Chapter 39
Jo
My stalker and kidnapper—Lester, as fate would have him named—became increasingly erratic as the minutes ticked on.
He’d been pacing back and forth across the living room and had, much to my very freaked out dismay, picked up the gun again.
“I don’t see why anyone’s expecting you. Why would they know? They should know you’re safe with me.” He rapped the side of the gun against his forehead. “Don’t they know that? We’re meant to be together. I’ve been telling you this. Why didn’t you tell them?”
The plan to placate him had gone out the window when he’d asked me if I loved him. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. I told him I was in love with someone else, and that had been the wrong choice.
He’d screamed at me like I’d betrayed him, then started this pacing when I’d said the person I loved would know I was missing. That my dad and my friends would be looking for me.
And here we were.
“I can’t tell them that. It’s not true. I don’t know you.”
He ran up to me and grabbed my arm. “You do know me. I’ve been writing to you for over a year. And you wrote back—at the beginning, you wrote back. Why did you stop writing back?”
He was talking faster now, and he was dragging me with him to the front room, but he stopped when headlights flashed through a slit in the drapes.
It’d been less than an hour of sitting here, and I felt like I might crawl out of my skin. I’d made a plan, though—he hadn’t bound my feet. If he tried to touch me in any way other than moving me place to place, I’d kick him, even if he did have the gun. I wasn’t sure where I was, but we couldn’t be far from Silverton. I could walk or even reliably run for a mile or two if I had to. Those headlights gave me hope, though.
He yanked me to the side of the window and moved the curtain with the gun, holding it back to look out the door right as the doorbell rang and he jolted. I started to yell, but he clasped a hand over my mouth.
“Shut up. You just shut up.”
His hand pressed against me so hard it hurt my teeth, but then he shoved me back into the kitchen and slapped more duct tape over my mouth before moving me into a bedroom and then into a closet.
I tried to speak. Tried to say, “No, no, don’t do this,” but he must’ve known that whoever was at his door was looking for me.
“Get down. Get down on the floor.” He pushed me until I was face down on the floor of the small empty closet. “I will shoot you and then myself if you move or scream. I’ll shoot your boyfriend and your dad and anyone else you care about if they’re here and you start making noise.” He shut the door as the bell rang again.
Hope raced through me. This was it. They’d know something was up, maybe come in and be able to tell something was off. Or maybe they’d see his gun and wonder why someone was carrying a gun around their house on a Tuesday afternoon.
Find me, find me, find me. Adam! I’m here! Please come get me!
I screamed it in my head but could hardly move, much less make a sound. Having my arms behind my back made moving at all a challenge, but I eventually curled on my side into the fetal position, then sat up. Thanking goodness for free feet, I leaned against the wall and inched myself into standing, then nudged at the door until it creaked open.
“Thanks so much for stopping by—very welcoming of you. Yep, you, too, have a good one.” Lester’s voice came before the sound of his door clicking shut, and I froze, paralyzed by what to do now. I’d hoped to get into the front room and rush out to see whoever had rung the bell. Even if they were just neighbors, they wouldn’t ignore someone bound and gagged like this.
Now what?
“No!” Lester shouted, and I jumped, plastering myself against the hallway wall as he ran toward me. “No, no, no!”
Before he reached me, a body burst through the garage door and covered me.
Lester screamed. “Not you! She’s mine! Leave now! You can’t be here! She doesn’t want you.”
“Put the gun down, man,” Adam said, his voice steady and calm.
Adam! Desperate for him, I leaned my head against his back. He had his hands raised, gun in one of them and disappointingly not pointed at my kidnapper.
“I will shoot you both. Both of you! Leave! You have to leave!” Lester was raving now, just totally nonsensical.
“Easy. Everything’s fine.”
Adam’s voice was so spectacularly calm, I wouldn’t have believed he was being threatened by someone waving a gun around while yelling at the top of his lungs. But that’s when I saw it—my eyes flicked to the movement over Lester’s shoulder, and I jolted as my sister stepped into the kitchen, weapon raised.
Everything happened at once.
Elizabeth yelled, “Drop your weapon, now!”
Adam shoved me behind him down the hallway and rushed Lester, knocking the weapon from his hand before he got a shot off as Elizabeth collected the gun and kept hers trained on Lester while Adam zip-tied his hands. At this point, Bruce, Wilder, and Jess were all inside, and I heard sirens wailing outside.
Then Adam was with me, slicing through the duct tape at my wrists and easing the strip away from my face. I gingerly moved my arms, my shoulders screaming after being constrained for so long.
“You’re okay. I’m so sorry. You’re okay,” he said, clutching me to him, one hand at the back of my head and one wrapped around my shoulders.
“Thank you. Thank you,” I said, the flood of fear and anxiety cresting and dropping out into an emotional release that left me ineloquent and relieved.
“I’m so sorry he got by us,” he said, his voice fierce.
“I’m glad you found me.” I’d never doubted—honestly, I’d never for a second believed they wouldn’t find me—he wouldn’t find me.
“Let’s get you checked out with the paramedics, okay? Are you hurt? I mean… more than this?” His thumb arced over my cheek where my skin was raw.
My hands were shaking—my whole body quaked, a total overload of adrenaline. “I think I’m okay. It’s mostly the tape. Maybe a bruise. But I’m okay.” And then I was crying in earnest, so relieved to be able to say it and mean it.
I was okay. He’d come for me and—wait. “How is Elizabeth here?”
He chuckled softly, holding me close. “I’m pretty sure she’s a Valkyrie. She got to town right after I left the store, I guess. You two will talk soon.”
Just then, my sister stepped up and gave me a wry smile. “Hey, Jojo.”
I laughed and then it switched to an absurd sob as Adam stepped back and she wrapped me up. I sobbed harder than I could remember, the relief and happiness and ridiculousness of the situation jumbling together into a tangled, cathartic mess. After a few minutes, I tapered off and pulled back.
“Better?” she asked, her face so familiar to me even after so long.
“Yeah.” I sniffled, working for composure. “Think so. I’d like to leave this creepy house, though.”
She grinned. “Fair enough. Why don’t you have Doc take you out to the EMS and we’ll wrap up here. I think I need to chat with the Chief.”
Behind her, someone was leading Lester away. Hands cuffed in front of him, he trundled slowly, then looked up and lunged toward me.
“Josie, I’ll always love you. I’ll never stop loving you. We’ll still be together. I’ll figure it out. I’ll—” The officer escorting him picked up the pace and shuffled him out of the room with the help of someone else.
Elizabeth’s eyes went wide. “Yeah, let’s get you out of here. We have some things to talk about, I think.”
I laughed sheepishly. “Yeah. We do.”
Clearly, the Josie Wade cat was out of the secret-pen-name bag, and I could only feel grateful.
Funny how being kidnapped by a stalker had granted some perspective on things.
Across the room, Jess caught my eye. She widened her eyes and shook her head, a multitude of thoughts passing between us. They must’ve briefed her on who I was, and I hated that she’d learned the truth this way. I mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and she just huffed and shook her head, whispering, “Later.”
Yes, I owed her a more thorough explanation, which I’d intended to give her earlier. But for now, this would suffice.
“Ready?” Adam asked, holding out a hand.
Clasping our hands together, I felt the words down to my soul. “Ready.”