by Mari Carr
And now she would pay for attacking his fantasy.
He raised the bottle.
Annalise threw up an arm and leaned to the side. She saved herself from a concussion, the bottle striking her upper arm instead of her head. Pain lanced through her humerus and shoulder, stopping the breath in her lungs for a moment. Then she screamed, a high, thin sound that wasn’t deliberate, but reactionary.
He raised the bottle again.
Annalise scrambled off the bench, running for the door. She’d forgotten about the cuff, the chain. She managed to put a hand on the door latch before she was pulled up short, the chain suddenly taut, the cuff digging into her wrist.
Then his body slammed into her, forcing her against the closed door, the cuffed arm stretched back painfully. She didn’t turn her head in time, and her nose impacted the door, hard enough that her eyes instantly watered. Her stalker shoved his hips hard against her ass, and his lips brushed her cheek. With a small cry of horror, she twisted her face to the other side, only to have him grip her hair, pulling so tight she felt little pops as the hairs were ripped from her scalp. He brushed his lips against her other cheek, his breath washing over her face. He smelled like mint.
“Don’t worry, Anna,” he murmured, his lips roving over her cheek. “I’ve got you. You’re with me now. I’ll protect you.”
Annalise hated the whimpers that escaped her. Hated that she couldn’t think, could barely breathe through the thick fear. This man had terrorized her, brutalized her sister. He was the unseen towering monster that had destroyed her life…
But he wasn’t unseen, unknown. Not anymore.
He was just a man. Delusional, yes. Mentally ill, without a doubt. Able to physically hurt her, yes, as her throbbing shins, arm, wrist, and nose could all attest.
But he was just a man, and Jakob and Walt were coming for her.
Vadisk whipped the car off the motorway. The last video they had of the kidnapper’s was from a camera about five kilometers behind them. Another traffic camera seven miles ahead showed no image of the vehicle, which meant it had exited somewhere in this twelve-mile stretch. They were well outside of Krakow now, surrounded by forested areas, the only sign of human habitation the four lanes of road snaking through the trees.
There were four possible exits between the two points. Two exits connected to slightly smaller, but well-traveled roads. Dimitri, the security minister of Hungary, was getting access to cameras along those roads now, since they weren’t looped in to the same traffic monitoring system as the major motorway. The third exit was the private driveway to a small luxury hotel nestled in among the trees. They’d stopped there first, though Jakob’s instincts were screaming at him that Axel wouldn’t have dared take Annalise someplace so public. Still, they’d stopped, flashed both Annalise’s and Axel’s pictures—Vadisk spoke conversational Polish and was able to ask questions—and when no one recognized Annalise or Axel, they’d jumped back into the car.
With Dimitri working on footage from the two larger roads, Vadisk had driven them to the fourth exit. A road just wide enough for two cars, but with flat shoulders where the trees had been cut back. This road was clearly less traveled, especially in winter.
According to Dimitri, it led to a popular campground deep in the forest. On a summer day, the road would have been clogged with cars pulling caravans or massive motorhomes on their way to the wide, mowed lawns of the campground that included amenities like showers and bathrooms, and even a small shop.
In January, the campgrounds were closed, the buildings locked, but the road wasn’t blocked off.
Jakob’s already tight shoulders tensed as Vadisk shot up the road.
Walt leaned forward, placing his hand on Jakob’s shoulder.
“We’ll find her,” he murmured.
Jakob nodded woodenly, his gaze focused out the front window though he wasn’t really seeing anything. He’d gone to the hospital when Annalise’s sister had been there after her attack. He remembered her glassy, shocked eyes. Remembered the way Annalise had looked—heartsick, guilty, utterly destroyed.
“We’ll get our girl back.” Walt squeezed his shoulder.
Our girl.
That sounded right. Felt right. He and Annalise…there was too much between them. But Walt made them work.
Walt Hayden had shown up with the fleet admiral and flashed him and Annalise that easygoing smile of his, while attempting to speak German with his charming American drawl. Jakob had never met anyone so comfortable in their own skin. Somehow the kind doctor had become the bridge between Jakob and Annalise, tearing down what had previously been a wall. One he and Annalise had built out of unspoken longing, attempted professionalism, and far too much self-doubt.
He reached up and squeezed Walt’s hand, blinking to clear his vision, which was abruptly blurry. Damn it, between the venom and the drugs, he was unable to control his words, to shield his feelings. He was wearing his heart on his sleeve and fighting like the devil not to cry.
He was a mess.
Jakob blinked again, his gaze focusing. He let go of Walt’s hand and reached across to the driver’s side, jerking the wheel.
Vadisk cursed and stood on the brake. The car screeched in protest as they were all flung sideways. They spun around before wobbling to a stop on the wide dirt shoulder, facing back the way they’d just come.
“Church every day,” Walt wheezed from the backseat. He was wedged in the footwell behind the driver’s seat.
Jakob didn’t wait for the car to stop. He threw open the door, leapt out, and ran back toward the break in the trees he’d been looking at, but hadn’t really seen until it was almost too late.
It was unseasonably warm in Poland, and in the city, the snow had melted away from the streets and sidewalks. But up here, in the mountains, it was colder, winter more evident. The ground was frozen hard, the undergrowth dead and dry. Snow was still present in some of the deep pockets of shadow.
Including a wide drift that spanned a barely discernible break between the trees.
Tire tracks cut through the hard-crusted snow.
Chapter Fourteen
“Could I have that glass of wine now?” Annalise asked. She was still pressed against the door, the stalker’s lips on her cheeks. “I like to have a glass of wine when I’m stressed.”
He paused. “A glass of wine to help you relax.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
He backed off, and Annalise turned her face to the door, squeezing her eyes tight.
Don’t challenge his delusion. Use the clues he’s giving you and pretend to be the person he wants you to be.
Indulging a delusion like this was highly unethical and incredibly unhealthy for the patient. It was why hostage negotiators were rarely psychologists. They would do or say whatever was needed to form a relationship with the subject, even if that meant going along with the delusion, or worse, adding to the narrative.
Add to it.
She could try that. It was not without heavy risks. Especially given that she hadn’t been able to keep her rage and fear totally under control.
She heard him pick up the wine bottle, heard the squeak of a corkscrew going into a cork. Annalise gathered herself and returned to the bench, sitting gingerly, and then tucking the chain out of sight under the table. She couldn’t afford to panic and run again, so she wrapped the chain several times around her hand and gripped hard enough that the chain dug into her skin, a constant reminder of her captivity.
A reminder not to try to run.
He poured her a glass of wine, setting it on the table. Annalise lifted it and took a small sip. Not because she trusted that the wine wasn’t tampered with—much like the cheese, if he’d wanted to, he probably could have tampered with it—but because she needed to be the fantasy version of herself he’d created.
She smiled at him after she took that first sip. “Lovely. Are you going to join me for a glass?”
He blinked and his shoulders were once again hun
ched in what would have seemed like cute embarrassment on someone who wasn’t delusional and dangerous. He poured himself a glass and then slid onto the edge of the other bench, so they were seated at right angles to one another.
They sipped in silence, a silence that lasted far too long to be anything but horrible and awkward, though he didn’t seem to realize. She was going to assume he had a low interpersonal IQ and difficulty with social norms. If he had the financial resources to follow her to Poland, to plan for her kidnapping to the extent that he’d bought an expensive caravan, then he most likely either had independent financial resources or a way to make money that didn’t involve him having to interact with people.
Annalise needed to get him talking, to keep him engaged, so he wouldn’t focus on the next thing, the next part of his fantasy, which could involve him doing something to her that she didn’t want to happen.
It was time to take a risk, to gamble, if not with her life, then certainly her physical safety.
After taking another sip, she smiled and gestured toward the small desk that had been revealed when he folded up the beds. “Have you had a chance to read my latest paper?”
He perked up, smiling back at her. He seemed so normal. Medium height, blond, with a nice jawline. His hair was longish, but not as if it was a style he’d chosen. Rather, it was long in a way that screamed lack of self-care. His oily skin and ill-fitting shirt also added to the overall impression of a man who didn’t know how to dress or take care of himself.
A man who’d never had a friend or lover to guide him on how to present himself to the world.
“I always read your papers,” he said. “I support you, Anna.”
That’s what she’d expected from a man who labeled both himself, and her, as cerebral. “What did you think about the commentary on the dichotomy of positive and negative representations of therapy and psychiatry in pop culture?” she asked with as much genuine curiosity as she could feign.
He frowned down at his wine glass, and she gripped the chain tighter, trying not to visibly tense in anticipation of the blow if she’d miscalculated and he reacted badly. An academic discussion should appeal to the “cerebral” aspect of his fantasy construct, but if he felt she were challenging or quizzing him…
“I don’t think we need to make people feel like therapy is acceptable,” he said after a moment. “The people who need it just need to do it.”
That was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Annalise nodded, even leaned into him. “Interesting. And what of people who might feel ashamed of needing help.”
“Do they even matter? I mean, if they need that kind of help, they’re probably useless.”
She swallowed down a slightly hysterical giggle. The utter lack of self-awareness was comical.
“I want people who need help to get it,” she countered ever so gently. “If they don’t come to see people like me…well, then we’ll never know how to explain the ways a human mind works.”
That statement was also nonsense because she wasn’t a therapist. If he’d actually understood the papers she wrote, and what she did, surely he would realize that what she’d just said was off.
But he didn’t react except to reach out for the wine bottle, plucking it from the tiny counter and setting it on the table. “You can just talk to them after they catch them.”
Annalise nodded again, now confident that hubris was a driving factor in his actions. This man thought he was far smarter than he actually was. Which also meant, if she was careful, and controlled her own reactions, he could be manipulated. Manipulated into sitting there and talking to her. Into drinking wine that might lower his inhibitions and reaction time.
Annalise reached for the inelegantly presented plate of charcuterie. “Do you want me to make you a plate? I love to have some wine with fruit and cheese.”
He shifted awkwardly, then squared his shoulders. “Yes. You should make me a plate.”
Annalise unwrapped the cheese, and when she put a lost and helpless expression on her face, he rose and grabbed her a table knife, then a plate. She cut cheese, arranged a plate, then passed it to him before lifting the bottle of wine. “Do you want some more wine? Anything else I can get you?”
He preened, clearly enjoying her in the role of subservient female. He’d said he wanted to take care of her. What he wanted was to control her, to have power over her. Rather than allow him to choose the shape and manner of it, she would do it. Give him perceived power over her by making herself subservient.
Buy time until Jakob and Walt arrived.
Only how long would it be? How far behind her were they?
God. Please let them be on the way.
She asked for his opinions of her other papers and journal articles, careful never to ask or say anything that might remind him that she knew nothing about him.
The minutes dragged on into an hour, maybe more, and Annalise’s fist was so tight on the chain that the links felt like they were fusing with her skin.
Jakob and Walt were coming for her…unless they weren’t. Unless Jakob was in the hospital fighting for his life, Walt beside him. Because if Jakob was hurt, that was where Walt would be.
Or worse, what if Jakob was dead?
She’d been so careful to keep herself from even obliquely considering that possibility, but now that she’d let that horrific thought in, she couldn’t get rid of it. Couldn’t shake the memory of Jakob’s face drawn tight in pain, of him falling back against the wall of the hotel, and then sliding to the ground.
“Anna.”
His hand clamped tight around her wrist and Annalise jerked, brought back to the moment, fear for Jakob fluttering high in her chest.
“You weren’t listening to me.” He sounded disappointed and angry.
Annalise twisted her wrist in his grip, so her hand was palm up, fingers softly curled, a deliberately vulnerable position.
“I’m so sorry. Something you said gave me an idea for another paper.” Was she talking too fast? It felt like she was.
He was still frowning at her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, lowering her gaze. “It was very rude of me.”
He grunted, an arrogant noise of satisfaction that made her body burn with rage. She hated this, hated sitting here playing pretend while the man she loved, and who loved her, might be sick or dead.
No. Jakob was okay. Walt was there with him.
Just the thought of the sweet American doctor had the tightness in her chest loosening. How Walt had managed to sneak under her defenses—and Jakob’s—so quickly was a mystery to her. She thought she’d lost the ability to trust others, to let people in. For so long, it had been her and Jakob against the world.
Walt changed that. He challenged them to open themselves up to possibilities they’d only dreamed of.
As well as possibilities she’d never considered.
What would she give to be back in that hotel just before the fire alarm sounded? Jakob standing behind her, kissing her neck, his hands on her breasts, Walt teasing her with his big hand, thick fingers. She had never felt so safe, so adored, so…
Damn it.
She should get the conversation back on track, keep him talking about her work, about anything that would play into his fantasy. And yet…
She needed to know what he’d done to Jakob.
Annalise swallowed hard and accepted that she might be about to fuck everything up. That in the next few minutes, she might be suffering the consequences of breaking his delusion. Annalise glanced up, smiling softly. He released her wrist but then placed his hand atop hers, lacing their fingers together. She felt physically ill at the intimacy.
“Oh,” she said, as casually as she was able. “I keep forgetting to ask, is that a new poison you have?”
He glanced sharply at her, and Annalise nearly whimpered in fear. She tried to hold on to rage, to her anger, while maintaining a calm, slightly curious expression. In his delusion where they were in a relationship, she
should know things about him. Things like his interest in poison, or his profession if that’s where he’d gotten whatever poison he’d managed to slip to Jakob.
After a moment, his brow cleared. “Venom, not poison.”
“Oh, of course. Wrong word.”
“Bullet ant venom.” He said the words with relish. “It’s the most painful insect sting. They call it a bullet ant because it feels like being shot. Days of agony.”
Days.
Jakob wasn’t coming.
“Oh dear,” she murmured, her tone noncommittal as she desperately tried to hide her panic.
She must have failed, because his face darkened. “I’m protecting you. From him.”
Annalise nodded, but this time it didn’t seem to appease him. Her stalker squeezed her hand so hard she once more felt her bones creak. Though she tried to keep her composure, a small sound of pain escaped as he continued to crush her hand.
“It was going to be fine, until him. That’s why I had to get you away from him. I knew when you came to Krakow that you wanted me to rescue you, and I had to act fast. That it was our chance to be together.”
“So you pulled the fire alarm,” she gasped. “Very clever.”
“Clever? Are you making fun of me?” He jerked her toward him.
Annalise tipped sideways on the bench, catching herself with the chain-wrapped hand. “No, of course not.”
He looked down at the chain and smirked.
Damn it, damn it.
The chain would serve as a visual signal that he could have other, more direct power over her.
He released her, then stood, coming around to her other side. This time when he grabbed her, Annalise clung to the table. It wasn’t fear, but rage that clamped her fingers around the wood. Rage that wanted to lash out. To fight him, hurt him. Punish him for what he’d done to her, to her sister, to Jakob.
Rage that wouldn’t be enough. Unless she could incapacitate him. Lashing out would only serve to escalate the situation and put herself in danger.