Page 62 of Doctor Grump

“Still doesn’t give him the right to suggest—”

“And Ian, Santiago’s right. We can’t go in there without getting a feel of the situation first.”

I glanced around the building, getting the grudging feeling that they had a point even though I hated it. The house was two stories high with very few windows, and there was no way of knowing what was happening inside or if the attacker was watching us. And if they got any indication that we were coming in, they would kill Piper. Just the thought of it made everything in me go cold.

I couldn’t lose her.

Fuck no, I couldn't lose her. I would…I didn’t even know what I would do with myself if I did. Losing Piper. Never seeing her smile again, never hearing that laugh, never having her endless chatter about nothing, never feeling her softness on my body or her warm, gentle hand running through my hair.

Yeah. Impossible and painful to imagine.

Anxiety rushed through me. I couldn’t stand here doing nothing. Every minute Piper was in that maniac’s hand was another minute he could hurt her. But I didn’t want to do anything to put her in danger either.

I turned around and immediately began casing the house, scouting for an entryway.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Graham,” Santiago apprised as I walked away.

I ignored him. I refocused all my effort on studying the house, putting myself in the mind of the kidnapper. They would want to be close enough to the windows to see what the police were up to, but they would also want to be concealed so they could not be easily seen and close to an exit so they could get away quickly. As such, while they focused on the police, I had to somehow get to the back of the house, perhaps using the neighbor’s walkway to get there.

The kidnapper would also be paying attention to any suspicious sounds, so I needed to go in from a higher vantage point to put more distance between them and me as I entered.

I needed a spot that would be far away so they couldn’t hear me but close enough to get to them.

And once I found it, I went in.

25

PIPER

“Shit,” Bella cursed as she glanced out the window. “This is turning into a shit show. And this is all your fault, you know.”

I glanced at her from my position on the ground. After seeing me freak out over my mother’s unconscious body, she had me get down next to it, telling me to check her pulse to see if she was still alive.”

“I hit her pretty hard,” she’d said as she smiled. She seemed to get some kind of sick pleasure from my despair, and she found the whole thing funny. She had even laughed in that odd maniacal way of hers that I used to think was cute but now saw as psychopathic. God, how had I never noticed how crazy she was before? Was I that blind?

Luckily, my mother was still breathing when I checked, and that at least calmed me down some. But then Bella started this odd thing of talking to herself as she tried to decide what exactly she would do with me.

“What do I do?” she muttered to the air. “I can’t kill her just yet. I need her to sign the house over to me, and it would look too suspicious if the father, daughter, and mother died at the same time. Someone has to live to tell everyone that I’m innocent. But how do I get her to do that?”

I didn’t dare interrupt her soliloquy even though my heart was pounding with fear. Hearing her talk about killing me so casually was a mindfuck, to say the least, but what caught my attention was the mention of my dad. Suspicion arose. Before this, she had said that I was in her way like my father, and now, pieced together with what she just said, I instantly knew.

My dad’s poisoning hadn’t been an accident.

I wasn’t sure how, but I was pretty sure Bella had tried to kill him, too, the same way she had with my mom.

“You poisoned my dad, right?” I asked.

She turned to me with that blank expression on her face that somehow managed to send pure terror through me. I would have liked to keep her attention off me for as long as possible, but I knew I had to keep her talking if I wanted even a slight chance of getting out of this. The more time that passed, the higher the likelihood that one of my friends would realize my absence and maybe even look for me. Or maybe even Ian.

Ian wouldn’t come for you. You broke up with him, remember? He’s probably out celebrating that he no longer has to bother with you anymore. And your friends might not think to look for you in time.

I fought back the sense of despair.No, don’t think like that,I told myself.Think positive thoughts. Positive thoughts.

“I did poison your dad,” she admitted, grinning evilly again. “You wanna know why, don’t you?”

I expected the answer, but it was still like a blow to the chest.

“My father never did anything to you.”

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