One (Count to Ten Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  Before she had a chance to dwell, Annabelle heard the unmistakable sound of the basement door opening, and moments later Ricky appeared.

  “Afternoon, Annabelle,” he smiled at her cheerfully, just as he had so many times before when she would come and visit him in his home. The knowledge that she had shared more of herself with this man, this horrible murdering man, than any other person on the planet, left her feeling nauseous.

  “Please let me down, Ricky,” she begged. “My arms are numb.”

  “Sure thing,” he said agreeably.

  That had been too easy. He was up to something. “Why are you doing this, Ricky?” she asked as he used a knife to cut through the rope binding her. This had been her first opportunity to actually talk to him, and attempt to talk her way out. Every other time, Ricky just came in and drugged her. She had to take advantage of this opportunity while it lasted.

  “Revenge,” he answered simply.

  “Revenge?” she repeated, confused. “On me?” Grunting as the rope broke and she tumbled forward, caught off guard, her head banging painfully into the concrete floor.

  “On you?” Ricky laughed like she’d just said the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  “Well, on who then? I have a right to know since you involved me in all of this,” Annabelle challenged. Pain was shooting up and down her numb arms like an arrow as circulation slowly resumed, but she did her best to ignore it.

  “You have no rights,” Ricky growled, lunging at her and flinging her onto her back, his hands clamping around her neck, squeezing tightly.

  Hands still tied behind her back, Annabelle was helpless to fight him off. Still, she squirmed desperately as Ricky’s hands tightened. Her vision began to fade, and Xavier's face popped into her mind. She wished desperately that she had been able to believe him when he’d told her that he was falling in love with her. If she hadn’t been so stupidly and uncharacteristically stubborn, then instead of lying on a cold basement floor with a maniac’s hands wrapped around her throat, she could be in Xavier's living room, safely tucked up in his arms, right this second.

  Just when she’d thought she was about to die, Ricky suddenly released her. Annabelle struggled to suck in breath after breath of precious air. As he knelt beside her, Ricky’s breathing was almost as ragged as her own. Taking advantage of his distraction, Annabelle attempted to half crawl, half drag herself across the floor, wanting to be as far away from her psychotic neighbor as she could be.

  “Not so fast,” Ricky’s hand grabbed her injured shoulder, shaking her and making her cry out in pain.

  Tears brimming, she fought them back, she didn’t want him to see her cry. “Please, Ricky, just tell me what you want, whatever it is I’ll give it to you, just please let me go,” she whimpered.

  “You’ll give me whatever I want, will you?” Ricky snarled.

  “Yes,” she whispered, sure she wasn’t going to like where he was headed. Before she knew it, he was pressing his lips against hers, kissing her roughly. The feel of his lips on hers was nothing like the feel of Xavier’s. Relieved when he finally pulled away, she couldn’t suppress a shudder.

  “Not quite the same as when your new boyfriend does it?” Ricky sneered.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Annabelle whispered, still trying to get her breathing to return to normal.

  “That’s right,” his sneer changing to a malevolent grin. “Poor little Annabelle is too scared to date.”

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t come up with a retort to that. She was too scared to date, and Ricky knew it. She’d told him so on numerous occasions.

  He was laughing cheerfully now. “You didn’t tell me about the scars.”

  The scars were about the only thing she hadn’t told him.

  He laughed again. “Little, weak Annabelle, too scared to get out in the real world and live her life, so she hides in her house all the time.”

  “I have a life,” she protested, even though she knew it wasn’t true.

  “You have a job and a family and your only friend is a serial killer.” He laughed again. “You forget I know all about you. I’ve spent hours and hours listening to you drone on and on about how scared you are to live your life, to let anyone get close to you because you don’t think anyone could love you. So tell me about these scars, how did you get them?”

  She flinched as he reached out a finger and traced it along the scars on her chest. Usually, Annabelle made sure to dress in a way that kept her scars completely hidden, she didn’t want anyone catching sight of them, but Ricky had removed her clothing, leaving her only in her underwear. Those scars and how she had got them were the only piece of herself she hadn’t shared with him, and she wasn’t about to let him take it now. “You killed so many people, Ricky,” she said instead, hoping to distract him. “Why?”

  “I told you. Revenge. For my mother’s death,” he added.

  “I thought your mom died in a car accident?” That was what Ricky had told her anyway, but as she thought about it, she realized that the two of them had talked a lot more about her than they had about him.

  “She died in a fire.” His eyes grew distant. “It was just the two of us, but I was out. She was upstairs and didn’t know that she’d left some candles burning. They set the curtains on fire, then the whole place was burning. She was trapped upstairs.” His eyes were cold now. “She screamed for help, but they ignored her. Listened to her begging for someone to help her, but they did nothing. They’d said the fire was too fierce and they couldn’t get inside. She died and now they will too.”

  “Who will?” Annabelle asked softly, positive that Ricky’s mother’s screams had not been ignored, but that whoever had been there had truly been unable to reach her through the flames.

  “Our neighbors.”

  Catching on, she asked, “Your neighbors didn’t save your mom, so you’re hunting them all down and killing them?”

  “They watched and did nothing, so I made sure they couldn’t do that again. They heard her screams and did nothing, so I made sure they couldn’t scream. My mother’s hands were all cut up from trying to escape on her own because nobody would help her, so I made sure they lost their hands.”

  Quaking as she remembered the photos of her family’s mutilation, Ricky had done that to them, and who knew why he hadn’t to her. “Ricky, your mom’s death was just a horrible accident, those neighbors…” She broke off as Ricky’s fist connected with her face, sending her sprawling.

  “My mother was murdered,” he roared, looming over her.

  “Okay, Ricky,” Annabelle nodded, her cheek ached and she could feel blood dripping down her face; she didn’t want to make him angry again. “Xavier said that you raped me.” She had to force the words out her mouth. “Why did you do that? That doesn’t have anything to do with getting revenge for your mom’s death. Xavier thinks you like me. Do you?”

  Ricky burst into peals of near-hysterical laughter. “That is the funniest thing I have ever heard.” He wiped at the tears streaming down his cheeks. “You are nothing more than a distraction, something to keep the police occupied so I can finish what I started. And I’d say you did just that. You had Detective Montague so well occupied he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “So you were just using me? All this time that I thought we were friends, you were just using me?” That thought hurt her more than anything else. She had allowed herself to open up to this man because she thought he was a true friend, and the whole time he had just been plotting how best to manipulate her to get what he wanted.

  “There was one thing I always wanted from you.” The glint in his eyes changed.

  Remembering what he had said to her that night, that he’d been waiting a long time for her. “Please don’t,” she whispered desperately.

  “Every time you sat in my living room wallowing over what a weak, pathetic person you were, I thought about it, played out fantasies in my head. I couldn’t wait to sleep with you and take that pole out of y
our snooty little behind. Last time was good, but, unfortunately, you don’t remember it; this time you will though.”

  * * * * *

  2:02 P.M.

  “She has to be here somewhere.” Xavier thumped an angry fist into the nearest wall.

  Kate watched her partner closely. He was hanging on by a thread. She knew he hadn’t slept last night and panicked concern for Annabelle was written all over his face. Xavier had pinned all his hopes on finding Annabelle here at the house where Ricky Preston’s mother had died. However, they’d already been here for a good thirty minutes and so far there was no sign of either Annabelle or Ricky.

  When they got back to the station she was going to talk to Rob about removing Xavier from this case. She didn’t want to hurt her partner’s feelings, and she hoped he understood, but with Annabelle missing, Xavier could barely function, much less do his job. She knew he’d never forgive himself if anything happened to Annabelle because he couldn’t focus.

  “Let’s go through the house again,” Xavier snapped.

  “We’ve already searched it thoroughly,” Kate reminded him patiently. The house Ricky’s mother had died in had been completely destroyed in the fire, and the plot of land had sat vacant for many years. Since being rebuilt, the house had changed hands numerous times; now it stood empty. When they’d arrived, they’d searched it from bottom to top. Every room. Every cupboard. Every closet. The basement and the attic. And they’d found nothing. Not even a sign that Ricky had stashed Annabelle here at some point.

  “Then we’ll search it again,” Xavier said tightly.

  Reluctantly, Kate followed him back down to the basement, and patiently helped him to recheck the nooks and crannies they’d already searched.

  “Maybe there’s some sort of secret room down here,” Xavier suggested.

  Kate needed to put a stop to this. “She’s not here, Xavier. We checked the whole house. You need to face facts. Wherever Ricky took her, it wasn’t to the house where his mom died. But that doesn’t mean we won’t find her,” she said firmly.

  “There’s no guarantee we’ll ever find her,” her partner said, voice stark.

  “Xavier . . .” He was right, but still—she wanted to offer some platitudes to make him feel better.

  “No, Kate, we both know that we may never find her. Or we might not find her until it’s too late.” Xavier’s hazel eyes were bottomless pits of fear and pain and guilt.

  “It’s not your fault he got her,” she said softly. Kate was truly worried about how Xavier would cope if anything happened to Annabelle. He was already a mess of guilt over what Julia had done and the part he believed he played in it. It didn’t matter how many times she told him that Julia could have told him what happened to her and ask him for help. She knew he knew it in his head, but she also knew he didn’t believe it in his heart. If they didn’t find Annabelle alive, she was concerned the guilt would eat him alive.

  “I left her alone and unprotected,” Xavier’s voice was raw with self-recrimination. “I knew that the killer wanted her taken out, and yet I left her all by herself because I was angry that she invaded my privacy and found out about Julia. What was I thinking?” He dropped his head to his hands. “I should have just told her about Julia like you told me to. What was so bad about her looking it up, anyway? She had every right to know about my history with Julia because…”

  “Because you went through every aspect of her life with a fine-tooth comb?” she asked when he trailed off into silence.

  He shook his head. “No. She had every right to know everything about my past because she was falling in love with me.”

  “We need a profile,” she announced suddenly. Xavier needed a distraction. “We need to know if he took Annabelle as a distraction or because he’s obsessed with her.”

  “He looks at her like he’s obsessed,” Xavier muttered.

  Unfortunately, that was Xavier’s jealous side talking, not his cop side. “Hold on,” her phone began to buzz in her pocket. “Detective Hannah.” She was listening intently. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Who was that?” Xavier asked with a raised eyebrow, he seemed to have regained his composure.

  “Rob. He said that the Littletons were indeed the neighbors that lived next door to Ricky and his mom when she died; at least Ken Littleton and his parents were. Ken was only seven years old at the time he witnessed the fire.”

  “So then he was already finished.” Xavier’s face paled so dramatically that Kate was worried he was going to pass out. “And he took Annabelle anyway.”

  “Xavier…” she began.

  “I don’t know what’s worse,” he muttered tonelessly. “That he took her as a distraction so he could get away or that he took her because he’s obsessed.”

  She bit the bullet. “Xavier, I’m going to tell Rob to take you off this case.” She waited anxiously for his response. Kate considered her partner one of her closest friends, and intended to ask him to be the godfather of her baby. Which reminded her she still needed to tell him about the baby. She didn’t want to mess with their friendship, but she was too concerned about him right now to sit back and do nothing. No matter what the consequences.

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” he murmured tiredly. “I can barely think, Kate. I’m no good to Annabelle right now.”

  She let out a relieved breath. “Okay, then. She’s not here, we’ll drive back to the city, I’ll drop you off at home, and then I’ll go talk to Rob. We’ll find her, Xavier. You have to believe that. And I’ll keep you up to date. I’ll let you know the second that we find anything.”

  “Okay,” Xavier nodded distractedly.

  Taking his elbow, she guided him up the stairs, and out through the house. She paused at the car and held out her hand. “Keys?”

  He stared at her vacantly as if she’d spoken in another language.

  “I need your car keys,” she reminded him.

  Xavier pulled the keys from his pocket and handed them over, then flopped into the passenger seat.

  Kate slid into the driver’s seat of Xavier’s car, turned on the engine, then paused. She was just going to tell him. “Xavier, I’m pregnant.”

  His eyes grew wide in shock. “How far along are you?”

  “Sixteen weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he looked crestfallen.

  “Because you’ve been so distracted lately, and then everything with Annabelle, and…” and I was a coward, she finished silently. “I’m sorry, Xavier. I was scared because I…I don’t know if I’m going to come back after my maternity leave. I didn’t know how to tell you. I wanted you to be happy…”

  “But you weren’t sure I would be because of Julia and the baby we lost,” he finished for her. “Kate, we’ve been friends for a long time, and you were there for me through the whole Julia thing. I’m happy for you.” The smile he shot her was genuine. “Congratulations, Kate, you’re going to be a great mom, and David is going to be a fantastic dad.”

  She let out another relieved breath. Now she couldn’t even remember why she’d been afraid to tell Xavier. He was her friend; of course he’d be happy for her. “We want you to be the godfather,” she could feel tears shining in her eyes.

  “I’m honored,” his smile was serious, but in his eyes she saw joy.

  “Then let’s go find Annabelle, and maybe one day I’ll get to be a godmother.”

  * * * * *

  4:26 P.M.

  Annabelle lay there dazed.

  In shock, she supposed.

  Her shoulder ached badly, but at least it had stopped bleeding. The cut on her face where Ricky had hit her earlier had also stopped bleeding, but it, too, ached and Annabelle thought Ricky had probably broken her cheekbone.

  It was sticky between her legs. Ricky hadn’t used a condom when he’d…

  No, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to think about that right now. Wasn’t going to think about him on top of her. Wasn’t going to think about whet
her he was going to come back and do it again.

  But it was too late, of course. She was already thinking about it. And tears were streaming down her cheeks again.

  Curling herself into a ball as best she could with her injuries and her wrists still bound behind her back, she let herself cry.

  Obviously Xavier wasn’t going to find her.

  Maybe he wasn’t even looking.

  No, she reminded herself. The last time she had seen Xavier he had promised that he was going to find the killer. She had to hold on to that belief or else she was going to lose it.

  Already she was only hanging on to sanity by a thread.

  And only because of Xavier.

  She wasn’t sure how someone she had only known for a few days could have made such a big impact on her. He was her knight in shining armor. And she could see herself falling in love with him. Maybe she already was.

  She allowed herself to daydream about a happy future with Xavier. Of a wedding, and a family, and all the wonderful things she had been sure she’d never have. If she made it out of this alive, she was going to tell Xavier how she felt. She was going to let herself believe him when he promised her that his ex-wife was his past and she was his future.

  Her panic was just starting to ebb a little when she heard Ricky at the door.

  He was back.

  Her breath caught in her throat as he loomed over her. She tried to meet his eye bravely but couldn’t force herself to do it. “What do you want, Ricky?” she asked quietly, hoping desperately he wasn’t planning on raping her again; she didn’t think she could go through that again.

  “I’m here to put you to good use,” he grinned.

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “Well, my dear, you are my little distraction tool. I’m going to make sure that your boyfriend and his partner are too busy rescuing you, so I can finish what I started.”