Apprehended (Amber Alert Series Book 3)

by Sara Schoen

  Soon he wouldn't take no for an answer. I could tell he was getting angry with me for putting it off, but I couldn't give in to him for that. It didn't matter how well I played along, he would find out that I was just trying to survive. If he didn't already. It was painfully obvious in how I avoided his sexual advances, but I had to play coy because if I made him angry there would be consequences. I just couldn’t give that away to him. There were limits, even for staying alive, and I just had to play the game as best as I could without giving in anything that would be irreplaceable.

  I had to wait for him to leave, and be there to say goodbye then hello when he returned. If I wasn't, there was sure to be trouble. For now, I was able to stay in a separate room from him, but I knew from living with Steve that wouldn't last long. Hopefully Casey would find help and get us out soon, because I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold out.

  When Alec left for the morning, I went down to see the girls. I brought them down the bread and water, hoping to sustain them a little bit longer, but I wasn't sure if that was going to be possible, and now the girls were losing hope.

  "Maybe she's dead," Tegan stated. "Send another girl!"

  "If she’s dead then why would I send another one of you?" I questioned as the water was passed from my hands to the other girls. I could see their bones; they were malnourished and losing weight. I was doing all I could, but I couldn't send another girl out. What if Alec found her?

  "So another one can try to get us all out."

  "It was risky to send just one girl," I said as glanced to Morgan. Her skin was sinking around her face, and her eyes had lost almost all life from them. She had been here longer than the others, and it showed. She needed help or she wouldn't make it. "What if Alec finds you? He'll kill you, and us. We got lucky the first time."

  "How do you know? We don't even know what happened to her! She could be dead, laying in the woods were no one can find her."

  "I'm watching the news," I replied lightly, turning to give Tegan the water pitcher. Our eyes met for a moment, there was still fight in her eyes. She hadn't given up, but she couldn't take much more. Waiting to die must be painful to know that there is no way out of this, and all there is to look forward to is death. I think I'd rather take the torture. "Nothing has come up about Casey. Not a body, not an anonymous tip, just nothing."

  "That's because they haven't found the body yet," Tegan replied with a pessimistic smirk.

  "We can't think like that, Tegan."

  "Why not? It's the truth!" she cried, hitting the cage causing it to shake violently for a few seconds. "We are locked down here, even if we did get out, we don't have a chance at escaping. We are too weak, he would find us and hunt us down like animals then drag us back here to kill us because we weren't what he wanted. I've seen it done."

  "Seen what done?"

  "He comes down here, terrifies us all, and chooses the girl that he feels isn't the one for him. The one that isn't like you!" A shiver raced down my spine as her eyes became darker, and her voice grew deeper and more disturbed. "We can hear her scream. We can hear her crying, begging for him to stop, and saying she will do anything to make him stop. Then we hear nothing. There's blood on him when he comes back, but he says nothing to us as he leaves us alone again. He kills them for us to hear, so we know what happens if we don't behave. You don't know what it's like here."

  I felt the anger flare through me at her words. I tried to control the fury, but I couldn't. She thought that it was easy for me to live up there with him. She had no idea what I had been through or what I was trying to do for her. "I don't know what you go through?" She shook her head. She didn't know that while she lay down here fighting for her life, I had the chance to leave. I could have left by now. I could have tried to escape and left them down here to riot, but he knew that I wouldn't. I wasn't going to leave and let these girls die because he had fixated on me.

  "You have no idea what we've been through down here," she started, but I cut her off before she could finish her thought.

  "And you don't know what I go through up there!" I shouted, shocking her and me. "You know what happens when he comes down stairs, but you're down here. You don't live with him. You don't even see him anymore, he’s leaving you down here to die, and while what has happened to you is awful, you don't know what it's like up there. Having to please him, follow the same rules Anna Cowles had to, and be with him all the time." I shuddered before recollecting myself. "I could leave at any time I please while he's gone." A shocked gasp raced through the ranks of girls, cutting me off momentarily.

  "Why are you still here?" A girl asked from behind me. I think her name was Devon, but I didn't turn around to check.

  "Because if I leave then his fantasy is shattered," I stated, staring straight into Tegan's eyes. "Then he comes looking for me, notices that you are all still alive and kills you. Then he hunts me down to drag me back here to kill me. Now, maybe, I could get lucky and make it to town while he kills you off one by one," I paused momentarily to let that thought sink in. "Then again, I might not and we would all be dead.

  He knew me, he knew that I wouldn't leave you behind just to save myself. He knew me better than the leader of our team did, and better than I did."

  "He leaves the door open for you and you don't leave, for us?" the girl's voice questioned.

  "That's right, and I won't leave until I know I can get you all out safely," I said as the front door opened upstairs, sending a cold shiver down my spine.

  "He's home," Tegan whispered urgently. "You have to get back upstairs before he comes down here looking for you! Run!"

  I followed her order without a second thought. I shut off the lights, plunging them back into darkness, and quietly made my way up the stairs. I had to make sure he didn't know I was coming down here, or he may punish me. How? I wasn't sure, but from hearing Tegan's story, I didn't want to know how he'd torture me. It was too gruesome to think about.

  Chapter 18

  I had managed to make my way back upstairs without alerting Alec that I had been in the basement. His footsteps raced wildly through the house in search for me, and all I had to do was wait. I stood by the door to the basement, praying that he wouldn’t look down here first, and waited to slip out. His boots echoed loudly through the house, and allowed me to have a general idea of where he was.

  Once I was sure his footsteps reached the stairs to look through the second story, I made my escape.

  I glanced around the first floor to make sure he wasn’t in sight, while his footsteps quickly made their approach back to the first floor of the house. Quickly, I shut the door to the basement and raced to the bathroom. My footsteps were fast and light on my toes so that I wouldn’t make a lot of noise. He was sure to be upset that I wasn’t there to welcome him back, it would be worse if he caught me coming out of the basement. I sealed myself in for a few moments to catch my breath before I flushed the toilet, and proceeded to wash my hands as if I had used the restroom.

  My breathing had returned to normal just as the door to the bathroom flung open. I glanced up in the mirror to see Alec covered in blood. I watched as my eyes grew wide and the color drained from my face. He had blood spattered over his jeans and face, but it coated the front of his shirt around the collar. The blood that sent fear through my veins, it wasn’t that he had killed something, or someone, but that he was capable of it, and that he would do it again. There wasn’t a way to be sure what he had killed, but judging from the anger on his face he wasn’t pleased with what he had found.

  He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to be the one to break the silence, but the longer we stayed silent the worse the fear gnawed at the pit of my stomach. Was it Casey? It couldn’t have been, it had been days since I let her out, but then again no one had come. Does that mean he found her or did she die because she was too weak to carry on? What if it wasn’t her? What had happened?

  “Where were you when I came home?” he questioned, letting out an ang
ry sigh. He was trying to control his anger, but it was clear that if I said the wrong thing that anger would be directed at me.

  “I’ve been in here since you left,” I stated uneasily. “I’m not feeling well, and didn’t think I could make it out of the room without getting sick again.” I saw some of the anger release from his features, but there was still a disbelieving gaze in his eyes.

  “Have you been throwing up?”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I got some on my hands, and I’m worried I may have gotten some in my hair as well,” I pouted sadly. “I will shower after you rinse off.” I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the blood as I spoke. It had to be seeping through his clothes, and soaking his skin. It looked fresh, there was still a sheen to it, and was slowly trailing down his shirt as he moved toward me.

  He stood at the door, blocking my exit, as he looked into my eyes to search for the truth. He glanced over my features, and I tried to hide my inner thoughts as best as I could. When the deep set anger returned to his eyes, I knew that it wasn’t going to be good. He stalked toward me, watching my every twitch and motion. I pushed my back up against the wall behind me as he got closer. He was waiting, waiting to see if I would crack under the pressure, but I wouldn’t.

  “I will shower quickly, and then draw you a bath so you can relax for a while. I don’t want you to get too sick,” he said through clenched teeth before he turned and walked out of the bathroom.

  I stood stunned for a moment, his anger seemed to have faded too quickly. His actions weren’t as I had anticipated, and that worried me. I had been waiting for him to yell, grow annoyed like Steve had done, but it never came. Something was very wrong, and it was only a matter of time before whatever it was caused more problems and possibly another death.

  The sound of running water met my ears as I came out of the restroom. Relief rushed through me as I knew I would be able to lock up the basement without him knowing I went down there. If I was caught, the punishment was sure to be severe from what the girls had told me. I just had to play along, and hope that it would get me through without problems.

  The lock on the basement door slid easily into place, and there was no sign that I had broken his rule now. A satisfied smile creased my lips as I turned to walk back to the living room to sit and wait for Alec to get out of the shower. I was supposed to make him dinner, but I was fearful to follow his demands perfectly. If I did, I knew that he would escalate his game. He would push and push until he found something I wasn’t comfortable with, and I knew where that would head.

  I shuddered at the thought as something caught my eye on the coffee table. On the normally spotless table was a newspaper that was shredded to pieces and thrown aside like trash.

  I glanced toward the staircase, the water had stopped running and he would be down soon, but I couldn’t stop myself I had to know what had angered him so much and what I was facing.

  I flipped through the discarded pages of the paper until I found the front page news. The partial headline was enough to catch my attention, and probably what had angered him.

  “FBI agent taken in string of kidnappings.”

  I glanced through the torn pieces of the article to learn that they had found my car in the parking lot, and had been keeping the news out of the public’s ears until they were sure. The report continued that an FBI agent refused to give a comment, but described him as the team leader who was distraught by losing a member of his team.

  This was sure to cause trouble, I thought, and it explained Alec's foul mood. I continued to scan for more information—the team would have to go on the news to talk about it, explain what happened, and what they were doing to find me and the other girls, unless they wanted to start a panic. The town would go crazy, fearful that someone in their area was the man responsible. It could start a witch hunt, where the town would accuse anyone of the crime just to put their fears to rest, even if the wrong man was convicted. If the team wasn’t careful in how they controlled this, then it would spell disaster for the town, the agency, and the girls and me.

  I continued to look through the article, growing angry that some key words were lost. I could make out a few sentences that said the team was shocked this happened close to a family friend’s home, and that the man must have been targeting me. There were no eyewitnesses, a couple had stumbled onto the car the next morning and called the police. There was no other evidence, according to a quote that cut off the name of the speaker.

  It continued to say more about how they found out I was taken, but Alec’s footsteps started down the stairs, and I had run out of time. I picked up the papers from the coffee table and quickly threw them away so that they would be out of sight. The news must have angered Alec when he realized that soon everyone would be looking for me, and he was going to lose what he had been working for—me. He would have to be more careful, which either meant we would move, or he’d be around more often. Neither of those worked out in my favor.

  I rushed through the house to make it upstairs before Alec could ask me about the newspapers. I just had to make it through a few more days. The team would find me, they would get me out of here. I just had to stay out of trouble, and I could get all of us out safely.

  ***

  When I had finished my bath, I came downstairs to make dinner as I was supposed to, but I didn’t see Alec in his usual spot. I was about to call for him when I heard Callum’s voice. I felt my heart stop momentarily. There was a deafening silence as I glanced around to see if he had been taken, and was now trapped here with me. Alec could have harmed him, and that’s why he was covered in blood when he came home. I couldn’t live with myself if he had hurt Callum. It would have been all my fault like the girls being trapped in the basement.

  I was panicking until I heard Kate’s voice as well. I turned the corner to see Alec sitting and intently staring at the television. I felt a wave of relief rush over me as I realized they were still safe from all of this, but they weren’t safe from the press.

  “What are you doing about the missing girls?”

  “Are you only looking for the agent?”

  “How could a trained agent be taken?”

  The questions continued and they were right in a way. I should have been able to make it out, but I was taken by surprise. I should have had someone with me, but I was going on, I wasn’t on the case anymore, and now the whole town was worried. They thought they were protected, the police had set up more surveillance, yet I had been taken, and no one had seen a thing.

  “We are looking for all the girls, including the agent,” one of the police officers answered.

  “How could this have happened?”

  “What happened to the safety procedures?”

  “Why was she by herself?”

  The questioning continued, with no time in between to answer them. The officer was starting to stress as the questions began to be directed towards him and how the department had failed.

  “What is going to happen to the girls now?”

  “What precautions are you taking to prevent another kidnapping?”

  “What is the FBI doing here if they can’t stop one of their own from being taken?”

  The officer was pushed aside as the last question rang in my ears. Callum stepped forward, angry and glaring at the reporter who had asked the question. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hair was disheveled and he seemed drained of energy.

  “There is nothing wrong with the police department here, what happened is an unfortunate occurrence, but it is not their fault. No one could have prevented what happened,” he paused momentarily, causing the crowd around him to be silent before he spoke again. “This man was after her the entire time, he wanted our attention focused on the town so that we wouldn’t be watching each other. He planned this, and while we are looking for our agent, I know she would rather we spend the time looking for the girls. So our efforts are focused to the girls that were taken, and a smal
l group are investigating the kidnapping of Jessi Sparks in search of more clues.” He stopped and looked at the camera for a moment, before taking a breath and yelling over the reports again. “Thank you, that’s all for today.” I felt my heart clench as I watched Callum walk away from the stage.

  He had looked right into the camera, and for a moment, I thought he was looking directly at me, but there was no way to know that I would be watching. He did it for another reason, but for what reason I wasn’t sure.

  “He thinks he will find you and the girls, but he’s wrong,” Alec stated pulling me out of my thoughts. “No one has ever found me before.”

  Chapter 19

  The days were starting to meld together. There was such little change that I lost track of time. Alec had attempted to regain control after the news broadcast, and sealed me into the house. There was no exit now, there was no escaping now, even if I could bring myself to leave now there was no point. These girls needed me, I had made my choice and had to stand by it now. That meant waiting for Callum, just like they had to, but it was getting more difficult by the day.

  Alec was on edge, due to the high media coverage of the kidnappings, and it made the house tense. One wrong move, and everything could be over.