Chapter 3

Now parked beside the house of Mrs. Wrigley, the man watched in his rear-view mirror back along Oleander. He knew the other girls all lived back where he had spoken to them. The shorter blond who had been in the back of the group, lived farther North. She now came out of her house and headed in his general direction, as the man knew she would. He knew she would just head East towards Neptune beach, without walking the extra blocks back to meet her friends. As she passed the van, he called out to her.

“Hello again, young lady!”

“Hi there! You found the right house!”

“Sure did, thanks! Discovered I was missing a part, so I have to go up to Walmart.”

“Ah, oh well. Friday is beach day! I am supposed to meet my friends over at the beach. Bye again!”

“See you and enjoy the beach. Bye now!”

The man started up the van, drove up to the next corner, which was 3rd street and waited for traffic. The girl had caught up to him and waited on the sidewalk to cross the road.

“Must be nice just being able to walk a block or two to the beach!”

“Nah, this area has too many condos, we meet down by the pier. It’s about two miles South, kind of a longish walk wearing flip-flops.”

“Look, I know your mom has told you not to trust strangers, and probably not to accept rides from dirty old men, but this job is really only going to take me 15 minutes, so I’ve got time. Hop in and I’ll give you a ride down to the pier if you want, no problem.”

She thought about it and started to turn the man down. Just then he said, “Yeah, your mom is right. You never know, I could be an axe-murdering, sex-starved kidnapper,” and then he smiled, “Well, guess I have to get back to it, enjoy the beach!”

As he started to pull away, she yelled, “Wait!”

As the man again stopped the van, she caught up to it and nodded at him, “OK, a quick lift down to the Inlet won’t hurt.”

The man told her, “This is a work van, no power windows or door locks, sorry. Pull up on that knob.”

She did so, opened the passenger door and climbed in. Looking around, she didn’t see anything unexpected. “Thanks a lot, Mr.?”

“Abrams, Kris Abrams, electrician extraordinaire!”

The man then turned on the air conditioning, “I don’t normally have this on, to save costs, but for you, all the best.”

Smiling at her, he continued, “Go ahead and roll up your window.”

Clicking her seat belt on, she re-locked her door and rolled up the window. It WAS a hot one today.

The man said, “If you’re thirsty, there are bottles of water and Sprite in this cooler and then he grabbed his water and took a large swallow. Reaching into the cooler, she brought up a bottle of Sprite. Looking at the man and smiling, she turned the bottle up-side down and squeezed. Nothing happened. Looking at her actions with obvious puzzlement in his eyes, she responded, “The cap’s obviously not been removed, but if a needle was used, then there’d be a hole, right?”

“Oh, yeah, there would. Very good, your mother taught you well.”

Frowning, she said, “Not her, we all, my group of friends that is, have talked about what to do to ensure we don’t get roofied and taken advantage of. This was one thing we talked about. That’s all.”

“Anyway, that was smart. If you are reassured no tampering has happened, please, enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks Mr. Abrams,” she responded, as she opened the top and listened for the ‘pshtttt.’ Hearing it, she smiled and introduced herself, “I’m Nikki,” and drank down half the bottle in one long swallow. Taking a breath, she drank half of what was left, and burped from the carbonation. Giggling, she finished off the entire bottle, recapped it, and looked at the man expectantly.