by Kaylee, Katy
I called on the baby’s help to give me strength to fight. I spoke to it, a silent once sided conversation with the little one growing inside me to keep myself distracted as I tried to work the ropes loose.
Because I knew I let myself focus on the situation, really let myself dwell on what had happened, that I would go completely insane. Because the truth was, there was only one logical answer, one rational explanation for why I would be tied up and have my head covered with a bag.
Ian Redman, the psychopathic murderer who had killed Aiden’s father and countless others, had found me. And he had taken me.
I choked back a terrified sob, forcing away the thought. The only thing that matters was getting my hands free. That was the only thing I could let myself focus on. Nothing else. Only that.
A tiny fraction of an inch at a time, I worked the ropes free, pulling at the knots with all of my strength. I toppled the chair over, landing on the floor with a thud that I knew would leave bruises all up and down my side but I didn’t care. The only thing that matter was getting free.
I waited to see if the sound would draw any attention, holding my breath but after another moment of silence I let out a sigh of relief, renewing my escape attempts with earnest now.
I had to get away while I could. I had to get way while he was still gone. I had no idea when Redman would be back but I knew I couldn’t’ still be here when he did.
So I fought, I struggled against the ropes until my skin was scraped raw and slick with blood but finally I was able to work one hand free. I wanted to shout out loud in joy but I knew that I couldn’t make a sound. This was my chance. I had to get away.
Hope and relief filled me as I attacked the knot still holding my other wrist tight, but it was dashed in a scone as a gravelly, deep voice filled the room.
“You’re awake,” He said, slow and soft, “Good.”
* * *
Aiden
I pressed the palms of my hands hard against my eyes, but nothing helped to release the terrible pressure that kept pounding away at my temples.
I was sitting with my head in my hands on the edge to the bath tub. I hadn’t moved from that spot since I had first seen the pregnancy test and I still couldn’t force my legs to support the rest of my body.
So I sat there, hunched over myself, my heart shredded into tiny, agonizing ribbons as I stared at that innocuous piece of plastic and tried to wrap my head around what it meant. Beth. Beth, pregnant. Beth, pregnant with my child.
I was going to be a father. I nearly laughed out loud, so bitter that it hurt. If we made it through this. If Beth made it through this. It was still a question mark in my mind. Because I knew all too well who, exactly, we were dealing with. And Redman didn’t have mercy, or empathy, or any type of human emotion.
I choked back another bitter laugh, or a sob, I wasn’t sure. My entire being was in turmoil, frozen in indecision. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lose her. Not now. But how could I save her? What could I do to help her now that wouldn’t put her in even more danger?
The worst sort of thoughts ran through my mind as I sat there. What it Redman really did have her? What if he was hurting her? Torturing her?
I hadn’t been there to see the aftermath of the massacre he had left behind ten years ago, but I had seen the crime scene photos. The blood. The expression of horror and disbelief carved into the faces of his victims.
“Jesus Christ.” I groaned, half in prayer, half in curse as I swept my fingers through my hair, messing it up as I did but I didn’t care. What did it matter? What did anything matter, without Beth?
How did everything spiral out of control so fast? I felt blindsided. I had just had Beth in my arms, I had just been talking to her barely more than an hour ago. Staring into her beautiful face, soaking up her radiant smile. And now my whole world had turned to black.
There was no word from Matteo yet, who was beside himself with worry over Beth, but it didn’t matter. I already knew what the report would be. He wouldn’t find her in the pool, or the garden, he wouldn’t find her in the garage or anywhere on the grounds. Because she wasn’t there. He had taken her. He had tricked me, and I had been stupid enough to fall for it. And I had put Beth’s life at risk.
And not just her life, or my own. But our babies. A baby!
I let my head drop into my hands again, unable to face the horror that was unfolding around me. Unable to comprehend how everything had turned to shit in a heartbeat.
I felt Luca standing beside me before he started to speak.
“We can’t find her here, Aiden, but there’s no sign of Redman either. Maybe she just went off on a walk by herself, maybe she just needed so air, you know? After she found out…”
Luca trailed off with a pointed look at the pregnancy test. It still sat there, untouched. Unmoved from its spot on the bathroom counter.
“He has her. He took her,” I told him somberly. I looked up at him and could see the shadows in Luca’s eyes. He knew just as well as I. Redman has her, damn it. and I’m sitting there like a helpless child, letting him.
“What can I do, Luca? What should I do?” I shook my head, speaking the same questions that had been torturing ever since we got back. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where he might have taken her. I just…I don’t know what to do.”
Luca looked away uncomfortable and then shrugged, forcing his gaze back to meet mine.
“Your uncle is on the way. I called him and filled him in on what’s happened.” Luca said, trying to comfort me but there was only one thing that would bring me comfort. Finding Beth. And taking out Redman once and for all.
My eyes fell back down, catching on the pregnancy test.
“I never got the chance to tell her that I love her.”
“She knows, Aiden.”
“But…”
“Believe me, Aiden. She’s a smart cookie. She knows how you feel about her. And she loves you too. Don’t doubt that for a minute.”
I wanted to believe him so badly but my heart was shattered in a thousand pieces. I had let her down. I had broken my promise. I hadn’t kept her safe.
“What the hell am I going to do, Luca? What the hell am I going to do without her?”
“You’re not going to have to worry about that. We are going to get her back.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that he was wrong. That even if we did find her, Beth wouldn’t want to stay with me. How could she? But before I could get the words out, my phone rang.
I looked at it hopefully, but frowned when I recognized the number from Beth’s lab. With a curse, I answered it.
“Yes.”
“Is that how you always answer your phone?” Will, Beth’s lab assistant, said far too cheerfully from the other end of the line, “Listen, it doesn’t matter. I was able to decipher the rest of the voicemail. I need to show you. It’s important.”
“I can’t right now, Will,” I said, debating whether or not to tell him the truth but I knew he cared about Beth too. “Beth, she…someone took her, Will. I think it’s Redman.”
Will sucked in a deep sharp breath.
“Then you need to hear this. Now, Aiden! You need to come right now!” The urgency in Will’s voice caught me off guard and had me stumbling to my feet before I’d even realized I was standing.
Luca gave me a long look, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Go. I’ll stay here with Matteo and your uncle in case he tries to call, but…This might be important. Go.”
I nodded, too numb to speak until I had made it out of the claustrophobic bathroom and was rushing towards the car still parked crookedly out front.
“Will? I’m on my way. I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 37
Beth
I held my breath as the unfamiliar voice echoed through the room. I had never heard it before in my life, but I knew immediately who it belonged to. Him. Ian Redman. Notorious serious killer and mafia hitman. And now he knew that I was a
wake.
I flinched away as I felt hands at my face, trying to jerk back but there was no where I could move, still tied to the damned chair.
“Be calm,” he whispered in a surprisingly gentle voice but that only scared me even more, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I could feel the pressure of knots behind untied and then slowly, the bag was lifted over my head as it was removed, and I blinked painfully in the sudden bright light as it stung my eyes.
Fear filled my throat with bile as I look at the man who murdered all of those people, who murdered Aiden’s father, who murdered my sister, and I was astounded at how normal he looked.
He was completely average. Everything about him was average. His height, his weight. His hair, thinning slight. It was a mousy medium brown. His eyes were brown too, and he had bland features set in a pleasantly round face. All in all, he was completely unremarkable. I wouldn’t have picked him out of a line up if I had seen him pass me on a street.
All I could do was stare at him as he righted the chair, tipping it back up on its legs so that I could look at him face to face.
I tried to gauge his age but it was difficult. He could have been as young as forty or as old as seventy. But there was an age, a sadness, in his eyes that made me think it was closer to the latter.
He shrugged uncomfortably under my scrutiny.
“What?” He asked in that too-soft, gravelly voice of his, “Not what you expected?”
“No. No, you’re not.” I said, swallowing to try and work some moisture back into my mouth. “Are you going to kill me?”
His expression changed rapid fire, flashing between anger and guilt and pain and back to anger so fast that I could barely keep up before it settled back into neutral.
He let out a sigh as he sat down on the edge of the bed opposite me and for the first time I got a good look at where we were. It was some sort of motel, run down by the look of it. The wallpaper on the wall that once had gray and burgundy stripes was faded and peeling and there were stains on the carpet that I didn’t want to look too closely at.
The thick curtains were drawn over yellowed windows and I had a feeling that even if I screamed, this wasn’t the type of place where concerned neighbors would come running to help. More than likely, they would all scurry away like cockroaches.
This was a motel that catered to the less than savory, that was obvious by the needles still in the garbage can and the air of disregard that permeated the place.
No, no one would come running. No one would come to help. I was on my own.
No, I’m not. I thought frantically, I have my baby. I’m not alone. I have someone else that I need to protect, that I need to look out for.
I had to be smart about this, I knew that. I had to use the brain I was so proud of but just then, fear numbed my brain cells and I felt slow, as if I was trying to wade through molasses.
“No. No, you’ve gotten that wrong.” He says, shaking his head. “You got it all so wrong, you and the boy.”
Redman looked at me then, his gaze flicking over me and lands on my wrist, still raw and bloody.
“Oh, look what you did.” He said sorrowfully, clucking like a mother hen as he walked to the small, dirty bathroom. A moment later he came back carrying a damp wash cloth.
I flinched again when he came close, fear breathing down my neck but my mind was trying to tell me something that the panic couldn’t comprehend.
He patted at my bleeding wrist with that surprising gentleness of his until it stopped and then he tied a dry strip of clean fabric around it.
Wait, this doesn’t make sense, Beth. Use that brain of yours! Figure it out. Why would he be helping me? Why would he care if I was hurt if he was just going to shoot me?
The questions flew through my head but I didn’t have an answer.
None of this made sense. He wasn’t acting at all like I thought a killer would. There were no threats. He wasn’t trying to scare me. My mind flashed back to when Cooper had hold of me. He had relished my pain and fear. I had looked into his soulless eyes and known that I was about to die.
Redman was doing everything in his power to make me comfortable, with the exception of my hands being tied. He’d even cared for my wound. It didn’t make sense.
Finally, I worked up my courage again to speak.
“So, you’re not going to kill me?”
He gave me a long look, almost paternal as he sat back down across from me. “If I had wanted to kill you, you would have been dead two months ago. That’s not…that’s never been what this is about. You have it all wrong!”
He ended on a shout, and drew in a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself before he started to speak again in that same too soft tone.
“You, you and the boy got close to me,” Redman said with a small smile, and he almost sounded…proud. “Closer than anyone’s ever gotten, accept for…”
He trailed off and I waited for him to go on. Maybe I could keep him talking long enough to figure a way out of this.
“You mean, me and Aiden?”
“Yes, yes, you and the boy. You nearly had me. But I couldn’t let that happen. You have to understand. I’ve been safe all these years. For ten years I’ve been invisible and I couldn’t let you find me. I couldn’t let you find me.” He was pleading with her, trying to make me understand but I didn’t. I was even more confused now than ever before.
“But then, why this? Why did you take me? Why don’t you just let me go?” I knew it was a long shot but I had to try. But he just ignored the last question as if I hadn’t even spoke.
“You were getting too close. I tried to warn you. I tried to look out for you.”
“Look out for me?” I said softly, repeating his words and sudden anger shot through me.
“By killing my sister? Is that how you looked out for me? By murdering my only family?”
“What? No! No! No!” His brown eyes widened in horror and he leaned forward, shaking his head, imploring me with his gaze, with his words. “You don’t understand. Neither of you understand.”
“Then explain it to me.” I forced myself to moderate my tone, reminding myself that I was talking to a psychopathic serial killer. It was hard to remember. It just didn’t seem to fit. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” I said glancing at the ropes binding me, “Tell me what really happened.” Fear still held me in its grasp. I knew at any moment the man might flip, he might decide to kill me after all. Or maybe he was just playing with me. But for the moment he seemed calm enough, even rational, sane even. I just had to keep him talking until I could get free, could get help.
Please, Aiden. Please come looking for me. I sent up a silent prayer but I knew I would have to get myself out of this one. For me. And for our baby. I couldn’t wait for help.
“Please,” I said, forcing my voice to sound as sad and pathetic as possible. It wasn’t that much of a stretch, “Please. I want to know the truth.”
“The truth.” Redman sneered. “No one wants the truth.”
“I do.” I said simply, letting him see the honestly in my gaze, “I need to know what happened to my sister.”
“I wasn’t part of the deal.”
“What deal?” I asked, but he just got to his feet, pacing restlessly now and I could see he had a limp in his left leg. Maybe if I could get free, I could outrun him. It didn’t look like he was in any shape to give chase.
“What deal, Ian?”
He jerked back in shock at the sound of his name, turning a wide eyed look towards me and I wondered what had happened to this man. The scientist inside me wanted to research and probe but I needed to stay focused on one thing. Getting myself and my baby to safety.
“Please, Ian. Tell me the truth.”
“Where do I even start?” He asked on a wry bitter laugh and I fought to keep the fear and terror out of my voice.
“I’ve found that the beginning is usually the best place to start.” I said softly, trying to calm him
again and it seemed to do the trick as he sat back down, wringing the damp towel in his hands.
Ian Redman, the man who had murdered my sister, drew in a deep breath, and began.
Chapter 38
Aiden
I got in the car, slamming the door behind me and started the engine, feeling it growl to life underneath me but I didn’t make a move to put the car into drive. All I could do was sit there, frozen, shaking like a leaf in a storm and there was nowhere for me to go, nowhere for me to hide from the icy rage inside me.
I had never felt so helpless before in my life, and I didn’t know what to do. I always knew what to do. I was the one that others came to with their problems to solve. I was the one that always took care of things. But now, I couldn’t do a damned fucking thing but sit there and shake.
I closed my eyes and pictures of Beth rose in my mind. At first she was smiling up at me, love shining in her dove gray eyes but then her smile fades, transforming into something awful as her mouth opens on a scream and I can’t do anything to save her. I can’t do anything to help her.
“Please, dad. What am I supposed to do? I love her. I can’t lose her.” I sobbed the words, turning to the only person I had ever asked for help, the only person I’d ever been able to turn to.
Suddenly, it’s as if I can hear his gruff voice, as clear as day in my mind.
“Duty, responsibility, and above all family, son. Do you know what that means?” We had been out on a camping trip, at the special overlook I’d brought Beth to. My father had taken me through the woods, showing me how to hunt and as we had walked, him towering over seven year old me, he had talked.
“Do you know what that means, Aiden?”
Child me thought long and hard on the serious question before answering.
“That I have to put the family first, always. Even before myself. No, especially before myself.”
It was the answer I had given him before that had received a nod of the head from my father in approval, but this time he stopped and knelt in front of me, stopping me with a big hand on my small shoulder.