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“We have to,” he managed to get out.
“I don’t know how he could find her after so long.”
Ted heard the devastation in Miss Sarah’s voice.
“It’s my fault,” he said, coming to a sick realization. “My family, and all the photos. Someone rang and asked the lodge who the woman in the photo with me was, and they told him. I did this to her,” Ted said
“Her name was changed, Ted,” Dylan said. “He had to have somehow recognized her.”
“The fault is mine.”
Chapter 37
Mandy was terrified. It filled her body and had since she’d walked into her apartment and seen Logan Hall. But alongside that fear, another emotion was starting to take hold. Anger, the wonderful heat of it giving her strength. This man had already taken so much from her; she would not allow him to take more. Her life had just started, she’d just found the Mandy she wanted to be, and she’d found Ted.
“Your boyfriend is going to set me up.”
Logan Hall hadn’t aged well. His face was bloated, and folds of skin nearly covered his eyes. His hair was pulled back in a steel-gray tail. Not much taller than her, he was no longer the lean man she remembered.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I’ve been watching you.” His eyes narrowed as he sent her a look before continuing to pace the room they were in. It was a house, Mandy could tell that by the layout and furnishings. He’d clearly come prepared and rented it. She just wasn’t sure where it was. She thought they were still in Ryker Falls, as they hadn’t been driving that long. Plus, if he wanted ransom money, then surely he wouldn’t leave there? How would he get the money if he did?
“How did you find me?”
“Your father always talked about these sisters. I couldn’t remember their names, and then I saw them on the news talking about the Hosking family. The Robbins sisters, Marla and Sarah, and I remembered then. I found your picture in the paper. Your name was Mandy Robbins, so my guess was it had to be you. When I saw you, I knew I was right.”
He’d kept her in her apartment, gagged with her hands bound, until he was ready to leave. First Luke had knocked, and then Ted. She’d clenched her eyes shut so Logan Hall hadn’t seen her tears. The thought that this could be the last time she would hear the voice of the man she loved had been excruciating.
She’d made the decision then that if she got out of this alive, she’d tell him how she felt. Tell Ted she loved him, and Mandy would make him admit he felt something for her.
Hall had told her to walk to his car, then forced her into the trunk. The drive had been her worst nightmare; trapped in that small space, it felt like she was running out of air. She’d kept Ted in her head, repeating over and over to herself that she was strong now,strong in here.
It had worked, she managed to fight back the panic.
“Ted Hosking is your boyfriend. I saw him leaving your place early this morning, but that only confirmed what I’d already seen for myself.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Mandy said calmly. She wouldn’t let this man see her fear.
“I’d been searching for you for years. The pathetic little daughter of your loser father.”
“I was not pathetic.”
“You were. Your father dragged you everywhere, made you live in an adult world, and you never complained. No friends. You just had him and those nightclub workers.”
His words had the accuracy of a knife. She had been lonely with no friends.
“Hosking is a senator’s son. He’ll have money, and he’s giving me some. Then I’m going where no one will find me.”
“What will you do with me?” Mandy made herself ask that question.
“You’re paying for those years I had in prison.” He laughed at her then. “But we’ll come to that when I have the money.”
“Ted won’t hand you money without seeing me first.” Mandy knew this after what he went through with Emily.
What was happening to her must be hell for him. Even if he didn’t love her, he cared for her, she knew that much, and the entire scenario would be taking him back to what he went through with Emily.
“I have to go out now, so get up.”
