to haunt me. I tossed and turned all night, my dreams mixing with the information from the murders. At three a.m., I decided I couldn’t take anymore and got up to go for an extra long run. When I got back, I called Sean and told him I had gone over the information, but I needed a few days off from looking over the files. I spend the whole week working at Mom and Dad’s, trying to shake the nightmares and the images from the files. I jogged there every morning and had told Dad about what I was doing that first morning. The rest of the week, he met me on the porch at 5 a.m. with coffee in hand.
CHAPTER THREE
Alex
I was exhausted and I could barely hold my head up anymore. My arms were killing me from sleeping with them above my head. I had slept this way since the first night in my dungeon. The next day, my captor had come in and sliced shallow cuts all over my body until I was screaming in pain. If I didn’t scream, he cut me more viciously until I did. If I screamed right away, he took sick satisfaction in it and cut more and more or used me as a punching bag. This was all a game to him. He wanted to watch me scream and see me suffer. He only
came back once a day for five days. He gave me a few bottles of water and, when he remembered, he brought me a sandwich. He never released me, only watched as I stood in an awkward position, trying to eat and drink.
A few days after being imprisoned, I was able to loosen the rope enough around my wrists to slide them free of the rope. It hurt and I had burns, but it was an amazing feeling. I checked the door, but there was no way to open it from the inside. I thought about trying to yank out the floorboards above. Maybe if I could get them loose, I could get out. I didn’t dare try anything by the door. If I was able to pry it open a little, but couldn’t get out, he would know that I had escaped my ropes. I tried to touch the floorboards above, but they were too high and I couldn’t reach them. I listened for his comings and goings and paid attention to which direction he came from. After a week of listening, I was sure he was always coming from the same direction and left the same way. He only came during the day and stayed for an hour at most.
It already reeked in my dungeon from the smell of urine and shit. He dug a hole next to me that I could lean over and then kick dirt over to cover the stench. It was disgusting and I felt dirty after several times of doing it, although, I had already pissed myself that first day, so I had been dirty from the start.
After the first week, I had formulated a plan of escape. The Shawshank Redemption had been a favorite movie of mine growing up. I planned on using the very same methods to escape. I chose the darkest corner of the cellar and began to dig into the wall. I only dug at night when I knew he wouldn’t come and quit before sunrise to clean up as best I could and get back in my ropes. I dug with my hands for about two weeks and the hole was only large enough for me to wiggle my body through. I packed that dirt back into the wall so that it appeared intact. After I was about ten inches into the hole, I started taking the extra dirt and spreading it around the cellar floor, packing it down with my shoe. When I was done for the night, I took a pile of dirt that I had set aside for the opening and I would urinate on it, then pack it back into the opening of the hole. I kept a small amount of water from my water bottle and cleaned up as best I could. I didn’t want to appear clean, but I couldn’t have dirt caked on my hands.
Cole: A Romantic Thriller Novel (For The Love Of A Good Woman Book 2) Page 2