Trapped in Memories: A police mysteries series (Shadow Man Book 5) Read online

  Trapped In Memories

  The Shadowman Series

  BY: B.P Stevens

  Mystery Thriller story

  Copyright © [2022] [B.P Stevens] – All rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Description

  Evidence and suspicion pull detective Harper Storm to do the unthinkable; breaking and entering her colleague's home. Now she is faced with unthinkable consequences in the 5th book of this thriller detective series.

  With Harper stuck inside Andrew's home, she's at the mercy of the man whom she thought she knew. Forced to hide and listen to his treatment of the women, Harper realizes that she's running out of time. Quick thinking and luck may save her life, but will it save the girls?

  And when an unexpected visitor causes a complication, Harper is left with a choice. Does she save the friend she has spent her entire life looking for, or does she save the surprise visitor? Most importantly, Harper wonders if she can even save anyone... because she isn't sure she can save herself this time.

  Tables of Content

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Other Books By this Author

  About This Author

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  Chapter One

  Harper didn’t move.

  How the heck did Andrew know that she was here, hiding under the bed? And why was he taunting her like this?

  Harper knew she had done a great job keeping herself safe from Andrew's predatory gaze throughout the house. But she also knew she wasn't perfect. She knew there was a chance for him to see her – especially when he had entered the bathroom and she was right there.

  Oh, shoot. What do I do now?

  "Come on out, Harper," Andrew cooed. "I know you're somewhere in here. Game over."

  Harper paused.

  Why did he want her to come out? Was he just too lazy to come and find her himself?

  Or did he not know where she was?

  She remained still, not moving an inch. She knew that if Andrew didn't know where she was, there was a high possibility he was grasping at straws. Maybe he knew that she was here, but when she left the bathroom, he wasn't sure if he was seeing things or not.

  Harper prayed it was the latter.

  “I said come out,” Andrew growled.

  His voice seemed different. It was deeper, sure, but it had a life of its own. It was almost as if something had possessed him, forcing him to become someone he wasn't. He sounded almost… monstrous. Like a man who took the utmost pleasure from causing fear and pain in others. Like a man who had lost all humanity.

  "Harper Storm," he snarled. "Cop extraordinaire."

  He was suddenly on his feet, stomping around the room. He turned on the overhead lights, blinding Harper. She wasn't ready for it but tried not to let it get to her too much. If she let out any sound now, she could accidentally screw this up.

  She closed her eyes rapidly, giving her eyes a chance to adjust to the sudden change of lighting. She squinted through the light, refusing to lose sight of Andrew.

  Andrew grumbled, throwing the closet doors open and shoving his clothes back and forth. He snarled, seemingly becoming angrier and angrier with each passing second. He walked to a pile of clothes in the corner of the room and kicked it, met with no resistance. If he expected to find her there, he was sadly mistaken.

  Harper could see him stomp his foot like an angry toddler throwing a fit. He screamed in a rage, sounding like a beast, and he did not sound like a man anymore.

  “WHERE THE HE–” He suddenly paused, as if catching himself before saying a bad word. He cleared his throat and seemed to be composing himself, preparing to try a different approach.

  “Where are you, Harper?”

  She still said nothing.

  “I know I’m not imagining it!” He screamed. “I know you’re here! I saw you! I. Saw. YOU!” He roared.

  Harper had a feeling that something wasn’t adding up. He must not have seen her, or maybe he saw her out of the corner of his eye and forgot where she was. Otherwise, he should have been able to find her with ease.

  Suddenly, he slammed his fist into the wall near his closet, a safe distance from Harper. The wall shook, and she could hear the sound of drywall folding in. She still didn't move and didn't even dare peep. She was a shadow, hiding under the bed surrounded by old bottles of medicine and alcohol.

  She didn’t have the option of moving at this point – if she moved even an inch, the bottles would give her away.

  "Oh dear," Andrew's voice suddenly went back to normal. "What have I done?"

  Harper was shaken. Andrew suddenly sounded like a regular guy – someone who could feel remorse and knew he was doing wrong. She knew he was a freak in his own right; that much wasn't too hard to realize. But he switched from that primal beast mode, desperate to find Harper back to a regular man.

  The man who showed up at work, probably. Not the man who took kids.

  Was she dealing with a perp who had split personality disorder? Or was this something much, much worse? Harper genuinely had no idea.

  “The girls,” he whispered. “What if I scared them again?”

  Harper’s breath hitched in her throat. She had forgotten about the girls in the basement with all the current action. She hated to admit it, but from what she could hear, it sounded like, in some demented, twisted way, Andrew seemed to care about the girls he held captive. He hadn't raised his voice with them so far, but Harper wasn't so naive to think that he treated them well. She knew there was so much more that she probably didn't know about. Yet…

  Something more was going on here.

  Andrew sighed so loudly that it sounded to Harper as if Andrew was right there beside her. This was, of course, not true, but it still gave her chills. He walked toward the bed, footsteps loud and creaking against his floorboards. Time seemed to slow down as Harper watched his shoes face her.

  All he had to do was bend down, and he would see her.

  He was so close.

  He paused, and Harper wondered if he knew for a second. If this was some kind of game he was playing, she was witnessing some kind of psychological trip.

  She held her breath without even knowing.

  Then, he gently sat on the bed.

  She heard the bed give way and ducked down as low as she could without the bedframe hitting her. She listened as the woman in the bed whimpered. Andrew shushed her, but Harper didn't believe he cared about her.

  "Shh, shh," he whispered.

  Harper couldn't see him, but she could just imagine him stroking her cheek with the back of his calloused fingers. She could see him dragging the same fingers he used to hurt the young girls with down her cheek. She could see him smiling in her mind. She swallowed the fear within her and tried not to freak out while imagining everything she could see in her head, but she cou
ldn't help it.

  Her mind was racing with all the possibilities.

  "I know you know where she is," he growled. His voice was still a bit more on edge than before, but he still sounded like a regular man. "I know you understand me, and you're hiding behind the pills I give you for peace. Don't act like you do not like it, Jordan. Don't."

  Harper didn't say anything. To her, his babbling sounded like he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't crazy. That he was looking for approval from her, some way to say that what he did made sense. As if she would sit up in her drugged state and smile, taking his face in her hands before reassuring him.

  Maybe that was happening in his mind. Maybe this was all normal for him, somehow.

  Harper was beginning to get numb. She couldn't feel her legs or hands, and she realized too late that she was lying on her arms. Her legs had also fallen asleep from the lack of movement. She wished she hadn't allowed herself to realize what was happening with the numbness in her arms and legs because now she was thinking about moving. That was the one thing she could not do.

  "I just need you to tell me, Jordan," he whispered. "I just need you to tell me where she is."

  His voice was firming with each new command. He wasn’t asking her to tell him – he was demanding.

  “No…idea…what…” Jordan wheezed out.

  Suddenly, a slap echoed in the room.

  Harper winced instinctively, grazing the bottles. They rolled back a little bit but luckily made no sound. Jordan began to sob overhead on the bed, whispering pleading remarks and trying to move out of the way. Harper could hear her struggling with the sheets, trying to escape him to no avail.

  Andrew's weight pushed down on the bed. She could hear Jordan cry louder as he grabbed her wrists, and she could tell from the sounds of skin slapping onto skin and slamming down on the bed that he was onto her.

  She was sobbing incoherently, full of ‘please’ and ‘no’. Harper felt sick to her stomach as she heard Andrew growl.

  “I said tell me, Jordan. You know what I’ll do to you if you don’t tell me what I want.”

  "I don't know!" She suddenly screamed, sounding sober for the first time since Harper had been here. It was a shocking and sudden event that made her pause. Had Jordan been faking her condition the entire time, or was she just afraid of Andrew and acting out for survival?

  "Are you saying I'm crazy, Jordan?!" He roared so loud that Harper could hear his words bounce off the wall. "Is that what you're saying? Huh?"

  Jordan was still sobbing and struggling. Harper's stomach churned, and she had no idea what would happen. The entire situation reminded her of terrible crime scenes where she had worked with female victims and their abusers. She didn't want to think of what was coming next.

  She didn’t know if she could sit around and listen to it.

  "I told you, Jordan, I don't know how many times-" He punched her, the sound sharp and full of pain. "I have to teach you. You're just a dumb…"

  Another punch.

  “Stupid…”

  Another.

  “Whore.”

  Jordan’s pleas turned into whimpers now. The third punch sounded more like someone punching a wet bag full of moisture, and Harper imagined that blood must have been running down Jordan’s poor, swollen face. She was seemingly silent now, barely moving.

  Harper could hear Andrew grab her by the face and shake her.

  “I SAID TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”

  Jordan could only groan.

  “Fine,” Andrew snarled. “I’ll take it out on you, then.”

  She could feel Andrew’s weight fully press onto the bed. Jordan said nothing as he reached over for the drawer. Harper paled.

  She felt her blood begin to boil. She was a cop, and that was what she was supposed to be able to stop. She had dedicated her life to fighting against that, and here she was, useless underneath the bed—hiding and cowering.

  Harper could start a fire with the rage within her blood.

  She knew what was coming next and remembered what was in that drawer. She wouldn't sit and listen.

  She reached for one of the bottles under the bed as she heard the sound of unzipping. Jordan whimpered again.

  Harper’s hand wrapped around the bottleneck of one of the glasses. Her sore, numb arm hovered about the ground.

  Andrew growled, but this time it sounded more seductive than angry. His weight shifted again.

  Jordan started to sob.

  Harper aimed the bottle toward the bathroom door and tossed it as hard as she could.

  It smashed against the door with a loud thud.

  Chapter Two

  Andrew stopped, sitting straight up. The bed hinges screeched.

  Harper remained still, listening. Jordan was still sobbing, but Harper was sure she had stopped whatever was going to happen there. She didn't want to think about the things Jordan had to endure before Harper found her.

  For years, she had been here.

  Drugged. Helpless.

  A slave to Andrew's temper and urges.

  Andrew snarled and jumped to his feet. Harper heard him buckle his pants, zipping them back up. Jordan rolled her weight over in the bed, grabbing the comforter and sniffing. Harper could see Andrew's shoes facing the door.

  He found the bottle easily. He bent over and picked the bottle up in his hands. He scoffed, then stood back up.

  Harper could tell only from the position of his feet and legs that he had turned to face the bed, but she couldn’t tell where he was looking.

  Harper wondered why he didn't squat down to look under the bed since the bottle came from there. The entire situation seemed… odd.

  He took a few tentative steps, throwing the bottle in the air and catching it as if it was a ball. Harper wrapped her hand around the neck of another bottle, inhaling through her teeth. Now she had a weapon, and she was going to use it to the best of her ability.

  Mentally, Harper prepared herself to fight. She could use the bottle to stun him - make him regret ever doing anything to harm these women. Once she shattered the bottle over his skull, she could shoot him. It would be so simple - two in the chest and one in the head. She imagined him falling on the floor in a heap of a wasted life.

  Except that would be too easy.

  He deserved to go away for what he'd done. She imagined shooting him in less fatal places - such as the arms or the legs - when she realized he had stopped walking. It was eerily silent, leaving Harper to wonder if Andrew could hear her simply breathing. The possibility was there.

  She waited for him to jump down from his squat in an attempt to scare her. She waited for him to look like a demon with white eyes and a smile as he dragged her from under the bed. Her heart roared in her ears, reminding her of how the ocean sounded. She could almost feel the blood coursing through her veins, racing to every part of her heart in an attempt to prepare her to fight Andrew.

  Come on, you coward. Come on!

  There was crying.

  Harper blinked. The loud crying was enough to snap her from her trance, waiting for Andrew to react. She could hear Gina wailing downstairs from the basement stairs, pleading for her mother. It was easy to hear her since the stairs were right by Andrew’s room. Beth seemed to be trying to calm her down by shushing her, begging her to be quiet or else 'daddy would hear.'

  Harper’s blood boiled.

  Daddy!?

  Did these girls seriously think Andrew was their dad? In some part of Harper's mind, she hoped Beth was simply putting on a farce and that she was playing a part that would keep her alive until Harper saved her. She had been trapped here for seven years, so she probably struggled to give herself a sense of identity or separate herself from what had happened. Harper just hoped that whatever fantasy Beth had created in her head to survive didn't have that big of a grip on her.

  "Hang on, Beth," she mouthed. "I'm coming to get you."

  “Girls?” Andre
w suddenly cried out in anguish. “Are you okay?”

  Gina just wailed in response.

  The little girl may not have known, but she could have very well just saved Harper’s hiding spot.

  Andrew dashed down the stairs. He left the bottle behind, a broken memory. His priority was the girls, it seemed, and he cared more about their happiness than whether or not Harper was in the home.

  She pulled her phone out from her pocket and dimmed the brightness before seeing seven texts from Jill.

  Oh my…

  The pictures on your cloud are insane.

  Is that REALLY Jordan!?

  She’s been missing for years!

  Are the girls alive?

  Confirmation?

  Harper???

  Harper thumbed a quick "I'm okay" text to Jill. She listened to Andrew in the basement, pleading with the girls to stop crying. Harper strained to listen to what he was saying.

  "Babies, please," he begged. "I'm not trying to scare you. I'm sorry I was loud and mean, but that was just because mommy made me very upset."

  "Well, what if we make you upset?" Beth's mature voice rang out from the basement with the authority of a woman, disguised to sound like a small child. She was trying to make herself seem so much younger than she was.

  “Honey, my precious girls could never make me upset,” Andrew promised. “My precious, innocent flowers… away from the angry, terrible world… safe in my arms.”

  “YOU’RE NOT MY DADDY!” Gina screamed.

  Harper held her breath. Poor Gina had no idea who she was making angry, and with the mood that Andrew was in, Harper wasn't sure how he would react to his precious 'flowers' saying… well, the truth. He wasn't their father and acting like he was sickened Harper to her core.