Tag: mystery

It all started with seven little words.

I want to sit next to you.

That’s what Macey had said to him the day they’d met. It had been at a mutual friend’s wedding, he’d been watching everyone dance because he wasn’t a dancing kind of guy, and she came and plopped herself down beside him and started chattering away.

The years they’d been together had been the happiest of his life and right about how Tyler couldn’t even remember why it was they had broken up.

It all seemed so unimportant now.

A week.

Seven days.

That was how long it had been since anyone had heard from or seen Macey. The man she’d gone on the blind date with had also disappeared and it turned out no one at his workplace really knew much about him.

Guilt.

Guilt was all he’d felt for seven long days. He hadn’t believed her when Mollie had called to say that something had happened to Macey and that had been eating away at him. He was barely sleeping, only eating when one of his colleagues forced him too, and spending every second he had on trying to find where she was.

Seven days was such a long time and with every passing hour it got less and less likely that they would find her alive.

If she was still alive.

As much as Tyler didn’t want to admit it there was a very real possibility that she was already dead, her body disposed of.

Tyler pulled the engagement ring from his pocket. He’d been intending to propose until the argument that ended everything, and he decided then and there that if he got her back alive he was going to do whatever it took to fix things between them.

“Don’t you die on me, Macey,” he muttered. “I’m going to find you, baby.”

Nothing would stop him.

If it was the last thing he ever did he would find Macey and bring her home.

Helplessness.

Hopelessness.

How many days had she been here?

By Macey’s calculations, and all she had to go on was the number of meals she’d been brought, she’d been here for at least four days now.

The here was half of a room, operated from the other half, including the door, by metal bars that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Her part of the room had a bed, a table and two chairs, a toilet, a shower head fixed to the wall, a bookcase crammed with books, and a TV.

He planned to keep her here indefinitely.

He was still a he to her she still hadn’t got the guy’s name. Not his real one anyway, she knew it wasn’t George, he wasn’t who he was pretending to be.

How was anyone going to find her if they were looking for a George who worked with her sister?

This man terrified her.

Not because he’d laid a hand on her, he hadn’t yet but she knew it was only a matter of time, but because of what covered the walls on the other part of the room.

Photos.

Of her.

Hundreds of them.

They went back several years.

Years.

This man had been stalking her for years.

And now he had her.

He’d been up since midnight the day before, going on twenty-seven hours now, and he’d only gotten three hours sleep before that.

Middle of the night phone calls went with the job, in his going on nine years as a homicide detective it wasn’t the first time he’d worked more than twenty-four hours straight and it wouldn’t be the last.

Throwing back the covers he climbed into bed, but no sooner had he turned off the lights, put his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes than his phone rang.

With a groan Tyler sat back up, switched on the lamp on his nightstand and picked up his cell phone. Expecting to see his boss or his partner’s name on the screen instead he was surprised at the name that flashed up.

“Mollie, what’s up?” he asked as he answered.

“Its Macey,” Mollie sobbed, she was obviously upset and that got a ball of panic rolling in his stomach.

“What about her?” It had been six months since he and Macey had broken up, and while he had thought about her every single day he wasn’t a part of her life anymore, and he had no idea why her sister was calling him at one in the morning.

“She’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“She went on a blind date tonight and she was supposed to call me when she got home but i haven’t heard from her,” Mollie explained.

A date.

The idea of Macey on a date made his stomach churn.

“Look, Mollie, its nothing to worry about I’m sure, they probably just hit it off and went back to his place.” Tyler had to force those words out, Macey having sex with another man was a repulsive notion but it was the more likely scenario.

“She wouldn’t, you know that, Ty. Macey doesn’t have sex with men on the first date, especially not a blind date. She was going to be home by midnight and call me immediately so I knew she was okay, she wouldn’t make me worry, if she were going to spend the night with him she would have at least sent me a text. Something is wrong, I can feel it, please can you just look into it? I know the guy, he works with me, I don’t know him well but he saw a photo of Macey and he wouldn’t stop talking about her. I thought it would be good for her to start dating again but what if I set her up with some crazy serial killer?”

“Calm down, Mollie, I think thats unlikely. I’m sure you’ll hear from her in the morning. I have to go. Really, I’m sure everything will be fine,” he added because he felt bad that he was cutting her off when she was obviously worried, but he just couldn’t deal with the idea of Macey with another man. He still loved her and the more time they were apart the less he could remember why it was they had broken up in the first place.

“If anything happens to her, Tyler, I won’t ever forget that you weren’t there for her when she needed you,” Mollie screamed before hanging up.

Guilt speared him.

Not being there for her was what had broken them up last time, Mollie was scared endnote pulling her punches.

But what were the chances that she’d gone on a date with someone who had hurt her?

Macey pulled her phone from her purse when it buzzed with a message.

Was it him?

Was he calling to cancel?

It had been so long since she’d been on a date, and she’d never been on a blind date before. She wouldn’t have gone on this one only her sister had told her that six months of moping over the break-up with her longterm boyfriend was long enough and had set her up with a guy from her office.

With a herd of elephants sized nerves in her stomach and a shaking hand she managed to get her phone out and smiled when she saw the message.

😍 love it

Love what? she typed back.

You, you look stunning

Glancing up when she read the message she found a man standing just a few feet away grinning at her.

“George I presume,” she said, holding out her hand.

He took it, kissed it, then said, “And you must be the beautiful Macey. I’ve heard so much about you from your sister and it is an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his sweet words. Tyler, her ex, hadn’t spoken like that to her, he’d been all alpha and while he’d never been disrespectful to her he was an ex-military turned cop whose idea of a date was to take her to the shooting range, the idea of dressing up and going to dinner and a show would never have occurred to him.

“I can’t wait to see where we’re going for dinner,” she said, unable to stop smiling, maybe this whole blind date thing wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d thought.

“Well, if you’ll follow me to my car you can find out.” He took her hand, set it on his elbow and began to lead her through the busy Friday night foot traffic towards a brand new, shiny black car.

“You don’t want to give me a hint?”

“Nope, no hints.” George opened the back door of his car, “Sorry, the front seat is filled with papers for work, you don’t mind sitting in the back do you? Its only a couple of blocks to where we’re going.”

“Oh, no, its fine,” she said, thinking it was odd, but sliding into the back of the car anyway. It wasn’t until he closed the door behind her that she realised there weren’t any doorhandles. There was a partition between the back and the front of the car.

She was trapped.

Clinging to the hope that this was all a misunderstanding when George slid into the driver’s seat the smile he threw her over his shoulder was a mixture of creepy and malevolent.

This wasn’t a date, it was a kidnapping.