Kidnap, Part 7

Kidnap
slimv2001@yahoo.com
Part 7

 Detective Ferguson was interrogating an armed robbery suspect when Marsha
knocked on the glass window and interrupted him.

"You have a collect call on line 1," she said.  "It sounds urgent so I
accepted the charges and put him on hold.  Do you want to take it at your
desk?"

Marsha was a good secretary and had never done any thing like this before.
"Who the hell is it?" he asked.

"Well," said Marsha.  "It was a definitely a man's voice but he called him
self Linda Torrance."

"I'll take it at my desk," he said.

Ferguson walked briskly like a man on a mission.  One unlucky detective
didn't move fast enough and became a victim of Ferguson's girth.  It couldn't
be Pete Torrance, he thought.  He would never call him self-Linda, and he's
not the kind of guy to call collect.  He picked up the phone and pushed the
line button without sitting down.  "This is Detective Ferguson", he said into
the phone. "Who is this?"

"Linda Torrance is still alive," said the voice on the other end.  "If you
say another word, I'll hang up the phone and you won't find her until she's
dead.  "But if you listen carefully and write down these instructions you'll
find her relatively unharmed."

Ferguson breathed not a word as he wrote down the instructions to the
abandoned farmhouse.  Dial tone erupted on the other end.  The anonymous
caller and probable hoaxer hung up.

Ferguson tore the instructions from the legal pad and raced to the parking
deck.  He had a cell phone in the car but wouldn't call Pete Torrance until
he checked out the situation.

He turned on his siren and raced down the interstate following the directions
on the paper.  In front of him stood the abandoned farmhouse just as the
caller had described.  He jumped out of his car and raced inside with his gun
drawn.

A blond haired wild woman sat taped to a chair in the middle of the room
screaming.  The woman in the chair looked nothing like the woman in the
Christmas photo.  

She wasn't screaming for him to untie her or thanking him for showing up so
promptly.  She was screaming at him to give her a cigarette.  She must be
insane he thought as he cut through the duct tape with his pocketknife.

Free at last, she fell on to the floor and fumbled for the pack of Pall Malls
and the lighter.  Ferguson stared in disbelief as she lit the unfiltered
cigarette and sucked on it madly.  He said nothing as she lit a second and
then a third.  He wondered what was going on.  A look of sanity slowly came
over her as she lit her 5th cigarette.

"Mrs. Torrance?  Is that your name?  Are you Linda Torrance?" asked the
detective.

Linda said nothing.  She just nodded her head and puffed contently on the
Pall Mall.

He reached down to help her off the floor.  She came up gently but exploded
in rage when he tried to pick up her purse.

"My cigarettes are in there!" she screamed at him.

"Its OK Mrs. Torrance.  We can take them with us.  You can smoke in the car."

"I can?" she asked.

"Yes", said the detective.  "You can."

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