Taken: Day 2

Word Count: 12,004

Summary of Events:

After dinner at the banquet came dancing, and, after dancing with several girls, Mitchell ended up making the acquaintance of a young woman by the name of Odessa whom he took with him back to his hotel room after they'd danced together. The following morning Mitchell was roused by someone knocking on a door; he tried to ignore it and go back to sleep . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“This is the police!” a man’s voice bellowed. “Open up!”

Obviously someone had gotten into some serious trouble. Mitchell put his hand over his ear and pressed the heel of it into his ear in an effort to drown out the noise, but it wasn’t abating.

Then suddenly it did stop. Mitchell released his hand and sighed.

“We’re coming in!” the policeman shouted.

Mitchell startled violently when he heard a key in the lock. He shouldn’t be hearing that unless it was his door.

The door slammed open and Mitchell whirled around to look. The light was snapped on and the policeman — and, Mitchell was chagrined to notice, Major Bishop — actually startled and recoiled.

Admittedly embarrassed by the situation as it was, Mitchell felt a rush of embarrassed warmth flood over him. 

He noticed, however, that the policeman and Major Bishop were actually scanning the whole room with horror and Mitchell turned his head to look.

Violently Mitchell startled and recoiled at the sight.

Odessa was gone and the blanket under which he was, the bedsheets, the pillow beside him, the wall beneath the window, the floor, the window itself; all were spattered with the dull red-brown of dried blood.

Mitchell didn’t feel any pain, he even checked himself over to be sure he wasn’t bleeding. He would have been relieved to discover he wasn’t had he not found that his own body was smeared with blood that appeared to have even, somewhat, rubbed off on the blanket’s underside.

He looked toward the policeman and Major Bishop. “What happened?”

Both men looked at him with degrees of shock; Major Bishop was completely shocked, the policeman was slightly shocked and much more unconvinced.

“We hoped you might tell us,” the policeman said, somewhat dryly.

“There wan’t no blood when I feel asleep,” Mitchell said. “I swear.”

The policeman still looked sceptical.

“I don’t know what happened,” Mitchell insisted.

“You violently, viciously, even bloodthirstily assaulted the daughter of Mr. Marion C. Edgar, one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious businessmen who is not involved in the film industry,” the policeman said. “According to what we could make out of her testimony she barely escaped with her life from your violence.”

“I didn’t lay a violent hand on her,” Mitchell protested.

“Seeing what I do, I cannot believe you,” the policeman replied. “You, Staff Sergeant Becker, are under arrest for assault and attempted murder. You have five minutes to get dressed.”

Major Bishop, looking quite devastated, turned and headed out of the room, the policeman turned to follow him then paused and turned to look at Mitchell again.

“And don’t think you can follow your victim and escape out the window, we have men down there watching,” the policeman said.

Silently Mitchell watched as the policeman shut the door. He felt numb. Odessa was saying that he’d tried to kill her? Whatever in the world would drive her to say that?