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It looked like Chloe wanted to get started a little early this year.
“Dada, hungry.” Asher banged his cup on the tray of his highchair sending milk splashing everywhere and totally ruining the mood.
“Sorry, bud,” he said. He was supposed to be making his son lunch, instead he was worrying about his sister and daydreaming about sex with his wife.
“Asher, what a mess,” Chloe said, grabbing paper towel and cleaning up the spilled milk. “You have to be careful with your big boy cup.” For the last few months, Asher had been obsessed with being a big boy, just mentioning the words was enough to encourage him to be cooperative and try new things. Although Fin was glad that his son was still a long way off from being a big boy, he wasn't ready for Asher to grow up just yet.
Adding a slice of cheese to the bread, he cut the sandwich into triangles, Asher’s favorite shape, and delivered it to thehighchair. “Here you go, bud,” he said. “What do you say?” he prompted when Asher didn't say thank you.
“Tank oo,” Asher crowed obediently, grabbing for the sandwich.
Fin smiled and ruffled Asher’s brown locks. “You’re welcome.” Then his gaze fell on the table that was set for three, and his anxiety returned. Samara was half an hour late for lunch, something had happened to her he knew it had.
“Why don’t you go check and see if you can see her in the street,” Chloe suggested. “I'm sure she’s fine and just held up, but if it’ll put your mind at ease, then you should go take a look.”
“I might do that, be right back.” Grabbing his phone from the counter as he went, he dialed Samara’s number and headed out into the cold.
He was halfway down the garden path when he saw her car.
It was parked right outside his house.
It was snowing, and snow had already piled up on the top of the car, indicating it had been parked there for a little while.
The phone was still in his hand, and as he got closer to his sister’s car, he heard the ringing of her phone.
Fin scanned up and down the street, but there was no sign of Samara.
She was gone.
“Chloe,” he screamed as he ran back inside, trying to keep some of the panic from his voice because he didn't want to upset Asher.
“What's wrong?” Chloe asked, meeting him in the living room.
“Samara’s car is parked out front but she’s not there.”
Chloe’s brown eyes grew wide, and she immediately picked up her phone. “I’ll call it in and get ERT here to check out Samara’s car and the surrounding area. We’ll get cops out here to start canvassing the neighbors, and Tom and I will go over everythingwe have on this guy again and see if we can find something we missed before.”
He nodded, feeling numb now.
The FBI’s evidence response team would find something if there was anything to find. And he trusted his wife and her partner Tom Drake more than anyone else on the planet, but they had already been looking for the stalker for months now without success. Why would they suddenly find something now?
Fin had seen the messages that the stalker had written to Samara; he was utterly obsessed with her. He believed that the two of them were in love and would spend the rest of their lives together.
At worst, Samara hadn't even survived the abduction and was already dead.
At best, she was still alive but a prisoner, which would give them days, weeks, or possibly even months to find her before he killed her.
But she wouldn’t survive that time unscathed.
The stalker would more than likely rape her and possibly try to beat her into loving him when he realized that she didn't. And then when he realized he could never make Samara love him, he would kill her.
The numbness was wearing off.
Overwhelming terror was taking its place.
He should have done more to prevent this from happening. He should have forced the cops to take her seriously when she reported the stalking. He should have had one of Samara’s colleagues take her on as a client and put a bodyguard on her. He should have donesomething.
“Fin.”
