Good afternoon,
So it's been five years--yes, I know. Shame on me! That's a very long time to leave people hanging, and I apologize, especially to those of you who've supported this story and the writing. I'm warning you all that very little editing was done on this chapter. There are time jumps. And there might not be a chapter following this one... if you have ideas, great! Contact me through my biography page.
I just learned from other readers and users of this site that Chimera44 passed away at the beginning of 2018. Though I didn't know her personally, my heart is broken for her family, specifically for her husband who suffers from dementia. I have no way of knowing what his current status is, but I hope he is being well taken care of. Rest in heaven S. H. s/n Chimera44.
I lost three very important people to me in the past year. Two were unexpected. I just want to reiterate people (including authors) go through shit that some of us can't even begin to comprehend or imagine for ourselves.
With that being said, I hope you enjoy this installment, written back in 2013. Have a blessed day.
Leo
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Chapter Three: A Little Background
Despite the festivities earlier that afternoon, it was again another long night and yet another missing young woman to recover. It was long after Andrew had visited his folks that he decided to go back to the station and get some work done. He was working long into the night sitting at his desk at the station, going over a missing person's report for one named Hannah Montgomery. Officially, she'd been missing for over seventy-two hours.
Andrew was beside himself with frustration, just as he had been with the Richards' case he worked some years prior. Hannah was now the sixth girl to be grabbed in the last three years, the second girl in the last six months. He hoped that she would be as fortunate as Adina had been, because his superiors were never able to find the other four victims. The assailant or assailants were long gone by now.
As he looked between Adina's files and the little evidence that had been acquired in accordance with Hannah's abduction, there seemed to be a pattern. She was a student at the university and eighteen-years-old, just like Adina had been, working the same late hours. Both women were abducted around the same time of night but in different locations. It was safe to say that he was looking for a serial killer, two at the most.
Much of the same thing that happened to Adina happened with Hannah. She was said to have been leaving her workplace at about ten in the evening on Thursday by a coworker and supervisor. However, Hannah was a bit luckier than Adina, because a person waiting for the bus witnessed her about to get inside of her vehicle when she was forced into a black van. Adina hadn't been reported missing until five days after being taken.
The witness chose to remain anonymous. He heard the screeching of tires long before seeing the large black van come to a halt a few feet away from the startled girl. Two men cloaked in black leapt out of the van. One took Hannah and covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming and dragged her into the back of the van, while the other seemed to be picking something up from the ground. Afterwards, he too got in the back of the van and shut the doors as the van pulled off more calmly, making their escape.
To Andrew's understanding of Adina's testimony, the abductors keep their victims alive for approximately two weeks to the night that they are taken. No one really knows what happens to the girls after that.
The people who took Adina must have thought that because of her injuries she would eventually die, and therefore, dumped her body where they thought no one would find her; but they were wrong. An eyewitness was alerted to them by her dogs and wondered at the trespassers far out in the countryside on her property. As she and her sons approached the scene before them, she said they all rushed back into their vehicle and took off.
Andrew leaned back in his chair sighing and rubbing his hands over his face. When he had called her that day, he thought about asking for her help, but he didn't want to make her relive anything that she didn't want to. The truth was...
He had wondered at what she might look like after speaking to her on the phone and was glad to hear that she had begun her own business. Simply hearing Adina Richards' voice over the phone when he'd called her six days ago seemed dreamlike. He had feared the very last time he saw her that she wouldn't be able to cope with what had happened to her since his department had not caught all the perpetrators responsible. Her parents had kept him informed during the trial that she was withdrawn, barely slept and barely ate, and it had showed. She was nineteen years old, thin and sickly, and heavily mentally scarred by the time they were able to catch one suspect and try and convict him.
She no longer was frail and weak with fear like the last time he'd seen her at the end of her trial. She looked healthier and he was enchanted by her beauty and poise and she seemed a bit braver. The way she laughed and joked easily with him at the cook-off really got him thinking about her all day after she left in ways he never imagined himself thinking of her. She was a woman, a very fine one. A man could dream and if he played his cards right then that dream could come true, but Adina was playing hard to get with that whole "just friends" thing.
He remembered only belatedly after he had hugged her close that she was a victim of the most heinous of crimes and needed to tread carefully with her. However, he took it as a good sign that she wasn't very comfortable around men yet.
He took a deep breath and then leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on the desk. This case was really upsetting him, but it would upset her more.
He glanced up at the soft knock on his door, surprised to see Lacey watching him with a coffee mug cradled in her hands. She was wearing the same clothing from earlier (as was he), but the makeup that had caked her face earlier was gone and she had let her bleach-blonde hair down. She looked younger and so much better without all that makeup on.
"I thought you might need this," she said shyly but stood stock still.
He smiled faintly and sighed reaching for the cup. "Thank you. What are you still doing here? I thought you went home."
Lacey shook her head, her hair shaking with each movement. "I had a feeling that you would be here late again." She rocked back and forth on her heels biting her lip anxiously. "Want a fresh pair of eyes?"
A fresh pair of eyes? What he needed were eyes that had been there. "This is confidential, Lacey. You're not a cop after all, and it probably wouldn't do much good anyway."
"I won't tell if you don't," she said smiling at him conspiratorially.
He had always thought she was a pretty girl, knew her during her roughest time out on the streets. Smiling back at her he scooted his seat out of the way in invitation to let her have at it. He wouldn't say a word, and no one came into his office without knocking first.
Lacey crossed around the desk, sat on top of it and the files, and gazed at him with purpose. Her appealing scent washed over him, and she was staring down at him. Andrew looked back at her with question. "I haven't seen you in five days," she said quietly.
Andrew exhaled and rolled his eyes, trying not to let the anxiety in her voice affect him. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. It's just this case, you know? It's got me going crazy and I've been stressed out."
Lacey spread her legs a little in front of him. She was wearing a skirt and thigh high nylon stockings, and he could almost see between her thighs. "I thought that relieving stress was the reason for our little arrangement we've got going on, Lieutenant," she replied with a small smile.
The two of them had been meeting up secretly for a month now and Lacey was pretty sure she didn't want it to stop. Andrew was quite the lover, not at all like the young guys she used to fuck around with, and she enjoyed the secrecy of it all. It kind of just happened one night after work. Everyone wanted to go out for drinks to celebrate another successfully handled case that had just been closed. Closing that case had gotten Andrew promoted to Lieutenant, another thing to celebrate.
At the end of the night, Lacey had to bum a ride from someone because her vehicle was in the shop, and that someone just happened to be Andrew. But he wasn't fit to drive at all, and since she had not had much to drink he asked her to drive in his stead. The whole way he had kept on telling her that once he sobered up enough then he would definitely take her home. She had a feeling that it wasn't going to happen and had resolved to crash on the couch or armchair. They ended up at his house finally and she had to help him inside, because he was tired and drunk.
His house was a lovely three-bedroom two-bathroom one story that his parents helped him buy, complete with a white picketed fence and two-car garage. The front yard was nice and large, the lawn always green and manicured. Lacey only wished that she had accepted her parents' wishes in going to a J.C., but she'd fucked it up several times over by saying she would and never following through. Her mom and dad, finally fed up with her bullshit, kicked her out of their home that was much like Andrew's. Spacious, homey, welcoming; all the things she now desired compared to her tiny loft.
Lieutenant Greene's arm had been draped across her shoulders when she sat him on his sofa, his head lolling around. The next thing that happened was quite sudden, as he had grabbed her hips to straddle him. He had started talking about her sexy little body, how adorable she was, and about how he knew that she liked him.
Lacey had been too shocked to respond, but nevertheless was embarrassed to know that he knew about her little crush. What shocked her the most, however, was when he started to knead her breasts in his large hands and nip at her jaw with both his teeth and lips. She'd been instantly excited and lost it, going all in for the mind-blowing kiss she had been waiting for. She went all the way with him that night, and ever since they began meeting a few times a week to seek out their pleasures with one another. They never stayed the night at each other's houses much to Lacey's chagrin.
"Lacey," Andrew sighed heavily giving her a look that said that this was not the appropriate setting to have this discussion. "You know that you—"
