Page 65 of Love Undecided
Chapter 28
Kat
The hospital is abuzz with activity even though it’s still before dawn. We head toward Sofia Carter’s room. Detective Sherman catches up with us before we get there.
“Good, you’re both here. I can catch you up on what we know so far so we can make any necessary connections.”
He proceeds to fill us in on what little Sofia was able to tell them, which jives with what her friends also reported. She was walking home from school with her two friends and she thinks she remembers a police officer. Everything after that is hazy.
She thinks she slept a lot and drank a lot of either juice or something like a smoothie and that she wet the bed a few times. Sherman confirms that she was already showing some signs of Flunitrazepam withdrawal - restlessness, muscle pain, confusion and some delirium.
I look to Sherman, I have to know. “Did she say if he did anything to her?”
Sherman sighs heavily. “There is no evidence of rape or any kind of penetration, thank God. We’re going to have psych talk to her when she’s a bit more coherent, but if she doesn’t remember anything it probably won’t do any good. It sounds like he just took her and drugged the shit out of her, so now we’ve got to figure out why.”
Bauer looks at me once Sherman has moved on. He looks worried and I don’t blame him.
“It sounds like we got lucky, for lack of a better word, with Sofia Carter, but who is to say we’ll have that same luck again with Madison Taylor? And why did he bring her back? Not that I’m complaining, but you have to admit its odd behavior, right?”
He’s asking me questions that there are no answers to, at least no answers that I can come up with. He sighs heavily, running his hand up and down his face. “Fuck, Cookie. This case defies everything we know about kidnappings. No ransom, no demands, no contact at all. No torture or sexual abuse that we can see, and he returned her in a few days.
“There’s got to be a reason for this. What is the purpose? Personal enjoyment? Kiddie porn black market? Let’s be realistic, he could have gotten her to do whatever he wanted, regardless of the drugs, when he had her in captivity. This doesn’t play out like a typical pedophile or child molester scenario.”
I stay silent and let Bauer continue to work out his thoughts aloud.
“I know we are onto something, we are so fucking close. This guy is driving me crazy, I’ve got to solve this puzzle.”
He’s pacing around the waiting room, intermittently talking with his hands and then running them through his hair, creating an even more tousled look with each pass.
“I’ll be back. Let me know if anything happens.”
And with that, he walks down the hall that Detective Sherman had met us in a few minutes earlier. I’m not sure what he expects to happen during the time he’s gone, but I nod affirmatively at his retreating back nonetheless.
