Watched

by Batto, Olivia

  Alexandra shook her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know.” She reached her hand toward him. “Can you get out?”

  Hunter shook his head, wiggling his leg to show her. “My leg is pinned. It’s fine, I just can’t move.”

  A yank on her arm dragged her from the car, and she screamed in frustration. She stood, swinging backward with her elbow. John’s breath grunted in her ear as she caught him with a sharp jab under the ribs. When she staggered away from him, he grabbed her by the shoulder. He slapped her hard across the face, an explosive burst of pain which knocked her backward against the back door of the car.

  “Dammit Alexandra, listen to me! If I have to knock some sense into you I will,” he shrieked, sending another stinging slap across her cheek.

  Alexandra struck him across the throat with the side of her hand, cutting off his words. A quick spin and leg sweep knocked his legs out from underneath him. He hit the pavement hard, with a loud grunt.

  Alexandra dropped to her knees beside John, grabbing his throat and pulling her fist back for a punch.

  John’s hands flew up to protect his face. “You’re in danger!” His voice was hoarse.

  Alexandra paused, one eyebrow raised. “What?”

  He lowered his hands, revealing an angry red bump under the line of his rain-slicked blond hair. “That woman almost killed you both! The one who hit you with the yellow truck. The impact knocked her out, but it’s only a matter of time before she wakes up and comes for you.”

  “Why are you here,” Alexandra snapped, still not convinced she shouldn’t pummel her ex-husband until his face was unrecognizable.

  “I followed you.”

  Alexandra’s fist pulled back on its own. John cringed, throwing his hands up before his face again.

  “I was worried,” he yelped. “The cops told me about all those things which happened to you, and I got concerned. I wanted to make sure you were alright, but I knew you didn’t want me around. So after we talked on the phone, I flew over as fast as I could.” His face twisted with regret. “I wish I had told you, maybe I could have helped more. Maybe I could have stopped this.” He gestured at the wreck, where Hunter was still struggling to free himself from the driver’s side. He was twisting around, intent on the two of them as he fought against the metal which held him.

  The sight of Hunter struggling decided Alexandra. “You want to help still?” She glared at the puny man under her hands, wondering why she had ever been afraid of him, or ever held in his sway.

  He nodded and smiled as she let him up. “Yes, I want to help you.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What can I do?”

  “Let’s get Hunter out of there. Then we can decide what to do with Mrs. Louangrath.” She turned toward the wreckage, and didn’t bother to check if John was following. Hunter needed help, and probably medical attention.

  Her head was yanked back, and before she could spin around something rough and damp was jammed against her nose and mouth. The smell of sickly sweet candy filled her nostrils, and she tried to gag.

  Hunter was yelling and cursing. She thrashed against John’s hold, but her body was sluggish. Swings turned into slow flails. She stumbled, the cloth pressed tight to her face.

  “I think he’d agree, we should take care of you first,” John said, as blackness filled her vision.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hunter

  Hunter opened yet another file cabinet in Alexandra’s bedroom, skimming the titles on the folders within. The stitches in his side stretched, and he shifted to ease the pull on his healing skin. “What am I looking for, again?”

  “Anything to give us an idea where John might be,” Elise’s hoarse voice called from the living room, accented by loud thumps as the Indian woman overturned furniture and shuffled through drawers. “Old letters from him, old credit card bills from when they were together, postcards, anything.”

  Hunter squatted next to the file cabinet, and winced when the odd posture aggravated his bruises. The wreck hadn’t hurt him badly, but he’d have a nasty set of bruises for a while and a few cuts from the shattered glass. All of that was nothing compared to what had happened. What he’d allowed to happen.

  John had yanked Alexandra from the car, away from him. How had the bastard convinced her to let her guard down? Hunter had raged at the man, a helpless spectator, as John smirked and carried Alexandra’s limp figure away.

  By the time the fire department arrived to pry Hunter out, both John and Alexandra were gone without a trace. They found her cell phone smashed on the pavement, next to her discarded wallet. An empty motorcycle helmet and jacket had laid across the steering wheel of the yellow truck, probably discarded by John after the wreck.

  Hunter cursed. He had promised to take care of her, committed to protect her, and he couldn’t manage that for even a few days.

  “How’s it going in here?” Elise stepped into the room, surveying Hunter as he broke out of his daze.

  “Sorry,” he said, turning his attention back to the files. “I haven’t found anything.” He beat the side of his fist against the wall. “I should have been able to help her, should have had a weapon in the car or something.”

  Elise snorted and crossed her arms. “Look, as soon as you toss off your red cape and stop pretending you could have stopped this, I’m trying to find her.”

  Hunter glared at his knees instead of at Elise. She had found him immediately after the news report about Alexandra’s kidnapping, insisting she could help with the search. Everyone else had offered their condolences, like Alexandra was dead now. He at least owed her some small amount of gratefulness. “You have a point, but it doesn’t make all feeling go away.” He tried to stand, but couldn’t. His bruised knee locked up on him, and he cursed.

  “No, I don’t expect it to. Speaking of feeling, it’s time for you to take some more painkillers.” Elise reached out to help him to his feet.

  A loud knock on the door pounded through the apartment, and Hunter headed to answer it. Elise’s hand slapped across his chest like a barrier. The woman’s black brows were lowered. She glared at the door, then at him. “What are you, insane?” Elise snatched up a frying pan and shoved it into his grasp, then grabbed a hammer from under the sink. “At least be ready to address a potential threat instead of just popping open the door.” She signaled for him to wait, then hurried behind the door, standing back far enough to allow the door to swing open without hitting her. Elise nodded at him, holding her hammer ready.

  Hunter cracked open the door, his heart pounding, to behold a fuzzy head full of white hair and oversized coke bottle glasses. Mrs. Dail. He hid the frying pan behind his back. “Mrs. Dail, this really isn’t a good time.”

  “I know it isn’t dear, oh so many horrible things have happened, but you know I was just thinking, maybe while you’re rummaging around in here and making noise, trying to get things together and whatnot, maybe you could keep an eye out for whatever’s causing that awful whistling.” Mrs. Dail gave him an angelic smile, and he nearly bit through his tongue. “You know it hasn’t stopped for almost two years now, and I was just thinking maybe since Alexandra’s not here right now she might not mind if you took a closer look than usual.”

  Hunter’s already strained temper snapped. “All right, you know what -”

  “Whistling?” Elise poked her dark head around the edge of the door, her brown eyes wide. “What kind of whistling? Can you describe it?”

  Hunter sighed as he pulled the door farther open to allow Mrs. Dail to enter. He stalked into kitchen, getting water from the sink and taking a quick dose of painkiller before joining the two women in the living room. If Elise wanted to humor the older woman, fine, but he had work to do.

  “Why, can you hear it too? It seems to come from everywhere, just everywhere,” Mrs. Dail was saying as he stepped in. “And I don’t even know if it’s in this apartment, my ears aren’t so good even with these hearing aids you know, they’re kind of an older
pair and I really should upgrade them but they’re so expensive -”

  “Can I borrow them,” Elise interrupted, her tone demanding rather than asking. She held her hand out to Mrs. Dail. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  For once, Mrs. Dail seemed at a loss for words. She plucked her hearing aids from their perch behind her ear, and handed them to Elise. The younger woman looped them over her own ears like she’d used them a thousand times. She had a faraway look as she moved slowly through the living room.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter’s brows drew together as Elise ducked, covering her ears in pain. She put her finger to her lips, looking grouchy.

  After a few more seconds, she walked back to Mrs. Dail and dropped the hearing aids back in the old woman’s outstretched hand. “Thank you,” she said, and scooped the hammer back up.

  Elise strode in a beeline to a spot on the wall she had hovered close to earlier, then pointed at a spot slightly above eye level. There was a tiny hole in the wall, so small Hunter had never noticed it before. “Did you put that there?”

  Hunter shook his head. “It’s probably from a finish nail or something.” A really small finish nail. But Alexandra knew better than to hang anything with such a small nail, didn’t she?

  Elise flipped the hammer around so the claw end was forward, then slammed it into the drywall a few inches below the hole. Mrs. Dail jumped and adjusted her glasses.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter stepped forward, intent on snatching the hammer from this crazed woman. Elise smiled at him, then angled the hammer and pulled at the handle, detaching a huge chunk of wall. Hunter froze when she uncovered a small device, hidden right behind the drywall. “What is that?”

  “It’s a camera,” the dark haired woman told him. “And let’s hope John is the only creepy stalker in Alexandra’s life.”

  “We should call the cops.” Hunter’s head was spinning. “We could tell them what we found, maybe they can do something with this?”

  She angled her head to inspect the surveillance camera without moving it, then waved the two of them out. After all three shuffled out the door, Elise turned to Hunter. “Normally I’d agree with you, but it just so happens I can get the information faster, and help find her much more quickly.” She held up her copper-colored hand to forestall his response. “I’ll probably be done in an hour, and time seems kind of important here.”

  Hunter’s eyebrows rose. “What are you, some kind of government superspy or something?”

  A smile formed on Elise’s lips, not the friendly kind. “Nothing so glamorous, but I get the job done. Now are you going to help me, or call the cops?”

  Hunter glanced at Mrs. Dail, who was leaned forward watching the two of them like they were the newest episode of some high-octane super sleuth television series. He half expected a bowl of popcorn to appear beside her at any moment. “Fine,” he sighed. “But if we get in over our heads, we dial the cops immediately. Alright?”

  “Fine by me. I need a laptop and an internet connection, and I’ll need two pairs of eyes on the ground outside.”

  Hunter scratched his head, shivering in the gray drizzle outside the apartment. There was the wire, exactly as Elise had said. It was spliced neatly into their cable line, painted the same color as the brick wall to mask it. It ran along the side of the building until it reached a small pile of scrap wood Hunter kept covered for minor repairs. There, lurking in the darkness like a cornered rat, was a small black modem. He’d sent Mrs. Dail to fetch the younger woman as soon as they found it, because the old woman was practically begging for something to do.

  Elisa hurried over, flanked by an increasingly interested Mrs. Dail. “Good timing, I had just finished installing the programs I needed.” She plugged a cable into the router and began to type.

  Mrs. Dail’s flower dress swayed as she peered over Elise’s shoulder. “Oh, how interesting, I’ve seen stuff like that in movies, my grandnephew knows how to do all that stuff, sometimes he tries to help me with my computer but I really can’t seem to get the idea, are you a computer expert or something?”

  “Or something.” Elise pulled out her cell phone. “I need to call one of my contacts, he can get us more precise information now that we’ve done the legwork.”

  Hunter nodded. His skin felt too tight, like he’d been sitting still for too long. He wanted to do more to help, but it was probably best if they just found out whatever they could and called the police.

  Mrs. Dail patted him on the shoulder. “Now don’t you worry, I watched a show once and it said people can do amazing things with computers, you can even drop a bomb on someone if you know what their cell phone number is which is a little scary, but that works for us, not that I’d want to drop a bomb on Alexandra.”

  Hunter doubted they had the ability to drop bombs on anyone. Not that he’d tell Mrs. Dail.

  Elise hung up and closed the laptop. “Alright, we have a specific address.”

  Hunter nodded. “Now we call the cops?”

  “No,” Elise said, looking uncomfortable. “The information I just got wasn’t obtained by - entirely legal - means, so they won’t be able to act on it necessarily unless it comes from an anonymous tip. By the time they move, Alexandra could be long gone.”

  Hunter crossed his arms. “What do you intend to do? Go charging in, guns blazing?”

  The stern look she gave him would have silenced hundreds of schoolchildren all at once. “The most dangerous time for any hostage is during an armed rescue attempt. So no, my guns will not blaze. I’ll sneak in, get Alexandra, and sneak out. If you wish to call in an anonymous tip, feel free to do it after I’ve left. I’ll be out of there with Alexandra safely before they arrive. They can do the SWAT team nonsense.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going without me.”

  One dark brow arched in response, then she nodded. “Alright, suit yourself. But you do exactly as I say. Not one millimeter less or more.” She waited for him to nod, then turned toward the driveway.

  “Wait,” Mrs. Dail said. She hurried toward the front door of the apartment complex. “I’ll get my purse.”

  Before either of them could argue, the old woman was inside and headed up the stairs.

  “You know,” said Elise, “she’s amazingly spry for her age.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Alexandra

  Dust and mildew assaulted Alexandra’s nose as she awoke, and she cracked her eyes open. It was dark. Only a glowing computer monitor on a table in the corner provided any light, and its screen was dim. She lifted her head, and a surge of nausea gagged her despite the tape over her mouth. Alexandra dropped her head, letting the nausea pass.

  Memory of the sickly sweet scent came back. Chloroform. John must have knocked her out with it, then probably injected her with something to keep her unconscious. Now she was laying on her side, her wrists tied behind her. Alexandra’s right arm was numb, and her entire body felt stiff. How long had she been unconscious? She tried to move her feet without success. They were tied at the ankles.

  She rolled onto her stomach, working her right arm and forcing some feeling back into her fingers. The pins and needles prickle helped clear her mind, and she looked around again.

  Boarded windows, bare walls. No furniture but the table and a few boxes. She was in an abandoned apartment. Chanmali lay nearby, propped up against a wall. Her arms were bent behind her back at an unnatural angle, and her ankles were tied. The tape over Chanmali’s mouth looked old, and her head lolled to one side. Alexandra wasn’t even certain the other woman was still breathing. A shudder radiated out from between Alexandra’s shoulders.

  Alexandra flexed her fingers, testing the rope. It was too tight around her wrists to slip out of, but maybe if she could reach her ankles - Alexandra stretched her arms down, and bent her body into a C to reach. The ropes were in reach, but barely. She yanked at the knot with her fingertips, twisting and pulling in little jerks to loosen it.

  It was slow work, and it
didn’t seem to work. Once she had exhausted one approach, she felt along the tangle of rope to find another loop she could tug away from the main knot. Was she loosening it, or making it tighter? Alexandra’s thighs cramped as she bent herself backward farther, but she couldn’t see any sharp objects to cut the rope, so this was her only chance.

  Light rose in the room as she worked. It crept in through a small skylight and around the edges of boards on the windows. Everything turned silvery as she pulled and tugged on the knot. Even the computer screen brightened. As the light changed from silver to golden, she squinted at the monitor in surprised recognition. Was that her living room on the screen?

  The sun was rising on the screen as well, displaying a familiar couch and balcony. A line of smaller images at the right of the screen showed views of her bedroom, Simon’s bedroom and the bathrooms. The sluggish light of dawn filled her home, and Alexandra swallowed against a surge of bile. Her entire apartment was bugged. How long had John been watching?

  Rustling froze Alexandra’s movements, and she turned her head. Chanmali was awake, watching. Alexandra’s stomach tightened. Was it fear or loathing written across the other woman’s features? Did it matter?

  Chanmali looked down at the knot Alexandra was fighting with, and jerked her head backward. Chanmali’s fingers peeked out from behind her back, and wiggled to beckon Alexandra closer. Alexandra didn’t move.

  John could have placed Chanmali here to lure Alexandra into trusting her. As Alexandra’s hesitation stretched from moments to seconds, she felt foolish. Would someone agree to this kind of treatment? Even if Chanmali hated her, they had a common enemy.

  Chanmali’s spine straightened as Alexandra wriggled over and offered her feet. At least the other woman could see what she was doing. Alexandra tried to control her panicked breath while her fellow prisoner tugged at the ropes. Surer and bolder tugs than hers had been, like Chanmali was more desperate to get out of here than Alexandra.