Chapter 1 - Bait

This story is the Volume 2 of:
Dumb like a Plant

You can find the Volume 1 of this story on my profile if you missed out.

Good Reading to all!

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Sabrina walked into the precinct with the hesitant stride of someone who fought every single day just to hold on to her worth in a relentlessly macho department. It was February 22, 2026, a gray Monday that reeked of stale coffee and the sour sweat of her male colleagues, and at twenty-eight, fresh out of the academy, she still felt like an intruder in that den of grizzled veterans. Being a woman in a station packed with alpha males wasn't merely a challenge; it was a daily war. Her coworkers eyed her with looks that slid between pity and naked lust, muttering jokes about how a "pretty little thing" like her had better watch out not to break a nail on stakeouts. She shot back with a razor-sharp smile, but inside she was seething. She had sweated blood to get here, passing brutal physicals and interrogations that would crush most people, only to be stuck on the bottom rung: bike thefts, domestic shouting matches, the kind of cases that didn't build a résumé. "You're still too green, Sabri," Sergeant Rossi would say, a big-bellied guy with beer gut and cigar breath. "Leave the real cases to those of us who've got the balls."

That morning the station was a mad anthill. Phones shrieking like banshees, officers sprinting with files tucked under their arms, the air thick with curses. Sabrina headed straight for the briefing room, where Commander Esposito was waiting to hand out the weekly assignments. Esposito was a hard-ass, fifty years on the job etched into a face full of deep furrows, eyes that stabbed like knives. He wasn't openly sexist, but he carried that old-school mindset: women were fine with the small details, but the real danger? Better left to men.

"Sit down, Moretti," he grunted, flipping through a stack of yellowing printouts because he still hadn't mastered the computer. The room was a claustrophobic box, peeling walls, a whiteboard covered in illegible scribbles. "We're drowning in backlogs. Drugs, unsolved homicides, and you? I'm giving you a cold case. Two girls who vanished into thin air. Nothing flashy, but something about it stinks."

Sabrina took the file, her stomach knotting. The pages felt dusty, as though no one had touched them in years, yet the oldest date was barely two years old. As she read, a spark of interest flared in her like dry tinder catching flame. Two secretaries, both hired by the same company, both gone almost exactly one year after starting. The first, Elena, a stunning blonde with a failed modeling past, orphaned, drowning in debt. Hired without a résumé, paid absurd money for... what? No one seemed to know. In interviews, coworkers called her a "pretty little doll" who had "let herself go," packing on weight and turning "sloppy," always holed up in the boss's office, Paul De Luca, a spoiled billionaire with a real-estate empire. Then, poof, gone. Credit cards frozen, no trace of life. The police had closed it as "probable voluntary disappearance." But that made no sense: inactive cards pointed far more toward abduction or murder. Even an idiot could see it. The case had been shelved only because, apparently, nobody cared enough to find her.

The second was Martina, a sultry brunette, same story. Orphaned, financially shaky, hired for her looks, paid like royalty to sit and stare at a wall. The witnesses? A chorus of venom: "She raked in cash without doing a damn thing, and in the end they caught her stealing." Vanished after being fired; ex-boyfriend had dumped her over constant fights; friends had distanced themselves because of her "disappointing behavior." No serious investigation, everyone assumed she'd bolted, maybe abroad with the money she'd socked away. But Sabrina saw the chilling parallels: both isolated, both letting themselves go, both tied to that sealed office on the twentieth floor.

"Commander," Sabrina said, slamming the file shut with a thud that echoed in the small room. "This isn't just any cold case. Two secretaries disappear from the same man? De Luca. And nobody dug deep because they were 'dishonest' or 'alone'? This is a pattern. The sketchy hirings, the easy money, the clockwork vanishings after twelve months..."

Esposito scratched his bristly beard, studying her with a mixture of skepticism and grudging respect. "So what? We already looked. No body, no crime. Martina's boyfriend didn't even search for her; her friends wrote her off. Closed. Why reopen it now?"

"Because it reeks," Sabrina pressed, heart pounding. This was her shot to prove herself, to climb out from under the shadow of the men who treated her like a glorified secretary. She felt an eerie kinship with those two women. "Nobody knows what they actually did in that office. Always with De Luca. What if he's the common thread? I could go undercover. Become the next secretary. With some makeup, a fake résumé, I could get hired. I'm young, attractive... exactly his type, according to the file."

Esposito stared at her, eyebrows climbing. "You're out of your mind, Moretti. I'd never suggest it. Way too dangerous for a rookie. The guy's probably a bastard. They all are, rich kids who never worked a day in their lives. He inherited his grandfather's and father's empire, and the secretaries he puts in that office might... face sexual assault or... I'm not letting you risk that on a case like this. There's no real glory in solving it even if you do."

"I'm not risking anything," she shot back, voice steady even as her insides trembled. "You monitor me. Wires, GPS, daily check-ins. If I vanish, you'll know exactly where to look. But it's the only way to get inside. Otherwise this stays a black hole. If he doesn't hire me, maybe another woman disappears..."

Esposito sighed, drumming his fingers on the desk. He knew she was right: the department was short-staffed, and a case with "undesirable" victims didn't draw heroes. Sabrina had guts, and if she failed... well, she was expendable. "Fine. But at the first sign of trouble, you're out. I'll give you a support team. And don't play hero, got it? I have a feeling this one's going to take a long time to crack."

Sabrina nodded, a shiver of excitement laced with dread racing down her spine. As she left the room, file clutched to her chest, she was already picturing her new role: the beautiful, naïve girl ready to walk straight into the trap. But this time, the prey would bite back. At least, that was the plan.