Page 63 of The Survivor
Blake bounded off without answering.
He climbed the porch and found the front door locked. Fumbling for his keys, he let himself into the house anddeactivated the alarm. He called Sam’s name. No answer. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Daniels, but he’d had to see for himself.
His heart thumping in his chest, he pulled out his cell phone and was about to dial when he caught sight of the paper on the credenza. The note was written in a feminine scrawl. He snatched it up.
Blake, Officer Benson is here so I’ll be quick. We need to talk when it’s all over. Don’t even think of avoiding me!
She’d signed her name simply asS.
Oh, Jesus. He didn’t know who the hell this Benson was, but it was becoming sickeningly obvious that it wasn’t a police officer who’d taken Sam away.
Nausea scraped at his intestines.
She was gone. The son of a bitch had been here, and now Sam was gone.
As sirens shrieked inside his head, Blake raced out the front door. He fumbled with his cell phone and violently punched in Rick’s numbers. He must have stopped breathing at some point because when Rick finally answered the phone, Blake’s lungs burned and his vision had blurred.
Gulping in oxygen, he gripped the phone so tightly he heard the sound of plastic cracking. “She’s gone,” he burst out. “He took her.”
Rick sounded flabbergasted. “What?”
“Francis Grant, or whoever the hell he is. He took her, goddammit!”
“Are you sure?”
“She’s gone, dammit!”
He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d hung up the phone, or what he’d said to Rick before he did, but the next thing he knew he was in his SUV. Peeling out of the driveway and nearly skidding into a snowbank. He broke every traffic law on his way to thepolice station. Was he meeting Rick? Had they arranged to meet there? He had no freaking clue.
All he saw and heard and breathed was Sam. Terror lined his throat, his hands were shaking over the steering wheel, and whenever he swallowed, he tasted nothing but raw, clammy fear.
Blake slammed on the brakes when the police station came into view. The SUV slid two yards before it came to an abrupt stop, one tire over the curb.
When he stormed into the task force conference room, his partner wasn’t there, but Superintendent Fantana and Burt Hodges were.
“Did Rick give you the details?” Blake barked, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.
Fantana nodded gravely. “How long has she been missing?”
“Officer Daniels said the ‘cop’ came to the door about an hour ago. The son of a bitch waltzed right up to the door and picked her up.” Blake swallowed hard. “See if you can locate an officer named Benson. That’s the name he used. He had a uniform, must have had a badge, too, because she—” his voice cracked “—she wouldn’t have gone anywhere without being sure it was safe.”
“I’m on it,” Fantana said, already pulling out his walkie-talkie to get in touch with the dispatcher and track down Benson.
Blake stumbled backward, sagging against the cold wall behind him and forcing himself to regain his equilibrium. Dear God.
He needed to find her.
No, he needed to find heralive.
Because if he had to carry on his conscience the death of another woman he loved, he wasn’t sure he’d ever survive.
The woman you love?
Even if he’d been in his right mind, that realization would have taken hours to examine, and he didn’t have hours. Or minutes. Or seconds, for that matter.
The longer he stood uselessly in this police station, the longer Sam spent in the clutches of a maniac.
And the less chance he had of saving her before the bastard finished what he’d started and left her for dead.
