Chuck needed to keep up appearances to avoid suspicion, but with an unconscious woman in the back of his car, he was pushing things much further than he liked. He gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

  This was not the time to be taking risks, but he was walking a tightrope right now and he knew it. A neighbor walked by, but thankfully didn’t look his way. After they passed, Chuck removed his coat and threw it over Kristy to keep her from being so easy to spot from the outside.

  When he’d kidnapped Jenny, it was night time and he could switch from his registered car to the unregistered car he used to travel to his lab, but being spotted doing that in the daytime could potentially lead to disaster, so the question was, should he wait that long? Or was it an even greater risk to wait around.

  It wasn’t supposed to go this way, but it had been necessary to visit Kristy. Chuck looked in the back and wondered if it might be better to simply kill her and be done with it, but dismissed the thought as soon as it popped up. There was no way to pull that off that would end well. He was one of the only people who had been seen socializing with Kristy so he would be on the list of suspects. Besides, after the text he sent to Officer Higgins, making Kristy disappear would buy far more time.

  Even if there were no other variables, Chuck saw the value of having Kristy as another data point for experimentation.

  Everything was in a delicate balance, but it all pointed to the fact that Chuck needed to hurry. Even if it risked a little attention, as long as nobody could find Kristy, they wouldn’t be able to trace anything back to him, so the risk was worth it.

  Chuck felt at his pocket where CX21 rested in its chrysalis stage. It was definitely worth it.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  He pulled into the parking lot where he lived and parked next to a car with a fake license plate on it. The license plate appeared to be a typical Louisiana plate with up-to-date tags, but it was a forgery of his own design. He even layered several fake registration stickers to make it seem less suspicious.

  Chuck waited thirty minutes in his registered car before transferring Kristy to the unregistered one. He was certain nobody saw her and after getting into the Driver’s seat, he pulled out a baseball cap and sunglasses from the glove box and put them on to hide his appearance before driving off.

  As he was pulling out of the parking lot, he passed officer Higgins’ squad car pulling in with Special Agent Holly in the passenger seat.

  A chill ran through Chuck’s stiffened spine. He made sure not to use more than his peripherals to look over in order to avoid standing out, but something in his stomach twisted. Why were they here? It had to be a coincidence, right?

  Chuck watched in his rearview mirror as the two of them pulled in behind his registered car to block it from leaving.

  He wanted to watch for longer, but he knew it wasn’t smart to linger. He pulled onto the road and drove off as he watched Special Agent Holly stare through the window of his parked car.

  That was all the confirmation he needed.

  Somehow, Chuck was now a suspect for their investigation. That meant he needed to disappear. Chuck sped off towards his lab and resolved to not return to the apartment that was compromised. There was nothing of worth there anyway. It would be a pain to change his identity, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it. Sure, he may be wrong about Special Agent Holly being onto him, but he hadn’t made it this long by ignoring caution. It was simply a matter of proper procedure.

  When Chuck pulled up to the water purification plant, he let out the breath he had been holding, then he laughed with a charged relief.

  That had been too close. If Chuck had waited any longer, they would have arrested him. That would have been a disaster.

  After he achieved his goal with Jenny, CX21 and now Kristy too, he would have his lab destroyed and moved.

  There was no way he would let himself get caught.