BYLINE FOR PERIL
By Chet
CHAPTER ONE
A young reporter had to take risks to get the story, that is what Samantha Grayson always told herself in her dogged pursuit of the truth. There were those out there in the world who didn’t want the story to be told, who would go to great lengths and do absolutely anything to stop it from being printed. Those in power who abused their station at the expense of the public, those with criminal intent who sought to line their pockets with ill-gotten gains. A reporter had to show courage in the face of that insidious evil, stand up to the ever-present danger; that was part of the job. That meant taking risks, both acceptable and unacceptable, and at any given time the risks could be perilous to both life and limb. But Samantha had wholeheartedly accepted that possibility in her life-long dream of becoming a journalist.
But nothing in her journalism classes at Great Northern University, where she was a sophomore in the prestigious Randall School of Journalism, had prepared Samantha Grayson for where she was now.
Those classes taught her the minutiae of the honorable profession she had chosen. How to use the who, what, why, where and when to construct a crisp, authoritative lead. How to weave effective quotes into the body of the story. How to interview subjects to get the sought-after answers she needed. How to dig through mountains of bureaucratic paperwork to find that one golden nugget of detail that would seal the story and rain down punishment for the evil and justice for those who deserved it.
But none of her classes told her the first thing to do if in the course of uncovering the truth she happened to become a helpless hostage.
Samantha lay on her side on a hard concrete floor that was cold and clammy against her smooth skin, causing goose-bumps to break out all over her arms and legs, the tingling sensation humming through her nerves. The only light, and it wasn’t much at all, in the closet that served as her temporary prison came through the pencil-thin crack at the bottom of the door. The pervading darkness embraced her body and soul like the tentacles of an octopus, threatening to crush her, serving to frighten her even more.
Samantha couldn’t move, not even an inch. Nylon rope cut cruelly into her wrists tied harshly behind her back, wound excruciatingly tight about her elbows to draw them in painfully close and around her chest, looped under and above her breasts so her arms were effectively pinned to her sides. She moaned as she looked down, saw with shamed dismay the buttons on her white silk blouse had been undone and pulled apart to reveal the black floral print satin bra she wore underneath. Her ankles were bound, her short stretch black skirt pushed up so more rope could be tightened above and below her knees, the white ropes in stark contrast to the black pantyhose she wore. Samantha’s slender body throbbed with a million aches and pains from the confining bondage that made the possibility of escape nothing but a distant pipe dream.
Samantha couldn’t scream, not that anyone could hear her plaintive cries for help trapped in the small closet. Her mouth was filled to bursting with a cloth wadding held firmly in place by a thick strip of white cloth tied securely around her head and between her lips. The gag efficiently muffled any cry for assistance she may have emitted. She whined in pain from the intense, stinging pressure on her jaw, the dryness in her mouth. She swallowed. She was far beyond being scared of her frightening predicament. She was now absolutely terrified .
She heard the footsteps approach her prison, lifted up her head from the floor at the sound. The unsettling questions of uncertainty rattled around in her head like a handful of coins in an empty glass jar. What now? What’s next? What is he going to do with me? How much time do I have left? The possible answers she came up with and the visions to accompany them, all horrible and violent, only frightened her more than she already was and set her delicate psyche teetering along an hysterical precipice.
Tousled strands of auburn hair dropped down over her dark brown eyes, now wet and wide with suffocating fear. He can’t let me live, not with what I know, she thought, panic creeping through her mind like vines up a wall. He has to do something with me? But what? Samantha sobbed, felt her chest rise and fall heavily. She knew exactly what her captor had to do with her.
Get rid of me…
She struggled mightily to rise from the floor, heaving her bound body up into a kneeling position against the wall. Samantha now wished she could turn back the hands of time, be back safe and sound at the offices of the Daily Husky on the campus of Great Northern University, never chasing down the lead that had brought her here in the first place.
The door opened and Samantha blinked at the bright light stabbing like sharp knives into her eyes. “Well, are we having fun yet?” The dark figure looming in the doorway, his tall frame outlined by the light behind him, said almost casually. “It’s only just begun.”
Samantha Grayson groaned in fear and protest. What have I gotten myself into? She really didn’t know what was going on here, and had absolutely the faintest idea how she was about to extract herself from this danger that quite obviously imperiled her young life. Samantha did know one thing for certain.
She was in big, big trouble.
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“Excuse me, are you Samantha Grayson?” An unsure, nervous, female voice asked.
Samantha Julia Grayson glanced up from her desk in the middle of the news room of the Daily Husky on the third floor of the Howell Student Commons. She was the star reporter at the daily student newspaper of Great Northern University, the one who received the tough, complicated assignments from her editor, and her disaster-area of a desk top overflowing with news-clippings, folders and notebooks was testament to her journalistic talent and drive. “Yes, that’s me,” Samantha smiled to put the young woman at ease, “what can I do for you?”
“My name’s Lisa Mahone, I was hoping you could help me,” the petite blonde with hazel green eyes sat down in the chair next to her desk. There were dark circles underneath those green eyes and it took Samantha but a second to surmise how apprehensive and jittery she was. Something weighed on Lisa Mahone’s mind, instantly raising Samantha’s suspicions, and she wanted to find out exactly what that was.
“What is it?” Samantha asked, prompting her.
Lisa leaned forward, almost whispering to Samantha. “My roommate, Kristen Lawrence, she’s missing.”
That immediately set off every alarm bell in Samantha’s head. “What? Missing? For how long?”
Lisa swallowed hard before continuing. “Since yesterday morning. That was the last time I saw her, at our room in Huron Hall. We always meet to have dinner, and last night she didn’t show up.”
“Did she have a big test?” Samantha asked, “she might have been off studying somewhere.” For some reason, Samantha already didn’t believe her own statement.
“No, she didn’t,” Lisa shook her head, “we know each other’s schedules like clockwork. When we have tests and such. She would have told me if she had. I even went over to the library, checked every floor. There was no sign of her.” By now Samantha could plainly see that Lisa Mahone was upset over her friend’s mysterious absence. “And she never came back to the dorm last night. It’s just not like her.”
“Have you gone to the police?” Samantha glanced about the practically deserted news room. Most of the staff was either off at afternoon classes or at lunch. Things would pick up in the evening when the paper was being put together for the next day, the finished issues distributed at the dining halls during lunch.
Lisa sighed. “This morning,” she admitted, “they told me she probably ran off with someone.”
“So the police think she just ran off and didn’t tell anyone,” Samantha reiterated. She thought that was peculiar, and odd.
“That’s what they told me,” Lisa said, visibly deflated, “that there wasn’t any sign of foul play. But this just isn’t like her! She’s so responsible!” The edge of apprehension in her voice cut the air like a scythe.
“Have you called her parents? Let them know what is going on?”
“They’re in Europe, I haven’t been able to reach them.”
Samantha sat back in her chair, brushed the auburn cowlick that never quite seemed to stay in place away from her forehead. “So the police think she just took off, that nothing happened to her.” That was such a typical attitude for the police in Evantown, the suburb immediately north of Chicago. The relationship between the student body of Great Northern and local law enforcement was wary at best and contentious at worst. Every Monday morning the paper had the obligatory article on what fraternity parties had been busted by “Evantown PD Blue.” “But you think something did. Why is that?”
Lisa handed a business card over to Samantha. “I found that on her desk after I went to the police.” The card read COWLE PHOTOGRAPHY-MODELS SOUGHT-EXCELLENT PAY. The address listed was at Damen and Milwaukee in Chicago’s rapidly gentrifying Wicker Park neighborhood. “I drove down there and spoke with the owner, his name’s Marcus Cowle, asked if Kristen had been there. Said she had never been there, denied even knowing her.” Lisa shivered as if a freezing gust of wind had brushed against her skin. “I don’t know, something about him just didn’t feel right. I was scared, I wanted to get away from him. He gave me the creeps.”
Samantha took the card from Lisa and her sharp, intelligent yet gentle and warm brown eyes of dark chocolate studied the card. She too was beginning to sense that there was something amiss with the disappearance of Kristen Lawrence. And there might be a story in there as well. “Do you have a picture of Kristen?”
“Right here,” Lisa reached into her backpack, took out the glossy photo of a young woman with long brown hair and bright blue eyes, blessed with an almost angelic face. “If anything’s happened to her…” Lisa started to say in trepidation, fearing the absolute worse. How would she tell Kristen’s parents what had happened to their daughter? That she had disappeared into thin air?
“I’m sure she’s all right,” Samantha smiled to reassure her. But deep inside her heart she knew Kristen Lawrence had not vanished by her own free will. “Listen, I’m going to go and check this Marcus Cowle out and I’ll give you a call,” she told Lisa. “If there is something there, I’ll tell the police.” Then she would write her story. “Okay?”
Lisa nodded, her eyes moistening as she thought of her missing roommate. “Okay.” With that Lisa Mahone got up and left the office.
To say Samantha was immediately suspicious of Marcus Cowle was to belittle the point. She opened the top drawer on the side of her desk and pulled out a file entitled MISSING COEDS. Over the past two weeks a number of young women-all from colleges in the Chicagoland area-had gone missing without a trace. Samantha began to flip through the articles. One from College of Illinois at Chicago, another from Chicago University down in Hyde Park, a third from Saint Ignatius University in Chicago’s Rodgers Park neighborhood. And now Kristen Lawrence from Great Northern. Were they all separate events? Or was there something to connect the other three missing coeds and Kristen? Did the other three women have business cards from this photographer seeking models? Was Marcus Cowle that singular link between them?
Samantha quickly came to a conclusion. There was only one way to find out.
She took a cursory glance down at what she had worn this day. White satin blouse and a short, and tightly hip-hugging, black skirt with matching black hose and high-heeled pumps. A simple, yet tasteful outfit worn in anticipation of a dinner out with her roommates Amanda Walker and Lauren Callahan, then a night out with her boyfriend, Tyler McManaway, the starting quarterback for the Great Northern University Huskies.
And not a bad outfit for a prospective model, Samantha smiled to herself.
Samantha scribbled down some pertinent information on a yellow Post-It note and slapped it on the screen of her computer. She stood up, slung her black leather attaché bag that was a birthday present from her parents over her shoulder and left the offices of the Daily Husky.
Samantha Grayson decided to see if she had what it took to make it in the world of modeling.