Brenda was fairly tired and disheartened when she returned home. She'd stopped by the station briefly on her way back, finding Tom and Jesse still there, but Tom told her he wasn't having much luck with the video tapes. Although he was able to eliminate the static, there was a complete blur where there ought to have been a person. He promised to keep working on it, but he'd warned her not to get her hopes up.

She felt rather disheartened as she closed and locked her front door behind her. She dropped her keys, bag, and gun on the table and sliding her blouse over her head as she strolled toward her bedroom.

She was just nearing her bedroom door when a creak in the floor ahead of her alerted her to the presence of an intruder. She reacted instantly, turning on her heal to run back toward her discarded pistol, but already, she felt burly arms wrapping around her, pulling her backward. She screamed as loud as she possibly could. Her neighbors knew their neighbor was a police detective. Surely they'd call the police if they heard screams coming from her apartment.

A second man moved past Brenda as she struggled with her attacker, who held her immobile. She screamed a second time as the second man picked up her gun, and then she felt a hand over her mouth, and something cold and sharp pressing itself against her throat. She'd lost the struggle, and so quickly. She immediately went still and fell silent.

"She's a cop. She's gotta have cuffs around here," said the man Brenda could see as he began rifling through her bag. He found her hand cuffs quickly enough, and walked out of Brenda's sight range for a moment. When he returned, he was holding a baseball bat.

Brenda could do nothing but stare helplessly at the bat as the man moved closer to her.

"This is going to hurt," he told her. "It's gonna hurt a lot."

Brenda squeezed her eyes shut just before the blow slammed into her ribs. Indeed, it did hurt a great deal, and she screamed against the hand that covered her mouth. She went limp immediately afterward, hoping that would help her to avoid another blow. When her attacker found himself supporting her dead weight, his grip loosened, and he reached for her wrists to put the hand cuffs on her.

Now was her chance. She lunged forward, screaming once more, but his grip immediately tightened on her wrist as he yanked her arms backward and behind her, snapping the handcuffs into place. She managed one more scream before his hand once again clamped over her mouth.

This time, she knew there was no escaping the baseball bat. Luckily, it wasn't long before she was rendered unconscious beneath the merciless blows.

Brenda woke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She was in a very dark, moist place that she couldn't recognize. As she tried to reach her phone she realized that her hands were still cuffed behind her, and there was agonizing pain in her ribcage. She struggled against the pain and her restraints to get a finger into her pocket where she kept her cell phone. All she needed to do was push the talk button. She silently begged the caller not to hang up as she fought to get a finger on the right button.

At last, she met with success.

"Hello? Hello?" Simon's muffled voice called from her pocket.

"Simon?" Brenda called out, hoping that he was able to hear her. Perhaps he could figure out where she was and send people to find her.

"Where are you? You sound . . ." Simon's voice was muffled completely by static. ". . . answer . . ." Finally, Brenda heard a beep that indicated her phone's battery had just died.

Brenda lay shivering on the wet floor, fighting off tears of frustration. Surely Simon would guess that she was in trouble and contact the police. He had to.

She was so cold. She wished she hadn't been so foolish as to take off her blouse so soon after entering her apartment. She wondered if she might catch pneumonia laying there in the cold air on the wet floor in only her bra and jeans.

"You need to learn not to stick your nose where it doesn't belong," said a masculine voice.

Brenda could only make out a silhouette in the darkness. A silhouette that walked toward her slowly, purposefully, whose presence filled her with an inexplicable revulsion. Was this Grace's kidnapper? Had Brenda been closer than she'd thought? For an instant she forgot her dire situation and felt a moment of triumph. But as he stepped closer to her, she felt only a primal sense of dread.

"But as long as I have you here," he said, reaching down and taking hold of her bra.

Brenda squirmed in an attempt to escape his hands, and then let out a scream that was half-sob as the movements caused her to feel the pain of her injuries with renewed intensity.

"I wouldn't do that," he told her as he tore at her bra, breaking it open. "If you squirm, you're only going to worsen your injuries, and you'll probably die. If you just lay still and try not to struggle, you might live."

Brenda knew he was right, as much as every instinct within her wanted her to fight him, to try to escape, she knew she was in no condition to fight him, hand-cuffed and badly injured. She would have to try to endure what was about to happen. She needed to survive to be rescued later, for Grace . . .

Her captor drew something shiny from within his clothes, and Brenda instinctively knew it had to be a knife.

She fought to keep her breathing even as he lowered it down toward her waist and hooked a finger beneath her pants. As he began cutting them away from her, she lay perfectly still, a part of her just wishing for him to get the act over and done with. Of all the rape victims she'd ever spoken to, no one had ever mentioned the sickening anticipation as she waited for the inevitable to occur. Her breath now came in short, panicked gasps, but she did not squirm.

At last, he pulled her ruined jeans away from her body, leaving her completely naked except for her cotton underwear. He leaned close to her, his fingers stroking her hip. "What do you know?" he whispered in her ear.

Brenda found herself unable to think of a single thing to say to him. She didn't want to talk to this man, this monster who kidnapped children and who now slid his hand down into her underwear. She swallowed down the bile that rose up within her throat as she felt his wet tongue on her neck.

"You taste delicious," he practically purred.

She tried to turn her head away, but she felt his teeth grazing her throat, and then she was suddenly, inexplicably, delirious with ecstasy. The reasoning part of her knew she'd been bitten, although the sensation she was experiencing was beyond her ability to reason. It was pleasure like nothing she'd ever experienced before, and yet, beneath it all she was still overwhelmed with revulsion. It was with these two conflicting sensations that she blacked out.

When she regained her senses she was still filled with revulsion. She could feel blood crusted on her neck where she'd been bitten, and her captor was on top of her, inside her, thrusting, fucking. Her body shook with the force, and the pain in her ribs was unbearable. She lay beneath him, helpless, weeping, unable to be the brave girl her parents had always insisted that she was.

When he finally finished and withdrew, she could feel liquid trickling from herself, down her thighs. He rose to his feet. "Goodnight, my dear," he said as he adjusted his clothing and began to walk away.

He was going to leave her to die. If she didn't say something to him now, she might never get the chance. "People will be looking for me," she said in a wavering, meek voice she hardly recognized as her own.

He paused. She imagined he turned back to look at her, but it was too dark for her to know. "They won't find you," he said.

The only sound other than her ragged breathing was his retreating footsteps