She was just about to leave the room, when officer Samantha Brown spotted the clue. She almost dismissed it out of hand as her eyes made one final scan of the room, but some instinct made the 26-year old police officer double back to the bed. She bent over the untidy sheets and picked up the small, wadded up cloth she’d spotted, half-fallen between the side of the bed and the wall.
Cautiously, the young woman raised the handkerchief up to her nose, but long before it got there, she knew her hunch was correct. A strong chemical odor came off the cloth, redolent of chloroform. This was definitely the work of their man, and not long ago, judging from the freshness of the smell.
Samantha took another look around the bedroom. It was part of the apartment of a young woman: one Holly Brooks, aged 28, a store clerk and now, Samantha knew, the latest victim of the serial abductor who so far had been behind the disappearances of more then half a dozen young women within the last six months. Chloroform was his preferred method of subduing his victims. What happened to them after that was anyone’s guess, though thus far no bodies had been found raising some hopes they might still be alive and could be rescued.
“I’d better call this in.” Samantha thought, running her fingers through her short, light brown hair. She was here, alone, having been out on traffic duty when the downstairs neighbors of this apartment called in a noise complaint. Samantha happened to be close by and so was sent to swing by and give the offenders a stern warning. Instead, she’d found the front door half open, the apartment empty and now this clue, suggesting a kidnapping had taken place not thirty minutes ago, if the sounds of a ruckus the neighbor complained about had been Miss Brook’s struggling as her abductor drugged her into unconsciousness.
“mmmm…”
The police woman was reaching down to her radio, when she was suddenly distracted by a sound from the bedroom closet. She hadn’t gotten around to searching it, her attention focused on the chloroform-soaked cloth. Samantha froze, standing very still as she listened. Sure enough, a second later, she heard the noise again, a low muffled moan.
Placing a hand on the butt of her taser, Samantha advanced on the closet. Her other hand went to the knob. After taking a second to steel herself, she turned the knob and threw open the door…
“Hmmmppphhh!” The young woman in the closet gave another low, confused grunt. She sat on the floor, squeezed awkwardly between a stack of shoe boxes and a clothes hamper. She was dressed casually for an evening in, with a light blue t-shirt and shorts. Her auburn hair was tied back in a loose ponytail which shook as the young woman turned her head back and forth, quite uselessly.
Tape circled her legs at the ankles and knees, and across her chest, wrapping above and below her breasts while her arms were pulled behind her back, doubtless secured there at the wrists. Even more of the stuff wrapped her head, leaving only her noise visible between the bands covering her eyes and her mouth. Beneath the latter, the young woman’s cheeks bulged, suggested her mouth had been packed with some material to muffled her confused moans.
Samantha guessed at once this was the missing Holly Brooks. She’d been stashed here by the abductor. Samantha also guessed Miss Brooks had only just now come to, the chloroform wearing off. She seemed quite confused by her predicament, only vaguely aware of Samantha’s presence outside the closet.
“I must have gotten here quicker then expected.” Samantha thought to herself, feeling pleased. The abductor had had time to drug his victim and secure her with the tape, but not to make good on his escape before Samantha arrived. He must have stashed Miss Brooks here in the closet, before he…
“He is gone, right?” Samantha’s mind started an ominous line of thinking. Unfortunately, it didn’t have time to reach the inevitable conclusion, because at that instant a hand came around into Samantha’s field of vision from behind her. It clamped tight over her, pressing the wadded up rag it held firmly across the young woman’s mouth and nose. A familiar scent invaded her nostrils. At the same time, another arm seized one of Samantha’s wrists and twisted it painfully behind her back.
Samantha started to struggle, but it was clear she was outmatched. Her sudden attacker had experience with this sort of thing while this was very much a new and unpleasant one for her. She tried holding her breath, buying time to struggle, but even the short half-breath she’d taken in in her initial surprise had brought enough of the chloroform into her system to make her feel weak and lightheaded. The man had little trouble holding the struggling policewoman in place, keeping the rag pressed tight as she shook her head back and forth, desperately trying to shake it off just long enough to get a breath of fresh air her lungs ached for.
Finally, she could resist no longer. Involuntarily, she sucked in a gasp of air through the rag. This second, larger dose of chloroform hit her hard and she swooned in the man’s grip. Her vision started to fade out, everything going dark. Still, he kept his captive in a firm grasp. He didn’t plan on letting go until she was completely out.
As Samantha slipped slowly, but inexorably into the drugged sleep, her last coherent thought was that she would soon discover what had happened to all the other missing women, firsthand...