One (Count to Ten Book 1)

by Jane Blythe

  He turned away so his back was to her. “Yeah.”

  “It didn’t go well?”

  “I told her what I just told you, that I’ll always love and care about Julia, but that she’s not my future.”

  “Annabelle didn’t believe you?”

  “She thinks she’s already lost everything, and that if she were to get involved with me she might end up losing me to Julia one day.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “That I wanted to be with her and that I wasn’t going to give up. That I was going to find this killer and then I was going to convince her that I’m serious about her.”

  Kate was getting frustrated with him. “Then what are you doing here, Xavier? What’s stopping you from getting what you want?”

  “She is,” he snarled, standing and kneeling in front of the small headstone that marked his stillborn daughter’s grave.

  “How is she stopping you?”

  “Maybe Annabelle’s right. Maybe we’re not meant to be together. Maybe we’re not meant to be with anyone. I mean, this is hardly the ideal time for her to be getting into a relationship, especially when she’s made it clear that she doesn’t date. She doesn’t know what she wants right now, she doesn’t know what she’s feeling, she just lost her entire family, she was stabbed and raped. And let’s face it, I wasn’t very good at marriage the first time around. Not to mention the fact that I’m probably too old for her, she’s twenty-three, I’m thirty-two…”

  “Okay, you’re reaching now, Xavier.” Kate put a stop to her partner’s babbling. “Bottom line is, you like her and she likes you.”

  “She doesn’t want to get involved with me, Kate,” he protested, albeit not very convincingly.

  “She does, she’s just scared,” she contradicted. “I was speaking to her yesterday, after you left in a huff,” she couldn’t help adding. “I asked her why she doesn’t date and she said it was because she doesn’t think there’s anything attractive about her. She doesn’t think anyone could be interested in her, so instead of risking getting hurt, she just keeps herself isolated. She’s scared that you’re going to hurt her, and if you’re not ready to let go of Julia, you are going to hurt her.”

  “I have let go of Julia.” Xavier glared over his shoulder.

  “Annabelle said that you still have Julia’s stuff packed in boxes in your house.” Kate broached the topic carefully.

  “Annabelle’s a blabbermouth,” Xavier shot back mildly, seemingly no longer angry about Annabelle’s search of his house.

  “Xavier, you have to make a choice.” She shifted around so she was beside her partner. “Either your focus in life is Julia or you move on and live for the future, but you have to decide what you want. You can’t keep hovering in this no-man’s-land.”

  “Do you think everything would have turned out differently if she had lived?” Xavier reached out a hand to trace the lettering on his daughter’s headstone.

  “You mean, would Julia have gotten better? Would the two of you still be together?”

  “She’d be three years old now,” he said wistfully.

  “But Julia would still have been the same.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “She would still have been suffering from post-traumatic stress, and she probably still wouldn’t have told you. Okay, she might not have killed two innocent people and tried to abduct their baby, but she’d still be sick, and that sickness would have come out sooner or later.”

  “You really think so?” he looked at her hopefully.

  “Julia knew she needed help and she chose not to get it. She could have gone to you or to me or to anyone, but for whatever reason, she didn’t. It’s not your mistake and it’s not your problem anymore. You two are divorced, and you have a really sweet young woman who likes you and needs you.”

  “But I love Julia and I can’t just pretend I don’t.”

  “You said yourself though, you’re not in love with her. You need to let her go if you’re going to be happy. Do you want to be happy?” Not sure that Xavier did, he thought he deserved to spend the rest of his life alone and miserable for letting down his wife.

  “You know I do, Kate.”

  “Then do it. Be happy. Things might work out with Annabelle, they might not, but at least you’ll know, and if they don’t, you’ll find someone else. Stop fighting it. You want to have a family, then go make one. You can have more kids—yes, you’ll always miss your daughter—but it doesn’t mean that you have to be afraid to try again. Come on, Xavier, I hate seeing you like this. Three years you’ve refused to have a life and now you have a shot at happiness and you’re throwing it away for a list of stupid reasons that don’t even make sense. Annabelle is good for you. Fight for her.”

  Xavier said nothing and as they sat in silence, Kate worked up the courage to tell her partner about her own baby. Telling Annabelle yesterday had felt wonderful. To say those words to someone, it had really made her pregnancy seem real and not just a figment of her and David’s imaginations. Finally garnering enough courage to utter the words, she was just opening her mouth to speak when Xavier suddenly stood.

  “Kate, I’m gonna go home. Thanks for coming and talking with me. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I mean it, I really don’t. You are so amazing, everything you did for me just after Julia’s arrest, and now with Annabelle, you’re the greatest partner a guy could wish for.”

  After giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, Xavier disappeared into the night. As she watched him go, Kate wondered how he was going to react when he learned he’d be getting a new partner soon. Last night she and David had sat down and talked about their future, and as much as she wanted to return to the job she loved after her maternity leave expired, she was starting to suspect that having her baby was going to change her more than she thought possible.

  MAY 12th

  5:28 A.M.

  This time he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  This time, he was going to make things right. Set her straight.

  Xavier maneuvered his car back into the parking lot at the motel where Annabelle was staying, and with perfect calm, he knocked on her door.

  He was doing the right thing, of this he was positive; in fact, he should have done it from the beginning. Should have done everything within his power to convince Annabelle to give them a shot, that he was over Julia, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Once he’d convinced her of that, he was going to pack up her stuff and take her back to his house. He would set her up in the spare room, or in his room, or wherever she felt comfortable, and he would make sure that not only was she safe, but that she knew that he was there for her.

  He knocked on her door again. Annabelle had looked exhausted last night and was probably still fast asleep. Xavier didn’t want to disturb her, but he also didn’t want her alone and unprotected for another second. Bruce Daniels may or may not have left town. He definitely should have organized protection for her. He didn’t like the idea of her being alone when there was a madman out there who couldn’t seem to let Annabelle go.

  He knocked a third time.

  Still no answer.

  Now he was starting to get worried.

  Peering through the grimy window, he was frustrated to find the blinds drawn. His heart was starting to really pound now. He gave the door another hammer.

  “Annabelle?” he called out, hoping to rouse her in the ever increasingly unlikely event that she was just asleep. “Annabelle? It’s Xavier. If you’re in there, let me in; I need to talk to you.”

  Without even realizing what he was doing, his hand gripped the doorknob, subconsciously turning the handle. He was surprised when the door swung open. The feeling was quickly replaced by dread.

  The room was empty, no sign of Annabelle.

  Neither did it look like she had spent the night. The covers on the bed were smooth, the cell phone and purse her friend Ricky had gotten her were still on the dresser, and the half-eaten cup of soup he’d see
n on the table when he’d been here last night was still there.

  Fighting the frantic feeling that was screaming at him to completely lose it, he took a deep breath and studied the room more carefully. Maybe Annabelle had simply gone out for a walk. Sure, it was only five o’clock in the morning, but he knew that she’d been having trouble sleeping. Or maybe she’d decided to take Ricky Preston up on his offer to stay with him. Plus, she had to have known that he’d come back; maybe she just wanted to avoid another conversation with him.

  After a futile search for a note that Annabelle might have left explaining where she was, Xavier started looking for signs that Annabelle had been removed from the room against her will. The door had been left unlocked, none of the windows were open, no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, nothing to indicate that anyone had attacked her.

  Yet Xavier couldn’t think of anywhere Annabelle would have gone voluntarily. She didn’t want to see him so his house wouldn’t have been an option. After the fire he didn’t think she’d go back to her own house, and even though she wanted support, he didn’t really think she was going to turn to Ricky Preston, no matter how much the guy badgered her to lean on him.

  Heading back outside, he almost ran smack into a chubby, middle-aged woman. “May I help you?” he asked distractedly, scanning the dark parking lot for any signs of Annabelle.

  “No, I’m fine,” the woman replied, staring at him inquisitively.

  About to walk past her, Xavier stopped abruptly. “Have you seen the woman from this room?”

  “Young? Pretty? Brunette?” the woman peppered at him.

  “Yep, that’s her.”

  “I've seen her on and off the last few days.”

  He was hopeful she knew more. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Claudia Klump. Weren’t you here earlier?”

  Never in his life had Xavier been so glad to encounter a nosy busybody. “Yes, I was here late last night.”

  “You were arguing with her,” Claudia Klump stated calmly, clearly not the least bit embarrassed about her eavesdropping. “Then you left; well, you stood outside her door for almost an hour and then you left. At least, I thought you'd left, so I went to get ready for bed, but on my way past the window I saw you carrying her to your car.”

  “You saw what?” his pulse began to pound in his ears.

  “I saw you carry her to the car,” she repeated.

  “When was this?” he had to force the words out past the lump in his throat.

  “Like I said, right after I thought you’d left…”

  “Tell me exactly what you saw,” he demanded, more forcefully than he’d intended.

  A little taken aback, she answered, “I watched you stand at her door, then get into your car and drive off. I went to the bathroom and when I went to close the blinds, I saw you walk out of her room with her in your arms. I assumed that she’d forgiven you for whatever it was you’d done and the two of you were heading home. I didn’t really give it another thought; I just went to bed. It wasn’t you?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Did something happen to her?”

  “Did you get a look at the man?” he asked instead of answering, not wanting to quite believe yet that this madman who’d already killed thirteen people might have Annabelle.

  “Not really,” she shrugged. “I mostly only saw his back; he was putting her in his car.”

  “What color was the car?”

  “Red, I think,” Claudia answered. “I saw it as it went under the streetlight.”

  A red car.

  It was him.

  He had Annabelle.

  “Thank you for your help,” Xavier dismissed the woman and bolted back into Annabelle’s room, his phone in his hand. Once again, he had placed the woman in his life in danger. Why for once couldn’t he learn to put other people above himself? If he hadn't been too busy sulking about Annabelle’s invasion of his privacy, he’d have made sure that someone was there to keep an eye on her.

  “Hello?” Kate’s sleepy voice sounded in his ear.

  “Annabelle’s missing.”

  “What?” His partner sounded a little more awake, but a lot more confused.

  “I came back to the motel to talk to her, but she wasn’t there. I thought maybe she’d just gone out, maybe for a walk to clear her head or something, but I ran into this lady who said she saw someone carrying Annabelle and then putting her in a car—a red car. It’s him. It has to be. He has Annabelle, and who knows what he’s going to do to her…”

  “Xavier, Xavier,” Kate kept trying to catch his attention. “Xavier!”

  “What?” he snapped.

  “You have to calm down a little bit,” his partner sounded wide awake now.

  “Last night, you knew I would go to see Julia, and you also knew that I’d go straight to Annabelle’s afterwards. Did you come here last night? Before you found me at the cemetery.”

  “Yes.”

  Kate’s calm voice started to rub off on him. “Did you see Annabelle? Talk to her?”

  “No. When I got there her room was dark. I looked for your car and when I didn’t see it I assumed that either things had gone badly with Julia and you’d gone to the cemetery or things had gone badly with Annabelle and you’d gone to the cemetery. And no, I didn’t see any red cars in the parking lot, or anyone suspicious looking hanging around,” Kate anticipated his next question.

  “Then he must have been waiting while Annabelle and I talked, grabbed her the second I was gone.” Xavier wished more than anything that he had gone with his first instinct and slept in his car outside Annabelle’s room rather than visit his baby daughter’s grave.

  “So this lady only saw somebody carrying Annabelle?” Kate clarified.

  “She thought it was me.”

  “Maybe it was Ricky,” Kate suggested. “Maybe after she talked to you, Annabelle decided she didn’t want to be alone and called her friend.”

  “No,” he disagreed. “The woman who saw him said that after I left she went to the bathroom and on her way back was closing her blinds when she saw the man putting Annabelle in his car. No way is that enough time for Ricky Preston to make it here, plus the guy has a broken arm, so how would he be able to carry her?”

  “Okay, well just try to stay calm. We’ll find her, Xavier…”

  He stopped listening to his partner when he spied something under the table in Annabelle’s room. Dropping to his knees to reach for it, he felt what little calm he’d mustered slip quickly away.

  “Xavier, you’ve stopped listening to me, I can tell. What happened? Did you find something?”

  “Yeah, I did,” he managed to croak as he carefully picked up the long, round object.

  “Well, what is it?” Kate demanded.

  “A syringe.” His mind conjured up images of every horrible thing this man might be doing to Annabelle this very second. “He drugged her and now he has her, Kate. He has her and we have no idea where he is. He has all the time in the world to do to her whatever he pleases.”

  * * * * *

  7:16 A.M.

  Had she hit her head?

  It felt like her head had been turned into a blender, filled with nails and turned up high.

  Annabelle wanted to open her eyes, but it was too much effort so she let the moment slide and let her mind creep back toward sleep.

  But sleep wouldn’t come. She was stuck in limbo, unable to sleep and yet unable to properly wake up.

  Maybe something had happened to her and she was back in the hospital.

  She tried to move her arms; when she found she couldn’t, her heart started to beat a little faster. Had she been arrested again? Was that why she couldn’t move? Had she been arrested and handcuffed to another hospital bed?

  She attempted to still her racing mind, focus it on the last thing she could remember. Xavier had come to her motel room. He’d told her that he’d been to see his ex-wife. He’d said that he was falling in love with he
r but then he’d said that he still loved Julia. She’d been hurt, her momentary bliss at hearing that he was falling for her washed away by the fear that he would one day leave her to go back to his wife. She had told him to leave. That she didn’t want to get involved with him only to lose him. Xavier had told her that he wanted her to be Belle, that he’d be back, that he wasn’t going to give up on her, but she had insisted that he leave.

  After he’d gone, she had headed for the bed, intending to sleep, pretty sure she was exhausted enough to sleep soundly. Annabelle didn’t think she’d ever even made it to the bed. Her last memory was of her legs giving out and the feel of the rough, scratchy carpet against her cheek.

  Had Xavier come back?

  Did he think that she had killed her family after all?

  Maybe he thought she’d done something else, something equally as horrible.

  Summoning all her strength, she managed to pry her eyelids open, a small moan of surprise escaping her lips.

  She wasn’t in a hospital, and neither was she in a police station.

  The roof above her head looked like the bare boards of an attic; beneath her was a hard wooden surface. It didn’t feel like the floor though, maybe more like a table. Tipping her head sideways confirmed this. It also confirmed the reason she couldn’t lift her arms was because someone had looped rope around her wrists and tied it to the table legs. Managing to lift her head a little to look down the length of her body she found her ankles, too, had been bound.

  She was trapped.

  Tied to a table in some attic.

  She could be anywhere, and no one even knew she was missing.

  Why, oh why, had she been so stubborn with Xavier? She wasn’t stubborn, she was never stubborn. When push came to shove Annabelle always backed down. The thought of anyone being mad at her was always enough to convince her to cave. And yet with Xavier she had stuck to her guns. Had even been a little proud of herself for doing so. Only now it had come back to bite her.