Free Then She Was Gone by Luca Veste Page A

voice sounding alien to him now. ‘Just tell me what you want. I can get you anything. Just, please, tell me.’
    Silence was the only response. His leg muscles burned underneath him, thighs on fire from being made to kneel for hours on end.
    ‘I’m an important man,’ he said, his throat protesting against the cruelty of speaking. ‘Just tell me what you want from me. Money? I can get you as much as you need.
Please, name a price. I want to make you happy. I want to make you stop this madness.’
    ‘I don’t want anything. I have what I need. I have you.’
    The voice bounced around him, turning from a whisper to a shout in a second. The smell of smoke made its way through the hood, he heard the noise of something being cut or sawn into pieces.
Sometimes the smells and noises meant something to him, other times not. He was never sure if pain was about to arrive, or if they were playing with him.
    He wasn’t sure about anything any more.
    He’d always been the one in charge. The master. Now that control had been snatched from him.
    ‘What should I do with you now? Maybe I should cut off parts of your body one by one. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? That would be justice for someone like you.’
    He shook his head, which was the only part of his body he could still move. He felt the now familiar pressure on the back of his head, as something was wrapped around his mouth area, cutting off
his voice once more.
    Sam was screaming into nothingness.
    ‘There’s something you should know, Sam. You made this happen. This is no one else’s fault but your own. That’s not to say I’m not enjoying this. This has been such
fun. All fun has to end at some point, though. I know this. You know this.’
    Sam realised he didn’t want the end to come. He still wanted to live. As much as he wanted the pain to stop, he didn’t want this to be the end. He could feel tears fall from his eyes
and run down his cheeks, his shoulders hitching as his muffled cries escaped.
    He didn’t want to die.
    ‘First, I’m going to list your crimes. Then we’ll sentence you for them. And we’re talking proper sentences. The punishment must fit the crime, isn’t that right?
That’s fair, right?’
    He wasn’t expected to answer. Sam knew that. The decision had already been made. Before he had been brought to this place, wherever it was. He’d been sentenced long ago.
    On some level, he knew he deserved it. For all he had done in his life.
    Now, he was helpless and had to wait.
    He didn’t have to wait long.

Seven
    There was a sense of boredom creeping in, which Murphy knew wasn’t a good sign. A missing person could sometimes be an interesting case but, more often than not, it was a
whole bunch of work for little to no reward. There were just too many cases, too many people missing, for it to be any other way.
    He’d thought he’d left that sort of thing behind him. Now, any missing persons case which came into the division was usually shifted elsewhere, unless there was an extreme likelihood
of violence or similar.
    Turned out, all you needed was for the missing person to be vaguely in the public eye, and the case was forced upon him to deal with.
    It was all about who you know. As with everything in life.
    ‘They’ve found his email password,’ Rossi said from her desk opposite him. ‘Just got access now. Pazzo left it on a Post-it note on his desk. Should mean that we will be
able to get control of his social media accounts. If you think that’s right, of course?’
    Murphy leaned back in his chair and thought for a second. ‘Do it, but only because of the circumstances. I’m sure his parents would be happy with us for doing so and not give one
about privacy issues. As far as we’re aware, he’s missing, presumed in danger, so we use anything we can.’
    ‘We’ve already been through his sock drawer, the very definition of invading privacy,’ Rossi said, a ghost of a smile on her face. ‘Probably boring