The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 4: An Assignment

The pretty young woman had just pulled her Miata into her parking space at the Crenshaw Arms apartment complex. Humming a happy tune to herself, she picked up a couple textbooks from the seat next to her and walked to the apartment she shared with a fellow secret agent, Mark Paulson. Mark had told her that secret agents did not drive little sports cars like that, they drove high-powered machines, like his Corvette. But she liked her little car. She said it was “cute”.

Finished with the class for that day, “Seventeen Ways to Kill a Man with a Pencil,” she ready to relax. Being a hot day, she immediately shed her clothing and enjoyed the air-conditioned air against her naked body. In the bedroom, she did a few stretching exercises and wondered what she could do while waiting for Mark to come home. Then she saw the set of handcuffs on the dresser and smiled.

all three pairs of steel cuffs in her hands, she made sure that the keys were sitting on the dresser in plain sight, and then she tossed the cuffs on the bed.

down snugly. Then she locked one cuff around her left wrist. Putting her hands behind her back, she felt around and managed to click shut the second cuff around her right wrist. Reaching around in front of her as she sat on the edge of the bed, she took the third pair in her joined hands. It was not too difficult to lock one of the cuffs around the connecting link of the pair on her

was a quick and simple way to immobilize a prisoner and, according to Mark, very difficult to get out of. She believed him, because the night he had locked her up in it, she had been

around, pushed and pulled on the cuffs, but she could not force any of them to loosen. In fact, some of them tightened down another click. Then she twisted around and arched her body, trying to see what she was doing behind her. Seeing some of the steel circles locked around her did not help much, but in trying to arch backwards, she felt herself slipping off the bed.

a while she continued to struggle, rolling around and arching and not moving one inch closer to freedom for all her efforts. Finally she lay still, panting from the exertion and coming to the conclusion that she was not going to be able to get those damned things off. Might as well give up and find something better to do with