She had been kept in some sort of a crate, like a large dog kennel. It was dark most of the time and she was wearing restraints. Every once in a while, a small panel opened in the top and a water bottle and power bars were thrown in. She had not been allowed out to exercise or use the facilities. She figured out fairly quickly that was why the plastic bags had been left in the crate. Despite having double- and triple-bagged her waste, the crate smelled putrid. She could only imagine what she smelled and looked like at this point.
Though she’d been drugged, she remembered the splitting pain in her ears. She had never done well equalizing pressure when flying and normally wore custom earplugs that helped her avoid barotraumas. Wherever they had transported her, they had made multiple stops along the way. When they had reached their destination, the crate had been placed inside some sort of a truck. It had been a diesel vehicle. She could tell by the sound of the engine and the smell of the fumes. The truck had driven for some time until it finally ended up where she was now.
Without a watch or any natural light with which to mark the passage of time, she had no idea what day it was or how long she had been gone. Surely people were looking for her by now. Hopefully they had started looking when she didn’t show up for work Monday morning. The CEO of a successful hedge fund didn’t just go missing without people noticing.
More than once during her ordeal she had chastised herself for not taking her board up on its suggestion that she have bodyguards. She’d always thought the idea ridiculous. If she were a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett, she might have considered it, but she was Betsy Mitchell. She was an approachable, popular-cause-promoting finance guru. People didn’t want to harm her; they wanted to hug her. Besides, she used to joke, when was the last time you ever heard of an American executive being kidnapped in the United States? When knowledgeable people ran the stats down for her, she’d laugh them off. Betsy Mitchell was all about budgets and bottom lines, not bodyguards. Until, that is, she was taken.
As little as she knew about being kidnapped, she did know that if your kidnappers hid their faces that was a good sign. It meant that you would be free at some point and they didn’t want you to be able to identify them.
When the door to her crate was opened, she found the sight of the powerfully built man, crouched on his haunches with a green glow stick, jarring. He wore coveralls and a smiling Guy Fawkes mask, the kind popular in anticapitalist movements.
Though the mask was unsettling, its choice told her something about the people who had taken her. If they had done their homework into who she was, which they very likely had, they would know that she supported many popular causes likely aligned with theirs. Whatever their beef, she was not their enemy. She had simply been chosen because her company would pay to get her back. It was an easy score. In desperate economic times, people turned to desperate measures. She hoped that they understood that she appreciated their struggle. Under different circumstances, she might have even freely contributed to whatever their cause was.
That made little difference now. She was their prisoner. And while the tough businesswoman in her wanted to see if she could talk them into letting her go, there was something about the eyes behind the mask that shook her self-preservation instinct to the core and told her to keep her mouth shut and do what she was told.
He beckoned her out of the cage with his gloved hand. She did as she was instructed.
In the corners of the room, he had placed other chemical lights, which cast the space in an eerie, green pall. It was difficult to tell where she was. The space was dirty and industrial, constructed of brick and concrete.
As she neared the front of the cage, he grabbed a fistful of her thick brown hair and twisted so hard she could hear her scalp begin to pop as it tore away. She screamed and he struck her across the face with the glow stick.
He slammed her face against the floor and then slid something underneath her neck. She had no idea what it was until he let go of her hair and she could feel him fumbling with a buckle of some sort. She was being fitted with a collar. Why? Was he trying to humiliate her? Were they going to make some sort of a video to send with their ransom demand? There were a million questions flying through her mind, not one of which she dared to ask. The side of her face where she had been struck with the glow stick still hurt. She had no desire to incur the man’s wrath any further. For right now, she would keep her questions to herself. Whoever this man was, he meant business.
Inside the cage, she had been free to move around, but now, once the collar was attached, the man jerked her the rest of the way out and restrained her hands behind her back again. Her legs, though, were left alone. This brought even more questions to her mind, most too hideous even to contemplate, and she tried to block all of them out. She would know the man’s intent soon enough.
After being cooped up in the cramped cage, her legs were sore and her joints stiff. She had trouble walking, and this angered the man in the Guy Fawkes mask, who had to half drag her to the far side of the room, where a metal ring had been bolted into the wall.
There was a length of chain hanging from it, which he then affixed to her collar. With her hands secured behind her back, there was no possible way she could free herself. She was able to at least stand and move around a little bit, and it felt good to be on her feet again once more and no longer folded up inside the fetid metal box.
The man in the mask stood back and stared at her, assessing her. Slowly, he put his hands out in front of himself and began to do calisthenics. He started with squats and he motioned for her to follow suit. He was encouraging her to limber up. Why? Were they letting her go? The thought was too good to be true, but instead of banishing it from her mind, she embraced it. They are going to let me go! She repeated the thought over and over again in her mind.
Once she had gone through the series of exercises, the man in the mask removed what looked like a small digital audio recorder. He held it out so she could see it clearly and he activated its PLAY button.
The male voice that came from the speaker was upbeat and dramatic as it overaccentuated its words. “Please repeat after me,” it said. “Lucy Lockett lost her pocket, Sally Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon ’round it.”
She had no idea what bizarre game the man in the mask was playing at. Her silence aggravated him. Rewinding the message, he forcefully extended the recorder out to her and played it again.
“Please repeat after me,” the digital voice said. “Lucy Lockett lost her pocket, Sally Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon ’round it.”
She was understandably scared and her mind wasn’t working as well as it normally did. “Sally Fisher lost her locket,” she stammered.
Drawing his free hand back, the man in the mask struck her across the face again. He rewound the message and thrust the recorder at her once more.
“Please repeat after me,” the digital voice said. “Lucy Lockett lost her pocket, Sally Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon ’round it.”
She could taste blood in her mouth this time. The man’s violence terrified her. She now knew what she had seen in his eyes that was so unsettling. The man was a killer and as sure as she was standing there, if he felt her life needed to be ended, he would do it.
Please let me get this right. Please, God, let me get it right. I just want to leave. I just want to go home.
“Lucy Lockett lost her pocket, Sally Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon ’round it,” she said, picking up speed right at the end as she knew she had it.
The man in the mask gestured for her to do it again.
She did and with more confidence. “Lucy Lockett lost her pocket, Sally Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon ’round it.”