Chapter 2 - The Sound of the Cage
The dispatch center seemed to hold its collective breath. Across the room, another dispatcher was handling a routine noise complaint, but to Megan, the entire universe had shrunk to the tiny square of audio feeding directly into her left ear.
“...Daddy’s here...”
The phone feed hissed with static as it was dropped or tossed aside onto a pile of clothes at the bottom of the closet. Through the muffled audio, Megan strained to hear every decibel.
“Lucy?” a deep, freezing voice demanded from the bedroom. It belonged to a man whose tone carried the terrifying authority of someone accustomed to absolute obedience. “Who are you talking to?”
“N-no one, Daddy,” Lucy sobbed, her voice small and broken.
“You called someone.” The footsteps advanced, the heavy thud of leather shoes crossing the hardwood floor stopping directly outside the louvered closet doors. “I told you what happens when you disobey house rules. I told you what happens when you bring outsiders into our family business.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Megan’s fingers flew across her keyboard, typing a frantic update to the officers who had just breached the front door of the house. “Officers inside! Upstairs bedroom on the right! Father is confronting the child in the closet now! Move!”
Through the open phone line, the sound of tearing plastic and splintering wood pierced the air. The closet doors were jerked open with enough force to bang against the drywall.
“Get away from her!”
A booming, authoritative police shout echoed through both the physical house and the electronic receiver.
Chaos erupted in Lucy’s bedroom. Shouting, the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, the frantic clatter of furniture overturning, and a man’s furious, guttural roar of denial.
“Get your hands behind your back! Don't move!” Officer Miller’s voice bellowed.
“You have no right! This is my house! Get out!” the father screamed, his voice twisting from cold menace into frantic panic.
“Lucy! Lucy, sweetie, are you alright?” Officer Davis called out, his footsteps rushing toward the closet.
A moment later, the phone was fumbled, lifted from the floor, and a shaky, masculine breath filled the headset. “Dispatch, this is Officer Davis. We have the suspect detained. The child is... Jesus Christ.”
Megan gripped her console. “Davis? What is it? Is Lucy safe?”
“She’s physically unharmed, Megan,” Davis said, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and revulsion. “She’s shaken up, but she’s out of the closet. But... you need to send animal control and backup immediately. And forensics. God, send forensics.”
“What did you find, Davis?” Megan demanded, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“It’s not a pet, Megan,” Davis whispered, the line crackling as he panned his flashlight across the room. “It’s not a snake at all.”
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Before Davis could elaborate, the line was disconnected with a sharp click.
Megan sat frozen in her rolling chair, her headset humming with dead air. The routine animal call she had logged twenty minutes ago had just unraveled into something infinitely darker.
