Page 105 of Fatal Betrayal

"Andi?" he said, his own voice echoing back to him. He entered the kitchen, saw the open door leading into the garage. When he went down the stairs, he saw keys on the cement floor behind her father's car. Across from him, the door leading into the side yard was wide open.

Fear stabbed him in the heart.

Someone had broken in.

Someone had taken Andi.

* * *

Andi woke up with a start, the back of her head throbbing with pain, her arms aching from being stretched out in front of her. She tried to move them, but they wouldn't budge. She blinked her eyes open in confusion.

The room was dark, but there was some moonlight coming through a high window over her head, enough dim light to see that she was lying on her side on a bed, fully dressed, her arms stretched out in front of her, a zip tie around her wrists and handcuffs attaching her to the headpost of the bedframe. One of her legs was bound to the post at the end of the bed. She tugged hard, but she couldn't move more than an inch.

Anxiety ran through her. She tamped it down. She couldn't panic. That wouldn't help. She needed to think. To remember what had happened.

She'd gone into the garage. The side door had been open, cold air hitting her face. She'd started to turn, to run back inside, but someone had hit her on the back of her head and knocked her out.

Her breath came a little faster as she thought about what might have happened next. Clearly, they'd brought her somewhere. They could have killed her on the spot. But they hadn't.Why?

She couldn't think of a good reason.

She also couldn't think because Cooper's image was suddenly racing around in her head.Had the person or people who had kidnapped her gone into the house? Had they grabbed Cooper?She tried to twist her head to look behind her, but she couldn't see much.

"Cooper," she said softly, hoping he was in the room with her, but there was nothing but cold silence.

He wasn't here. Maybe they hadn't gone into the house. He could be fine.

She tried to hang on to that thought, but she couldn't.What if he wasn't fine? What if they'd shot him? What if he was lying in a puddle of blood dying? What if she'd let him down again?

She'd left the bedroom. She'd gone downstairs to get away from him. She'd gone into the garage without telling him she'd found the car key. All those decisions could have led to something horrible happening to him, and she couldn't bear that thought.

The rational part of her brain told her to get a grip. She couldn't help Cooper until she figured out how to help herself.

That seemed like an impossible challenge.

Then she heard voices nearing the door. They were talking in Russian. Two women—again, just like in the store. Was one of them Natasha?

In the distance, she heard louder sounds, heavy thuds, shuffling feet, loud bangs. There was a lot of action going on, and it felt like the noise was coming from a big cavern. She appeared to be in a bedroom, but was she?

There was bedroom furniture, but now she realized there were two dressers in front of her, one white, one brown. There were several different vases on top of those dressers. In the corner were two chairs, one armchair, one hardback. She was in a furniture warehouse, she realized.

She heard more voices, mostly female in nature, one sounded hysterical. And then she heard the sharp, piercing cry of a baby.

Was that Elisa?

More Russian words followed. She picked out a few of them. Mothers, babies, truck.

It felt like she was in a holding area, maybe a point through which they moved babies and kids.But why bring her here?

The answer to that question wasn't a good one.

They'd shut down the store. They were dismantling the operation, probably to restart somewhere else. They were going to destroy any evidence left behind and any other loose ends, like an FBI agent who would never stop looking for them.

"What's going on?" a new female voice asked in English, her tone hesitant, unsure.

"It doesn’t concern you, Natasha."

At the mention of Natasha, Andi's pulse leapt into overdrive. "Your name isn't Natasha," she yelled. "It's Hannah Montgomery. You were kidnapped when you were two years old."

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