THE ABDUCTION OF CASSANDRA
by
William Melden
© Copyright 2020 by William Melden
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.
For further information, contact [email protected].
Cover design by Shannon Passmore. Find more of her work at shanoffdesigns.com
ISBN: 978-1-63795-368-6
DEDICATION
For Mrs. Hubert P. Hines
Best sister ever
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book, and the books to follow, would never have been possible without the assistance of so many special people, “friends of Cassie.” My beta readers: Laura Brandt, Gail Carey, Gianninna Farkas, Cassandra Hays, Winnie MacArthur, and Will Melden. For moral and practical help throughout the process, two very special people: Sally Hines and Lorelei Senna. For patient and expert technical assistance, Dean Hays and Shannon Passmore. God bless you all!
Author’s Note
The city of Yorkville, Tennessee, will not be found on any map, but is not entirely imaginary. It contains elements of the four largest cities in that state: Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. All of the streets mentioned can be found in one or more of those cities, and several of the businesses either exist, or have existed, in real time. The Abduction of Cassandra is the first in a series of stories and novels set in Yorkville.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: A Flat Tire
CHAPTER ONE: Kidnapped
CHAPTER TWO: Enter the Goth
CHAPTER THREE: Girls’ Talk
CHAPTER FOUR: Tea and Sympathy
CHAPTER FIVE: The Video
CHAPTER SIX: The FBI Takes Over
CHAPTER SEVEN: Cassie Strikes Back
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Making of a Kidnapper
CHAPTER NINE: Strawberries
CHAPTER TEN: Romance and Confrontation
CHAPTER ELEVEN: At the Bad Wolf Boxing Gym
CHAPTER TWELVE: Madison Makes Her Move
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A Bloody Visitor
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Celeste’s Ride
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Down the Dark Hall
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Investigating and Arm Wrestling
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Daisy Saves the Day
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A Plan and a Confession
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Ethan’s Art of War
CHAPTER TWENTY: The Man in the Mirror
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Final Demand
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Strategy and Tactics
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Love and Defiance
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Storms Descending
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The Battle of Hangar Thirteen
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Return to Shawhan Terrace
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Brothers
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: A Death, and New Families
EPILOGUE: The Aftermath
PROLOGUE: A Flat Tire
Where am I?
This isn’t my bed . . . this isn’t my room . . . What’s happened to me?
Cassandra Hixson slowly opened her eyes in the half-light of the little chamber. Is this a bed? Her hands explored the place where she lay. No sheets, no pillow . . . a mattress, anyway. And it’s not on the floor . . . yes, it’s a bed. She shifted her eyes back and forth, looking around, not moving her head. Why are the walls painted black? How come there are no windows? Two exposed fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, directly above her. Why aren’t they turned on? Even the ceiling is painted black. . . . How big is this place? Her bedroom at home was fifteen by twenty feet; this was probably less than half that size. But where was that dim light coming from?
Is this a hospital? Somebody’s house? What’s going on?
Her thoughts were scrambled. Flat tire . . . that poor woman . . . is she okay? Never mind that: think clearly. Something bad has happened. Get your mind right. She wiggled her toes. I can move. That’s a start. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, intending to get up and investigate. First, check the place out. Then we’ll figure out how we got here. . . .
Bad mistake! As she sat up, the nausea and the headache exploded at the same time. Her hands gripped the edge of the mattress as she doubled over and vomited on the floor in a sudden, unexpected burst. Ohhh, gross . . . I didn’t feel that coming! Squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, her mouth filled with the bitter taste, she wiped the back of her hand across her lips. She felt as though her head was about to explode from the dull, throbbing pain. She groaned and drew her legs back up, lying on her back again. What’s happened to me? she repeated to herself.
Take inventory, like Dad says. She flexed the muscles in her calves, then her thighs, moving up her body, checking for anything broken or torn. Apart from her head, she only felt some muscular cramps. No real damage, I guess, she thought. Well, duh, you just now sat up. If something were broken, that wouldn’t have been so easy. She moved her head from side to side, a couple of inches at a time, wincing at the pain. My spine’s okay. Thank God! Her father was a doctor, a radiologist, and he’d raised her and her little brother Dominic to really know their bodies, like a map. And. . . .
What happened to my head? The more her mind focused, the more she tried to concentrate, the worse it throbbed. She hadn’t had a headache like this in all her seventeen years. She raised her hand to her head, and began to poke around gently. When her fingertips reached the back, near the base of her skull, she cringed. A gauze bandage covered a throbbing lump. There it is. A swelling. Something hit me! She probed, then winced and jerked her hand away. Even at a gentle touch, the lump hurt. Her hands moved down, feeling over the sweatshirt and sweatpants for bruises or cuts. There didn’t seem to be any. So there’s probably not a big serious injury. . . . My head’s just sore.
An accident . . . you’ve had an accident. Well, obviously. But what kind of accident? She hadn’t been in a car, and if she’d fallen down the stairs at home, she’d be in her own room now, or in a real hospital, not in this crazy place. She’d just been out running . . . what did I do wrong?
Then it all came back to her, in a rush, as if she were watching a DVD at high speed . . . most of it, anyway.
* * * * *
“It’s a moody Monday morning, and the weekend passed me by. . . .”
The voice of one of her favorite pop singers penetrated Cassie’s consciousness. She’d programmed the playlist on her alarm cube with songs to match each day. Her hand fumbled around to turn it off. If she’d slept through the whole song, something more lively would have jostled her awake. She’d arranged the playlist to give herself a bit of slack, but not much. The digital display glowed 6:30 AM.
Sighing, she crawled out of bed and shuffled into the small half bathroom that was hers alone, one of the really great things about the Hixson house. As she brushed her teeth, she stared at the girl in the mirror: dark blonde hair in a shag cut, framing a face that was passable-to-pretty, but not beautiful or sexy. Blue eyes bleary from sleep. An average nose, an average chin . . . an average face. Oh well. After spitting into the sink, she ran a brush through her hair, attempting to correct her bed head, even though she’d be covering it in a few minutes.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she shucked off the varsity football jersey she used for a nighty, and pulled on her running outfit: sports bra, white workout tank top, black gym shorts, and pink cross-trainers. She sat on the bed and wrapped the two and a half pound weights around her wrists and thumbs, pulling the Velcro straps tight. She stood up, located
her phone, with its “Hello Kitty” cover, and strapped it to her bicep with its Velcro armband. Pulling on her pink baseball cap, she headed down the stairs.
Passing through the kitchen, she paused to pour a glass of cold milk and gulped it down, listening to the sounds of her parents moving around upstairs, starting their customary routines. Dominic, like most ten year olds, would sleep on, drooling into his pillow, until Mom went into his room and shook him awake. Just another morning. Just another day.
Walking to the back door, she heard rapid-fire thumps coming down the stairs. As usual, her activities had been noticed by the other member of the Hixson family. Rounding the bottom of the staircase in a blur of black and tan fur, the huge German Shepherd bounded across the kitchen and greeted her, tail wagging in ecstasy, her nose nuzzling into the girl’s hip.
“No, Daisy, not today,” Cassie laughed, her fingertips scratching behind the dog’s ears. “You know you’d only slow me down. Anyway, you have to stay here and take care of Mom and Dad. Maybe tomorrow, okay? Why don’t you go jump on Nick?”
The dog sat, tail no longer wagging, and looked up at her with sad eyes. Her shoulders slumped in a dejected dog sigh. “You’re guilt-tripping me,” Cassie chided. “But it won’t work. I’ll be back in an hour, latest. Think you can tough it out?” She squatted down and kissed the top of Daisy’s head, which started the tail moving again.
Cassie slipped out the door and walked around the house, stopping only to do a few stretching exercises. Then she loped down the driveway, onto Shawhan Terrace, the cul-de-sac where her house was located. Looking up and down when she reached the end of the street, she set off on her five-mile run down the shoulder of Fleetwood Pike. Just another day.
A beautiful Monday morning, rush hour already in progress as the people of Yorkville zipped toward their various destinations. Running west, a safe ten feet or so from the edge of the highway, Cassie wished that she’d remembered her shades. The sun wasn’t in her eyes now, but it would be when she turned around and started back toward home.
Too late now. . . .
Hitting her stride, the traffic noises blended with the sound of her own breathing, almost drowning out the singer’s voice coming from the earbuds attached to the phone.
“Why can’t I turn the volume up higher?” she thought. “It’s never loud enough.” But she didn’t dwell on it. She had to think about her workout. “Keep up the pace. Don’t get distracted. Breathe through your nose. Keep your hands up! Don’t get lazy!”
As she rounded a gentle curve in the road, she slowed her pace. Up ahead, about fifty yards, a very pregnant young woman was standing next to a blue sedan, which had been pulled onto the road’s shoulder, the right rear tire completely flat. As Cassie stepped up her pace again, she saw that the woman was looking at the tire, running her hand through her long ginger hair, apparently wondering what to do. The traffic roared past the scene, the drivers unconcerned.
“Oh, man, what a time for a flat,” Cassie thought. “Maybe I can do something.” She was usually shy around strange adults, part of the natural caution that some people saw as cowardice. But this woman clearly needed help. Within a few moments, she had joined her beside the disabled vehicle.
“Hey there,” Cassie chirped. “Looks like you’ve got a problem!”
“That’s for sure,” the woman replied, glancing up briefly, then back at the tire. She clutched her keys in one hand, holding her cell phone in the other, resting on her sizable baby bump. She wore a light floral maternity blouse over a pair of stretch jeans, and wiggled her toes nervously in her clunky sandals. “I have an appointment for an ultrasound at my doctor’s office in” — she glanced at her wristwatch — “about twenty minutes. And now this happens! And I’ve never changed a tire in my life!”
Cassie clucked her tongue sympathetically and laid a hand on the woman’s arm, then quickly withdrew it. “Hey, it’s no problem,” she smiled. “I’ve changed tires before. And you don’t need to be doing it in your condition, anyway. You’ve got a spare?”
“Um, yes, I’m pretty sure I do,” the woman said. She stepped to the back of the car and pushed a button on her key fob, releasing the trunk, which opened smoothly. “I really appreciate this.” She looked at Cassie and forced a smile. “I don’t want to hold you up, but it would be such a help. . . .”
“Pffft, you’re not holding me up,” Cassie replied, peering into the storage compartment. “This’ll just take a minute, and we might even get you to that doctor in time. Maybe you oughtta call the office and tell ‘em you’re running late, though, just in case.” She pulled back the patch of carpet that covered the spare and leaned into the trunk. “Now, where’s that jack? Probably under the tire. . . . ”
Her hands gripped the spare. Then a shattering pain in the back of her head, and blackness.
* * * * *
The older woman, knowing that the teenager was fully unconscious, tossed the black leather club into the depths of the trunk. She’d pulled it out from under her blouse as soon as the girl had leaned forward, and struck with expert swiftness at the very base of her skull. Now she simply hoisted her victim up by the waist, and dumped her into the compartment, bending her legs so she’d fit. It would be tight, but she’d survive.
The woman retrieved a can of high pressure aerosol, slammed the trunk, and looked up and down the highway. None of the passing motorists had slowed or stopped to help with the situation. Squatting by the flat tire, she plugged the can’s nozzle into the valve stem and listened to the hiss as the tire slowly inflated.
Cassie’s baseball cap had been knocked to the ground when the woman hit her, and a sudden breeze from a passing semi had blown it into a nearby patch of weeds. The woman didn’t notice, but climbed back into the car and lifted the hem of her maternity blouse. She unfastened the Velcro strap holding the foam rubber “pregnancy pad” in place, and tossed it to the floorboard. “That’s a relief,” she thought. “And that’s as close to being pregnant as I ever intend to be.”
She started the ignition, checked the traffic flow, and pulled back onto the busy highway.
A piece of cake. All in a day’s work.
The pink baseball cap lay in a clump of weeds, alone and forgotten.
* * * * *
Cassie sat up again, more carefully this time, and tried to figure out what was happening. She ran her hands through her hair, her eyes squeezed shut, trying to concentrate. Then she noticed.
My clothes! Where are my clothes? For the first time, Cassie realized that she wasn’t wearing her workout gear. Somebody had replaced it with a pair of plain gray sweat pants, and a matching sweatshirt. Her cross-trainers were gone, too: she was barefoot. The color rose in her cheeks. Somebody undressed me, and then put these things on me. Horrified, she tugged at the collar of the sweatshirt and peeked underneath, then did the same with the waistband of the pants. Well, that’s a relief. She still had the same underwear she put on . . . an hour ago? This morning? How long have I been here, anyway?
Taking her time, her head still throbbing, she stood up. She glanced around the room, hoping to find her clothes neatly folded on a chair or someplace, her shoes alongside. But they were gone. What happened to me? Who brought me here? It couldn’t have been that pregnant lady. . . . Is she okay? Did another car hit us when we were fixing her tire?
She felt a vague sense of guilt. Your precious workout! Look where it’s gotten you now. No, that’s stupid . . . You weren’t doing anything wrong. You’re not thinking straight. This wasn’t your fault . . . was it? Then the thought struck her.
My phone! It was in my pocket. If she had ever needed that phone, it was now. But it was gone, along with her clothes and her shoes. Her feet felt clammy on the tile floor. No carpet. What is this place?
As she looked around, she saw where the mysterious light had been coming from: there was a door! Well, yeah, genius, have you ever seen a room without a door? She shook her head, frustrated with her own stupidity. Ouch! Don’t d
o that!
As the pain subsided, she looked at the door, on the far side of the room. It wasn’t like an ordinary door: no doorjamb, no doorknob, just an opening in the black wall, with a plain black door, slightly ajar, allowing some light in from the other side. Even the hinges were concealed. That might be the way out! She lowered her bare feet to the floor again, carefully avoiding the pool of vomit, and tiptoed toward the portal.
She had only taken a few steps when, looking around, she suddenly froze. She hadn’t noticed before, in the semi-darkness, but now the glow from the doorway glinted off something across the room: two short steel chains, suspended from high on the wall, with cuffs at the end . . . like handcuffs. Her heart plummeted into her stomach. “This isn’t a place I want to be,” she muttered to herself.
She tried to push the chains and cuffs out of her mind, and headed for the light. Grabbing the edge of the door, she pulled it wide, and looked into the next room. She didn’t know what she had expected to see, but this wasn’t it. She stepped through the doorway and looked around.
It was the size of a school classroom, she guessed, but this was no school. Like the smaller chamber she had just left, there were no windows. The light came from fluorescent tubes, recessed in the ceiling. But instead of being painted black, the walls and ceiling were all white, and the entire floor was covered in white carpeting. She wiggled her toes in the thick piling. She wanted to scream it out until she got an answer: What is this place, anyway?
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