To Have and To Hold

Lina woke to total darkness and a throbbing headache. She tried to rub her aching temples, but her arms wouldn’t move and she was too groggy to understand why. Her memories felt distant and foggy, coalescing slowly only as a rising sense of fear began to burn away the haze…

***

“It’s been three years,” Lina growled as she paced furiously, her long ponytail whipping back and forth every time she spun around. “Three entire years! And we still have nothing!”

“I know,” Teri said sympathetically, as though her friend hadn’t started conversations this way every day for months now. The redhead spread her arms to indicate the dinkiness of her home office. “I’m trying my best, but I’m just a PI now, whose biggest advantage over her competitors is ‘I know how to Google stuff’. I don’t have the sort of resources I did when I was on the force.”

“I’m not angry at you,” the blonde snarled, though that wasn’t entirely accurate. These days, Lina found it hard not to be at least a tiny bit angry with anyone who wasn’t as miserable as she was. And it was rare to see Teri in any mood other than cheerful and carefree. Even now, less than a year after having her dream career as a police officer come to an abrupt end, she was smiling and leaning back in her chair, her red curls bouncing playfully as she attempted to balance on just the two back legs. You’d never guess from looking at her that today was…

Lina made an effort to soften her tone. “I’m angry at all the fucking useless cops who can’t catch this animal. He should have been locked up for decades by now!”

Lyle Maccabee first entered the public consciousness nearly thirty years ago. A jogger in Texas had been missing for over a year, until her parents came home one day to find her naked, violated corpse waiting for them. Lyle had left a signed note pinned to what was left of her breasts, thanking them for raising such an excellent fucktoy.

The crime was lurid enough to attract attention, but it was the ones following that brought national media. One ravaged body after another, sometimes years apart, sometimes mere months, each left somewhere they’d be found and recognized, each with a note taking credit. After the first couple, he’d begun leaving notes after the abductions, too, promising that he would have all kinds of fun with his new prize.

The buzz only increased when people noticed that his victims shared a trait, aside from being young and pretty: they were all gay. He became this terrifying boogeyman who punished lesbians for their “depravity”, and then…

“They all just gave up!” Lina hissed. “Do you remember the way they reacted when Georgia was first abducted? That fucking prick told me I should start accepting that I would never see her alive again. ‘It’s easier if you manage your expectations, honey’.”

“Of course I remember,” Teri said dryly. “Everyone laughed for months afterward about how you kicked Sergeant Williams’s nuts up into his stomach.” She sighed, her tone growing more serious. “We’ve both seen the case files, which would get me locked up if anyone knew I’d shown you. The bastard is slippery. They almost had him twice, and both times the lucky son of a bitch got away. We still don’t know his face, his physical description… hell, the most concrete fact we have is that Lyle Maccabee isn’t his real name.”

“What about that place on the dark web you told me about? The one for his…” Lina’s mouth twisted in disgust. “For his fucking fans. He posts there sometimes, right?”

“Yes,” Teri admitted. “But we’ve been over this before. He’s never provided any identifying info, no photos or video of his victims, nothing to give any hint. The only reason the cops believe that account is real and not some sick joker is poor Rachel.”

Rachel Smith had been his twelfth victim, a bright sophomore attending MIT. Three days before her disappearance, someone had doxxed her on the fansite. The poster claimed she’d turned him down for a date, and begged his “hero” to teach her a lesson. Mere minutes after the time of her abduction, before anyone other than her captor and Rachel herself could have known, the account belonging to Lyle posted a reply consisting of a single thumbs up.

When her body was discovered eight months later, Lyle’s note came with what he claimed was a dictated statement. In it, Rachel apologized profusely for being a “frigid dyke”, and said that not a minute went by where she didn’t desperately wish she could go back in time, sink to her knees, and give her suitor the best blowjob of his life.

The police had tracked down the doxxer, an incel and former classmate of Rachel’s, but he was either unwilling or unable to share anything, even after being charged as an accomplice. In the final interview, recorded two years after Rachel’s death, when asked if he regretted the role he’d played he smirked and stated that his biggest regret was that she’d only suffered for eight months.

“Three years…” Lina whispered, fighting back the hot rush of tears. “Three years today. On our…” She spun suddenly and punched the nearest wall, driving a dent in it and scattering papers on Teri’s desk. “On our fucking anniversary…” she said, voice cracking.

All three of them had met in college: Lina the jock, Georgia the nerd, and Teri the military kid. All they had in common at first was their dorm floor and their sexual orientation - though Lina didn’t find that second one out until she came back from class early one spring day to find the other two making out on Georgia’s bed - but they’d somehow formed a tight friendship that carried them through all four years. And a couple months after those two had an amicable breakup in their junior year, Lina found herself growing even closer to the brunette. They’d married shortly after graduation, with Teri playing the combined role of best woman and maid of honor.

Lina relived that day every time she closed her eyes. She’d woken up the morning of their second anniversary nearly giddy with anticipation. She’d begun planning weeks ago, secretly purchasing concert tickets to one of Georgia’s favorite bands, arranging dinner reservations at their favorite restaurant, and more. It was going to be a full day celebration of their relationship.

When she’d found Georgia’s side of the bed empty and cold, a folded note left on the pillow, she’d thought at first that her wife had just woken up early with some surprise of her own. She had thought the note was a fucking love letter. And then she’d read it, and her whole life changed.

‘Your wife is a bit heavier than my usual type, but those fat jubbly tits of hers looked too good to pass up. You have my sincere gratitude for not stretching her dyke cunt out too much with toys; I’m inside her right now while I write this on her back, and she (was) nearly as tight as a virgin!

As thanks, I’d like to spare you the expense of buying a plus sized coffin. None of my fucktoys have ever complained about being spoiled too much, but I expect to really turn the screws on this chubby little cunt muncher. Look forward to a convenient supermodel thin corpse when I’m done with her!

~Lyle Maccabee

P.S. Enjoy the concert!’

Only two years of marriage, and three of this interminable hell. Lina’s wife had been gone for more than four times longer than Rachel. Three years where Lina could do nothing but stew in her own despair and try not to picture what sort of horrors the brunette might be going through at that very moment. There were days where Lina almost found herself wishing she’d turn a corner and see Georgia’s corpse. At least then, her wife’s suffering would be over.

“I know this is always a rough day for you,” Teri said kindly. “It certainly is for me, and I can’t even imagine how much worse it is for you. But… maybe don’t take it out on my house?”

Lina flushed. “Right, sorry, I’ll… I’ll get it fixed, I promise.” She looked down at the bloody knuckles of her still clenched fist, and then back at the large dent she’d left. “I, uh, I’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym lately.”

She’d already been a regular visitor, but these days she spent nearly all her free time there, taking every martial arts and self defense class they offered. It was the closest thing she had to an outlet for her pent up rage and frustration. Imagining that every kick and jab was a blow landing in that fucking monster’s face - in her mind’s eye, he was a hulkish brute of a man with hideous features - didn’t make her feel better, but at least it was something.

“I can tell,” Teri said, giving her an appreciative look. The tall blonde had always been an athlete, but she was probably in the best shape of her life these days. With her toned limbs and shaped abs, she was more than a match for any of her sparring partners, even the men who outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

Not that that meant a damn thing, not unless Lyle Maccabee decided to challenge her to a fist fight. Physical prowess didn’t help her against a man whose face she didn’t even know, and all the training didn’t even begin to scratch at her urge to do something to stop him. The time limit to save Georgia was running down fast, and she was standing still. Lyle had kept other victims alive longer, but not often and not by much. It was almost guaranteed that he was at least starting to consider his next target.

A sudden thought struck Lina, one that made her gut clench in anxiety. She stopped pacing. “I… I have a really bad idea…” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Lyle, he… he abducts his next victim before murdering his current one, right?”

“Um, yeah,” Teri said, not following. “There were a couple times a body showed up first, but the autopsies suggested victims’ deaths were accidental. Abduction is usually a few days or weeks before. So, I mean, you’re right, there’s a chance that he gets caught trying next time and Georgia comes back safe, but it would be cruel to claim the odds aren’t-“

“No,” Lina interrupted. “That’s not what I’m thinking.” The anxiety began to melt away as she turned the idea around in her head. It would be incredibly dangerous… but it also might work. She might actually be able to rescue the love of her life. She had to try. “What if we make me his next victim?”

Teri stared at her friend in disbelief for a moment, and then her eyes widened in understanding. “You want to be the next Rachel. Have someone doxx you and ask him to choose you.” She shook her head. “Even if that wasn’t the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard, it wouldn’t work. Half the messages on that site are misogynists begging him to go after the latest woman who wronged them. Lyle has never gone with any of them. He’s probably cautious enough to think, case in point, that some of them could be someone trying to trap him.”

“But we have an advantage,” Lina insisted, faint hope beginning to grow in her chest. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like. “I’m not just anyone, I’m the wife of his current victim. You really don’t think that lesbian hating bastard wouldn’t be interested in me? And if it doesn’t work…” She shrugs. “It hasn’t cost us anything.”

“Except for a bunch of sickos getting your personal information,” Teri countered. “And even if it works, which I still don’t think it will, what then? Don’t get me wrong, Lina, you’re probably the toughest woman I know, and in a fair fight I’m sure you could rip him a new asshole no matter how big he is, but that’s not what will happen. No one has ever escaped him, let alone turned the tables.”

“That’s where you come in. You have some of those GPS trackers that go under the skin, right? We hide one on me, and if- when he kidnaps me, you call the cops and tell them we’ve done their fucking job for them.”

Teri hesitated for a long moment before speaking quietly. “You know what’s going to happen to you if this doesn’t work out, right?” In all the years that Lina had known her, the day of Georgia’s abduction was the only time she’d ever seen the redhead more serious. “I already lost one of my two best friends to Lyle Maccabee, and I’m not in a hurry to lose the other. I’m not going to help you if you can’t look me in the eye and tell me you understand the risk you’re taking.”

“I do,” Lina said solemnly. “If this goes wrong, Georgia dies and I spend the rest of my life being raped and tortured by her killer. I know it’s stupid and it’s dangerous, but…” She looked down at her fist again. “If I do nothing, Lyle is going to keep going after women. Every time I look at the news and see that monster has kidnapped another one, I’m going to know that I had the chance to save her and I didn’t take it.”

“So you’re doing this out of guilt?” Teri asked skeptically.

Lina shook her head. “I’m doing this because even if I become nothing more than Lyle Maccabee’s latest victim, at least I’ll know that I’ve saved someone else from the same fate. I’ll never know her, and she’ll never know me as anything but a statistic, but it will still be true. And I think that’s enough for me. There are plenty of people who lived longer lives and accomplished less. And even if I knew with complete certainty that this was going to fail, it would still mean getting to see Georgia again, before she… nothing that monster could ever do to me could make up for getting the opportunity to tell her one more time that I love her. And to tell her… goodbye.”

Lina blinked away tears and forced a smile as she looked back at Teri. “Besides, you know me. I’m the girl who read fairy tales as a kid and wanted to be the knight in shining armor, not the helpless princess he rescues. The one who showed up to every campus Halloween party dressed as a superhero when everyone else was a sexy nurse or slutty vampire. You think I’m really going to give up the chance to be an actual, real life hero?”

Teri was quiet again for a while, then shook her head. “I still don’t like it. I think there are a lot of problems with this plan, above and beyond handing yourself over to a sadistic monster. First, this won’t be like a 911 call. I don’t think he’ll have much trouble evading a quick response team, and if he hears sirens, the first thing he’ll do before running is slit both your throats so you can’t tell them anything you know. I’d have to call in every favor I can and bring in the full cavalry, strike team stuff, all the bells and whistles, which will take time. We’re talking hours, maybe even days if we need a warrant or there’s jurisdiction bullshit, and people are assholes about the paperwork.

“Second, you wouldn’t be his first victim with a tracker on her. That was how they nearly got him ten years ago, that rich girl down in Malibu whose parents had way better tracking equipment and social connections than I could ever dream of. He might not notice it immediately, but he’ll recognize one if he sees it, and he will see it eventually. And third…”

She let out a resigned sigh. “Yeah, Lina, I do know you. You were stubborn as hell when I first met you nine years ago, and you’ve only gotten worse. So I know that even if I don’t help you, you’re going to try anyway, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Lina promised easily. The path before her was clear now, and she’d do whatever it took. “Let’s go save the woman we love.”

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

(art by John Drake)