I was angry. No scratch that, I was seething. Riley was supposed to show up here about a half hour ago! I had called him earlier that day, and he answered the way he always does, with a quirky or sarcastic comment as to what time it was, but at the mention of an invitation to something having to do with food, he perked up straight away. Speaking of food, how does the kid eat so much but still manage to be thin as a rail? But back to the problem at hand. The phone call was a friendly invitation to dinner with me and Abigail. Of course he responded yes, and I had told him to meet us at the restaurant at 7 O'clock. By now it had been 7:30, still with no sign of Riley or his prized Ferrari Spyder.
"Ben, are you sure you told him to meet us here at 7?" Abigail asked, clearly frustrated at Riley and the fact he still had not shown up. She was dressed in an orange pastel sundress, fitting the sunny spring weather outside, and the diamond ring I had recently proposed to her with adorning her slender finger.
"Yes I specifically told him 7 O'clock." I assured her with a sincere tone. By now we had both grown rather impatient. We had called him several times in the restaurant, but each time it went unanswered, ringing seemingly thousands of times only to end up going to voicemail. I wouldn't admit it, but I was actually starting to get a little worried about the kid. We decided that it would be a good idea to go check his apartment and see why he had forgotten our plan and had not been answering his phone calls. Soon enough we had paid a pretty hearty tip, left the restaurant and were on our way across town to Riley's small apartment building.
On the drive there, I had gotten a few flashes of some sort of unknown feeling of dread or forebodement wash over me like waves during high tide. I could tell by the way Abby's face was screwed up into a grimace that she was having the same type of feelings. Because of the fact that we were both caught up in our own thoughts, we hadn't realized how far we had gotten until we were driving right up next to Riley's bright red convertible positioned on the side of the road. I parked in the open space in front of the apartment and sat there for a moment watching for any signs of movement from within the windows to the living space. After waiting and spotting nothing, I made a move to climb out of the car and motioned for Abigail to follow. I signaled for her to be quiet, so as to not make the mistake of telling anybody that could be inside that we were there. We walked silently up to the stoop, and came face to face with the slightly ajar front door. I reached out and pushed the door fully agape, revealing the biggest state of disarray I have probably ever seen in my whole life.
I walked down the front corridor, through the kitchen, around the living room and finally to his bedroom, scanning the premises for a sign as to where Riley could be hiding. I had not found any, and I thought that since his vehicle was still here that he could either be taking a walk and his apartment is normally this messy, or something bad had happened to him in the time since I had called him this morning. It would certainly explain why the whole place was in shambles. Although I had to admit that I didn't think Riley could put up too much of a fight in anything other than a verbal brawl, of which he was the master at. I was just about to start looking around once more, rechecking for a single clue to help find the missing kid, when the shrill sound of my cell phone ringing pierced through the air. I vigorously fished through my pockets for my cell phone, hoping to god that it was Riley calling to tell them where he was. Looking at the Caller ID, I found that it was in fact Riley calling. I shouted for Abigail to come over to where I was standing and she looked at the phone full of reverie as I answered the call and hit the speaker button.
"Riley where have you been? We are at your apartment right now-" I blurted out only to get cut off by a voice that definitely was not Riley's.
"Hello Ben. You can call me Kyle; I am calling about your little sidekick here." The gruff voice spoke across the line.
"Where is Riley?" I snapped, full of more demand than I had ever used before. I chanced a glance at Abigail and saw the anger in her eyes directed towards the caller that I'm sure were filling mine at the moment also.
"Now now, Ben. No need to get all antsy. I still need to tell you what I want in return for your precious assistant." Somehow I knew this scheme was all about money, and that this guy kidnapped Riley as a safeguard to get it.
"What do you want? Whatever it is I can get it for you. Just bring Riley back. He doesn't need to be a part of this." All I wanted was to get Riley back, no matter the cost. By now I was close to begging, my protectiveness over family almost driving me over the proverbial edge.
"I'm sorry Ben, but you know as well as I do that you need insurance to make sure you get what you want. And you also should know what I want. You definitely aren't as smart as I have always thought you were."
"Let me guess, you want money. Well I can get it for you if you bring Riley back here." I defended, hoping that by any chance this would work and Kyle would bring Riley back to us before this all spiralled out of control.
"We both know I can't give this troublemaker back to you until I get my money. Therefore, I'm going to make a transfer date. Sunday at the Washington Monument, 9 pm sharp, 5 million in cash. If I see any cops, uniformed or not, you may never see Riley alive again," Kyle threatened menacingly, "And just to show you I'm not kidding around, check your messages." And with that he hung up, leaving Abigail and I staring at the phone in disbelief.
"Ben, check the message." Abigail insisted. I responded by clicking on the new message icon and found that the message was a video. I pressed play and set it down on the table in front of us.
What we saw was not appealing in the slightest. The first few seconds were filmed in complete darkness before the lights flicked on. In the middle of the room was Riley, bound to a wooden chair by ropes around his ankles and wrists. The young man was shirtless with many bruises littering his pale and bloody torso. He was obviously unconscious, his head rested limp on his chest, blood running down and dripping from a gash across his forehead. Suddenly Kyle came out of nowhere holding something large and ominous in his gloved hands. He clicked a button on the object and even over the phone's speakers you could easily hear the crackling of electricity echoing throughout the small, dank chamber. I knew I would not want to see what was bound to happen next, but my eyes were seemingly glued to the screen. Next thing I knew was Kyle thrusting the object onto Riley's unprotected stomach. You could hear the sizzling of flesh for a few seconds before Riley's head flew upright and a high-pitched scream filled the silence of Riley's small apartment. The scream was so full of raw agony that I couldn't even think of the amount of pain he was in. I could feel tears of anguish cascading freely down my face, and as soon as the screaming was over, the screen went black once again. I could hear Abigail wailing and sobbing next to me and I pulled her into a tight hug, allowing her to cry on my shoulder, and I to seek comfort in her presence.
A/N: I'm pretty proud of this story so far! This is my first multi-chapter story on here, so I would be very happy to get some positive and/or constructive criticism feedback? I am going to try to post the next chapter in a week or so, but I have a lot of stuff to do that are higher on my priority list than posting another chappie, but I promise to post within the month. R&R PLEASE!