Chapter One

Officer Kate Morgan

 

Officer Kate Morgan stood dumbstruck by the scene before her. It felt as though she had somehow stepped into a frame from a horror movie, and it was no more welcoming to her than it would have been there. Seeing her fellow officer's patrol car parked outside, she hadn't known what to expect when she entered. There had been talk about Officer Marlow, whispers amongst the force about his idiosyncrasies and his general oddness. There had been talk that he was a "dirty" cop, but she had never known whether to believe it. When she'd received the report from a local that a police car was seen driving down an out-of-the way road a few times, she'd been suspicious. She'd assumed that he was involved in drugs or one of the many other mundane things that bad cops were always drawn to. But the questions and whispers she had heard about him had not prepared her for the scene before her.

The room itself was small and outfitted like some sort of torture chamber. It was the sort of setting you would expect to see in a haunted house, not in an old and abandoned mill. But, where those scenes were often cheap and clearly fake, there was nothing artificial about what she was looking at now. The stocks and racks and chains that filled the room were nothing short of real. That much was obvious even beyond the way in which they were currently being used.

The first girl was standing up high on her toes with her back to Kate. She couldn't see the captive girl's face, trapped as it was on the other side of the heavy wooden stocks that enclosed her neck and wrists. Kate could see the distress in the other girl's trembling body, however, forced to remain high up on her toes with her legs pressed together, making herself as tall as possible to avoid the obvious pressure of the wood against her throat. With each little motion the girl made, Kate could hear the tight handcuffs on her ankles clank together.

The second girl knelt on the floor. Where the first girl wore a harness of black leather straps around her body, the second was adorned in white. Kate winced at the way that the second girl's upper body was compressed by the tight leather corset that pressed into her. She wore knee-high boots of matching white leather, but where there would normally be feet, Kate could see the hoof-like shapes of their bottoms. She could see the way that the boots held the girl's heels up aloft, but without the support that heels would offer. The girl's arms were trapped behind her back inside some additional leather contraption that Kate could only glimpse from her position.

The second girl's face, however, was the most shocking sight to Kate. Thin white straps pressed into her cheeks and wrapped around her head. Her mouth was forced to remain open in a disturbing grimace by the gleaming steel bar that the girl clutched between her teeth. And the look in the girl's eyes sent a chill down Kate's spine. She saw horror there, and terror of what was happening to her. But then, as the girl's eyes fell upon her, she saw hope. It was a frightened, desperate glimmer, but hope nonetheless. There was something familiar about the girl's face, even distorted as it was, but she couldn't place where she might have seen her before.

"Freeze," Kate demanded, lifting her pistol as Officer Marlow turned to face her. He was still in his full police uniform, though his badge and nametag were conspicuously absent. The fact that he would wear his uniform for such activity revolted her. His face was concealed behind a black ski mask, leaving only his mouth and eyes open. She saw his eyes narrow as he faced her, his hands down by his sides.

"Officer Morgan," he spoke slowly, and she thought she saw the hint of a smile on his lips. "What brings you to my family mill?"

"Hands up," she ordered, clutching her pistol in both hands as she kept the barrel trained on him. She stood in a shooter's stance with her feet wide. It was a position she'd taken countless times at the shooting range and in her training, but one that she had never actually used in the field.

Shaking his head, he slowly raised his hands from where they rested too close to his own firearm at his waist. He stopped when they were at shoulder height, elbows bent.

"There's nothing to be alarmed about, Officer Morgan," he spoke again. She could hear the light nature of his voice, almost as though he were on the verge of laughing. "I can explain everything."

"You can explain everything?" she asked in disbelief. "I sincerely doubt that. Are you going to try and tell me that this is just some sort of sex party I've stumbled on?"

"Oh no, nothing as inconceivable as that," he answered, and this time he did laugh. The sound of it sickened her. That he could laugh in a place of so much obvious suffering spoke volumes about him. "I wouldn't insult your intelligence with that brand of nonsense."

"Then what?" Kate demanded, her finger hovering over the gun's trigger. "What exactly are you going to explain to me that can't wait for a holding cell back at the station?"

"Well, if you go through with that threat, then you will have missed the opportunity of a life-time," he spoke, holding her gaze. "Something that would make that pathetic pension they hold over us seem like the joke that it is."

"Are you offering me a bribe?" she asked. She held his gaze, keeping the gun's sights aim directly between his eyes.

"I am offering you a business opportunity," he answered, seemingly un-phased by the barrel of the pistol that bore down on him. In the small room, he was only a few feet away from her. The close proximity of the madman was a little unnerving to her as she kept her grip steady on the weapon.

"A business opportunity?" she asked in disbelief. "No, I'm sorry; I've never really considered kidnapping to be the right sort of business for me."

"Oh, but it's so much more than that," he replied, his smile growing. "You would be a fool if you didn't, at least, hear me out."

"I don't need to hear anything about what's going on here," Kate responded coldly. "I just need you to turn around and put your hands behind your head."

"What about if I told you that my little enterprise here is raking in an easy $100,000 per month," he offered, cocking his head slightly to one side as his smile grew. "You'd rather arrest me than get a part of that?"

"Yes," Kate answered quickly. No amount of money would make her turn a blind eye to the look she'd seen on the girl in white's face. "Now, turn around and keep your hands up where I can see them."

"So that you can call this in," he spoke calmly, holding her gaze still. "So that you can call for backup. You're here all by yourself, aren't you?"

"No," Kate lied. She hadn't called it in because she was investigating a fellow officer. If she'd called it in over the radio, he would have heard it, too, and would have been alerted to the fact that she was coming. She wondered now, having seen what he was doing here, what he would have done with those few minutes of warning. What would she have walked into then? "My backup is sweeping the perimeter now."

"You're a terrible liar," he answered with another laugh.

"Stop right there!" Kate quickly demanded as he took a step closer to her, finger beginning to press on the pistol's trigger. "Do not think I won't shoot you."

"Oh, I have every reason to believe you would," he answered, still smiling. "I can see the disgust on your face. You don't hide it well."

"I'm not trying to hide it," she answered with a sneer. "Now, turn around and keep your hands up."

"No backup, here all alone," he continued, ignoring her demand once more. "And your heart is racing a mile a minute. I can see it. You're literally on a hair trigger, right now, aren't you?"

"Yes, you bet your fucking ass I am," she replied coldly. "I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons not to shoot you right now. One more step and the decision will be a much easier one."

"Shhoookk... Ghim..." The words came from the unseen lips of the girl who was stretched up on her toes, the one in black. From the distorted nature of them, Kate could tell that the girl must be gagged in some fashion, like the other in white.

"Nevada, you're going to regret saying that," Officer Marlow spoke. Kate could hear the firmness in his voice. More than that, she could hear his conviction. He truly believed that he was still going to continue his sick game.

"Everything's going to be fine, Nevada," Kate added, seeing the girl's body quivering as she struggled to stay up on her splayed toes out of the corner of her eye. She didn't dare to take her eyes off Marlow, standing so close to her now in the small room. "Now, this is your last warning. Turn around, now."

"Do you recognize her?" he asked, cocking his head to the side again and gesturing toward where the girl in white knelt. "You should. She was all over the papers recently."

Keeping the gun trained on Marlow, Kate slowly lowered her eyes to the girl on the floor. She had looked familiar. Who was she? The girl's cheeks were stained with tears now as she looked back up at Kate hopefully. Kate kept her eyes averted from the sight of the girl's small, bare breasts heaving as they glistened with fallen tears. She focused on the face. Where had she seen her before?

"Miller," Kate finally spoke softly as she recognized the poor girl's face from the many times it had been splashed across the newspaper and local news reports: the mayor's daughter. The girl had been reported missing and then found dead in a horrific car accident. Kate felt her stomach drop at the thought. Had the girl been here all this time?

"3... 2... 1..." Marlow spoke slowly. The standing girl, the one in black, suddenly screamed in terror and then Kate heard a horrible gagging sound.

Kate began to raise the barrel of the pistol again, her eyes quickly returning to the other officer as he spoke. The girl in the stocks was convulsing, her body jerking wildly as her bare feet jerked up off the ground, stopped only by the tight cuffs on her ankles and the chain that linked them to the floor.

And then Marlow was moving. Kate pulled the trigger, but she knew instantly that her aim was off. She heard the bullet hit something across the small room from her as he ducked low and dove forward toward her. She felt his shoulder hit her abdomen hard, knocking the wind from her as she toppled backward under the weight of him. She brought the pistol grip down, aiming for the back of his head, but it struck his shoulder instead as he drove her forward. They hit the ground hard, Kate's bottom driving into the cement floor with Marlow on her lap. As she toppled backward, she felt the back of her head hit something hard and she saw stars for a moment. The cage, she realized. He'd knocked her back against the cage.

"You stupid fucking bitch," Marlow growled as Kate recovered quickly. She tried to bring the gun around, grateful that it was still in her hand. And then she felt his firm grip on her wrist, strong fingers digging into her flesh through the sleeve of her uniform. "You almost ruined everything."

Kate kicked out hard, trying to get her legs between her and him as he held tight to her wrist. With her free hand, she reached for her belt, grabbing at the taser's holster there. She could see the crazed look in his eyes as he grinned down at her behind the mask, moving to straddle her legs as he faced her. She hissed with relief as she felt the snap on the taser's holster pop free.

Without warning, he rammed his forehead hard down into hers. White flashed across her vision as the impact sent her head backwards, crashing once more into a metal bar of the cage against which her back rested. She cried out as she felt him twist her arm through the fog of pain that consumed her mind. She felt her fingers releasing the gun as he turned her over to face the floor. All of the joints of her held arm ached from his sudden fierce pressure on them. He was on her back now as she lay on her stomach, her arm twisted up oddly behind her, hand bent at an awkward angle.

"If you reach for that taser again, I'm going to break your arm," he said coldly as he held her. "You know I can do it. You've done this before."

Kate remained silent. He was right. He had all the leverage.

"Now, grab one of the bars of that cage with your free hand or you're going to need surgery," he demanded.

"Fuck!" Kate cried out in pain as she felt him increase the pressure on her wrist. She quickly moved her free hand away from her belt and up to grab one of the cold metal bars of the cage, as he'd ordered. "You're making this worse for yourself, Marlow."

"Am I now?" he asked, and then Kate heard the ratcheting sound of a handcuff opening, metal grating on metal. "I don't know about that."