Chapter 10.

The Race Against Time.

The tension in the police station was palpable. Gabriel and Jake were working tirelessly to find Laura before it was too late. They knew that every minute counted, and the clock was not in their favor.

We have to find that car, Gabriel said as he reviewed the images from the security cameras. It’s our best chance of locating the killer.

Jake nodded, his face filled with concern. I’ve already given the order to check all traffic and security cameras within a 50-kilometer radius. If that car has passed any of them, we’ll find it.

Meanwhile, in a dark, gloomy basement, Laura was tied to a chair, her eyes blindfolded and her mouth taped shut. She could hear the sound of water droplets falling in the distance and the creaking of wooden boards under her captor’s footsteps.

 Her heart was pounding, but she forced herself to remain calm. She knew her only hope was to stay conscious and wait for the right moment to attempt an escape.

The killer, the sack mask covering his face, moved with meticulous precision. He was preparing his tools, arranging each of the instruments carefully. He knew he had to recreate every detail of the original crime to complete his masterpiece, so he asked her the question:  ¿How do you want it, with staples or with thread?

But the girl had a wound on her face, on her cheek, her facial muscles were numb and the knife had not come out of her, from that area of ​​her face, so she could only sob…

As her tears were falling she told herself that this was her punishment for having worked overtime, the end of her life, that was why she had worked so hard to have to die at the hands of a murderer, because this was the way life told her it was this way…

When he saw that she did not answer he said: then we are going to use both, but don't worry, you won't feel anything when I'm done… when she saw him approaching with a tool that looked like a pizza cutter, but with the edge of a scalpel, the young woman did not hesitate to scream…

However, there was no point in screaming, because the basement did not externalize the sounds that were experienced there, so, when he was only centimeters away from her, he forcefully buried this tool similar to a pizza cutter, which also turned like a can opener, and with strong, rapid movements he cut her face was completely covered, and as he lifted the edges of the skin he used the knife that was on one of her cheeks and with that knife he began to cut the muscle of the skin until there was nothing left to prevent her face from being removed…

The burning was frantic because the young woman was still alive, perhaps because of the adrenaline of wanting to live or because her brain had not realized that she should be dead, only her teeth were visible along with her bulging eyes and the two holes in her nostrils…

It was then that her abdomen was discovered and he kicked the legs of the chairs so that they broke and she fell to the ground emitting a much more serious moan of pain…

Blood flooded everything, but the man sewed half of her face to her stomach like an artist and put the other half not with surgical staples, but with office staples, which made the agony so horrifying that Laura could no longer bear it and her body died of a sudden heart attack. …

Then the old man took a photo…and all of his victims had their photos taken because it was the way he could admire his art later when he was home.