“He says he wants to talk.”

“Finally. He’s been clammed up for what: three...four days and now all of a sudden decides he wants to talk. Did he spill the beans on where she is?”

“Don’t know. Said he wants to talk, but he’ll only do so if it’s you...and just you.”

Detective Grey sighed, scooting her chair back. This whole case had been a shitshow from the beginning: the chief, city hall, the media, all breathing down her neck. Funny how people suddenly start caring a whole lot about crime when the victim was a gorgeous 18-year old prom queen kidnapped from her bedroom one night, when they didn’t give two shits about less photogenic victims. Days of searching without luck...then they had caught their man, but not missing prom queen and he wasn’t talking. Now this…

“Fine. I’ll play ball, but whatever his deal is, unless he tells us what we want to know, he’s gonna regret it.” Detective Grey got up from her desk. She strode at a good but unhurried pace to the interrogation room their perp was in. Whatever game this guy was playing, Grey wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of jumping about on his say so. Let the bastard wait a bit and sweat.

“I’ll take it from here.” Grey said, dismissing the officers in the interrogation room. With a nod, they left, leaving her alone with the man handcuffed to the cold metal table. Their perp was one Arthur Davis, 38, a supposedly upstanding member of the community. But his fingerprints had been all over the stolen van they’d found crashed in a gorge. He’d tried setting it on fire, but his best efforts hadn’t kept them from finding the pajamas Miss Jenny Smith had been wearing the night she vanished. A few surviving hair fibers had clinched it. Open and shut case...only they still needed to know what happened to her and where she was, alive or dead.

Grey took a seat, dragging things out for another long moment before finally speaking. “So...ready to confess?”

The other man was silent, looking back at him. Finally, he spoke. “Do you have the time?”

Grey scoffed. “What? You got somewhere to be? Let me tell you something, you’re going to be here for quite some time. We got the van...we got the fingerprints, we got the hair fibers...just save us all a lot of trouble, confess, tell us where she is and you can start your life sentence.”

“Do you have the time?”

Grey sighed. With exaggerated motions, making sure Davis knew she was only humoring him, looked at her watch. “It’s 4:28. So maybe you could hurry up and let me get home in time for dinner.”

The other man grinned. Grey leaned back unconsciously. “Very well. I’ll tell you what you need to know. Yes, I confess, I did kidnap Jenny Smith, and Alice Cooper and Emily Clark and probably close to two dozen other young women and girls going back ten years. I guess after so long, I got a bit sloppy disposing of the kidnap van this time.”

Grey’s eyes went wide.

“And if you want to know where Jenny is right now...well I can’t tell you exactly, but if I had to guess I’d say she’s probably passing the straight of Gibraltar right now, tied up in a small shipping crate. My agent in Alexandria is waiting for her arrival where he will arrange for her to be auctioned off as a slave to my wealthy and powerful clients.”

“bullshit...” Grey began, but her words had a hollow ring to them.

“It’s very true, Detective.” Davis replied. “I’m sure your forensic accountants are going over my books right now and they’ll find far more money then a humble drywall supplier should have… A beautiful young lady like Miss Smith will fetch...oh $200K on the markets of the Middle East. Maybe more. And I’ve sold plenty of girls to my customers.”

Grey had her notebook out, writing quickly. “And who are these customers exactly.” She was so focused on that she didn’t notice her phone ringing in her pocket.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Detective, but there is one more thing I want to confess: I wasn’t working alone. You should check your phone.”

Taken by surprise, Grey reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She saw there was a message, with a picture attached. She opened it, then went pale. In the picture were two women, one older, one younger, sitting in a dingy room, the bare concrete floor and cinder block walls stained with water and mold. Their hands were behind their backs, obviously tied. Their feet were out in front, lashed together at the ankles with rope. Both had thick bands of cloth over their eyes, blindfolding them and narrower ones pulled between their teeth beneath which their cheeks bulged from the packing in their mouths.

They must have been at home when they were taken. Grey’s wife, Nancy was in the pink sweater and comfortable leggings she usually wore about the house. Their adopted daughter, Lisa, had probably just gotten home, she was still in her school uniform. Though the blindfolds and gags made it hard to see their faces, she could read their body language and knew both of them were terrified.

“you...you...” Grey sputtered. Before she could continue, Mr. Davis interrupted her.

“Before you do anything rash, you should know, I do not know where they are being held and telling you the name of my partners will do your wife and daughter little good. Unless I give the signal in the next thirty minutes, my partners have instructions to immediately spirit Nancy and Lisa out of the country in secret and to one of our contacts overseas who will ensure the two of them are sold to an underworld brothel. Understand?”

Grey nodded, numbly.

“Now, here is what’s going to happen: you will go outside and dismiss the officers on duty in this wing. You will then go to the men’s room around the corner. In the trash can there will be a plastic bag with a change of clothes inside. You will bring them to me. You will then escort me out through the South entrance where a car will be waiting. Got it?”

Again, Grey nodded, unable to speak.

“Then go. By my guess we’ve got...oh...28 and a half minutes left...”

He grinned as the Detective stood and hurried out of the room.