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“Hannah?” Tom asked, brushing gently at his wife’s hair, freeing a lock of it from where it was stuck in the blood that had flowed from her head wound down her face.
“Noelle?” she asked, bolting upright.
“She’s fine,” Tom soothed. “She’s right there.”
“Asher?” Hannah asked, holding out her arms toward her daughter, and Samara carried the little girl over to her mom.
“He’s gone,” Tom told her.
“I’m so sorry,” Hannah cried, clutching her child close.
“It is not your fault. You shouldn’t be moving about so much. You were hit over the head and passed out when we found you.” Tom moved from where he had been kneeling beside the couch to sit beside his wife, pulling her and Noelle onto his lap.
Hannah didn't look appeased and shifted her gaze to Fin and Chloe. “I’m so sorry. I tried to stop him.”
“Shh.” Tom stroked his wife’s hair, his face a stark white as he realized how close he had come to losing his whole family.
“It’s okay, Hannah.” Chloe straightened herself and came to sit on the couch beside Tom and Hannah. “Tom’s right, it isn’t your fault. Did he say anything? Anything that might tell us where he took Asher?”
“He said that he didn't want to hurt me and that he wouldn’t hurt Asher. He said he would just keep him until you let him have Samara,” Hannah said. She was pale, and she looked like she was in pain, she rested her head on her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“An ambulance is going to be here soon,” Tom told her.
Michael returned and handed the towels to Tom, who pressed one to the bloody spot on the back of Hannah’s head.
This was just more of what they already knew.
The stalker wasn't going to stop until he had her.
Why were they making this any harder than it had to be?
How many more people were they going to let him hurt orkill? Were they just going to sit by and watch him kill her two-year-old nephew?
Sirens sounded, and a minute later the room filled with cops and paramedics. Everyone seemed to be busy, everyone seemed to have something to do except for her. Samara just stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by the hubbub but feeling more alone than she had ever felt as a child.
The look on her brother’s face had her feeling like someone had doused sulfuric acid all over her and it was eating her away bit by bit.
She couldn’t do this any longer.
She couldn’t just stand by, safe and protected, while everyone she loved and strangers on the street were in danger.
“What are we going to do?” Chloe’s voice penetrated the panicked haze that had descended on her. Chloe sounded terrified and angry and a million other things. Fin had his hands on her shoulders and was trying to calm her down, but he looked just as close to falling apart as his wife did.
Her phone buzzed, and Samara knew before she even pulled it from her purse who it was going to be.
She was right.
On the screen was a message from the same number that had sent the picture of Hannah and the kids. The message was short—just an address. But he hadn't needed to say more. She knew what he meant. If she went to the address he had given her, then he would let her nephew go and take her instead.
This could be the break they needed.
If she went to meet him wearing a wire and with the cops tailing her but remaining out of sight, then he would think that he’d gotten what he wanted. He’d let Asher go, and Chloe and Tom could arrest him.
Samara went to her brother and tugged on his arm. “Fin.”
“Not now, Samara,” he said, shrugging her off.
“But,” she started.
