“He’s twenty months. His sister should arrive in about another six weeks.”
“Oh, how wonderful. Where’s the father?”
“He’s inside talking to the deacons about the upcoming deacon’s meeting. Do you go to this church? I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”
“No, I just happened to be in this area, and I noticed you are pregnant, so I thought I’d stop and say ‘Hello.’ I think it’s wonderful that your husband serves with the Deacons.” Pausing for effect, she said, “Say do you mind if I feel the baby inside you? I just love children. If I’m being inappropriate, you can just tell me.”
At first, the woman looked at her with concern. The she relented, and said, “Sure. Go ahead.”
Making sure the she would be unaware of what she had in mind, her glowing red eyes held the unwitting woman in a trance. “You’ll not remember a thing that has happened; not even meeting me,” she intoned. As the woman’s eyes looked straight ahead, seeing but perceiving nothing, Poisonous put her hands on the woman’s belly, and sharp claws sank into the flesh of the woman’s protrusion. Poison injected into the uterus, and the growing life inside flailed helplessly as the poison overtook her. Within two minutes after flailing arms and feet made battle with the poison, the baby girl lost the fight, and became still.
The woman came to, and smiled. Did you feel her kick?”
“Oh, yes. She’s a strong little kicker.”
“By the way, my name’s Terry Foster.”
“I’m Perri Loliyekar. It’s been nice to meet you, Terry. Maybe I’ll catch up with you another time.”
* * *
That afternoon
Terry felt a strong, sharp pain in her abdomen, and cried out.
Her husband, Ken looked at her with alarm, and asked, “Are you okay, honey?”
“No…I …” Another sharper stab at her midsection caused her to double over again, followed shortly thereafter by her blood running down her legs.” On the verge of tears, she started shaking. “Ken, I’m afraid. I think I might be having a miscarriage. Take me to the hospital right away.”
“Absolutely, honey.” He pulled her gently towards the car, grabbing a towel on the way out to catch the blood. In a very short time, they arrived at George Washington Hospital. “My wife needs a wheelchair,” he practically shouted. A medic pushed a wheelchair towards her and they both gently lowered her into it. Quickly moving into the Emergency Room, they laid Terry on the table, and exposed her groin. By now, blood was coming out in great volume, and another sharp pain folded her body in two from the middle.
As the gynecologist, a Doctor Washington, inserted a speculum, she shook her head. “There’s no movement from the baby.”
A few moments later, Terry cried out as she went into forced labor. After several grueling pushes, a stillborn baby girl left her body.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Terry said, and started crying, and though her husband held her hand, she would not be consoled. Ken could do nothing more than weep himself.
“Why has the Lord done this to us?” she demanded, her tears turning to anger.
“I don’t know, honey. I just can’t explain this. You seemed fine until this afternoon.”
A few moments later, a tech ran up to Dr. Washington, and said, “There was a strong poison in the baby’s body.”
Both she and Ken gaped in horror. “You mean, my body poisoned my child?”
“I’m afraid we’re unsure of how the poison got there. There is no trace in your blood.”
She wept even harder. “My baby has been killed—poisoned, and I don’t know how or why.”
* * *
Monday, July 21ST 07:45
He had just finished his first sip of coffee, trying to shake off the weariness he felt since he had delved into this case. Dan leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and turned back to tackling this case. Copious notes displayed on his electronic document, and he decided to review them to see if he could glean any clues. It did seem that many underground operations, some of which were based here in D.C. flourished because of the Dark Web. The advantage sleazy entrepreneurs of illicit drugs, armaments, and trafficking or pornography was because the Dark Web kept them very anonymous, and off the trail of users of the regular Internet. Samantha Boyle had disappeared, along with a couple more young girls from this area.
There had to be something to this. If he could just infiltrate some of the traffickers here in D.C., he might be able to make them give up information about other sellers of human souls. So far, all the young girls had been picked up by complete strangers, and taken away in a car, a train—including the Metro trains—and typically taken to a place far away; sometimes within an hour’s drive; sometimes across country or even the world. He remembered the case of a girl who had just graduated from High School in Alabama who was kidnapped while she was on a trip to a Dutch island in the Caribbean. She had long since been declared dead, since there was no hope of ever finding her body, which could be decomposed to dry bones by now. He shuddered, knowing that a similar fate could happen to anyone kidnapped, be it for trafficking or not.
In fact, many of the girls who had been kidnapped often ended up dead from disease or neglect. He fought to gain his composure, and popped two five hundred milligram ibuprofen pills to ease his throbbing headache. As if on cue, his phone rang.
“Hightower.”
“Dan, got some more good news for you,” said Stan Lindhall on the other end of the line. “Seems a beat cop recognized a woman matching the profile of the woman on the Metro when Samantha Boyle disappeared. Turns out she was present when a young
