Christmas Hostage (Christmas Romantic Suspense Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  He hadn’t been able to accept it, so he had lost the woman he loved.

  Now, he wanted her back. And he actually had a chance of making it happen.

  Tom was sure that Hannah wanted to reconcile just as much as he did.

  If he was wrong, if he asked and she said she wasn't interested in getting back together, then at least he would know.

  A week ago, getting back together with Hannah had been the last thing on his mind. When he’d walked into her jewelry store four days ago, he’d thought that maybe they could both walk away from this case with closure. Now, closure was the furthest thing from his mind. He didn't want closure; he wanted his wife back.

  “Coffee,” Chloe announced as she set a takeaway cup down on his desk and shrugged out of her coat, scarf, and gloves.

  “Thanks.”

  “I can't believe Christmas is only three days away.” Chloe pulled off the reindeer beanie she’d been wearing since October and set it on her desk.

  He couldn’t either. He hadn’t decorated for Christmas since the last one he’d celebrated with Hannah. He went to his family’s gathering, exchanged gifts, sang carols, and ate too much Christmas dinner, but his heart was never in it. Obviously, Hannah’s wasn't, either. She didn't have a tree or a single Christmas decoration up in her house. And he knew how much she loved the holidays. When they’d lived together, she had decorated every single room in their house, filling it to the brim with Christmassy decorations and festive fairy lights. The look of joy on her face when she discovered a new decoration she just had to add to her collection was priceless.

  Hannah’s Christmas Eve ritual of leaving milk and cookies out for Santa and carrots for his reindeer always made him laugh. As soon as she would fall asleep, he would sneak downstairs to eat the cookies, drink the milk, and gnaw on the carrots. In the morning when they woke up and went downstairs to open their presents by the tree, Hannah would always make a big deal out of pretending Santa had been and loved her homemade cookies. Her joyful laugh filled their home and his heart, making the day the single most perfect day of the year.

  He wanted that joy for her again.

  For both of them.

  And he knew the only way they could find it was together.

  They were so close. If Garry was the one who had set up the robbery in an attempt to draw Hannah back to him, then they had him in custody. All they needed was some proof to keep him locked up.

  “How’s Hannah after what happened last night?” Chloe asked.

  “She was still asleep when I left, but she’ll be fine.” Despite what Hannah apparently thought, he had always seen her as the strong woman that she was. “She was shocked and upset, and I think it threw her that she hadn’t seen Garry for who he really was, but if this was what it took to find that this was all because of her ex, then I think she’s glad it happened—scary as it was at the time.”

  “It was lucky you were watching her house or things might not have worked out so well.”

  “It was,” he agreed. He honestly wasn't sure if Garry would have physically hurt Hannah or not, but regardless, he was relieved he’d been there before things even had a chance to get out of hand and turn violent. “I spent some time this morning looking into Garry Smith.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Chloe arched a brow. “We didn't look into him too deeply when we spoke with him before. He doesn’t have a criminal record.”

  “No, he doesn’t. But he does have a psychiatric one.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “I spoke with his sister.”

  “The sister?”

  “She was upset to hear about him being arrested and quick to tell me that he’s unbalanced, and that this isn’t the first time he’s gotten a little too obsessed with a girlfriend. It’s not even the second or the third. Hannah is the fourth woman that Garry has gotten out of line with.” Although it had scared Hannah and himself, he was glad that last night had happened. If it hadn’t, Garry’s actions would have escalated.

  “What did he do?”

  “The first incident was back when he was in high school. He latched onto a girl after a school dance. They had never even dated, but he built up this relationship between them. He started leaving gifts and notes in her locker, followed her around. After he started turning up at her house at night, her parents threatened Garry’s parents that if they didn't make him stop, they were going to press charges. His parents took him out of school and homeschooled him for the remainder of his junior year and his senior year.”

  “When did he strike again?”

  “College. Same sort of thing, only this time he had been dating the woman. When she ended things, he started stalking her. At first, she thought it was fairly harmless and he would eventually lose interest and move on. When he didn't, she ended up transferring to a different school to get away from him.”

  “She didn't press charges?” Chloe asked.

  “No, she didn't. She tried, but stalking cases are so hard to prove. When cops talked to him, he said that it was all just a big misunderstanding, and since Garry hadn’t done anything threatening and the girl hadn’t been hurt in any way, the cops never took it further.”

  “He escalated with the third one?”

  “He did,” Tom agreed. “The third one was a few years later. He was in his mid-twenties, working at a bank, and the woman was a colleague. They dated for about a year before things ended. She thought they ended amicably enough. And for the first couple weeks, it seemed like they did. And then the gifts and flowers started coming. Garry was still posting all over his social media accounts like they were still a couple. He started turning up at her apartment in the middle of the night, like he had with the others, he never made any attempts to get inside, he would just sit and watch the house. Then one night, he broke in.”

  “Did he hurt her?”

  “Not badly. He was convinced they were still a couple. Tried to get into bed with her. When she fought him off, she received some minor injuries.”

  “What happened? He doesn’t have a criminal record, so he wasn't arrested.”

  “They made a deal that if he got some psychiatric help that no charges would be filed against him. He did. He spent a few months at an in-facility treatment center, then came out, he takes medication and sees his psychiatrist once a month.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be helping,” Chloe muttered.

  “It looks like Garry could be a viable suspect. He knew Hannah’s store, and he could have gotten in when she wasn't there to plant the listening device. He has a reason to want to scare her, and he knows that Hannah has suffered a trauma before. He probably thought if he shoved her right into the middle of another one, he could get her to come back to him. He knew Hannah saw a therapist and maybe thinking they had that in common, he decided to fight harder to keep her than he did with the others.” The thought of another man obsessed with Hannah got his blood boiling and his protective juices flowing.

  “We can't be sure yet that Garry was the one who set up the robbery,” Chloe reminded him. “We haven't ruled out Bryce McCracken yet.”

  * * * * *

  8:43 A.M.

  She was just about to get up and walk out the door, unable to spend another second in this place without driving herself crazy, when the door swung open.

  “Thanks for coming down here, Hannah,” Special Agent Luckman smiled at her.

  “Are you okay?” Tom asked, his eyes assessing but emotionally empty.

  He was back in cop mode. She couldn’t take much more of this. Hannah understood that this was his job, that he was an FBI agent, and that he solved crimes and saved people. It wasn't that she didn't want him to do his job or that she didn't understand his desire to protect her, but she couldn’t keep spending time around him when he kept switching between the Tom she had known before and the one who was like a stranger.

  “Hannah?” he prodded, when she didn't answer.

  “Yeah. Fine. What did you want to ask me about?” She w
ished Tom had still been at her house when she woke up this morning; she’d liked falling asleep knowing he was close by. When his partner had called her to ask if she would come and answer some questions for them, she had reluctantly agreed. The sooner they ended this, the sooner she and Tom could sit down and talk.

  “I don’t want you to worry about Garry,” Tom said. “He’s going to be charged, and if he’s the one who organized the robbery, then we’ll find out, and he will be charged with that, as well.”

  “Is Garry going to be kept in jail?” she asked.

  “He’ll probably be out on bail,” Tom replied.

  So, there would be nothing stopping him turning up at her house again. And if Tom wasn't there the next time, she might not escape unscathed.

  “He won't have a chance to hurt you again.” Tom said it so confidently, she believed him. “His family is aware of his problems. He has a history of being unable to let go of relationships. They’re going to make sure he doesn’t come near you again. And you should take out a restraining order; if he does turn up at your house again, his bail will be revoked.”

  “Yeah. Okay,” she agreed, although it didn't seem like a piece of paper was going to protect her much if Garry came back. And if his family knew that he was a danger to women, why hadn’t they done something about it? She and Garry had dated for a little over a year. She’d met his parents and his sister, and never once had they mentioned anything to her about him being unbalanced. And how had she not noticed that he was unbalanced? He had seemed so perfectly normal. She never would have pegged him for having any sort of mental health issue.

  “It’ll be okay, Hannah. I won't let him hurt you.” Her Tom was back. The fire in his eyes, the protectiveness in his voice—this was who Tom was, and if they were going to get back together, she was going to have to learn to accept it. She might not want a husband who was a guard dog, but she could put up with it if it was what Tom needed to do.

  “All right,” she agreed, putting her trust in Tom. “What do you want to ask me? Is it something about Garry?”

  “No, we want to ask you about Bryce McCracken,” Tom’s partner informed her.

  “Dr. McCracken?” she repeated. Tom had asked her about him before. If they wanted to talk to her about him again, they must really think there was a chance he was behind all of this. He had been her doctor for nearly three years now; he’d helped her a lot. She would never be where she was right now if it wasn't for him. She had loved Dr. Langley, and when the woman had retired shortly after she and Tom had divorced, she had considered giving up therapy. But she’d known she wasn't ready yet to take that step and asked her doctor for a recommendation, and she’d been introduced to Dr. Bryce McCracken.

  “Do you like him?” Chloe Luckman asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Your sessions with him have helped you?”

  “Yes. A lot.”

  “He said you’d called him after the robbery.”

  “Yes. I wanted to work on my phobia of guns.” Hannah had been deliberately avoiding looking at the agents’ waists where she knew their guns were, but now her gaze dropped there, and she felt a shiver rocket through her. The six men who had ambushed Tom and broken into their home had tortured her mercilessly with their weapons. They had ground them into her temple and her forehead—leaving her with bruises far more substantial than the one from the other night—and laughed while they did it, pretending they were going to shoot her. Then they had pushed the barrel of the gun inside her and laughed again, like it was all some big joke to them. They had run the cold metal of the gun all over her body, asking her where she wanted them to shoot her first. She had believed she was going to die that night, and if it hadn’t been for one of their neighbors, she and Tom would have. Her gaze now riveted on Tom’s weapon, Hannah pulled her bottom lip in behind her front teeth and chewed on it nervously.

  “Do you want us to take our guns out of the room?” Tom asked.

  She did—desperately—but she knew that if she wanted to overcome her phobia, she had to start somewhere. Neither Tom nor his partner were a threat to her, so here was as good a place as any to start. Deliberately, she ripped her gaze from his waist to his face and calmed her ragged breathing. “No, its fine.”

  “What are some of the things you and Dr. McCracken have worked on?” Chloe asked.

  “You don’t have to answer that, Hannah,” Tom inserted. “It’s up to you. Your sessions with your therapist are privileged.”

  She didn't have anything to hide, and she didn't believe that her doctor was in any way involved in the robbery, so she was happy to tell them whatever they wanted to know—at least the basics. They didn't need to know all the details. “We worked on my feelings to do with the assault. Techniques to help deal with the panic attacks. Dealing with my fears of the dark and being alone and sleeping in a bed. I wasn't very successful with the bed one.”

  “How did he help you overcome your fears?”

  “It wasn't really about overcoming them; it was learning to manage them. I'm probably always going to be jumpy alone in my home at night, but I got to a place where I can do it even if I'm not one hundred percent comfortable with it. We did exposure therapy. With my fear of the dark, we worked at it in steps. At first, he had me try not having every light in the house on. Then we worked on being in the dark for short times. Then we worked up to longer times until I got to the point where I could last throughout an entire night without having to have a light on in the room.”

  “You were happy with his methods?”

  “Yes.”

  “He never pushed you to try something you weren’t comfortable with?”

  “I wasn't comfortable with any of it, but no, he never pushed me harder than I could cope with.”

  “You never worked on your phobia of guns with him before the robbery?”

  “I think we might have talked about it early on, but it wasn't as pressing to me as my fears of the dark and being alone and learning to deal with the panic attacks. Those things affected my everyday life; guns didn't. I never came in contact with them. It wasn't until the robbery and I realized that Jeff and Vincent could have died because I froze up that I decided I had to do something about it.”

  “Did he ever do anything to make you feel uncomfortable?”

  Tom stiffened as his partner asked that, his guard dog side was out in full force again.

  “He never made me feel uncomfortable. I like him.”

  Tom relaxed, and asked, “What do you know about him?”

  “He mostly works with victims of PTSD. He loves apples and eats them all the time, and he recently got divorced. Other than that, he’s just a good doctor. He’s helped me a lot.”

  “Do you know any of his other patients?” Chloe asked.

  “Not really. I might say hello and exchange pleasantries with them if we’re waiting together in his waiting room, but that’s about it. Why do you think he might have done this?” She couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer.

  “Families of some of his patients have filed complaints about his methods,” Tom informed her.

  “The exposure therapy?”

  “Yes. He took it to the extreme a few times and ended up causing his patients more harm than good.”

  “What did he do?”

  “One of his patients was a young woman who had been raped while jogging in the park with her dog. She hadn’t been able to exercise since and had put on a substantial amount of weight. Her dog had tried to fight off her attacker, and the rapist had killed him. She hadn’t been able to go near a dog since. Her family finally convinced her to seek help and she did. At first, things were going well. She worked on her inability to be around dogs and got to the point where she got a new puppy. Then he pressured her to agree to let him set up a fake assault. After working with Dr. McCracken, she’d been able to go back to exercising, taking to the gym rather than jogging. She was happy with her progress. Her family was happy with her progress. But the doct
or wanted more. He convinced her to go jogging and told her he was going to set up a fake assault. He did, and it set the woman back in her recovery.”

  Hannah frowned. “That’s taking the exposure therapy too far.” If Dr. McCracken had set it up for a group of men to pretend to break into her home in the middle of the night, it would have brought everything back. It wouldn’t have helped her. At all.

  “That’s what her family thought.”

  “Were there any other instances like that one?”

  “There were a couple of others. All since his wife filed for divorce,” Tom replied.

  “But he had their permission, right? I mean, he might have pressured them to say yes, but they did say yes. He never asked me about working on the gun phobia by throwing me into a fake armed robbery, so I really don’t know that he would have had anything to do with it.” She didn't think that Dr. McCracken was involved, but her relationship with him had certainly been soured by what she’d just learned. She couldn’t continue to see him as her doctor; she’d have to find a new therapist.

  “Maybe he’s trying to make a name for himself in the psychiatric world by trying methods that are extreme. Or maybe he feels some sort of attachment to you for some reason, possibly because you bear a striking resemblance to his ex-wife. I don’t know,” Tom said, “but if he’s involved, we’ll find out.”

  She nodded, feeling so overwhelmed. A week ago, she had just been going about her everyday life, trying to make it through the holidays, focusing on work. Now she’d been held at gunpoint, discovered that the man she’d dated was an unbalanced stalker, and the therapist she trusted was more interested in himself and his career than helping his patients. What was going to happen next?

  * * * * *

  12:20 P.M.

  Hannah yawned, a huge face-splitting yawn. She was really struggling to keep her eyes open today, which was weird given she’d had a better night’s sleep than she had in the last three years.