The road around him was spilling over with cars all heading away from Atlanta’s busy traffic flow and toward the suburbs to the north. He turned on his flashers and pulled to the side of the road, moving on autopilot. He’d always been a very cautious man.
“Allison? What’s wrong, honey? Is it the baby?”
Her pregnancy had been touch and go from the very beginning, and much as they both wanted children, the little one growing inside of her seemed almost determined not to survive.
“Scott! Scott!”
He gripped the phone so hard he thought for sure he was going to shatter it, but he couldn’t make himself stop. “Allison! Listen to me, honey, calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was sedate and cold. “Hello, Scott. This is a kidnapping call. Listen very carefully if you ever want to see your wife again.”
“What?” His pulse slammed into overdrive and he looked around as if he might, somehow, see the man speaking to him past the traffic and the fourteen miles he still had to travel in order to get back to his house.
“You don’t have time for questions. You don’t have time for anything. Pay careful attention. Your wife is in my custody. If you attempt to call the police or interfere, I’ll kill her. Wait for a phone call. I’ll use your cell phone number. Oh, and make absolutely sure you act like everything is just fine. You have a little boy on the way and the only way he’s going to make it is if you do as I say.”
The click of the phone on the other end terminating the call was loud and made him flinch.
Scott stared off into the distance, seeing nothing as the heavy traffic moved past him.
“Allison?” He spoke only to himself, knowing full well she couldn’t possibly answer him.
George Heatherly walked into his house at the usual time, his car keys bouncing in his hand. Coming home meant a lot more to him these days than it had in the past. These days he had company waiting for him when he stepped through the door and dinner either waiting, or almost prepared. Cheryl was good to him like that.
He’d never expected to find anyone who could fill the void left in his world when Amy passed away, but after years of being alone, Cheryl was there to make him feel complete again.
If it wasn’t actually love, it was a damned fine substitute.
He ran across Cheryl when he was waiting at the doctor’s office for his yearly check up. The red head was waiting too, and despite the fact the place looked deserted except for the two of them, there didn’t seem to be anyone who was in a hurry to see them.
She was the one who started the conversation, displaying a razor sharp wit and damned fine looks to boot. Somehow, six months later, she moved into his house and sort of took over. Most of the time he was too dazed to question it, and even when he did decide to sit down and assess the situation, he fully acknowledged that he was better with her in his world than without her. Also, the sex was amazing and her cooking beat all hell out of another take-out pizza.
All of that and more flashed through his mind as he moved inside and carefully took off his coat, placing it in the small closet just inside. That was one of the rules he’d gladly accepted when she took over: coats were to be put away immediately and shoes were to follow them into the closet.
He put away the coat and slid his shoes where they belonged and then moved into his house.
And stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the devastation. The black leather couch had been thrown across the room and shattered the TV set. The long sheet of glass from the coffee table was now scattered across the plush carpet, a sea of shimmering reflections.
George stared at the scene with a blank expression on his face as he tried to absorb the damage. “Cheryl? Hon, are you here?”
No one answered him at first. But he heard a floorboard creak in the direction of the kitchen and felt his mouth go dry and his bladder threaten a revolt.
Some of his friends liked to keep a dozen or so firearms in the house, liked to go on talking for hours about how good they were with their weapons and how much fun it was to blow away a hundred or so Osama Bin Laden faces on the targets at the local range.
George didn’t give a good damn about weapons. He went hunting with the guys because it was fun to get together with his old high school chums once in a while.
Oh, Lord in Heaven, how he wished he had their obsession on his side tonight. He didn’t even own a gun. He borrowed one of Mark’s every year when they got together.
George looked around for anything that would make a suitable weapon and found nothing.
In the hallway, he heard a footstep hit another of the loose floorboards, this one several feet closer to where he was standing.
“Cheryl?” He could barely manage a whisper. The chill from outside was still sticking to his body, but a sheen of sweat seeped from his pores just the same.
“She’s not here.” The voice was deep and bordered on a growl. The man who walked into view was a complete stranger as best he knew, but looked like he should have been locked away on general principles. He stood six feet, four inches in height. His broad shoulders threatened to split the seams of the dark blue flannel shirt he wore along with dark jeans, dark boots and a black leather belt that was cracking from age. The man had a mane of golden brown hair with a blend of silvery and reddish highlights and the clearest blue eyes George had ever seen. His face was wind burned, a little weathered, and broad.
“Who are you?”
Blue Eyes looked at him for a moment and shook his head. “You really don’t remember me?”
“No.” George was unsettled, but doing his best to keep a level head. It didn’t pay to jump to conclusions. The man might be an ex-lover of Cheryl’s, he might be an old high school buddy who hadn’t aged well, or he could even be a cop. Not every person he encountered had to be somebody sinister, even if the man in question had no reason at all to be in his house.
“Well, that’s a peach, isn’t it?” The man stepped closer and his eyes narrowed. “I remember you, George. I remember you very well. You were the one who told them to stop.”
He looked at the stranger and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea in hell what you’re talking about. Why are you in my house and where is Cheryl?”
“Cheryl has taken a vacation, George. She didn’t want to go without leaving you a message, but I convinced her that I would explain everything to you.”
George felt his calm exterior starting to crack. “What have you done to her?”
“Not a blessed thing.” The man crossed his thick arms and looked down at George. “And I won’t do anything to her, either, as long as you follow a few simple rules.”
He’d tried so hard, been so good about not losing his temper, and he wanted to keep that inner peace, but the man standing in front of him was making it very difficult. “Listen to me. Whatever game you’re playing, I don’t want any part of it. Bring Cheryl back here, now, and this doesn’t have to get ugly.”
The man smiled — smiled, like they were having a smoke break together — and shook his head. “That’s not the way this works, George. You have to play by the rules, my rules, or the only way you’ll ever see Cheryl again is in a morgue.”
“You miserable fuck.” His vision went red and the muscles in his body tensed. Adrenaline kicked into George’s body like an old familiar friend, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d grabbed the bigger man by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. George slammed the man into the wall, his teeth bared, his breaths coming in hard fast gasps, and he snarled as he spoke. “You don’t want to fuck with me! Where is Cheryl?”