Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Tracking Evil: The Web Pt. 03
Chapter One:
"Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that."
- Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
The door to Denisa's room opened without a hint of a creak. Before she had a chance to see anyone on the other side of it, she felt a whisper of disquiet. The condition of the room had led to a faint hope that what had happened to her was unplanned, an impulsive act. The camp bed could have been acquired handily enough after all. When you combined the facts that there was power running to this room and that the hinges of the door had been oiled, she had to consider that she was in a well-maintained lair. And in her experience so far, lairs inevitably contained monsters.
The man who stepped in the room didn't scream monster though. Slightly built, his pinched features seemed familiar, Denisa taking a few seconds as he walked towards her to remember him.
"Rat face," she hissed, recognizing him as the man who'd approached her in the bar. He flinched at her words, his face tightening up as he fought to restrain the anger that her mocking title for him clearly evoked.
"You need to stop insulting me," he said, the words clipped with annoyance. He pulled an item from his pocket, Denisa recognizing it as a stun gun even before he depressed the trigger, causing an arc of electricity to crackle across its surface. She got the point and he saw it in her face, a smile revealing prominent front teeth that did nothing for his looks.
"Behave and we won't have a problem. Understand?" Denisa settled with giving him a low grunt for an answer, not really trusting herself to restraint if she spoke.
"Good. Now where are you from? Eastern Europe, yeah? You here working? On holidays? Here alone?" He fired off the questions as he checked the zip ties at her wrists and ankles. When she didn't answer, he looked up with a scowl. Obviously, he was easy to irritate which wasn't good as Denisa could wind up the most placid of people.
"Didn't I just say you need to behave?"
"Behaving is me not trying to kick your balls, small balls, into your stomach," Denisa said with a snarl. Strangely though he didn't fly off the handle at that, instead he just raised the stun gun, letting it hover close to her body.
"Bit of a slow learner? Don't worry, I have a cure for that," he said and then pressed the angrily crackling stun gun against her. Denisa thrashed, screaming against her bonds and then passed out.
<<0>>
To a teenager, sitting in front of a monitor, gaming with his friends and surviving on energy drinks and candy, twenty-four hours can pass in the blinking of an eye. For Erica and Arlene, the twenty-four hours that Denisa had now been missing for seemed an eternity.
Neither of them would contemplate the possibility of the young woman being dead. That way lay madness. However, the thought of her being kidnapped for that length of time was almost as disturbing. Putting aside what their friend might have been subjected to, the distance that someone could cover with a victim bound and gagged in the trunk of their car in a day... it made the job of finding Denisa seem an impossible task.
She might still be in Pensacola, equally she could have been moved anywhere in the south east of the US. Eight hours driving alone could put her in Texas, Louisianna, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina or to the most southern point of Florida.
Given that, they'd notified the local police department immediately. Contrary to popular opinion, there was no set time limit required before filing a missing persons report. It was four hours since they'd realized she was missing, twenty-four since they'd last heard from her. Arlene, with her background as a former Deputy sheriff, had handled that side. She'd impressed on the locals her concerns, citing Denisa's job as a bounty hunter as a potential cause for her going missing but omitting their brushes in the past with serial killers. The response they got was encouraging, the detective Arlene spoke too promising to move on it straight away.
Instinct made Erica convinced that this wasn't a simple case of some ex-bail jumper spotting Denisa and deciding on some payback for her actions. She couldn't rule it out of course but so long as the cops were following that line of enquiry, she'd chase down a different one. Which was why Arlene and she were sitting by their laptop, waiting on their FBI contact to get back to them.
Victor had known Erica since they were kids. They'd attended Kansas University together, from where Victor had applied to, and been accepted for, training with the FBI. Now he was a source of support for Erica and Arlene in their small, private war against an organization of serial killers known as The Web. Right now, however, he was using his powers of persuasion along with a dose of government sponsored intimidation, to shake loose as much cctv footage that could be found in the area surrounding Denisa's last known whereabouts, a bar in downtown Pensacola.
While they waited, the sound of the door to the bail office opening drew their attention. The man who strode in was close to fifty years in age. He had a weathered look to him, the strain of living a physically demanding life in Special forces etched into every line in his face. It was Gheorghe Teodoroiu, Denisa's father and now Arlene and Erica's boss since they'd begun working at his bail reclaimant business.
"Any word?" Gheorghe was always a straight talker, never one for social niceties for all that he was pleasant person in general.
"Nothing yet," Arlene replied. "We're waiting on Victor at the moment." They watched as a spasm of emotion ran across his hard face. Anger, grief, rage, worry... every conceivable feeling a father could have for a missing daughter and whomever had taken her.
"I...," he paused, clearing his throat to remove the catch that had appeared in it. "I have no skills in this. Or my people. Hunting criminals, idiots who believe they can make bail and disappear. This I can do. The violence that becomes necessary at times in dealing with them and others of their type, in this I have more than enough ability. But this...," he waved a hand at the untidy pile of folders that Erica had filled as part of their hunt for a serial killer, the same hunt that had seen Denisa disappear. "This, this is your place. So, tell me, the truth, no bullshit. Can you find my Denisa?"
Erica and Arlene shared a glance. They had no leads as yet, a trail that grew colder by the minute and almost laughable resources to put to the job.
"She's, our friend. She saved my life. If she's out there still, then we'll find her and bring her home," Erica said, meaning every word of it.
"You are a good girl. You understand a debt and you understand family. You both do. Promise me one thing...," Gheorghe said, Arlene moving to cut him off.
"Gheorghe, if Denisa is... dead. Then we'll track whoever took her, whoever killed her and they will pay," the redheaded woman said, taking his hand and squeezing it. He stood there, clearing his throat over and over as he sought enough composure to speak. Failing, he just gave them both a wan smile and turned to walk away. After a few steps he spoke once more, never turning to face them.
"Anything you need, money, weapons. They're yours. You need manpower, it will be found. If you need to kill the son of a bitch, you make sure it hurts." And with that he was gone.
Arlene and Erica didn't speak after Gheorghe left. They didn't need to feed one other's worries. Until they had something to work on, they both preferred the comfort of silence. Eventually Erica's phone rang, Victor's name on the screen.
"Hey, you got it?... Oh, okay, just those?... Right, thanks, yeah, I'll check my email now... Yeah, thanks, bye." Erica hung up and began refreshing her inbox, checking for Victor's mail.
"Same shit as before, bar didn't have any security tape. He's got one feed from a camera on a corner that shows Denisa entering and leaving the bar but not much else. Second one that shows her a few minutes later turning up an alleyway but the quality is for shit," Erica explained as she accessed the video files.
"Okay, bring up the one of the alleyway first," Arlene said, peering over Erica's shoulder.
Erica began playing the file, skipping forward till she saw a man and woman turning up the alleyway. The picture quality wasn't great and it had been shot from a building across the street, at night, but Arlene taped on the monitor, her finger on the figure with the blonde hair.
"Sabine Warner maybe? Denisa was still following her? It'd make sense, she'd still have seen her as a suspect at this point."
"I agree. Let's move it on," Erica said. She moved it on a few seconds, slowing it down to normal speed as the grainy image of Denisa appeared, her knee-high boots making the identification easier. The figure slowed at the corner before turning in, keeping tight to the wall.
"Yeah, she's definitely following them. Maybe Sabine Warner wasn't a suspect, but perhaps the guy she's with is?" Erica looked over her shoulder at Arlene who shrugged noncommittedly. Erica let the recording move on, wanting to make sure nothing else could be seen. After a few minutes, a figure could be seen leaving the alley, a figure that looked like Sabine Warners date.
"The fuck?" Arlene swore, that putting paid to Erica's theory. They watched, another figure, small and slight, possibly a woman, entering the alley a minute later. Erica fast forwarded another ten minutes but nobody entered or left after that.
"What about the other side of the alley? Any camera's there?" Erica shook her head even as Arlene asked the question, Victor had been thorough in checking.
"Might as well look at the bar footage then," Arlene said with a sigh. They'd really been banking on some clue turning up from the alley video.
This footage at least was better. Not high quality but good enough to make out faces pretty well. Erica and Arlene watched Sabine Warner and friend as they left the bar, Denisa exiting thirty seconds later, turning to follow them. Erica was about to stop the video as a few other people left the bar when something about one of them caught her attention.
"This guy, what do you notice about this guy?" Erica said pointing at the figure paused in the fact of pulling up the collar of his denim jacket.
"Uh, yeah, I guess, could be the same person we saw entering the alleyway after Denisa. Clothes and build look right," Arlene said peering at the slightly blurred image.
"Exactly, but look... no wait, let me try catch it a bit clearer...," Erica fiddled around with the video, looking to pause on a better shot. "Wait, wait. Yes! Now, describe him to me."
"Uh, okay. Slight build, short I guess, hard to tell from the video. Ugly looking bastard though," Arlene said, frowning as she tried to see what had Erica so excited.
"Almost rodent like face you'd say?"
"I guess. Why?"
Erica pulled out her phone, holding up the last message from Denisa.
'We have a winner. In bar, flirting with married man. Will follow and deal with her before anything happens. Going to enjoy my beer now so long as no more skinny, rat-faced fuckers annoy me'
