It seemed like the universe had a way of bringing most things full circle. The universe could be beautiful, tragic, harsh, forgiving, and unrelenting at the same time. So, when Caroline opened her brown eyes again, desperately scared that she’d lose the information that she’d gained in whatever type of state she’d been placed in…it only made sense that his obsession with her had started this whole thing, that her new found obsession with catching him could let this tragedy find an end.
Caroline often made jokes about the situation that she was stuck in, trying to find some type of humor in the horror movie that her life was starting to be. The weird balance of being the happiest that she’d ever been and also the most frightened. The situation had escalated and she was no longer scared for just her own life that the man had held in calloused hands wrapped around her neck deciding rather or not to let her life but she was scared for Abel’s, too. It was one thing for her life to be taken too soon, she could never get it out of her head that it was her fault, that somehow she’d caused all of this to happen by being too open on the internet. But Abel’s? He was too talented, too brilliant, too perfect, if there was a single person who deserved more life to create more magic it was him.
She was trying to focus on the dream…the memories that she’d found while being trapped inside her own body. She was trying not to lose a detail so that she could get it down on paper, she could sketch it if she had to even though she’d met with a sketch artist. She was trying to become aware of her surroundings but her body felt heavy, and her head did seem to hurt, but mostly felt cloudy. “I don’t know what happened, but listen…” she said softly, seemingly unaware at how small her voice was in the large room, or how the words still slurred slightly like she’d been drinking when she knew for a fact that she hadn’t. She didn’t know how she found herself in the kitchen, her head resting in his lap or the sounds of what she assumed were paramedics in the driveway, security showing up behind Abel to inform them of their presence.
“I know.” she repeated, interrupted by the paramedics who seemed to rush the room. She ignored the paramedics' questions at first, using her small hand to tug at the hem on his shirt, “babe, listen, I know how I met him.” she repeated, trying to get her newly found revelation out in the open before she forgot. It was like she was scared she’d be under whatever she was before again, like she was scared that she wouldn’t be awake for long and if she was honest, she was scared if it happened again that she’d never wake up, she’d be trapped inside her own mind forever and that was enough motivation to stop the damn creep.
The paramedics seemed to make her more nervous, like a magnetic pull, she moved closer to Abel, and that comforting feeling that she’d only known from him. “M’am, can you tell us your name and what happened?” The paramedic repeated, and Caroline huffed a little, annoyed that she’d have to deal with this before she could explain what she knew. “Caroline Marie McCook….soon to be Tesfaye, I don’t know what happened.” she said simply, her throat was dry, she found it almost painful to speak, she didn’t feel fully well, like she just woke up from anesthesia or something along those lines, disoriented. A woman paramedic pushed past the man that was speaking, she moved to kneel by Caroline, taking her pulse and asking different questions, more specific. “Caroline, do you remember coming into the kitchen?” she asked casually, her tone soft and cool, like she was trying to keep the brunette calm.
She shook her head, a question that could probably be answered by the cameras, something Caroline wasn’t even aware of had been tempered with. “What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Caroline’s slender arm. “I got home from meetings, and I was having coffee.” she said simply, glancing around the room for the time to gauge how much time she’d lost. Has the stress finally gotten to her? Had she lost all her marbles and been a crazy person who fell asleep on the floor of the kitchen? “Where’d you get the coffee?” the woman asked her as the cuff tightened around her arm. “I dunno, my assistant, maybe? I don’t know, it was just sort of there…” she said, she still wasn’t placing two and two together since her mind was very much preoccupied with not forgetting a detail.
“Do you remember not feeling like you have control of your body? Like you were, maybe, drunk?” she asked and Caroline nodded, though she couldn’t place when that happened, was it even today? The woman took the blood pressure cuff off her and stood up. “You need to call someone to find that coffee cup, I’m pretty sure she’s been drugged. Rohypnol.” she said towards the man behind her, and then to the couple. “Roofied.” she said simply, and Caroline honestly appreciated the straight forward answer from the woman, since it was clear the man behind her was probably just going to say that she slipped and hit her head. How funny it was that the man’s plan of drugging Caroline just gave her a memory that could be very thin to get him caught?
“Because of your, well both of you, really’s, status, it’d be safer to take your blood here to test it than to bring you to the hospital. I recommend a nurse of some kind to help monitor her as the drugs completely leave her system, should be around twelve hours. We can provide you with some names, we’ve gotten a few contacts from working so much in this area.” She said and Caroline nodded, clearly still preoccupied with her thoughts. “Can I see your phone, babe?” she asked, leaving one of her arms free as she allowed the woman to prepare to take a blood sample. Her fingers were slow, heavy even, like she wasn’t completely in control but she went to google and searched “Caroline McCook summer event 2020” since she didn’t exactly know which event it was. She was going through photos, trying to match the outfit in her mind to the Getty Images that decorated the screen. It wasn’t something she did often, googling herself, it kind of gave her the creeps, but at least that would be a good place to start.
It wasn’t until the paramedics and Caroline had been tucked more than carefully by her fiance in their bed that she could get the entire story out. “I’m fine, babe, listen.” she said, sitting down her ipad that she’d switched into looking into, well, herself on google. She painted the entire picture with her words, about how she could see herself in her mind, she told him all the details that she could remember from what she was wearing, to the way her hair was colored, to the decorations of the party, she described walking up to the bar and the middle aged man hitting on her and Caroline swerving him. She described what he was wearing, to the direction in which he pointed out the large yacht that he claimed to have. She explained as she searched, obsessed with finding the right event, she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she did.
That’s what she did, she followed every photo until she found the right one, the right event. It was a smaller one, and she’d only gone to it because it was supposed to be by a woman owned brand and she always liked to support that. It took hours of searching, hours of telling Abel that she couldn’t rest until she found him. That was until she did, one single photo, it was blurry due to her being in the background and the man, her stalker, the person who had choked her out, drugged her, took photos of her without permission, sent creepy gifts among other things was right there. “I found it.” she said softly, handing the ipad and the less than ideal photo but still it was something, they could pull guest lists or something else that she knew Abel’s team could accomplish because he only hired the best. “Babe, that’s him.” she said. And it was Caroline’s new found obsession to live, that was the full circle moment for the man’s obsession to kill her.
