John Steel Collection - Books 1-3

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The city was alive with hordes of commuters heading off to work, streets heaving with the morning traffic. At the same time, subway stations were packed with jostling, impatient people. The streets were full of people who moved in long processions. Keen to escape the mayhem of Manhattan in the morning.

Marie-Ann Talbot was a businesswoman who bought and sold real estate in the city and had several fingers in many other pies.

For Marie-Ann Talbot, pursuing her business interests was not about the money but the thrill of it all.

Having finished her ‘daily shock’ workout at the gym, she was eager to work. Coffee in hand, she waited at the side of the road for a cab when her phone rang. She pressed the activation button on her earpiece to answer the call. ‘Hello?’ she said. Her voice was soft but had a slight gravelly tone to it.

She wore grey sweat-suit bottoms and a white t-shirt that clung to her ample breasts, and her tall, athletic figure cast a pleasing shadow in the morning sun.

Marie-Ann’s secretary, Jenna, was on the other end of the line, and they spoke for a while about a property that had just come on the market.

A yellow cab came screeching to a halt next to her, she climbed into its rear, and the lock clicked as she pulled the heavy door shut, engaging the deadbolt.

‘Forty-second, please,’ Marie-Ann instructed.

The cabbie just raised a hand to confirm he had heard her and nudged the cab into the traffic flow.

Marie-Ann continued her conversation and flicked through a magazine she had purchased earlier that morning.

‘I tell you, Jenna, the place was huge, and the view was…’ she broke off her conversation to call to the driver. ‘Hey, buddy, where the hell are you taking me?’

She looked up and saw that they were going over the Brooklyn Bridge. Fear set her heart racing.

‘Hey, fella, I am not some tourist. I live here! Take me back, you asshole!’ She pounded her fists on the security glass between them till they throbbed with pain. Marie-Ann grasped at the door handles and banged on the window, hoping that someone would see her plight, but no one paid any attention. Finally, after a while, she stopped.

Strangely Marie-Ann felt tired, so very tired.

A new fear swept over her as she realised that her tiredness was not natural, but before she could work out what had happened, she fell into blackness like no other, a sleep from which Marie-Ann felt as if she’d never wake.

Marie-Ann swam back into consciousness. She blinked several times to help her eyes adjust. Finally, she tried to sit up, but, to her horror, she was unable to.

What was wrong, she wondered? Where was she?

Marie-Ann struggled but found she had been strapped down. Her arms, legs, and head were bound, and why was her head secured?

Marie-Ann could hear a faint sound in the room, something distant; no, not distant, slight. She strained to hear what it was and where it was coming from.

The noise got louder.

She concluded that it was music, a kind of chiming, from a music box or watch.

‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?’ Marie-Ann called out. It wasn’t so much for help but to find out if someone else was in the room.

The chimes seemed to be moving around her, not getting closer, just circling. She almost felt like a zoo animal being stared at. Around and around, the direction of the sound seemed to be travelling, but not quickly. She listened harder and could almost hear footsteps mixed with strange breathing. The music stayed in place for a moment; it seemed near her head. Suddenly she felt something moving across her hair. It was not an animal. No, it was more like fingers gently brushing across the top of her scalp.

Marie-Ann started to shake uncontrollably. Sweat began to pour across her brow as she was seized with the fear of not knowing who her captor was and not knowing his intentions. Her imagination was going wild with images of what this maniac could be capable of. This was too much for her to bear.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ Marie-Ann begged. ‘I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ve got plenty of money in the bank, but please don’t kill me.’

She sobbed uncontrollably, hoping that this stranger might feel compassion for her.

‘You will give me whatever I want. Promise?’ said a strange voice.

That voice sent shivers down her spine. His tone was calm and lucid, yet the pitch was a mishmash of highs and lows, like nails running down violin strings. Almost as if they had been recorded separately. But most of all, Marie-Ann sensed the pleasure behind the eerie murmur that filled her ears. Before she longed for someone to speak, she now yearned for the previous deathly silence.

‘Now, there is no need to cry, my dear,’ said the voice.

His sickly sweet, now oddly high-pitched voice rang in her ears. She couldn’t move her head at all, so she tried imagining a face that might belong to this brute, but nothing in her worst nightmares could conjure something that obscene. Something deep inside her wanted to see his face, just to see what someone who could truss her up like that could look like. Something primal in her soul needed to look him in the eyes. A tear rolled down her face, and she felt a gentle hand brush it away. As she stared up at the dimly lit ceiling, she could make out a shadow here and there, and then a shape in the distance came closer. She blinked for a second or two, trying to focus better in the dim light, but as she opened them again, she was greeted by a face with wide, manic eyes and a smile that froze her with terror.

‘So, you would give me anything I want?’ he repeated. His smile widened, and his brow creased with a scowl. ‘I like your eyes, my dear. They’re so blue I have never seen anything like them.’

‘Th… Tha…thank you,’ she replied, somewhat shocked by the change in mood.

‘No, I am afraid you misunderstand me. I really like your eyes.’

Marie-Ann saw the strange instrument come into focus above her right eye for a brief second, and then there was blackness.

Marie-Ann’s screams and the chimes from the pocket watch filled her ears.

But the chimes continued, even long after Marie-Ann’s screams had faded as she finally passed out.