Heather had known immediately that something was really wrong when Michelle was missing last night. Now evidence was mounting that whatever happened had been carefully planned, probably long in advance.
Her next call was to Professor Vincent Middleton in California. She was bounced around at Stanford University and finally got him between classes. When she brought him up to date on Michelle’s disappearance, he told her that detectives in the Hawaii Police Department wanted him to come to Hawaii and give a deposition about how he and Michelle had been dumped into the ocean near the island of Kauai from Omar’s helicopter.
Vincent said he’d been putting them off, but decided to come in on the next available flight. He’d call Heather back to tell her when he would arrive. He said he had a pretty good idea about where Omar had taken Michelle, and why. Heather was curious about his idea of what Omar was up to, but he had to get to a meeting and hung up abruptly.
When Heather left Michelle’s apartment, she was pondering about what to do next to find her friend. There were heart-breaking, sad, Lucifer yowls as she went down the hallway, mimicking how she felt.
She couldn’t stand it and turned back.
The cat jumped in her arms when she opened the door. “You don’t want to be left all alone, do you?” Heather said. She went into the kitchen and got cat bowls and food and put them in a bag. Heather looked around the apartment and picked up a tall, surprisingly heavy scratching post to take with her. She didn’t want Lucifer tearing up her furniture while he trimmed his nails during the time she was cat-sitting. She saw some rings and balls, Lucifer’s toys, and put them in the bag with the food and started carrying the cat, cat tree and bag back to her apartment.
As she went down the hallway she remembered an important missing item. Lucifer needed his potty paraphernalia. She went back to Michelle’s and bagged the sand-box in a garbage bag and added a bag of kitty sand to carry to her apartment.
As she staggered down the hallway, with Lucifer purring in her ear, she saw Mike sitting in front of her door. He was laughing as he took the bag and cat tree from her. She handed him her key to open the door.
“You’re such a softie. I see you’ll be boarding a tiny kitty for a while,” Mike said. “He sure has a lot of personal stuff for such a little guy.”
Heather tried to act dignified. “He was lonesome.”
“Anthromorphism,” Mike said.
“What?”
“Assigning human emotions to an animal,” Mike said. “But you’re totally justified. I heard him crying from all the way down the hallway when you left Michelle’s apartment.”
Heather smiled; she didn’t have to explain anything to him.
They went inside her apartment and set everything up. Dishes of food and water for the cat in the kitchen, toys and cat tree in the living room. As they were completing the tasks, Heather told Mike that Michelle’s boyfriend, Rod, would be arriving to help them and that the famous professor of the occult, Vincent Middleton, would also come as soon as he could get a flight from San Francisco to Honolulu.
They watched Lucifer prowl the apartment as they talked. Much to Heather’s relief, Lucifer was ignoring Mike as if he didn’t exist. At least he wasn’t attacking every stranger now. Maybe Michelle had a calming influence on the little animal.
A curious cat, evidently. He covered every room and seemed to pause and sniff at anything he found interesting. He leaped on the kitchen counter and noisily crunched on some kibble.
“I sent the pictures of the orgy in his penthouse to Omar’s phone,” Mike said. “I almost wish I didn’t have to do it anonymously. I’d be interested to see how he’d respond.”
“As long as he doesn’t go into a rage and take it out on Michelle,” Heather said.
“You sound pretty sure he really has her. It’s a very serious crime if she went unwillingly.”
“I wish this was something easy, like a kidnapping. Then all we’d have to do is wait for a ransom call and pay the greedy bastard. But if Omar’s got Michelle, you can be sure she didn’t go willingly, and that he has something much more devious in mind than a simple payment to release her.”
Mike nodded, “Doesn’t seem like he’s hurting for cash. I agree, money is not his objective.”
Chapter 9
Michelle was aware of bright lights that seared, even though her closed eyelids, as she came slowly to consciousness. She attempted to turn on her side, away from the glaring light, but was unable to move. Her arm was attached to something and she jerked it, still half asleep, and felt a sharp intense stab of pain from her inner right forearm.
That abruptly woke her. She slit her eyes open just a bit, because the overhead lights were intense, and found herself lying in bed in a small room that was all white. White walls, a white ceiling, and blindingly bright fluorescent lights above her.
Her eyes went to the arm that was stinging. A needle was inside the vein, held there by transparent tape. It led to a tube, which went up to a bag of fluid on a stand, dripping medicine in her arm. She could feel the cold liquid seeping from the needle into her vein. She wondered with alarm if she’d been in an accident. This was obviously a hospital.
She could hear laughter outside the door and the movement of wheels squeaking. Her throat hurt when she called out, “Hello?”
After Michelle had been raped and badly hurt a few years ago, she’d had an operation. The intense thirst, wake-up disorientation, and sore throat were
