Chapter 27
The man had to work fast. Fast made for mistakes. He pulled the mask down over his face. The veterinary tech turned to lock the door. He slid from his hiding place in the bushes, pushed the barrel of the toy gun into her back and said, “Don’t scream, don’t struggle, don’t run and you will live.”
The woman tensed and took a deep breath. He grabbed her mouth with his gloved hand and hissed, “I told you not to scream!”
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The woman fainted and would have fallen to the ground if he let her. This was good. He had already disabled the security camera. He had watched through binoculars and knew the security code. He carried her under one arm like a bag of groceries, dropped her on the floor and punched the code into the alarm.
He began to relax and stopped himself. He could not afford to relax. He scooped the woman up and carried her back into the storage room. He carried one of the sturdy chairs with arms from the waiting room into the storage room. The woman began to stir. He synched her arms and legs to the chair with the cable ties he bought at the electronics store. She shuddered and opened her mouth to scream. He shoved the rag into her mouth and squatted in front of her and waited, watching her.
She wouldn’t have been bad looking if she took care of herself. She was petite, brown haired, brown eyed, and painfully passive. He had followed her home from the veterinary clinic. She had walked to the apartment nearly a mile away and had a half hour conversation with her cats before sitting down to soup and bread for dinner. She had a phone in the place, but mostly used her cell phone. When he lifted the phone out of her purse, he saw that she only had seven names on her contact list. She had not made or received any calls in four days other than to her own apartment. He had been in the apartment once when she called. She used the cell phone to call her home phone and listen to the cats about once an hour. And then around lunch she would call and talk to them on the phone that sat near enough to the floor for even the sickest one to rub up against when they heard her voice.
The woman sniffed and dribbled in spite of the gag. The man reached out his left hand. On the back of his hand was a slightly reddened area where there was once a small, faded tattoo of a shamrock. She would not meet his gaze. He held her chin firmly in his strong left hand. Her eyes darted to his and then looked away again. Her brown eyes were huge and could have been beautiful. The dark circles under her eyes and the look of panic did not help.
The man knew her name. He knew her social security number. He knew that she was the only surviving child of a family of five. He knew that her family had been killed in a car wreck seventeen years before. He knew she had received a huge insurance settlement as a minor and lived off the annuity interest. He knew the woman did not need to work. The woman loved animals.
“Margaret June Mayfield. You live at 707 Great Jones Street in apartment #32. You are 33 years old. You are single and have four cats. Hermione, Leona, Margaret Jr., and Tom. I am not going to hurt you if you do exactly as I say. More importantly, I will not hurt your cats. I am going to take your gag out now. I don’t want you to scream. I don’t want you to try to escape. I simply need your help. If I take your gag out will you be quiet?”
Margaret nodded her head violently up and down.
The man reached over and pulled out the gag.
“Mr., Please, I don’t know what your name is, please, please, I will give you whatever you want, but, please, please, Tom is very ill, a diabetic cat who needs medicine, needs it in a few minutes, so I must, must get home please, please, I won’t say anything to anybody about this, and I promise, I promise, please, please, I will do anything you ask, just let me get home to take care of Tom, he is my only boy and he is so sick and you have to let me go home and help him please, what information do you need, please I have to get home to help Tom, just ask…”
He put his hand over Margaret’s mouth and said, “Margaret, if you want Tom to get his medicine, if you want to be able to walk to take care of him, use your arms to open the refrigerator, use your hands to give him his shot, you must be quiet. Do you understand?”
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Margaret’s nodded violently again. The man pulled his hand back. Margaret opened her mouth. The man raised his left index finger to his lips and made a shushing sound.