Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (8 page)

Amalie heard
something
in the darkness and opened her eyes. She had
been sleeping, exhausted after screaming and banging. Now she was yet again
awake slowly realizing that her nightmare hadn't ended. She gasped and touched
the roof of her box once again. It was still there. She sighed, desperately
preparing herself for whatever was in store for her, when suddenly there was
another sound. A new sound. It didn't come from her or from inside of her box,
it came from outside, out in the room.

Afraid that it might be her captor coming to
hurt her, she kept quiet to make sure it wasn't him. The sound was still there.
It sounded like a moaning. Slowly it became stronger, then grunts and groans.
Amalie listened carefully. She had gotten to know the sounds of the cellar very
well in her hours of darkness, but this was certainly new. This was definitely
one she hadn't heard before. The moaning came from a person. Someone else was
in the room!

Amalie gasped and tried to look, but her eyes
couldn't see much through the darkness. The only light that came into the
cellar where she was kept, came from under the door where she had seen the
stairs end. It was dim, but at least it was something.

Amalie blinked her eyes trying to figure out
where the noise was coming from. The grunts became louder, and then there was a
thump, like the person hit their head, then the familiar sound of someone
patting, examining something frantically, and not finding what they were
looking for, while slowly realizing that there might not be an escape. The
grunting became louder and now Amalie heard fists hammering. It sounded just
like when she had banged her fists against the plastic of her own cage. She
exhaled deeply knowing exactly what the person was going through. A few seconds
later the inevitable came. The person started screaming.

"HELP!"

Then a pause and more hitting, punching on the
plastic.

"What is this? Hey, where am I?
Hallo?"

That was when something got really stirred up
inside of Amalie. She felt tears piling up behind her eyes. She knew that voice
and even if she was happy to hear a familiar voice, it also filled her with
tremendous waves of angst and sadness.

"Camilla?" she said and stared in the
direction of the sounds. All she could see was the outline of a box similar to
hers.

The other person stopped hitting the plastic.

"Is that you, Camilla?" she said
again.

"Amalie?" she replied, her voice
subdued by the box. She was sobbing as she spoke. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Amalie replied with a
thick voice. "I’ve tried to figure it out for a long time now."
Amalie sniveled and put her palm on the plastic. She couldn't see Camilla, but
liked hearing her voice even if it meant that she too now was a captive.

"How did you get here?" she asked.

Camilla went quiet. "I don't know,"
she cried. "There was this guy. He was really nice, he ... he ... he had
your phone. I recognized the cover, so I followed him to ask him how he got it.
I had been looking for you for days. He told me he had found it somewhere ...
then he ... then he put something over my mouth and nose, something that
smelled horrible ... so horribly sweet ... and I guess I fainted after that. I
have a terrible headache right now."

Amalie couldn't hold in her tears any longer.
She put her palm on the plastic box's side and silently let it all out. She
didn't want Camilla to see her losing it, so she kept it to herself.

"At least I found you," Camilla said.
"It drove me crazy not knowing what happened to you or where you were.
Have you been here all the time?"

 Amalie wasn't ready to talk. Tears were
still rolling across her face. She felt so lost. If Camilla was here, then she
couldn't have told the police or Amalie's parents what had happened. That meant
they weren't looking for her, they weren't on the verge of finding her. Now
with Camilla being here, instead of on the outside, then no one would know
where to begin looking. For all they cared Camilla and Amalie had gone sailing
and once they didn't come back they would begin the search for them. But who
would know that they had even been at the festival? Who would help track them
down?

Amalie sulked and for the first time in her
life, she gave in. She didn't hold it back any more.

I couldn't
believe
I lost her. I searched and looked and talked
to everybody I could find. Once the concert was over, the parking lot at the
festival turned into a conglomeration of people and cars moving. I knew I had
to give up, I knew I had been defeated. I texted Sune and he came to find me. I
was sitting on a bench at the parking lot with my head in my hands. I wasn't
crying, but I was close. The frustration, the feeling of failing knocked me
down.

"What's going on?" Sune asked and ran
to me. He squatted in front of me, then grabbed my hand. "What
happened?"

I looked into his soft eyes, then exhaled.
"I lost her," I said. "I was this close to warning her, but I
was too late. If it hadn't been for that man, maybe ... just maybe I would have
found her."

  "Whoa, hey, let's back up a little
here," Sune said. He got up and sat next to me on the bench. "Try and
tell me the story from the beginning."

I sighed deeply. "Okay. Where to start?"

"Well how about beginning where I left you?
In the press-room?"

I nodded. "Of course, sorry. Well after you
left me, I wanted to finish my article."

"You never finished it? What have you been
doing all this time?" He interrupted me.

"Let me talk," I said. "A phone
started ringing in the room. At first I thought someone had just forgot it
there, so I tried to continue my work, but then it hit me. Who has One
Direction as a ringtone?"

"Someone who has a child that likes to play
with your phone?"

"Or maybe a teenager! I got up and went to
look at Camilla's phone that I had been charging for her and realized it was
her phone that was ringing. When I looked at the display it said
'Amalie.'"

"So naturally you picked it up, I get it.
But it wasn't her, was it?" Sune asked while putting his arm around my
shoulder.

"No. It was some guy. Some creepy guy.
Worst of all I told him where to find Camilla. I thought he was Amalie, it was
before he spoke ... it's complicated. But anyway I had a feeling he wanted to
find Camilla so I tried to warn her. But I was too late. Once I arrived at the
tent, she wasn't there. I spoke to a couple of boys who said she had left with
some guy. Then I figured he had taken her out of the festival somehow, and I
ran here. But now with all the people crowding the place, I have no chance of
spotting her." I gesticulated resignedly. "She's gone!"

"Well we're still here," Sune said.
"We'll tell everything to the police."

"I thought about that, but ..." I
looked up and met Sune's eyes. He tried to smile to make me feel better.

"But what?" he asked.

"I think I just realized something," I
said and sat upright.

"What?"

"The girl. The first girl, the friend who
disappeared." I found the poster in the pocket and unfolded it. I showed
him the picture. "Why haven't I thought about this before?"

"Thought about what?" Sune said
confused. "Please fill me in."

"Amalie. Her name is Amalie. Camilla told
me she couldn't go to the police because the media would be all over the story
in a matter of seconds."

"You know who she is?"

"Yes. Look at the picture. Imagine her five
or six years younger. That's how many years it’s been since the public last saw
her face. After that her parents sent her to attend a school in Switzerland.
I'm quite puzzled to know how she is in a place like this?"

"Could you please just tell me who she
is?"

I looked at Sune. "She’s the
princess," I said. "Princess Amalie of Merchenburg. She is the
daughter of His Royal Highness Prince Christopher, the younger brother to our
queen who married the German countess Alexis of Merchenburg who later was given
the title of princess from the queen. I don't know the entire story or the
right titles, but I believe Amalie is an heir to the throne in case all the
queen's children and her own father are killed or choose to abdicate. That's
why Camilla couldn't tell me Amalie's last name. Simply because she doesn't
have any! Royalties don't have a last name."

Sune looked like he had seen a ghost.
"Wow," he said. "That's some story."

"You got that right," I said and
rubbed my head. Thoughts were flickering in my mind. I couldn't keep them
still. I realized I had no idea what to do next.

Allan couldn't
sleep.
He was too excited. In fact he had been so
excited when he came home that he had thrown himself at the sleeping Sebastian
and fucked him senseless without him even waking up. All in all it had been a
perfect night. But still he couldn't sleep. The thrill of knowing what waited
him in the cellar of his house kept him wide awake. So after trying to fall
asleep for two hours, he decided to get up instead.

He threw on a silk bathrobe then walked
downstairs. He found his iPad and sat with it in his lap.

Got another rat in the box
,
he wrote. Then he waited, hoping that there was someone else awake at this
hour. No more than a minute later Michael Cogliantry answered:

Oh how I envy you. Tell me
about her.

Allan smiled to himself. This was exactly what
he was looking for. To be able to brag.
She
is fine. You have no idea. Not as exclusive as the first, though, but perfect
for my purpose.

What is your purpose? What are
you going to do to them?
Cogliantry asked.

Allan chuckled. He knew how hard it could be to
have to stay away, to keep your path clean in order to not get caught. He had
done it once a couple of years ago after killing a girl too close to the
boarding school and the police came to investigate all the students. He, of
course had a perfect alibi and knew he was the one they suspected the least
with his charming and endearing person, but he knew he had to lay low for at
least a year in order to be safe. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do.
His next victim had been a Polish prostitute he picked up in the street outside
a small Polish town. Driven by his cravings for the kill that he couldn't withstand
any longer he had taken the car in the middle of the night, left the boarding
school and driven all the way into Poland, where he had picked up the first
girl he met. She was ugly as hell and he turned her head away while fucking
her, then he beat her and in the end strangled her and left her in a ditch
somewhere. It was the most boring kill he had made, but it had been necessary.
He needed his fix in order to stay sane. That was just the way it was.

I'm not telling you yet. But I
will post pictures later, once it all begins,
Allan
wrote. He found a cigarette in a drawer and lit it. He didn't usually smoke,
but every now and then when the urge got too overwhelming, when he felt himself
agitated and wanted to kill, he would sometimes manage to calm himself down
with a cigarette. He needed to stay calm now. It was tickling in his fingers,
he wanted to go down there and torture those two girls, just look into their
eyes while he killed them. But no. That was not the way. That was not the plan.
He needed to do this right and not destroy it by giving in to his desires and
cravings just yet. This was supposed to be perfect. A true masterpiece.

Ah, come on. Throw me a bone
here. I'm starving. Can't you reveal just a little bit. Just something?

Allan laughed out loud at the desperation in
Cogliantry's words. He would need to kill soon or he would definitely lose it.
Allan recognized the signs. He remembered how he used to walk the corridors of
the dormitory at night, fantasizing about his next kill, planning it, imagining
it down to the smallest detail. And Princess Amalie often played a leading role
in his fantasies.  No, he had to restrain himself from acting too fast.
This was a process and it was easily destroyed by moving too fast.

Come on,
Cogliantry
wrote again
. Maybe just some details about
the girls. Do they smell good? Is their skin soft like silk against your lips?
Have you tasted them yet? Licked them? Oh my god, I'm getting a boner on.
You're torturing me here. Give me something.

Allan laughed again. He listened to the muffled
voices of his girls in the cellar. Let them talk a little, he said. Maybe they
would even be able to encourage each other a little, give each other new hope.
Oh he wished they would. That would make it even more gruesome when he did as
he had planned. A victim with no hope was boring. One with hope would fight for
her life. She would be feisty and resist. Just the way he liked it best.

He killed the cigarette in a half empty
wineglass from earlier. He exhaled and let the smoke out. So Cogliantry wanted
him to give him something, huh? Well he could give the man a little something
to think about, if he craved it that much. Let him get off so he could sleep
peacefully tonight.

Allan stretched his fingers, then he wrote:

I'm preparing a royal meal.