Prologue
Hi, my name is Amabella Parker. You don’t know me yet, but you will soon. Soon I will be all the news will be able to talk about.
I know this because this is my story.
I’m not anyone special. I never saved a life, or acted in a film. I never even got the chance to graduate from college. As I said, I’m not anyone special.
Well, I know now you are wondering why the news will be so interested in me.
I’m gonna tell you a secret that you have to promise me not to tell anyone. Can you do that for me? I appreciate it.
I’m dead. No one knows it yet though. The detectives are still furiously looking for me. My parents are still going on the news each night to plead to my kidnapper to let me go. You know, trying to appeal to his human side, all that crap. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think he has a human side.
But I’m afraid if the detectives find out I’m dead, they will close the case. But it’s not over, it’s actually just getting started.
My killer is as smart as he is evil. None of his victims are from the same college. Or the same town.
But we had things in common - we were all blonde, all in our early 20s and were all nursing students.
You will later understand the irony of it all.
And, of course we all have our captor in common. I don’t just mean because he kidnapped us. We all knew him long before that. And right now, as I speak to you, he is grooming his next victim at the hospital.
You heard me right. At the hospital. Where we both worked.
I told you he’s smart. But he’s worse, he’s calculated. Patient. He will save many lives today at work. And then maybe end another life tonight when he gets home. Or maybe he’ll let them live through another night. It’s hard to tell. I might be able to see everything now, but I still can’t predict a psychopath’s movements.
My parents finally finished their nightly plea to my captor to release me. I knew they did that every night because he’d show us all the news around our disappearances. He’d make us watch these clips on repeat. Different towns. Different news stations. Different police chiefs giving very similar news briefings. It always boiled down to “we don’t have any leads yet.” And our captor would smirk. That was his proudest accomplishment.
But tonight, I was able to watch the news briefing in person. I was finally able to see my parents for the first time in months. They looked different. Smaller. Frail. Older. And my little sister is there with them. She’s a junior in high school. We were best friends growing up.
I just want to hug them. Tell them they can stop worrying about me because my hell is over. I’m free finally! I wish I could relieve them from all their pain and suffering, but I know the pain they feel right now is just minor compared to what they will feel when the detectives find my body. They still have hope right now. Hope that my captor has a smidge of humanity in his heart. Hope that one day I will be returned home safe and sound. Hope is a powerful emotion. To have that hope yanked away from you - I don’t think there’s a greater pain than that. Or no crueler torture can be inflicted on to a human.
I want them to have that hope for as long as they can.
Because soon, I will disappear from the news cycle. And I will just live on in photos and that weird shrine my parents turned my bedroom into.
Soon the name Amabella Parker will stop existing on people’s TV sets each night and will just be an asterisk buried somewhere deep on the internet as another murdered victim of a serial killer.
But we’re not there yet.
My name is Amabella Parker.
This is my story ...
