The Decoy

  Chapter One



Two years perviously







         "Camera 3 your looking a little fuzzy.  Need that fixed before this next guy shows up."  Stacy heard Roger, the producer of Pedophiles Down, a reality show where decoys helped the cops catch men who preyed on young girls for sex.  She smiled, cameras going down or any number of mistakes and accidents was all part of the job she loved.  She played a twelve year old decoy for the men who would come to the house they would rent in different cities around the world.  At four foot eleven inches, she did look like a teenager and was for ever getting carded at the clubs she and her friends would go to.  A few times the bouncers would think her license was fake and refuse entry.  She shook her head.  No time to think about that now.  A new guy was expected to show up in five minutes and she had to be ready.  The butterflies started in the pit of her stomache, but she did not let them get in the way.  It was normal to feel a little fear when confronting these guys, you never knew when one might have a gun or knife and decide to use it in a fit of anger. 

         "Stacy, get ready.  Meetyurfuture25 is pulling up the driveway."  Roger pulled her from her thoughts and she smiled.  She put her baseball cap on and headed to the front door.  Time to get this show on the road.





         Eight hours later, Stacy pulled into her driveway, happy with the job done today.  They had caught twenty five guys and she knew there would be more tomorrow.  She enjoyed her job, knowing that she was helping get scumbags off the street and away from the kids they targeted.  She grabbed her purse and slowly got out of the car, tired and hungry.  She was ready for a nice dinner, hot soak in the tub and her bed.  Although her job was not all that physically demanding, it did require mental strength in order to deal with the fear the men brought with them when they came over to the bait house thinking they were going to meet a teenage girl or boy.  She walked toward her front door and noticed the slip of paper slid into the crack between the door and door jam.  She pulled the paper out, thinking one of her friends had stopped by, realized she was not home yet and decided to leave a note.  She looked down at it and almost dropped her purse.



                                                           YOU RUINED HIS LIFE, I WILL RUIN YOURS!!!!

         She stared at the note for a moment not really seeing it, but realized panic was beginning to sink in.  Panic she had been familiar with ten years ago.  She took a deep breathe, shoved the note into her purse and unlocked the door to her house.  She was not going to let some low life scare her.  She had overcome fear ten years ago.  Fear that had kept her lock inside her house all day and night.  Fear that had kept her up for hours at night and made it impossible to sleep more than three or four hours.    So much had changed since then and she was not going through that again.  The hospital, the medications, the well meaning doctors.  She had pulled herself out of that awful time and got back on her feet. 

         She shook her head, put her purse on the hall table beside the front door and made sure the door was locked.  It was part of her nightly routine, along with the lights blazing inside her home.  She knew she was wasting electrity but she did not like the dark and she was determined to keep at bay inside her house.  She never left her house until she knew at least one light was on in every room.  Many times she would not get home from work until after dark and the one thing she feared more than anything, was walking into a house, hers or anyones, in the dark.  Darkness hid monsters that she did not want to think about.  Monsters like the ones she helped put away everyday.  No, the monster that still haunted her was worse.  Much worse.  She shook her head to banish the memories that threatened to curl her into a ball right there in the hall and walked into the kitchen.  She started a pot of coffee in her purple coffee maker and pulled out the left over steak from dinner two nights ago.  She put it on a plate, set it in the microwave to heat it up and pulled her favorite coffee mug from the cabinet.  She knew no matter how far she had come from that fearful person she had once been, she could end up there again if she let the fear and depression over take her again.  The he would win. 

         She stared out the window over the sink, not seeing anything but the darkness.  Darkness that had secrets and would not let her see.  She sighed as the microwave signaled that her steak was ready and she pulled the plate from it.  She pour some coffee into her mug, took that and her plate into the living room to where her computer sat, inviting after the long day at work.  She ate her small dinner while she waited for the computer to warm up.  She loved to write and would do so every chance she got.  Everything she saw was a chance for a story.  A chance to make her dream of being a published writer come true, but nothing had jumped out at her as just right, yet.  She knew it would come one day, if she paid attention to what went on around her. 

         Stacy signed onto her facebook page, looked at the new updates on her wall then opened her blog page, ready to share with other what went on with her day today.



                             "Not much of real interest happened today.  Same old, same old.  I did recieve an interesting note

         on my door when I got home from work today.  I do not know if the person who sent that note reads this or not but

         I must say, you do not scare me.  I do not know who you are but you must be a coward.  Living a threatening note on

         some woman's door is a a cowardly thing to do.  It is obvious that you do not have the guts to face me yourself."



         She continued writing, lost in the world of the internet.  Here she was anonyomus, just another face behind a screen.  She did not have to dress up to be here, or pretend to have had a good day when she had not.  She could vent about the day if it had gone bad, or just read others blogs and reply to help them out.  She was never judged or questioned here.  She finished with her writng, and saved it.  She went to check her email and saw that she had a letter from someone with the nickname, sorry4u32.  She wasn't sure she open it but after thinking about it for a moment, she shrugged.  If it was a virus, her virus protector would catch it.  She clicked on the subject and began reading.



         "Do you even think about the lives you ruin with your job.  It is not the mens fault they get lured in by the thoughts of making it with these teenager girls.  What you and others like you is entrapment.  It is you and those you work with who should be in jail, not the men who are tempted with such young innocent flesh.  YOU RUINED HIS LIFE, I WILL RUIN YOURS!!!!"



         Stacy stared at the screen for a moment, thinking.  She wondered if she should tell Roger, her boss at Pedophiles Down about this, but shook her head.  This was just another man feeling guilty about his feelings for young girls but did not want to take the blame himself.  She deleted the email and forgot about it as she went about her night.



         The man watched from his truck outside the house and smiled as the light went out.  Just like always, she was turning in for the night.  He had been watching her routine for several weeks, learning her habits, planning when the best time would be to get to her.  His plan was almost ready.  Revenge was almost his and he could not wait.  He knew his brother was watching him from above and smiling proudly.