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September 2021—Montague, Massachusetts
Karen came to with a splitting headache. She bent toward a bottle of water to drink, noticing she was in a new place: an old brick building full of dated furniture. It was one of the warehouses. There wasn’t much light. Under her blanket, she wore nothing but her socks from the waist down. She didn’t feel as though she’d been raped, but it scared her. This building wasn’t as cold as the last one, but it wasn’t warm either. Her leg shackles bound her to a metal post that ran from floor to ceiling. She tried pulling away to see if it was loose, but it was solid. Her gun lay out of reach in its holster on a box on the other side of the post.
She sipped the water. Next to it was a bottled chocolate nutritional drink, also with a straw in it. It tasted wonderful. She heard a creak to her left and, out of the corner of her eye, saw a young boy’s head duck down beyond a darkly stained bureau. “Hello over there!” Her throat was still hoarse, but she tried to sound as calm as possible. “My name’s Karen. Please come and talk with me.”
The small head slowly rose from behind the bureau, and it turned out to be sitting on the large body of a strong but slightly obese man. He slowly walked over to Karen, his eyes trained on her. His close-cropped dark hair was starting to gray, so he was probably in his late forties or early fifties. If he was the brother of the deceased child, that tracked. He was tall—over six feet tall—and wore black slacks and a dark-brown mid-length jacket over a navy-blue pocket T-shirt. He didn’t say anything.
“My name’s Karen, and I’m a police officer, but I think you know that. What’s your name?” He didn’t answer. She felt as though he had a mental deficit of some sort.
“Thank you for the water and the chocolate drink. Why are you keeping me here? My family needs me back home.”
“I don’t want you to take my mom away,” he said, his voice unexpectedly high and childlike.
“What’s your name?”
“Mark.”
“Mark, why would I take your mom away?”
“Bad things happened a long time ago. We changed our names so nobody could find us.”
“Do you know what happened a long time ago?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s my job to find out what happened. I won’t hurt your mom. I know you care for your mom, and you want to protect her, but my kids care for their mom, too, and they’re very worried about me. Could you let me go home to my kids?”
Mark thought for a long minute, then approached Karen. Panic took her, then she felt two large keys fall into her lap. Mark quickly left the building.
Karen struggled to fit the key into the antique manacles to release her hands from behind her back, but adrenaline prevailed. Once free, she rubbed her ankles and wrists and stood up. She felt dizzy for a moment, and then her blanket fell. She’d forgotten she was naked from the waist down. She grabbed her holster, but left the gun snapped in. She found the door that Mark used to leave, next to which she found the light switch. The room filled with bright yellow light, and she looked around to find some pants. Among the antiques throughout the building, all she found to wear was a rack of antique dresses.
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That evening, a cruiser from the Montague Police Department pulled up to the Greenfield Police Station, and an officer opened the back door so Karen could get out. Jeff ran over to his wife and was about to give her a hug, but instead he pulled up short and took a look at her outfit. Under her uniform jacket, she had an elegant, pink, floor-length chiffon dress with her holster and gun at the waist. Jeff laughed and gave her a big hug. “You really don’t smell very good.”
Chief Reyes asked, “Are you hurt?”
“No, but I was drugged a couple of times. I’m feeling a little shaky.”
“Okay, you’re going to the ER to get checked out. I’ll drive.”
“After I shower and change first. Jeff, please go get me some clothes.”