“Look!” he demanded again, this time grabbing my head and forcing me to stare at the jar that contained a head sitting on the table.
“Say hello to Vince,” Sam giggled like the lunatic he was.
“Oh God!” I groaned. “You didn’t,” I whispered.
“I did. I wasn’t about to let another fucker steal you from me! That late night he left your place, I followed him home, shot him up with the same stuff I shot your driver up with today, and dragged his body to my trunk. You ever heard a man scream as you gut him?”
A sob broke free from my lips. Sam was truly sick. I had wondered what happened to Vince after our first night together. I’d thought that he’d gotten what he wanted and moved on.
“He couldn’t have you!” Sam gritted out. “I had to leave California soon after. My parents forced me back home,” Sam stated glumly. He moved around to face me again. His eyes widened in excitement, as if he were a child who was just told they were going to the state fair. He was truly unhinged. “But as soon as I could, I came looking for you again. I went back to Oakland, followed you to Chicago,” he spat out. “And soon after you moved back to Williamsport to be with him.” His eyes hardened as he glared at me accusingly. “But I knew…It was for me. You were brought back here for me. See, the first time I was stupid.” He shook his head. “I wanted those babies inside of you dead!” he hissed. “Walking around pregnant, proof to the world of the type of whore you were. So many times, I wanted to kill those little bastard seeds.”
I gasped, horrified and angered at how he referred to my children.
“I messed up the first time, but thought I could use them. That didn’t work. Anyway, now is our time. Maybe I should kill them just so he no longer has any connection to you.”
“You psycho!” I kicked out, catching him in his thigh. “Don’t fucking touch my children!” I screamed and yanked at the ropes, trying to free myself. So help me God, when I get free I am going to kill him with my bare hands!
“Oh!” He laughed maniacally. “There’s that passion I love in you. Don’t worry,” he stated, pulling my face to his and kissing my forehead, “we will make our own children, once I’m done with them.”
He stood, moving to the desk and throwing on a dark ski mask. After grabbing the set of keys that sat on his desk, he started for the wooden door at the far end of the room.
“Where’re you going?” I yelled.
He kept moving, ignoring me.
“Don’t you touch my children! Aaron will rip you apart, you son of a bitch!” I tugged and yanked at the ropes, doing nothing more than causing more damage to my wrists. But I didn’t feel the pain, my concern was for my family.
Sam stopped short, turning to me. “Not if I get to him first,” he warned.
Pure terror moved through my body. The look in his eye could only be described as stark raving mad. After he slammed the door shut, my knees went so weak that my body fell limply back to the floor.
I had no idea what to do.
****
Aaron
“What the…” Carter breathed out, standing a few feet from me as we looked around the empty room. All around us, posted on the walls were pictures of Patience, going back years.
“He built a shrine to her,” Brutus stated out loud what was evident to our eyes.
We were standing in the middle of the former bookstore. The same one Patience used to frequent while she was in graduate school. The same one I’d taken her to that first night after dinner at Buona Sera. The same one where an obvious obsession was born.
Thanks to Emma’s visions, I was able to tell Brutus that Sam was responsible for Patience’s kidnapping. I gave him the details that I knew. His name was Sam, he’d worked as a clerk at the vintage bookstore six years earlier. Though the store was now closed, Brutus was able to use the information to get all of Sam’s information. His full name was Samuel Granger. Born and raised right here in Williamsport. His grandfather had opened the bookstore some thirty years prior and passed it down to Samuel on his eighteenth birthday.
I looked around at the empty space, the walls littered in images of my wife. There were pictures of her from years earlier. I was in some of them, though my face had been crossed or cut out. The son of a bitch had replaced my face with his in the pictures of she and I together. A cold chill passed through my chest when I turned to see more pictures, more recent images of Patience as she went into the work at the library. Pictures of her inside of the library working. But my entire heart damn near stopped beating when I discovered the pictures of Patience and the children playing in the Williamsport City Park.
“I’ll kill this motherfucker myself,” Carter growled beside me.
Following his gaze, I saw him staring at one of the photos that had Patience standing next to Michelle as they walked with the children into a store. It was the day they’d gone shopping for Halloween costumes. He’d been there. Watching my family. My entire body began to vibrate with an anger I’d never felt before.
“No,” I shook my head, fists clenched at my sides, “he’s all mine.”
Brutus emerged from behind Carter and I. “He’s not here,”
I wanted to rip his head off for stating the fucking obvious. I turned angry eyes on him and even at six-foot-six, outweighing me by eighty pounds, he took a step back. I was sure there was a crazed gleam in my gaze.
“We’ve got more information, however,” Brutus stated slowly, as if measuring his words to not set off a ticking time bomb.
Me. I was that time bomb.
“Health records. Samuel Granger was admitted to the Williamsport Behavioral Health Facility.”
“For what?” I questioned.
“He was a troubled kid. Apparently, he was adopted at the age of three. Before then he was born to a drug-addicted mother. His adoptive parents, Bobbie and Charlene Granger, did their best but he had a difficult time connecting. He was only calm when it came to reading. A loner throughout his school years. He was put on meds for depression but tried to kill himself his junior year by hanging. His mother came home early from work and found him just in time. There was a girl at school he’d become infatuated with and when she rejected him he tried suicide. He was admitted for three months to the psych ward. After that he withdrew from school, rarely leaving the house except to visit his grandfather’s bookstore.
“His grandfather gave him the job, hoping it would help stabilize him. His parents continued to seek help for him due to numerous violent outbursts he had with them. But they were given meds and told to work it out in therapy. Sam refused therapy after turning eighteen. His grandfather died, leaving him as the beneficiary of the store. From the looks of it, his parents mostly ran the business, leaving Sam to be the clerk and spend his days here helping customers and reading. This is obviously where he came across Patience. As you can see,” Brutus waved a hand around the room, “he grew obsessed. His parents eventually realized it when they found a shrine in his closet that he’d built to her. They tried for almost a year to have him committed. By then he’d moved to California.”
“He followed her,” I growled.
Brutus nodded. “A judge finally found him incompetent and he was again put into the facility for almost a year. Somehow he was able to convince the doctors that he was stable enough to be discharged. He moved back in with his parents.”
“Why the fuck didn’t they warn Patience?”
Brutus shrugged. “Maybe they thought they could handle it. They likely didn’t know he attacked her or even why he’d moved to California.”
“Where the fuck are they now?” I’d hold them accountable for this situation just as much as I would their crazy, fucked up son.
“Dead. Six months after he was discharged they died in a car accident. Father was driving and had a blood alcohol content well over the legal limit. But…”
“What?” My eyebrow peaked.
“Neighbors say he didn’t drink. By all accounts Bobbie Granger never touched alco
hol, hating the way it made him feel out of control.”
“He murdered his own parents,” I surmised.
“Looks like it but it’s never been proven. Not long after their death is when he shut down the bookstore and went to California again, only to move back to Williamsport. His behavior became more erratic and aggressive once she was back.”
Another chill ran through my body. I was the catalyst for his aggression. Seeing her with me and our children. And now, she was pregnant and alone with that psychotic fuck and I had no idea where.
“He’s not here, so where the hell is he?”
“We’re digging up financial and real estate records. He purchased two plane tickets to the Bahamas just five days ago.”
I narrowed my eyes. “He’ll never make that flight.”
“Fucking right he won’t,” Joshua growled, sounding as pissed as I was.
I could’ve done all of this on my own, but I was glad I had my entire family with me in that moment.
“Who’s that?” I questioned, when Brutus’ phone rang.
“Office. They’ve got something…” He trailed off, answering his phone.
I watched, feeling helpless as he told whoever it was on the other end to send the information.
“He has a house. A cottage about twenty minutes outside of the city. Was owned by his grandfather. Rarely used. Sending GPS coordinates to all your phones now.”
Brutus’ words were in the background as I made a beeline for the door. I burst through the door of the closed down bookstore, and jumped in behind the wheel of my Tesla Roadster.
I was pulling up the coordinates of that madman’s house as Joshua jumped in the passenger seat.
“Carter and Brutus’ guys are following,” he stated as I pulled off.
I didn’t need anyone else for this but I guessed I was glad they were all there.
“Shit, I forgot how fucking crazy you drive,” Joshua commented.
I grunted as I rounded the corner, driving through a red light. In my head, I dared any shit cop to try and stop me. I was going to get my woman back and then bury the bastard that’d tried to take her from me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Patience
“Dammit!” I groaned at the growing rope burn on my wrists. I’d been trying feverishly, ever since Sam left to free myself. A small thread of the rope had frayed after rubbing them continuously along the rusty metal pipe I was tied to. It felt like hours upon hours I’d been trying to untie myself, with very little headway.
My throat was hoarse from yelling, trying to alert anybody that could be nearby, but to no avail. I had no idea where I was. The one window in the room was covered by dark drapes. Just then, I had an idea. I remembered that I had a couple of bobbie pins in my hair, that I’d used to pin up my locs that morning. I bent down, lowering my head to my hands, and fiddled for a bit, searching for the pins. I was able to reach about two of them. I stuck the tips in my mouth, working to pry off the rounded, rubber edges to get to the sharp pointed metal tip.
Spitting the rubber balls out, I twisted the pins around and worked to use the now sharp edges of the bobbie pins to cut through the robe. It was slow progress, but still moved quicker than rubbing back and forth against the metal pole. I pushed past the pain still throbbing in my head and my wrists. I could give into it when I was safe. I needed to concentrate on the task at hand. I breathed and continued to work my fingers, trying to free myself.
“We gotta go!”
I jumped when Sam bust through the door, yelling. He had an even more crazed look in his eye than when he’d left. He moved in my direction with purpose. I backed up against the pole, not knowing what to expect. Of course, I didn’t manage to get very far, still being tied up and all.
“Don’t touch me!” I kicked at Sam, landing my heel against his shin.
“Ah, shit!” he screeched. “The fuck is your problem?!” He grabbed my face painfully. “I’m doing this for us!” he hissed, his spittle landing on my nose and mouth. “They found out it’s me. They know my apartment. We’ve gotta go.” Sam was frantic. He went for my wrists, untying me from the pole, but my hands were still bound to one another.
My first instinct was to make a dash but something told me not to just yet. Instead of trying to break free, I tightened my fingers around the bobbie pins, to prevent him from seeing them in my hands.
“We’ve gotta go out back. My truck is about two miles down the road.” He was more talking to himself than to me at that point. His dark eyes were glossy and I just knew there was absolutely no point in trying to reason with him. He was too far gone.
“Let’s go!” he urged, angrily, tugging on the rope, pulling me behind him. The more he pulled the tighter the ropes became around my wrist, causing more pain. I began fearing blood loss to my hands with every squeeze.
We stumbled out of the back entrance of what I’d then come to realize was a cottage of some sort. I blinked as we exited the building into the cold winter air. I wore only the sweater, jeans, and a pair of ballet flats that I’d worn to the library earlier.
“Thinks he can take you from me. You’re mine!” Sam yelled, tugging again at the ropes, dragging me closer to him.
I stumbled as we made our way through the densely wooded area, falling to my knees.
“Come on!” he growled, impatiently, lifting me up underneath my arm.
I glanced over my right shoulder to see we were about two yards from the cottage. I thought back on what Sam had said when he first entered. The “they” he mentioned had to be Aaron and his security. It had to be. I knew he would be doing his damndest to find me. Everything in my body told me he was. It was as if I could feel his anger and his terror. I swallowed, reminding myself to remain strong for him, Kyle, and Kennedy. I had to keep alive long enough for him to get to me.
“Ahh!” I yelled, tripping and falling again over a large rock that I hadn’t seen in the darkened woods.
“Get up…Ahhh!” Sam yelled, when I sprang up and drove the bobbie pins directly into the side of his face. I cursed myself. I’d been aiming for his eye but missed. Still, his shock and pain from the two pins now sticking out of his face caused him to lose the grip he had on the rope. I didn’t think twice. I took off in the opposite direction we’d come from. Unfortunately, I had no idea where I was going, and what I thought was the direction back to the cabin, turned out to be wrong. Not only that, but I could hear Sam hot on my heels.
I ducked behind trees, doing my best not to make too much noise by stepping on branches or twigs. But no matter how careful I was it seemed I was rattling the entire damn forest with the silence that surrounded us. I was feeling weak and woozy. It occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten all day. The only thing keeping me on my feet was my adrenaline. That and the desire to protect my unborn baby. I pressed my hand to my abdomen, hoping that the baby growing inside would be okay. Then I remembered Kyle and Kennedy. I had to fight for all three of them. I had to keep going.
“Your daddy is coming,” I whispered to the little one inside of my womb. I pressed forward, moving behind another tree and then stilling myself to listen for Sam.
“Patience, we don’t have time for this!” he hissed, losing it.
I could hear the crazy in his voice. He was so on edge.
“We’re taking a trip to the Bahamas!” He continued to talk out loud as if that would make me go to him. “You love the beach. You told me so!”
I shook my head, not remembering ever telling him such. Though, it could’ve been possible in one of the conversations we had in passing at the bookstore. Obviously, those talks meant more to him than they ever did me.
“We’re going to get married and you’ll forget all ab–” He stopped short at the same time my ears perked up.
In the distance I could make out faint lights and the sounds of screeching tires as the cars stopped short. My heartbeat picked up. Seconds later, I heard a sound that nearly caused my knees to buckle.
“Patience!
” It was Aaron’s voice calling for me.
I went to open my mouth to respond but stopped, not wanting to give my location away to the madman pursuing me. I held my breath, trying to decide what to do. Do I yell and give Sam the chance of reaching me before Aaron? Or do I scream and run like my hair is on fire and hope to God Aaron gets to me first?
Noise too close for my comfort behind me had me almost leaping out of my skin.
“I will find you!” Sam seethed.
Fuck it, I thought. He was too close and I was surely going to get caught if I just stood there. I grabbed a rock that was on the ground, stood up, and turned behind me. I could barely make out his movements but I aimed the rock for his head and threw as hard as I could with my still-bound hands.
“Ow! Fuck!” he groaned, and I knew I’d hit my target.
As soon as the rock was free from my hands I took off in the direction of the headlights.
“Aaron! Aaaron!” I yelled as hard and as loud as I could. Running was difficult with my hands bound in front of me, but heavy footsteps behind me forced me to pick up my pace. I heard loud footsteps, backtracking out of the cottage down into the brush of the forest. “I’m here!” I pushed past the fear to yell.
The cottage came into sight and I saw four large figures barreling in my direction. Even in the darkness of the evening light, and the fact that they were wearing all black, didn’t stop my body from knowing exactly which one was my man. I moved past two of the male figures and collapsed into the arms of my husband’s.
“I’m here. I got you,” he crooned, his strong arms tightening around my body. I began to shiver uncontrollably. Burying my face into Aaron’s chest, I tried to control my breathing, even amongst the yelling and running going on all around us.
“Get the fuck off of me! I’ll kill you all! Don’t touch her!”
That crazed voice had me burying my head deeper into Aaron’s chest. I couldn’t look back, didn’t want to even see his face again.
“She’s mine!”
“I’ll fucking ki–” Aaron released me and began to charge Sam.
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