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business interests was not so much for the money as for the thrill of it all. After she finished her ‘daily shock’ workout at the gym, she was ready to get to work. Coffee in hand she waited at the side of the road for a cab, when at that moment her cell phone rang. She pressed the activation button on her earpiece to answer the call.
    “Hello?” she said. Her voice was soft but had a slight gravelly tone to it.
    She wore grey sweat-suit bottoms and a white t-shirt that clung to her ample breasts, and her tall athletic figure cast a pleasing shadow in the morning sun. Her secretary, Jenna, was on the other end of the line, and they spoke for a while about a property that had just come on the market. A yellow cab came screeching to a halt next to her, she climbed into its rear, and the lock clicked as she pulled the heavy door shut, engaging the dead bolt.
    “Forty-second, please,” she instructed, and the cabbie just raised a hand to confirm he had heard her and proceeded to drive. Marie-Ann continued her conversation and flicked through a magazine she had purchased earlier that morning.
    “I tell you, Jenna, the place was huge and the view was,” she broke off her conversation to call to the driver. “Hey, buddy, where the hell you taking me?”
    She looked up and saw that they were going over the Brooklyn Bridge. Fear set her heart racing.
    “Hey, fella, I am not some tourist, I live here! Take me back, you asshole!” She pounded her fists on the security glass between them till they were red raw with pain. Mary-Ann grasped at the door handles and banged on the window in the hope that someone would see her plight, but no one came. After a while she stopped. She felt so tired, so very tired.
    A new fear swept over her as she realized that her tiredness was not natural, but before she could work out what had happened, she fell into blackness like no other, a sleep from which she felt as if she’d never wake from.
    Marie-Ann woke up; she blinked several times so that her eyes could adjust to the brightness or lack of light. She tried to move but, to her horror, she was unable to. What was wrong, she wondered? Where was she?
    She struggled but found she had been bound: her arms, legs, and her head were all tied up. Why was her head secured? From somewhere in the room Marie-Ann could hear a faint sound, something distant; no not distant, small . She strained to hear what it was and where it was coming from.
    The noise got louder; it was music, a kind of chiming, from ... maybe from a music box or watch, she concluded.
    “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?” she called out, not so much for help, for she realized that nobody was likely to hear her. Calling was a way of ascertaining if there was someone else in the room, she didn’t care who it was.
    The chimes seemed to be moving round her, not getting closer, just circling round. She almost felt like a zoo animal being stared at. Around and around the direction of the sound seemed to be travelling, but not quickly. She listened harder and could almost hear footsteps mixed with strange breathing. The music stayed in place for a moment, it seemed to be near her head. Suddenly she felt something moving across her hair. It was not an animal, no, it was more like fingers gently brushing across the top of her scalp.
    She started to shake uncontrollably, and sweat began to pour across her brow as a mix of the fear of not knowing who her captor was, coupled with the terror of not knowing what was going to happen Her imagination was going wild with images of what this maniac could be capable of. This was too much for her to bear.
    “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I’ll give you whatever you want, but please don’t kill me.”
    She sobbed uncontrollably, hoping that this stranger might feel some sort of compassion for her.
    “You will give me whatever I want, is that correct?”
    The voice that filled her ears sent shivers down her spine. His tone was calm and