MINA [#Wattys2014]

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Tanya had awoken on the couch in the squad room and the fury at the man who could do this to her friend made her blood boil. But still she hadn't the faintest idea where to look first.

The pictures kept coming regardless. Nothing hurt more than the look in Mina's eyes. The fire in them seemed to die more and more with each new picture that was released. The message 'She's a keeper' had made Tanya's blood boil each time she thought of it and the picture it had captioned.

Being Mina's lawyer she'd worked her magic and 'convinced' Peterson to release the pictures into her custody. Technically it shouldn't have happened, but even he had to admit that she could do his job better than him, with her eyes blindfolded and her hands tied behind her back. But everything that took place was under the table, on paper it never happened.

When she'd brought the pictures directly to Jerry that had been after Peterson failed to get any leads or turn up any finger prints. Tanya had Jerry take a look at them, cross-examine them and double check them as they tried to figure out the location in which the photographs were shot. Not even he could hide how affected he was by them and he'd only known the woman through the television broadcasts and the animated way Tanya spoke of her. On the surface it seemed like a lot of work, in reality it was a whole lot more, but whatever Tanya needed, if he could help he would give it to her because he knew that she'd tax her efforts even twice as hard. Once she believed in a cause it wasn't in her nature to go about it with a half-hearted effort, no she'd give it her everything. That was just who she was.

Despite Tanya's best efforts to keep the photo's off his radar as long as was necessary he'd walked in as Jerry was triangulating the arrangement of the furniture in the background of as many of the photo's as he possibly could, trying to get a lock in, so the system could generate a virtual panoramic view. The fact that to normal eyes it just seemed like endless darkness, could attest to just how high-tech the technology he had access to was. It processed at rapid speed without a sound, bringing up details zoomed in to unbelievable scales, adjusting contrasts and tones seemingly automatically and seamlessly, if you could ignore the inhuman speed with which Jerry's fingers flew over the keyboard. It was beautiful...then everything had gone south. Tank had taken one look at the pictures and had disappeared into the bathroom to throw up for the next few minutes. She didn't know when he had left but it also hadn't taken long for her to figure out that he indeed had. It was better that way, she had thought. This was way too much for a kid so young to have to endure. So she had taken her mind off Tank and had forced herself to focus all her energy on the issue at hand...finding Mina...

Tank lay in bed and stared at his ceiling. But he did not really see it. The images of Mina kept playing like a slide show in his head, and in front of his eyes...over and over again. He had taken six pain killers for the migraine that the over-thinking had generated but it refused to even dull the pain a little. The pictures just kept fluttering in front of his eyes regardless and nothing he did could make them go away.

He didn't want to see her this way, much less have to remember...the look in her eyes...the helplessness of her situation...the body in her personal space...violating her. It was all too much and it made him searing mad and gave him the powerful urge to punch something...someone, preferably the sick bastard that was doing this to his Mina.

He'd said it, albeit, in his head, but he would not recall the words.

She was his. The moment he'd awoken from the all too real dream he'd understood that. He wasn't too convinced it was just a dream either, as he'd felt his cognitive functions and his ability to recall despite, just fine. He still didn't quite comprehend how it had happened, and though it never happened again he knew in his heart the experience had been real. So why hadn't she just told him where she was? He wanted to kick himself because he hadn't really insisted on her telling him either. He'd been too caught up in making love to her that he'd allowed that to lull him away from the real issue.

Now some sick pervert was hurting her, reducing what they'd shared to insignificance, and he'd done nothing to help her. He'd been in a position to make the difference, but he'd let that chance go, and allowed his bodily needs to reign supreme.

Finally exhaustion led him into blessed sleep and he succumbed to it willingly. It was easier than to fight it and punishing himself over the mistake he'd made was not going to result in anything positive anyway. He needed his mind fresh and alert so that he could think and do some good for a change.

His best ideas always came to him after a good rest anyway. But though his body lay limp, his mind refused to do the same. It processed each picture again as if trying to point something out that should have been obvious but he just could not see. What was it that he was not seeing? What was it? It was there, he knew it...but he just could not figure out what 'it' was. He tossed and flipped to his back, his eyes still closed, perusing the pictures once more in his mind's eyes.

Then suddenly he saw it...

He could not believe he had not seen it before and it was right there...he'd lived in this town all the years of his life and thanks to the relationship he had with his Dad after his mother died, he'd run away from home...a lot. There had not always been good days when he could bunk with a friend, there had also been times when he'd had to venture before he found somewhere to sleep for the night.

Going into the woods had been the wildest exploration he'd had to date. He knew the abandoned house like the back of his hand, but what few knew was that the house held secrets of its own. On top it looked like a one story, single bedroom ensuite, beneath it was an entire section that could fit his whole house. How the architect had managed that bit he could not understand but more unbelievable was the fact that they had indeed accomplished it. Nor did he know what purpose it served. Not many knew that it existed since the owner, who was the architect, had also been a hermit. He kept to himself and invited no-one there to the day he died. That was the rumor anyway. And it had been chance that he'd found it in the first place

It surprised him that someone had actually found it again after him, but then he realized that if he could then he should have figure that eventually someone else would have too.

Another realization dawned on him too. The bedframe...

The bed he'd made love to Mina in, had been the bed he'd slept on in the underground house. He now remembered that niggling feeling he'd felt and swore when he realized that this must have been what it had been trying to tell him. And Mina had known...so why had she tried to distract him, not that she'd had to try very hard. One look at the need in her eyes and he'd been a goner.

Had being with him been so much more important than being free. Or maybe she'd thought it had simply been a dream and only he knew better. The thought dampened his buzz a little, that she probably would never have shared herself with him under normal circumstances...but there was no time to think about trivial matters like that, he had more important things to do.

He still could not believe that he'd known where she was all along. He had no doubt that she was there, no doubt at all. He had to find her...he had to go save her.

For a second another realization dawned on him; he had thought of running away yet again. And for once, had he gone through with it running away would have accomplished something. He would have found Mina, and way before any of this shit had begun.

The morbid irony of it hit him too; The day he'd grown some balls, was the day Mina had suffered for it.

He shook the thought away. Little good it would do them both now to dwell on it. What was done was done and he could not change the way things had turned out, no matter how much he over analyzed it or chewed himself out about it. But he could do something about it now.

He picked up the phone and dialed the police...

And listened to it ring endlessly.

"C'mon answer the damn phone..."