Lucifer's Apostles

Lucifer's Apostles Episode 10

Sally woke early this morning and saw the raindrops falling on the skylight above her head. You had no idea how many things you would miss when they were no longer there. The feel of raindrops on your face when you look up at the sky, the smell of flowers and freshly cut lawns. The hardest one of them all was not seeing the people you loved.

She was not sure whether she was experiencing the Stockholm syndrome or not. She found herself becoming attracted to her main captor. Sally would lay in bed thinking of him. She then felt ashamed of her actions. How and why would she like him? He was holding her against her will.

Five different handlers would come in at various times, although it was usually him. Sally had asked him his name several times. She just needed a name to call him.

Around dusk, the lights would flick on in her room. It would be dimmed later in the evening and then turned off completely. Sally had no idea what the time was, let alone the date. She had tried to count the days but lost count, having nothing to mark them off. She knew it was around the middle of January. Her birthday was the sixteenth. It would be nice to have a lot more in the future.

Her train of thought was broken when The Man entered the room holding a tray. “You were awake early this morning. I thought I’d bring you in an early breakfast. I know you like your porridge, but a change isn’t bad. I cooked you some scrambled eggs and toast”.

“That’d be nice”, she replied, trying to smile even though it hurt like crazy. She felt butterflies in her stomach. What was going on? She looked away, confused about her feelings, and then looked back at him with another smile.

“You look like you want to laugh, but you’re scared it’ll hurt too much. What’s so funny”? he asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you”, she said. Nobody would. She would have been institutionalised if he had been a psychiatrist. She took the tray from him and continued, “I want to know your name. It’d be nice if you told me your real name. If you can’t do that for me, then make one up”.

“What do you want me to say?” He paused and said, “Everyone calls me Snake”, with a big grin.

“You liar”, she said, laughing even though it hurt, “You are not called Snake”.

He smiled, “I’m not lying. My girlfriend in school caught me kissing another girl at a dance and called me a snake, and the name stuck. I wish I could trust you enough to go near you. I have been kneed in the groin twice since I’ve been here”. He sat at the edge of the bed, away from her.

“Well, Snake, thanks for breakfast, it’s delicious. Please give my compliments to the chef”, Sally told him.

“I’m the chef”, he said, “I know it’s a step up for me. It’s fairly hard to mess up scrambled eggs”.

“I can do it quite easily”, she replied.

The Man stood to leave, “I hope your mouth is a little better today. It still looks sore. I have a couple of chores to do. I’ll try and come back before the day ends”.

“You’d better, Snake. I expect to see you soon”, she said as he left and shut the door.

***

Katie had returned to her office, trying not to think about Tank. It was like a schoolgirl infatuation. She needed to clear her head and regain her thoughts. She looked at the list of names Ned had put in the file on her desk.

Sally Bradford aged twenty-four.

Destinee Brady aged twenty-eight.

Donna Jacobs aged thirty-one.

Deborah Roberts aged twenty-seven.

Juniper Saunders aged twenty-one.

Nadia Shahi aged twenty-six.

Jacinta Tyson aged twenty-two.

Five of the seven women had been reported missing in the last three weeks. The other two, Donna Jacobs and Juniper Saunders, had gone missing two months ago. Deborah Roberts was, unfortunately, already accounted for. Her records and Ned’s files also showed that the body of Juniper Saunders had been discovered.

Katie looked up Juniper’s autopsy report. She remembered it as soon as she brought it up on her monitor. Juniper Saunders, 21 years of age, 172 cm in height, 66 kg in weight, brown hair dyed blonde, hazel-coloured eyes. The cause of death was asphyxiation. The hyoid bone in her throat was fractured, petechiae (red spots) in her eyes and swollen lips. A rope made the ligature wounds with fibres embedded in her neck.

The homicide detectives brought in Juniper’s boyfriend, Jackson Saunders, for questioning the day after discovering her body. After an extensive interrogation, he broke down and admitted killing Juniper with a tie-down rope in the back of his pickup. Jackson had accused Juniper of flirting with a stranger the previous night. An argument ensued. As Juniper walked off, Jackson grabbed the rope and swung it over Juniper’s head. Juniper turned as Jackson pulled the rope tight, forcing her to her knees. Jackson said that he had seen Juniper struggle and reach out. His temper had gone to the point of no return. He held the rope firm until her body went limp.

Once the adrenaline had slowed down, Jackson panicked. He picked Juniper’s limp body up and placed her gently into the passenger’s side of the ute. After strapping her in with the seatbelt, he drove down the highway until he pulled off the road into a dense bushland. There, he buried Juniper’s body under branches and rocks he found nearby. A forestry worker, believing he was looking for a dead animal that he could smell, found Juniper’s body.

Although witnesses had spotted her twice since her disappearance, Donna Jacobs had still not been located. Missing Persons believed she had escaped an abusive relationship with her husband and did not wish to be found. The case was still open. It was not being investigated as a priority.

That left four women unaccounted for, one of which could potentially be the next victim. Katie thought it would be improbable that all four women would be in danger. Just as she was about to look at the reports of the remaining four women, Tank walked into her office. Katie looked up and smiled. “Hi”, was all she could blurt out.

“Hey again”, Tank replied. He looked at the file pages strewn across her desk, “You have been a busy little beaver. Has it been as productive as your desk suggests?”

“Nothing new, Tank, what about you?” she asked.

“A witness who resides in the same apartment block as Nadia Shahi remembered seeing a white delivery van in the complex’s parking area blocking Nadia’s car. The witness claimed that the van was not a Toyota HiAce. It was a Nissan NV200. He knew the model because his brother’s business had the same. It had different number plates on it to his brothers, although it had a dent in the front passenger’s side door, in the same place as the Nissan his brother owned. He wrote down the number plate when he went upstairs to his unit and grabbed what he had gone to his apartment for, then went back down to his car and back to work. The van was gone when he returned to the car parking area”. Tank said, “The van was found this morning. Ron Williams and his team are going over it now. He told me not to expect anything. He said a bleach bomb had exploded inside, and the outside looked to have been scrubbed clean”.

“What on earth is a bleach bomb?” Katie asked?

“It’s a mixture of bleach and ammonia poured into a plastic bottle. The pressure from the chlorine gas expands and causes the bottle to explode. When they shatter, they clean away all trace evidence”, Tank replied. “Out of the seven names on Ned’s list, it seems that Nadia Shahi was taken by our unsubs. I just popped in to see what you were doing for lunch”.

“I could do with a break. My mind starts to hurt after a while”, Katie said. “What did you have in mind”?

“Your pick, my treat”, he said with a smile.

Katie stood up. “If that is the case, who sells the most expensive fillet mignon?” she said, loving the schoolgirl feeling she was experiencing.

***

Maria sat on her bed, having no idea what was happening. No one had come into the room she was in. She was onto her second bottle of water. She had urinated twice in the bedpan already. She thought that someone would have been in to empty it. She was hungry and, most of all, angry, her wrist and hand hurt. It was hot in the room, even with the air conditioner trying to keep the temperature down.

She had calmed down overnight and stopped struggling to get out of the wrist cuffs. Her hand was sore. You could see the purple bruising around the base of her thumb. Having next to no sleep through the night, her mental aptitude was at an all-time low. What plan would be best suited for the situation she had found herself in? What would her father do? Should she be nice to her abductor when she first saw him?

Maria had many questions. None of which had answers in the mental state she found herself in. Maria stood and walked towards the door, coming to a sudden halt when the chain could not extend further. Had her ears deceived her, she wondered? It sounded like the plate affixed to the floor had moved a little. Maria tugged on the chain and listened. She was sure that it did. It was only slight, but it was there.

Her hand was too sore to pull on it too often. Patience was a virtue her father often told her. That is precisely what she would do. She would wait a little, pull on the chain several times, rest and do it again. The plan was not brilliant. It was the best she had for now.