Chapter 2
*~*~*
It's always best when the light is off
I am the pick in the ice
Do not cry out or hit the alarm
You know we're friends till we die
*~*~*
"Fascinating, simply fascinating!" Carter Pike said with a little too much enthusiasm as he circled the body.
"Try and contain your enthusiasm," Jimmy said. "What did you find?"
Carter peeled off his latex gloves with satisfied snapping sounds. "She was definitely starved to death. Her body completely consumed all available tissue, until there was nothing left to survive on."
"Is it possible she got lost in the woods? That this was...natural?" Jimmy didn't really believe it was a possibility, but he knew he had to cover all the bases.
"No! See, she was-" Carter caught Jimmy's glare and tried to settle himself down. "She was kept alive *until* she could starve to death. The body can survive for a long time without food, but only a few days without water. Someone took care of her, kept enough water in her to prolong the death. And these cuts across the body, definitely man-made. Looks like from a scalpel or and exacto knife, something precise. See these marks on her wrists? From restraints of some sort, but they're a few weeks old. He must not have needed them after she got too weak to run away."
"Sick bastard," Jimmy muttered. "How long would it take? For her to starve?"
"It can take anywhere between eight to twelve weeks, depending on the size of the person and other variables such as climate and how much water she was getting. But I'd say she's been dead less than 24 hours."
Jimmy thought a minute, putting the pieces together. "He wanted us to find her. He's playing with us, taunting us. But why *starve* her? Why something so difficult and lengthy?"
"Well, it's an extremely painful way to die," Carter answered. "The body adjusts to no food after a few days, but at the end it's prolonged agony as the systems fail slowly."
Dammit, Jimmy thought, trying not to picture Rich Cayton's face earlier in the day. "All right, what else? Prints, hairs, other signs of abuse?"
Carter shook his head. "Nada. No signs of sexual assault, no semen. No fibers either. This guy was careful."
Jimmy looked at the body on the table, hating himself for not finding her sooner. Her hair, which he remembered as shiny, thick and brown, was now sparse and straw-colored. I'm sorry, he thought. I'm so sorry.
"Do you want a full autopsy? I'm certain on cause of death, but it's possible there are toxins in her system. He could've been injecting her with something to keep her calm."
"Do it," Jimmy said, willing himself to look away. Carter nodded and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves. Jimmy walked out into the main room of the station, where all eyes turned to him expectantly.
"We've got a murder here, folks," he said, trying not to look at Cayton's empty desk. "And this is one of our own. We are going full throttle until this bastard is caught; you got that? Everyone's on overtime." The officers nodded and murmured to one another.
"Any idea who we're looking for Jimmy?" Kenny asked.
Jimmy shook his head, wishing he had something, anything to go on. "No suspects, so we've gotta dig deeper. I want everyone who knew Sara Cayton interviewed, we need the names of anybody who could've had a grudge against her or Rick. I know we've been through this before, but we're going to do it again. Old boyfriends, teachers, criminals Rick helped to put away. Everybody. Somebody knows something, and we're gonna shake things up and let it fall out." He hoped he sounded more in control than he felt.
"Okay Jimmy, I'll make a list and assign teams," Max said, already in motion.
Jimmy walked slowly to Cayton's desk and picked up the framed picture of the smiling, loving family. Rich, his wife Linda, Sara and her little brother Rich Jr. The American dream preserved by Kodak, now forever haunted by the skeletal remains that lay in the next room. We're going to get him, he thought to himself for the hundredth time that day. We've got to get him.
*****
"Owwwwww," Max whined as she lowered herself slowly onto the couch. "I hurt all over."
"Yeah, a fourteen hour workday will do that to ya," Kenny said as he sat down next to her. "Want a backrub?"
She grinned at him. "What kind of a question is that?" He grinned back and began massaging her shoulders, and she felt herself loosening and melting under his touch. She yawned, and fought to keep her eyes open. "I'm so tired, I could fall asleep right here. What a day."
Kenny yawned too, before leaning down to drop a kiss on the top her head. "I know. I just wish all that work had done more good...we didn't come up with anything, it's so frustrating."
Max just nodded, too tired to come up with a reply to what she'd been thinking all night herself. Jimmy was doing his best to rally them, but it was hard to hold onto hope. Max was feeling more certain every minute that they wouldn't catch the killer, at least not before he had a chance to strike again. There just wasn't anything to go on.
"What that poor girl must have gone through..." she trailed off, lost in her thoughts as the picture of the corpse came back into her mind. Kenny kept kneading her back; his hands warm through her shirt. "Have you ever thought about it? Which way you'd want to die, if you got to choose?"
"Aww, Max," he sighed. "Don't get morbid on me now, I'm way too tired."
She turned back around to face him. "No, I'm serious. Haven't you ever wondered...like if it would be worse to die slowly or just have it done, like a shot to the head?"
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest. "It's not something I've put a lot of thought into, but I guess just over and done, so there's no time to think about, no time to really feel the pain." He paused, thinking back to one of the most horrible times of his life. "When I got shot last year - those were the worst few moments of my life, when I thought I was going to die. I thought I'd never get to see you again, and never get to say all the things I needed to say. To feel that way, for just a few seconds, that was hell. I don't think I could handle an hour of that, let alone ten weeks."
Max felt a sob rising in her throat and tried to gulp it back. She settled her head on his shoulder and tried not to remember that night where she'd almost lost him, the night she'd had his blood on her hands. "How about you?" he asked.
"I guess everyone really wants to go in their sleep, when they're old and content. But if it had to be now, and it was starving or getting shot...I don't know. Maybe if I had that time, I could get used to the idea. Prepare myself. Learn not to be so afraid of it."
Kenny raked his fingers through her hair soothingly. "Do me a favor, don't prepare anytime soon. I want you here with me for a long, long time."
Max grinned. "Deal." She yawned and wondered if she had enough energy left to make it to the bedroom. "Kenny...do you ever think we're...I don't know, being punished for something?"
"You have too many thoughts," he said, grinning a little.
"Well one of us has to have a few," she teased. "But I mean, yesterday, before all this started - I was happy. For just a few minutes life was perfect. Why don't we ever get to hang onto that? Why does something bad always happen to take it away?"
He paused, considering. "You were perfectly happy? For a minute?" She nodded. "Then take that with you. Hold onto it in your memory, and be thankful for it. That's all we can do - hold onto the moments we've got."
"That's beautiful Kenny."
"Hey, I've got a few thoughts of my own you know." His fingers were still combing through her hair, trailing gently along her face. "And right now I'm thinking I don't want to get off this couch. When do we have to be awake again? Seven hours?"
"Mmm," she sighed in exhaustion. "Lean back." Kenny lay down on the couch and she moved with him, lying on top of his chest. Max closed her eyes and drifted into sleep, the sound of Kenny's heart beating the sweetest lullaby she'd ever heard.
*****
Jimmy sank back onto his bed, relief singing in his overworked muscles. "I'm getting too old for this."
Jill climbed in under the covers beside him. "You've got to slow down, Jimmy," she said. "Stop being so hard on yourself. You don't have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."
Jimmy exhaled slowly, wishing he could skip his wife's well-meaning conversation and just go to sleep. "I know, Jill. But I have a responsibility - to this town, to Rich Cayton. To Sara."
"Yes, but you don't have *all* of the responsibility. You have a whole team of cops behind you. And you don't have to take the guilt. You didn't do anything wrong here, you're not the one that hurt that girl."
"Didn't I?" he asked. "Ten weeks, Jill. He had her for ten *weeks*, and I couldn't find her. He plucked her right off the street and kept her, in *my* town and I couldn't..."
Jill frowned, watching the turmoil play across his face. "It's not your fault, Jimmy. You do the best you can. Everyone knows that you give one hundred percent, every day. Nobody blames you; I just wish you could stop blaming yourself."
He sighed and closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts. "This is supposed to be a good town. A safe place, a good place to raise your kids. I used to look around and feel proud that I was a part of that, that Rome was a safer place because of me. And now when I look around, I don't know what to think. Nobody feels safe anymore, and it's only getting worse, every day."
"Things are changing," Jill agreed. "But this is still a good town. Most of the people here are good people, and they want to make this a good place to live. And safety - it's an illusion, it always has been. We've never been safe, not completely. Maybe now we just see that more clearly."
Jimmy reached over to the nightstand and turned off the lamp. "It's not something I ever wanted to see. So much of what I am; it's my job. And if I can't feel like I'm succeeding at it, then what does that make me?"
Jill moved closer to him, draping an arm across his chest. "I don't know, obsessive? You are more than your job, Jimmy. And one dead girl does not make you a failure as Sheriff."
"I know you're right, but it still doesn't change how I feel. The wake is tomorrow, I don't know if I'll be able to look Rich in the eye. I can't help feeling like I failed him. And even worse, I'm no closer to catching this son of a bitch then I was last week, and this guy's not going to just sit back and wait for us. He's going to do it again. He's going to take someone else's kid, and there's nothing I can do about it."
He felt Jill tense up beside him. "Well, you can make sure it's not one of *our* kids. We'll sit them down tomorrow and tell them they're all sticking close to home until this gets solved."
"Kim's going to love that," Jimmy said dryly.
"Kim especially. I'll ground her if I have to."
He thought of his strong-willed daughter and knew she wouldn't take that news well, but he'd gladly have her hate him if it kept her safe. "I could have her tailed again," he offered, only half-joking.
"Ha, she'd probably have you sued." Jimmy closed his eyes, his eyelids heavy. He said a quick prayer in his thoughts, just in case someone was listening.
*****
Kim grimaced as she drove home from school, seething with the unfairness of it all. She was as sad and shaken as anybody by Sara's death, but to be *grounded* because of it? Straight home from school, her parents had told her. And no going out anywhere unless it was with the entire family. Good grief.
She heard a police siren behind her and looked in the rearview mirror to see if she needed to get out of the way. Startled, she realized the cop was waving her over. What for, she wondered, I was barely going a mile above the speed limit. Her heart beat quickly in her chest as she wondered if she was in trouble for something. She'd never been pulled over before.
The cop ambled slowly over to her. Kim saw a car full of boys from her school go by on the quiet street, and prayed that they didn't see her. This was too embarrassing. She rolled down her window as the cop approached. Maybe it would be someone she knew, she did know most of the cops in this town. Probably most of them would let her go without a speeding ticket or a fine for a missing taillight or whatever the problem was.
"License and registration, Miss."
She squinted up at the officer but couldn't place him. "Is something wrong, officer?" she asked. He was wearing large dark sunglasses that covered a great deal of his thin, small face.
"Please let me see your license and registration," he repeated.
Kim nodded and remembered what her dad had told her about traffic stops, that you had to let the officer know exactly what you were doing or they'd suspect the worst. "I'm going to reach into the glove compartment and my bag to get them, okay?" He nodded, and she fumbled around with sweaty palms to find the identification. She handed them over and he stared at the license for a moment.
"Brock? You the sheriff's kid?" She nodded, hope rising that he'd decide to let her off with a warning for whatever it was she'd done wrong. "Out of the car," he ordered.
"What?" she sputtered. "Why? What did I do?"
He tossed her license and registration back through the window, and his tone got more forceful. "I said out of the car, Miss. Now."
Kim felt her panic rising and she tried to figure out what she possibly could have done to get her in this much trouble. Did he suspect that she had drugs or alcohol in the car? She knew there weren't any, so he'd have to let her go after he didn't find them, she reasoned. Taking deep breathes to calm herself, she got out of the car.
"Over here," he said, taking her arm and walking her around to the other side of the car, away from the side of the road. "Turn and face the vehicle." He pushed her against the car, none to gently, and she thought he was going to frisk her for a weapon. Instead he grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her, snapping handcuffs onto her wrists.
"Hey!" she cried, trying to pull away from his grasp. "You can't do this, I haven't done anything wrong!"
He leaned in close and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as he whispered in her ear. "Of course you have. All of you have. You're bad, and you need to be punished."
Kim's eyes widened as the situation became clear, and she knew she was in a lot more trouble than a speeding ticket. She thought of the description of Sara Cayton's body she'd read in the morning paper and terror shook through her. "You're not a cop," she said, trying not to sound afraid. "Let go of me." She tried to squirm away, but he had a firm grip on her, and he slammed her back against the car.
"You're mine now, Kimberley. Mine. It's no use trying to escape, I'm never letting you go."
Kim's world spun as her head connected with the car, and she thought she might throw up. "Help!" she screamed as loud as she could, desperately hoping someone in a passing car would hear her. "Help me!"
He laughed, his breath hot against her cheek. "No one's going to save you, Kimberley. Now be a good girl." He put a hand around the back of her neck and squeezed just enough to make her gasp for air. "We're going on a little trip." He started walking her back towards his car, which looked identical to a real police car to Kim. She looked around frantically for anyone passing by who might see her, but the street was quiet, the closest cars a full block away. Besides, she thought, even if anyone saw they'd just think she was under arrest. Getting more scared every second, she ducked and tried to twist away, but he had her upper arms in a vice-like grip. His fingernails dug into her shoulders and she stumbled as he pulled her along.
They reached the back of his car, and he opened the trunk. She knew he was going to put her in it, and she fought with everything she had in a last ditch effort go get away. He easily overpowered her and pushed her down into the trunk. He grinned at her with a look of satisfaction, and then slammed the trunk shut, plunging her into darkness. Kim screamed and let the tears that had been building flow, her sobs echoing in the tiny trunk.
*****
End Chapter 2
*~*~*
It's always best when the light is off
I am the pick in the ice
Do not cry out or hit the alarm
You know we're friends till we die
*~*~*
"Fascinating, simply fascinating!" Carter Pike said with a little too much enthusiasm as he circled the body.
"Try and contain your enthusiasm," Jimmy said. "What did you find?"
Carter peeled off his latex gloves with satisfied snapping sounds. "She was definitely starved to death. Her body completely consumed all available tissue, until there was nothing left to survive on."
"Is it possible she got lost in the woods? That this was...natural?" Jimmy didn't really believe it was a possibility, but he knew he had to cover all the bases.
"No! See, she was-" Carter caught Jimmy's glare and tried to settle himself down. "She was kept alive *until* she could starve to death. The body can survive for a long time without food, but only a few days without water. Someone took care of her, kept enough water in her to prolong the death. And these cuts across the body, definitely man-made. Looks like from a scalpel or and exacto knife, something precise. See these marks on her wrists? From restraints of some sort, but they're a few weeks old. He must not have needed them after she got too weak to run away."
"Sick bastard," Jimmy muttered. "How long would it take? For her to starve?"
"It can take anywhere between eight to twelve weeks, depending on the size of the person and other variables such as climate and how much water she was getting. But I'd say she's been dead less than 24 hours."
Jimmy thought a minute, putting the pieces together. "He wanted us to find her. He's playing with us, taunting us. But why *starve* her? Why something so difficult and lengthy?"
"Well, it's an extremely painful way to die," Carter answered. "The body adjusts to no food after a few days, but at the end it's prolonged agony as the systems fail slowly."
Dammit, Jimmy thought, trying not to picture Rich Cayton's face earlier in the day. "All right, what else? Prints, hairs, other signs of abuse?"
Carter shook his head. "Nada. No signs of sexual assault, no semen. No fibers either. This guy was careful."
Jimmy looked at the body on the table, hating himself for not finding her sooner. Her hair, which he remembered as shiny, thick and brown, was now sparse and straw-colored. I'm sorry, he thought. I'm so sorry.
"Do you want a full autopsy? I'm certain on cause of death, but it's possible there are toxins in her system. He could've been injecting her with something to keep her calm."
"Do it," Jimmy said, willing himself to look away. Carter nodded and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves. Jimmy walked out into the main room of the station, where all eyes turned to him expectantly.
"We've got a murder here, folks," he said, trying not to look at Cayton's empty desk. "And this is one of our own. We are going full throttle until this bastard is caught; you got that? Everyone's on overtime." The officers nodded and murmured to one another.
"Any idea who we're looking for Jimmy?" Kenny asked.
Jimmy shook his head, wishing he had something, anything to go on. "No suspects, so we've gotta dig deeper. I want everyone who knew Sara Cayton interviewed, we need the names of anybody who could've had a grudge against her or Rick. I know we've been through this before, but we're going to do it again. Old boyfriends, teachers, criminals Rick helped to put away. Everybody. Somebody knows something, and we're gonna shake things up and let it fall out." He hoped he sounded more in control than he felt.
"Okay Jimmy, I'll make a list and assign teams," Max said, already in motion.
Jimmy walked slowly to Cayton's desk and picked up the framed picture of the smiling, loving family. Rich, his wife Linda, Sara and her little brother Rich Jr. The American dream preserved by Kodak, now forever haunted by the skeletal remains that lay in the next room. We're going to get him, he thought to himself for the hundredth time that day. We've got to get him.
*****
"Owwwwww," Max whined as she lowered herself slowly onto the couch. "I hurt all over."
"Yeah, a fourteen hour workday will do that to ya," Kenny said as he sat down next to her. "Want a backrub?"
She grinned at him. "What kind of a question is that?" He grinned back and began massaging her shoulders, and she felt herself loosening and melting under his touch. She yawned, and fought to keep her eyes open. "I'm so tired, I could fall asleep right here. What a day."
Kenny yawned too, before leaning down to drop a kiss on the top her head. "I know. I just wish all that work had done more good...we didn't come up with anything, it's so frustrating."
Max just nodded, too tired to come up with a reply to what she'd been thinking all night herself. Jimmy was doing his best to rally them, but it was hard to hold onto hope. Max was feeling more certain every minute that they wouldn't catch the killer, at least not before he had a chance to strike again. There just wasn't anything to go on.
"What that poor girl must have gone through..." she trailed off, lost in her thoughts as the picture of the corpse came back into her mind. Kenny kept kneading her back; his hands warm through her shirt. "Have you ever thought about it? Which way you'd want to die, if you got to choose?"
"Aww, Max," he sighed. "Don't get morbid on me now, I'm way too tired."
She turned back around to face him. "No, I'm serious. Haven't you ever wondered...like if it would be worse to die slowly or just have it done, like a shot to the head?"
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest. "It's not something I've put a lot of thought into, but I guess just over and done, so there's no time to think about, no time to really feel the pain." He paused, thinking back to one of the most horrible times of his life. "When I got shot last year - those were the worst few moments of my life, when I thought I was going to die. I thought I'd never get to see you again, and never get to say all the things I needed to say. To feel that way, for just a few seconds, that was hell. I don't think I could handle an hour of that, let alone ten weeks."
Max felt a sob rising in her throat and tried to gulp it back. She settled her head on his shoulder and tried not to remember that night where she'd almost lost him, the night she'd had his blood on her hands. "How about you?" he asked.
"I guess everyone really wants to go in their sleep, when they're old and content. But if it had to be now, and it was starving or getting shot...I don't know. Maybe if I had that time, I could get used to the idea. Prepare myself. Learn not to be so afraid of it."
Kenny raked his fingers through her hair soothingly. "Do me a favor, don't prepare anytime soon. I want you here with me for a long, long time."
Max grinned. "Deal." She yawned and wondered if she had enough energy left to make it to the bedroom. "Kenny...do you ever think we're...I don't know, being punished for something?"
"You have too many thoughts," he said, grinning a little.
"Well one of us has to have a few," she teased. "But I mean, yesterday, before all this started - I was happy. For just a few minutes life was perfect. Why don't we ever get to hang onto that? Why does something bad always happen to take it away?"
He paused, considering. "You were perfectly happy? For a minute?" She nodded. "Then take that with you. Hold onto it in your memory, and be thankful for it. That's all we can do - hold onto the moments we've got."
"That's beautiful Kenny."
"Hey, I've got a few thoughts of my own you know." His fingers were still combing through her hair, trailing gently along her face. "And right now I'm thinking I don't want to get off this couch. When do we have to be awake again? Seven hours?"
"Mmm," she sighed in exhaustion. "Lean back." Kenny lay down on the couch and she moved with him, lying on top of his chest. Max closed her eyes and drifted into sleep, the sound of Kenny's heart beating the sweetest lullaby she'd ever heard.
*****
Jimmy sank back onto his bed, relief singing in his overworked muscles. "I'm getting too old for this."
Jill climbed in under the covers beside him. "You've got to slow down, Jimmy," she said. "Stop being so hard on yourself. You don't have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."
Jimmy exhaled slowly, wishing he could skip his wife's well-meaning conversation and just go to sleep. "I know, Jill. But I have a responsibility - to this town, to Rich Cayton. To Sara."
"Yes, but you don't have *all* of the responsibility. You have a whole team of cops behind you. And you don't have to take the guilt. You didn't do anything wrong here, you're not the one that hurt that girl."
"Didn't I?" he asked. "Ten weeks, Jill. He had her for ten *weeks*, and I couldn't find her. He plucked her right off the street and kept her, in *my* town and I couldn't..."
Jill frowned, watching the turmoil play across his face. "It's not your fault, Jimmy. You do the best you can. Everyone knows that you give one hundred percent, every day. Nobody blames you; I just wish you could stop blaming yourself."
He sighed and closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts. "This is supposed to be a good town. A safe place, a good place to raise your kids. I used to look around and feel proud that I was a part of that, that Rome was a safer place because of me. And now when I look around, I don't know what to think. Nobody feels safe anymore, and it's only getting worse, every day."
"Things are changing," Jill agreed. "But this is still a good town. Most of the people here are good people, and they want to make this a good place to live. And safety - it's an illusion, it always has been. We've never been safe, not completely. Maybe now we just see that more clearly."
Jimmy reached over to the nightstand and turned off the lamp. "It's not something I ever wanted to see. So much of what I am; it's my job. And if I can't feel like I'm succeeding at it, then what does that make me?"
Jill moved closer to him, draping an arm across his chest. "I don't know, obsessive? You are more than your job, Jimmy. And one dead girl does not make you a failure as Sheriff."
"I know you're right, but it still doesn't change how I feel. The wake is tomorrow, I don't know if I'll be able to look Rich in the eye. I can't help feeling like I failed him. And even worse, I'm no closer to catching this son of a bitch then I was last week, and this guy's not going to just sit back and wait for us. He's going to do it again. He's going to take someone else's kid, and there's nothing I can do about it."
He felt Jill tense up beside him. "Well, you can make sure it's not one of *our* kids. We'll sit them down tomorrow and tell them they're all sticking close to home until this gets solved."
"Kim's going to love that," Jimmy said dryly.
"Kim especially. I'll ground her if I have to."
He thought of his strong-willed daughter and knew she wouldn't take that news well, but he'd gladly have her hate him if it kept her safe. "I could have her tailed again," he offered, only half-joking.
"Ha, she'd probably have you sued." Jimmy closed his eyes, his eyelids heavy. He said a quick prayer in his thoughts, just in case someone was listening.
*****
Kim grimaced as she drove home from school, seething with the unfairness of it all. She was as sad and shaken as anybody by Sara's death, but to be *grounded* because of it? Straight home from school, her parents had told her. And no going out anywhere unless it was with the entire family. Good grief.
She heard a police siren behind her and looked in the rearview mirror to see if she needed to get out of the way. Startled, she realized the cop was waving her over. What for, she wondered, I was barely going a mile above the speed limit. Her heart beat quickly in her chest as she wondered if she was in trouble for something. She'd never been pulled over before.
The cop ambled slowly over to her. Kim saw a car full of boys from her school go by on the quiet street, and prayed that they didn't see her. This was too embarrassing. She rolled down her window as the cop approached. Maybe it would be someone she knew, she did know most of the cops in this town. Probably most of them would let her go without a speeding ticket or a fine for a missing taillight or whatever the problem was.
"License and registration, Miss."
She squinted up at the officer but couldn't place him. "Is something wrong, officer?" she asked. He was wearing large dark sunglasses that covered a great deal of his thin, small face.
"Please let me see your license and registration," he repeated.
Kim nodded and remembered what her dad had told her about traffic stops, that you had to let the officer know exactly what you were doing or they'd suspect the worst. "I'm going to reach into the glove compartment and my bag to get them, okay?" He nodded, and she fumbled around with sweaty palms to find the identification. She handed them over and he stared at the license for a moment.
"Brock? You the sheriff's kid?" She nodded, hope rising that he'd decide to let her off with a warning for whatever it was she'd done wrong. "Out of the car," he ordered.
"What?" she sputtered. "Why? What did I do?"
He tossed her license and registration back through the window, and his tone got more forceful. "I said out of the car, Miss. Now."
Kim felt her panic rising and she tried to figure out what she possibly could have done to get her in this much trouble. Did he suspect that she had drugs or alcohol in the car? She knew there weren't any, so he'd have to let her go after he didn't find them, she reasoned. Taking deep breathes to calm herself, she got out of the car.
"Over here," he said, taking her arm and walking her around to the other side of the car, away from the side of the road. "Turn and face the vehicle." He pushed her against the car, none to gently, and she thought he was going to frisk her for a weapon. Instead he grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her, snapping handcuffs onto her wrists.
"Hey!" she cried, trying to pull away from his grasp. "You can't do this, I haven't done anything wrong!"
He leaned in close and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as he whispered in her ear. "Of course you have. All of you have. You're bad, and you need to be punished."
Kim's eyes widened as the situation became clear, and she knew she was in a lot more trouble than a speeding ticket. She thought of the description of Sara Cayton's body she'd read in the morning paper and terror shook through her. "You're not a cop," she said, trying not to sound afraid. "Let go of me." She tried to squirm away, but he had a firm grip on her, and he slammed her back against the car.
"You're mine now, Kimberley. Mine. It's no use trying to escape, I'm never letting you go."
Kim's world spun as her head connected with the car, and she thought she might throw up. "Help!" she screamed as loud as she could, desperately hoping someone in a passing car would hear her. "Help me!"
He laughed, his breath hot against her cheek. "No one's going to save you, Kimberley. Now be a good girl." He put a hand around the back of her neck and squeezed just enough to make her gasp for air. "We're going on a little trip." He started walking her back towards his car, which looked identical to a real police car to Kim. She looked around frantically for anyone passing by who might see her, but the street was quiet, the closest cars a full block away. Besides, she thought, even if anyone saw they'd just think she was under arrest. Getting more scared every second, she ducked and tried to twist away, but he had her upper arms in a vice-like grip. His fingernails dug into her shoulders and she stumbled as he pulled her along.
They reached the back of his car, and he opened the trunk. She knew he was going to put her in it, and she fought with everything she had in a last ditch effort go get away. He easily overpowered her and pushed her down into the trunk. He grinned at her with a look of satisfaction, and then slammed the trunk shut, plunging her into darkness. Kim screamed and let the tears that had been building flow, her sobs echoing in the tiny trunk.
*****
End Chapter 2