Chapter 14

I looked around my new cell uncertain now of where I was. The walls, ceiling and floor were all padded, yeah padded, with a cream colored material.

"Charlie?"

I asked as I cast my eyes over the women. That sounded so stupid when we'd spoken so often to each other. A hand went up and I was looking at a petite looking girl who had straight auburn hair. Even under the conditions that we'd been in she still looked pretty. I crawled over toward her and sat next to her, waiting for what would happen next. I was number eleven so was there still a girl yet to arrive?

"Rachel?"

I cried out as a young girl was pushed into the room, becasue I was staring into the face of the girl who had consoled me when I had arrived. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes red and skin blotchy.

"They took my baby and then told me that I couldn't go back home"

Probably because she knew too much. The friend that had brought her here wouldn't want Rachel to say a word about him or where she had been. As I held my arms out to her, she crawled over to me, sinking down on the floor with her head on my knees, sobbing her eyes out.

"They cut her out of me, why would they do that?"

I had no idea why a cesarian would have been necessary and now the poor girl was in here with us and was probably in a lot of pain from that, as well her distress at not knowing what was going to happen to her. As that small door closed lights came on and I was seeing twelve of us in a confined space. Shit, were we going to be held here for a long time? One of the girls stood up and went over to the long flat cupboard that was on the same wall as the door. As she lifted up the lids, we were hearing a description of the contents.

"Large water bottles, plastic cups. Canned veg and fish. Oh my how thoughtful, they have ring tops"

Metal could be useful. I had the nail from the wall tucked into the bra that I was wearing.

"Urgh. I think that this is a toilet"

From the contents of those cupboards, I had a feeling that we were going to be locked in here for a long time. A look at Charlie and I was sure that she'd worked that one out as well. There was no sound from outside our room so when the place began to vibrate panic set in amongst some of the girls. Somehow there had to be a way to make this more bearable because I had the feeling that we were moving. Being transported. Where we would end up was a daunting thought and how long it would take was even more of a worry.

"Charlie, I think that we're inside a compartment inside a truck. We have to figure out a way to get these women motivated to fight. Otherwise, we'll be like lambs to the slaughter"

Charlie not replying to me had me a bit worried. Would she feel that it wasn't worth fighting back? No way would I let that happen, I'd fight to the end if that's what it took.

"Yeah, they do look a bit down and beaten. I'm with you, we have to make this as difficult as possible for whoever is responsible and with a lot of luck maybe some of us will actually manage to escape"

Rachel had fallen asleep across me so as carefully as I could I eased her onto the floor. She never stirred so must have been exhausted. With my back against the wall, I eased up onto my feet, keeping my feet apart to try and keep my balance as we moved.

"Ladies, listen up"

I said as loudly as possible and then waited until all eyes were on me.

"We're not going to be released, we know too much. What's planned for us could be horrendous"

Yeah, I was actually considering that we'd be taken somewhere isolated and executed. Our bodies never to be found again. That had a shiver run through me, but I needed to veer away from that way of thinking. I needed to persuade these women that we would only survive if we fought for our freedom.

"There are twelve of us. Twelve women with enough anger to change the outcome planned for us"

Curious I watched as tall blonde girl stood up against the wall. As she began to talk it wasn't just me that she was speaking to. She was giving her story of what had happened to her.

"You're Annie aren't you? I'm Rose. My partner and I were desperate to start a family, so I went to a clinic that was advertised in a flyer that came through the door offering advice. The woman I saw did some tests and promised me that by using IVF and donor sperm that I could have a perfectly healthy child. But she told me that the procedure had to happen at a facility. Once pregnant they wouldn't let me go and then I was tricked into giving up my baby boy. I wanted to keep him and then those bastards suggested that I could get pregnant again"

Surely her partner knew where she was going and would have raised the alarm when she went missing.

"Didn't your partner know where you were going?"

Seemed that one of the other woman was thinking along the same lines as me.

"The facility was in downtown Boston. She wouldn't have known where I ended up and I just bet that the doctor that I saw doesn't actually have an office there. I'm with you Annie, these bastards have screwed me over too far"

As she sat down another woman got to her feet. This was Amy and she had left home after she was offered her dream job. Another woman had followed through from a card given to her when she was at a local bar. Only when she'd turned up for her first shoot she'd been forced into the back of a car. Amy had gone through several procedures, which I assumed was IVF, but none of them had worked. What had started as one woman telling the rest of us her story resulted in each of the women doing the same. I was amazed from where they had come from. This organization covered a large area and must have a well oiled procedures in place. Hell, was selling babies so lucrative? I supposed that it must be.

Anyway, back to the women. As I listened to their stories it became apparent that for one reason or another, we were being rejected for the scheme that we'd been kidnapped for. Huh, who would have thought that I was happier with that than the idea of being pregnant. It was as the last woman stood up and as she pushed the long hair, that had so far covered up her face, behind her ears that I ended up staring at her. I knew that face, not as she looked now, because her face was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes.

"I'm Lisa"

"Lisa?"

I shouted back at her. Okay that had her frowning at me as though I was an idiot.

"Lisa Harcourt?"

Everyone was looking from me to Lisa wondering what the hell had got into me. I was shocked, to put it mildly, because here in this prison was the very woman that I'd spent the last few weeks looking for. Okay, so maybe we were under the impression that she was dead, killed by Banning. I moved across to her and couldn't help myself. I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her, just to ensure myself that she was here, and she was alive.

"I've been looking for you"

"Me?"

Was her only word as I released her and stood back from her.

"Yes. Your father hired a private investigator to find you. I, it's a bit of a complicated story"

Realizing that everyone else was listening in on what I was saying.

"Lisa, tell us your story and then Annie can enlighten us as to why she's a part of this group"

Okay, it seemed that Rose wasn't too happy that I'd sidelined Lisa away from sharing her story with everyone else. The problem was that I was the last person to have to speak so I needed to work out what to include. On the other hand? Mmm, I needed to think about this. I returned to my place next to Charlie interested in how Lisa had been kidnapped, wondering if Banning was involved.

"Josie, my partner, and I had declared our feelings for each other so we went out to celebrate. We talked about the future, our future and how we both liked the idea of adopting a child. Anyway, we were still discussing the idea of adoption in the taxi on the way back home, even though we both knew that we weren't anywhere near ready for that. As I paid the driver he gave me a card, said that his sister worked for an adoption agency. I never really thought about it again until I went to an outreach center where I volunteered to work with the kids"

I knew that Josie and Lisa were in a romantic relationship and that they'd made the decision to be open about it, but Josie had never said anything about adopting a child. Was it something that they had thought about but had never moved forward on? Seemed like it.

"The teenager that I was working with, well her older sister was involved with the local gang. She got pregnant but she was also arrested. Child services deemed her as unfit to look after the baby unless the grandmother took on guardianship. Long story. In the end the baby was given up for adoption, a family who could provide a caring environment which that family couldn't. It made me think and I decided that I didn't want to let time pass me by. I called that number thinking that if I got together all of the information then Josie and I could have a serious conversation. The woman who answered the number said that she'd send a taxi for me, and we could talk"

Okay, so now I knew how she had ended up in a taxi. Did all the drivers waiting outside Cat's Whiskers have that card to give to women. Maybe a number of someone who could help them out. Lisa needed help to adopt, so had Carisa needed help because of her cheating boyfriend or could she have already been pregnant?

"The taxi driver took me way out of Boston to this ramshackle house. Only there was another man waiting there. I think that he injected me with something because when I came to, I was wearing different clothes and I was locked in a tiny room. From there I was taken to the Manor. They forced me to have their procedure, twice. But for some reason I miscarried. So here I am"

So Lisa had been at Banning's homestead and she had been kept in that room. Had someone taken blood from her to make it look like she was dead? I'd need to ask her about the bracelet at some stage but for now I was aware that everyone was looking at me expectantly.

"I, urm, I'm a private investigator. My job was to find Lisa, but it isn't as it seems. You see a man was arrested and charged for murdering several women. Lisa's clothes along with other women's clothes were found where he lived. This is where it gets complicated"

I wasn't stalling, honestly. I was trying to find a way to relate what I knew without scaring anyone. I was just so thankful that no one was interrupting me.

"There were bodies found, ones that had been there for a very long time, but the FBI assumed that the women whose clothes were found were also dead"

"So you're saying that everyone thinks that I'm dead?"

I nodded my head to Lisa not really knowing how that would make her feel.

"The man charged was Elijah Banning, the man who collected bottles and cans"

"Eli, I know him"

"Yeah, so do I"

I frowned as I heard that from Paige. Okay she was someone that I hadn't seen as being a missing person. She'd walked out from her family when they had informed her that they'd arranged a suitable man for her to marry. Well ,she'd managed to get a flight out of India into the States. She'd arrived on a work visa and taken on a job as a waitress while looking for something which would have her using her skills as an interpreter.

"He was a creep, always coming into the diner where I worked. I remember him once asking me if I thought his scar was sexy"

"What scar? He didn't have a scar. Besides that, he was quiet, well a little slow. I'd say that he definitely had mental health issues"

"No way"

I listened as the two women bantered back and forth. It was as if they were talking about two completely different men. Was that Banning's alternate personalities at work? But that didn't explain the scar, so they must have been two different men. How were they using the same name and doing the same job then? It was something that I didn't think I'd find out through listening to these two women argue. Fortunately, it was Heidi who got them to stop.

"Shut up! That isn't important at the moment. I want to hear the rest of Annie's story"

There were mumblings of agreement and Lisa and Paige had the decency to look embarrassed allowing me to continue with my story about Elijah Banning.

"I wanted to know who he was, and it seemed strange to me that there was nothing to find on his mother or if he had any brothers or sisters. I was attacked when I tried to find information from the midwife who probably delivered him. But I did find her. She'd been living at an abandoned Amish settlement with her son, only when we got there, we found that she'd been murdered years ago. The FBI swooped in, and they discovered three more bodies"

I'd expected some outcry from the women around me but instead they were all focused on me with serious expressions on their faces. I suppose to them I was relaying an account that seemed unbelievable, then again maybe they were trying to fathom out how what I knew fit into the macabre situation that we were all in.

"There was nothing there for me to follow up on, so I decided to get to know more about you Lisa"

Looking at Lisa she nodded her head at me as though understanding why I'd done that.

"I spoke to Josie. She's moved from the apartment, and she misses you so much. She mentioned that you were supposed to meet her later that day. Looking around at where you lived, I couldn't understand why the FBI assumed that you'd been kidnapped so close to where you lived, it was too busy, too many witnesses not to have seen anything. So, I went to the outreach center and discovered that you'd actually gone there that day. As I was leaving a young teenager spoke to me and told me that you'd made a call and then left in a taxi"

Which was what Lisa had told me. My mind though was going into overdrive as I recounted what I'd found out. These women were from different areas which meant that there was a system for targeting women.

"I also went to that nightclub, The Cat's Whiskers. Something is definitely hinkey about that place. I ended up overhearing something. A man talking on the phone"

I stopped talking as the memory of that night came back to me. I hadn't really got a good look at him, but I had noticed the scar that ran from the corner of his eye to his ear. Could he have been the man that Paige had got to know as Eli Banning?

"Well, what did you overhear?"

The question brought me out of my internal musings, and I knew that I had to give an explanation for what I'd said.

"Something about clients with high expectations, that the merchandise had to be in pristine condition. Oh, and the bidding would be starting"

In a perverted way that conversation made sense now. Did the clients bid for their ideal mother of the child that they would get? I needed to move on because the whole idea of that was turning my stomach.

"Maybe I attracted too much attention. Anyway, I've been on the shot for an age so wouldn't have been a good candidate"

I finished on what I felt was a low note. All of us sat here had been targeted one way or another and all of us were destined for a fate that we had no control over. Yet.

"How do we get out of here?"

Came from Lena. I considered that as I looked at the woman sat with me. They were a group of woman who had probably never encountered violence. What the hell could we possibly do.

"Okay ladies. We're all in the same boat here but the only way to get out of here is to use the skills that we have and learn new ones. Rose you start"

I smiled as I listened to what Charlie had said. She was right. We did all have our own unique set of skills and probably an imagination. Everyone except Rachel was fit and healthy but it seemed that the crafty girl had been listening. Her suddenly saying out loud.

"I'm a whizz with material"

Had some of us wondering how the hell that could be useful until Ruth pointed out that we had blankets and even the material that was surrounding us as padding. We talked for an age, discussing the various things that we could do and use. To be honest I'd almost forgotten that we were in a moving vehicle because I was so used to it. When we all felt a sudden jerking that sent some of us off balance and the movement seemed to stop, that had us all looking at each other. Had we arrived at our destination? The fear was palpable as we each conjured up what might happen next.