American Horror Story, Starting from Falls Town

Chapter 135 Kidnapping
"Mr. Black, before I transfer the money to your account, I have to warn you. If I transfer the money directly to you, the taxes you have to pay may be very high!"

Roy had never thought that his intelligence fees would be so high, so he asked Gerald to pay the taxes on his behalf.

But now it seems that this is not a good idea. The tax rate in Los Angeles is very high, and Roy does not want to make things easy for the IRS.

"How about this, wait a few days before transferring the intelligence fee to me. I'm going to set up a studio first, and then transfer the money to my studio."

The tax paid by a studio is much less than that paid by an individual, and the tax rate is determined based on the studio's place of registration, leaving a lot of room for maneuver.

However, you still need to consult an accountant for the specific situation, as the tax system in America is really chaotic.

"Of course, no problem! You can come to me anytime to withdraw the intelligence fee."

"It's a pleasure working with you, Mr. Olin!"

"Happy cooperation!"

After that, Roy left Gerald's office with Saltana.

Originally, Roy wanted to show his gentlemanly manners and send Saltana home, but Saltana drove here by herself, so there was nothing he could do.

"Sister Saltana, you don't seem very disappointed?"

Roy walked side by side with the chocolate beauty and took her to the parking lot.

"The subway case is complicated. Gerald's choice is correct. We can't take any risks."

Well, Roy didn’t know Saltana well enough, and she might be more conservative at work.

However, sometimes, FEA wants to stop for a while, but the enemy may not.

After seeing off his elder sister, Roy was about to return to his suite to enjoy the fruits of victory with Heather and Penny when his cell phone suddenly rang.

I picked up the phone and saw that it was Dalia calling.

This is a bit strange. Dalia hasn't answered calls or replied to messages in the past two days. Why would she suddenly call me?

Did something happen?
Roy answered the phone immediately.

"Hi, I'm Roy."

"Roy, this is bad! I noticed some strange people snooping around my house. Could it be those things in the subway tunnel that night?"

Hmm? Those guys took action?

Roy thought about it and thought that maybe the action at noon had alerted the enemy, so he asked the butcher to take action.

However, Roy is a strong fighter, and the two women beside him, Heather and Penny, were too tired from playing in the past few days and stayed in the hotel to rest for the past two days, so the other side had no way to attack him.

The Dolphin Hotel is the headquarters of FEA. The butcher would only enter here to arrest people if he is crazy.

But why Dalia?

If you want to find someone, you should look for yourself, right?

At that time, neither the subway driver nor the butcher should have seen Dalia.

Thinking about what Gerald had mentioned before about the Los Angeles police, Roy thought of a possibility.

"Dalia, after that day, did you call the police?"

Dalia answered Roy immediately without hesitation.

"I was terrified the whole night after I got home that night. The next day, I saw a missing person notice in the newspaper and thought about going to the police station to provide some clues, but the police ignored me."

Well, Dalia had good intentions, but her good intentions led to bad consequences.

This is probably how the butcher and his men targeted Dalia.

"Dalia, close the doors and windows now. I'll come to you right away! Remember, don't trust anyone!"

After Roy hung up the phone, he called Heather Penny and told them he might be back late, then drove his used yellow Chevrolet Camaro straight to Dalia's apartment.

On the other side, after Roy hung up the phone, Dalia immediately closed all the windows and drew the curtains.

Then he used the cupboard to prop up the door, and then he hugged his daughter Ceci and huddled at the head of the bed.

Daughter Ceci is only 6 years old now and doesn't understand why her mother did that, but she can feel her mother's fear.

"Mom, why are we doing this?"

Looking at her innocent and lovely daughter, Dalia could only force an explanation.

"Shh, Cece, we are playing hide-and-seek with others, it's best not to talk now."

When she heard that they were playing games, Ceci immediately became quiet.

However, it is actually quite difficult to let a child hide in one place for a long time without speaking, because making noise is the nature of children.

After holding it in for about five minutes, Ceci started talking again.

"Mom, hasn't that person found us yet?"

Dalia hoped that the stranger outside could not find her and her daughter, but the lack of movement made her a little hesitant.

"Mom, go check it out now."

Dalia walked to the window, opened some of the curtains, and looked out at the street.

Today is the weekend. Dalia took her daughter out for a day. On the way home, she felt as if someone was following her.

But at first Dalia thought it was her ex-husband who was sending someone to follow her.

Dalia and her ex-husband are in a critical period of fighting for custody of their daughter, and they have encountered similar situations before.

However, when Dalia went to pick up her daughter Ceci from kindergarten, she unexpectedly saw the face of the stalker, who was the butcher Mahogany who appeared in the subway that day.

This made Dalia panic. After she hurriedly took her daughter back home, she saw Mahogany standing on the street corner and staring through the window.

Dalia wanted to call Roy for help first, but what she saw at the Santa Monica Cup last night made her hesitate, and finally she chose to call the police.

Unfortunately, after calling the police several times in a row, the operators only gave perfunctory answers.

This is also because Dalia is too naive. The American police are only responsible for arresting criminals and maintaining social order after a case occurs, but they have no obligation to protect potential victims before a case occurs.

That's a security job, and you have to pay extra for it.

No kidding, that’s a real case!
The two girls heard unusual noises and a woman's screams next door, so they called the police. The police operator said they would send someone to check it out.

Upon hearing that the police would send someone, the two girls with a sense of justice chose to help the woman next door. As expected, both of them were caught and raped by the criminals.

During this period, three waves of police came. They just knocked on the door, asked a few questions and left.

Afterwards, the two girls sued the local police, but lost the case.

The reasons given by the court were:

"The duty to provide a public service is a duty owed to the public at large and in the absence of a special relationship between the police and an individual, there is no specific legal obligation."

In other words, even if there was no problem with the Los Angeles police, they would not necessarily send anyone to rescue Dalia and her daughter.

After several hours, the police still didn't show up and Mahogany didn't disappear. The terrified Dalia finally chose to call Roy for help.

But now when Dalia looked at the corner of the street, she found that Mahogany was gone. Did he give up?
"Mom, did you see anything?"

"No, Mom didn't see anything."

Feeling a little relieved, Dalia returned to the bed and hugged her daughter Ceci, praying in her heart that Roy would come soon.

"Mom, I met a new friend these days!"

Dalia tried to control her fear, not wanting to affect her daughter. "A new friend? Did you meet him at kindergarten?"

Cece shook her head.

"No! I met him when I was waiting for my mom after school!"

Dalia was stunned for a moment. Due to her average education and lack of professional skills, she could only choose some odd jobs or labor-intensive jobs.

The problem with these jobs is that the working hours are not stable, so I am often late to pick up my daughter from school.

Dalia touched Sisi's head, feeling a little worried about her daughter's condition.

"Cessi, can you introduce this new friend to me?"

"Well! Mom, I drew a picture of him. I'll show it to you!"

Ceci left Dalia's arms, walked to her small school bag, and took out a crayon drawing.

When Dalia saw Ceci's old schoolbag, she was in a trance. She bought this small schoolbag before she got divorced. She had been using it for several years, but because of financial constraints, she had never replaced it with a new one.

Now seeing this old schoolbag, Dalia felt very guilty and didn't even react when Sissi returned to her.

"Mom, look! This is the friend I drew!"

After being shaken a few times by her daughter, Dalia finally came to her senses and looked at the crayon drawing in Ceci's hand.

It shows a tall man in a suit holding a little girl's hand. The strange thing is that the little girl in the painting has a smile on her face, but there is nothing on the tall man's face.

"Cessi, why don't you paint this friend's face?"

"But the Slenders have no face!"

These words shocked Dalia. How could a person be without face?
Looking closely at Cesi's expression, the little girl's face looked exactly as it should, as if the Slender people she was talking about had no faces.

"Cesi, tell me, does your new friend really have no face?"

After experiencing the subway monster incident, Dalia already knew that there were many supernatural things in this world. There were man-eating monsters in the subway tunnels, so it didn't seem strange that some people had no facial features.

Maybe he practiced the Wuxiang magic?

Ceci nodded heavily.

"Yeah! The Slender man has no face, and he's also very tall! Taller than Daddy, twice as tall as Mommy!"

Dalia is 1.75 meters tall, so if there are two of her, that would be 3.5 meters tall!

Even if Sisi's description is a bit exaggerated, it should be three meters. Are there really people that tall?
Achina Dimitrescu: Yes!

Dalia hesitated for a moment, wondering if Ceci was dreaming.

If there really were such a tall person appearing in a kindergarten, it would be impossible for the kindergarten teachers not to see it.

But in the past few days, the kindergarten teacher did not mention anything about the three-meter-tall person. Instead, she told Dalia that Sisi's mood had changed a lot recently and he no longer liked to play games with other children.

Dalia knew that this was because his parents' divorce and family breakdown had caused changes in Sisi's psychology.

Many parents think that their children don’t understand anything when they are young, but they don’t know that although children don’t understand, they can feel the changes in emotions.

This emotional change will also subtly change the child's psychology.

Dalia hugged Sisi with some heartache. She thought that it was because she was busy with work and paid less attention to Sisi during this period, which led to the child having an imaginary friend.

"I'm sorry, Ceci, it's Mom's fault!"

Ceci looked at her mother strangely, not knowing why her mother apologized, but she could feel her mother's concern at the moment, so she hugged her mother happily.

The brief warm moment was interrupted by a hurried knock on the door.

Dalia was terrified again. She let go of her daughter Sisi and stuffed her under the bed.

"Cessi, hide under the bed and don't make any noise!"

"Mom, are we still playing hide and seek?"

"Yes, it's a game of hide-and-seek! If Cece can stay out of sight, I'll take you to McDonald's tomorrow!"

When Ceci heard that she could eat at McDonald's, her eyes lit up immediately.

"Yes! I will definitely hide well and not make any noise!"

As he spoke, Ceci covered his mouth.

Seeing her daughter so obedient, Dalia walked out of the bedroom and went to the door, picking up the rolling pin in the kitchen to protect herself.

"Who's knocking at the door?"

A woman's voice came from outside the door.

"LAPD! Did you call the police?"

Looking out through the peephole, I saw two people in police uniforms standing outside the door, one male and one female, who met the criteria for a police dispatch.

It was indeed the police. Dalia breathed a sigh of relief. Just as she was about to push open the cabinet blocking the door, she suddenly remembered Roy's last words.

Do not trust anyone!
Can't the police be trusted either?

Dalia hesitated for a moment, and then the policewoman outside started knocking on the door again.

"Open the door quickly, or we will break it down!"

Hearing this, Dalia had no choice but to push open the cabinet and prepare to open the door, but she was careful and inserted the anti-theft bolt, only opening the door a crack, which could be considered as opening the door.

"Ma'am, why are you so slow to open the door?"

The policewoman looked a little unhappy, probably because Dalia's movements were too slow just now.

"Sorry, I was a little scared just now, so I blocked the door with a cabinet and moved the flowers away for some time."

This explanation is actually quite reasonable, but the policewoman's face is still full of impatience.

"Okay, open the door first and we'll go in."

Dalia nodded, and when she was about to pull out the anti-theft plug, she accidentally glanced at the necklace hanging around the policewoman's neck. The pattern on it seemed like she had seen it somewhere before.

It's the pattern on Mahogany's chest!

On the night of the Midnight Cannibal Train, when Mahogany was kicked out by Roy, Dalia saw this pattern!

Dalia's expression changed. She immediately realized that there was something wrong with the two policemen and quickly wanted to close the door.

However, the two policemen at the door reacted very quickly. They immediately stretched out their feet to block the gap in the door and prevented Dalia from closing the door.

Failed to close the door, Dalia could only move the cabinet to try to block the door, but unfortunately she was a weak woman and could not match the strength of an adult man and an adult woman outside.

The two of them worked together to break the door open, and Dalia was quickly controlled.

The policewoman briefly checked the apartment.

"Doesn't the information say she has a daughter?"

The male police officer knocked Dalia unconscious, carried her up and walked towards the door.

"Why bother with so much? The higher-ups only told us to take this woman away!"

The female police officer shook her head and followed the male police officer.

Photos of Jennifer Connelly in her prime
(End of this chapter)