Trapped - A Tale of Terror

Chapter 1 - The Beginning of It

Trapped – A Tale of Terror

Chapter 1 – The Beginning of It

Millicent was alone, working late in her office.  She wished she could open the window, as it had been a beautiful June day in Chicago and she wanted to feel the breeze as she watched the sun sink down into Lake Michigan.  But they had moved to this building in the Loop for security reasons, and that meant having windows that didn’t open.  Being a partner in a law firm that occasionally took on the types of cases they handled meant butting heads with the mafia.  Organized crime. Whatever the current term was for people who operated their illegal dealings with without regard for the law.

But lately, the case she had been handling had started to get to her.  The Moltadano case. The investigators couldn’t find the people she was interested in interviewing.  They just went missing, never to be seen or heard from again.  That was difficult to do in today’s digital world.  People always left a faint ripple in the Internet ether that surrounded us all.  Whether via credit card use, cell phones, or Internet, people were always resurfacing.  Or their bodies would turn, eventually, if the mafia was involved.

Millicent sighed, leaning back to stretch her neck and shoulders.  As she looked around, she realized that the sunlight had faded and she was working in a room illuminated only by her computer.  Nervous, she reached over and switched on the bankers lamp on the corner of her desk.  Even this didn’t fully light the room; it only pushed the gathering darkness a little further from her desk.  Familiar items, such as chairs, were still in partially in shadow, and created deep pools of black in the space behind them.

She debated getting up and turning on the overhead light, but decided against it.  This was all just a sign that her nerves were getting to her.  It had been a touch and go week.  Even her summer intern, Christa, had been spooked earlier a few days ago.  She called Millicent on her cell phone to say she had seen a man hanging around outside of the building.  She couldn’t say what it was about him, just a gut feeling.  Millicent ended up sending her to do research at a facility at Northwestern, miles from the law office.

Millicent didn’t tell Christa, but she knew the feeling.  Something was making her antsy.  She felt as though she was being watched by someone who was always just out of sight.  Whoever it was, they left a feeling of fear in their wake, just like the chairs created shadows in her semi-dark office.

This was ridiculous. She had faced dangerous adversaries in court rooms.  Defense attorneys that she knew were crooked, wearing their six thousand dollar suits, defending clients who stole, bribed, and probably even killed to get cases to go in their favor, or simply go away. 

She had learned to master her fear in those situations, pushing it under for the reason that she did what she did.  Her calling was to represent the underdogs.  The average or poor people who got into trouble without intending to.  Those who didn’t have the means to fight the well-heeled corporations such as insurance companies, hospitals, banks, real estate tycoons.  Folks just trying to live their lives.

Yet somehow lately, she was experiencing fear of an intensity she could not explain.

She glanced up, thinking she heard a noise in the reception area, but she knew that everyone else had left.  Even Jeremy Gupta was gone, because he had a charity function.  Jeremy was one of her oldest friends in the legal profession.  They had gone to law school together, and then become the founding partners of the firm.  They were proud of what they had built together, though they rarely spoke about it.  Though Jeremy was somewhat reserved, he tended to handle the charity functions.  She made the corporate rounds, meeting both potential clients and potential adversaries at banquets, seminars and other events.

“Are you sure you’ll be OK?” he had asked as he was leaving.

He knew she wasn’t the nervous type, but he also knew her well enough to know that something had been bothering her lately.

It didn’t make sense.  She had long gotten used to the idea of being watched, as she worked some difficult cases.  The law firm even had private investigators and security people on call.

“If I get too worried, I’ll get Mike to give me an escort to the garage,” she told him.

She could see his relief when she told him this and then heard the door of the office suite close behind as he left.  A soft click that meant she was alone.

She paused again.  There it was again, a soft noise, like the sound of carpet being scuffed.

Millicent decided to go check the outer office.  She started to reach for the small gun she kept in her top left desk drawer, but changed her mind. Taking a deep breath, she got up and opened the door to the reception suite.  The room was completely dark.  She flicked on the light for her own office, and it cast some light into the adjoining room, but didn’t illuminate it completely.  Looking around, she didn’t see anything out of place.  The doors to the other partners’ offices were closed, but the law library’s door was slightly ajar. 

She bit her lip.  Had it been that way earlier in the evening? She couldn’t remember. The receptionist often left it that open if someone was still working inside.

Should she go check?

She quietly walked across the partially-lit room to the library door.  Reaching inside, she flicked on the light. 

No one.  The long wooden table was empty, and no notes or open reference books had been left on it.

She waited and listened.  Nothing but the dull grinding sound of the elevator’s motor as it moved between the floors, and the low rumbling of water in pipes from the ceiling above.  But she couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t alone.

She went back to her own office, closing and locking the door behind her.  After she locked the door, she leaned against hit, putting her forehead against the cool wooden panel, inhaling the slightly acrid odor of the paint that had been put there months ago.

Seating herself at her desk again, she pulled open the drawer.  Next to the gun was an envelope.  After Christa had told her about the stranger outside the building, Millicent had decided to put something together for the girl.  She had filled an envelope with cash and a plane ticket.  If anything happened to Millicent, she wanted Christa to get away and be safe.  She just needed to write a note to explain why.  At the moment, all she could think of was the word, “Go,” which she wrote on a Post-it and placed on top of the envelope.

Time to finish up for the night. As she went to pull up one of exhibits she was working on for the Moltadano case, she was puzzled.  It didn’t appear to be in the subdirectory.

At first she just thought it was misfiled.  However careful she was with her subdirectories, mistakes did happen. 

But as she clicked across the familiar fields on her computer, a growing sense of unease crept up her spine.  She was fighting panic as she checked the file directory and saw that the contents of this folder, all related to the Moltadano case, were gone too.

She looked up from her computer warily.  It was suddenly very quiet, as if the entire room was holding its breath.

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