Chapter 4
Elise
Ididn’t know how long I’d been out for but when I started to come to, I tried to remain as still as possible, not wanting to alert anyone that I was awake. It took a moment for me to remember Devlin lying on the ground, bleeding, and maybe dead before the tears pushed into my eyes.
Why would anyone want to take me and kill him?
If he was dead. I prayed to a god I’d heard about from the church people, but hadn’t met personally, begging the omnipotent being to save Devlin.
He was a good man, and we had just started to get to the good parts of our life. I wasn’t ready to survive without him.
And I would survive this. For my sons. They couldn’t lose both of their parents.
A door opened and footsteps echoed into the room where I was.
I cracked my eyelids, hoping to see anything familiar and who was coming, but the room was dark and it was impossible to see anything.
The concrete floor I was lying on was freezing and hard against my shoulder, and I fought to remain still as the footsteps got closer.
“When will she wake up?” a man asked and I tried to place his voice, but it wasn’t ringing any bells with me.
“Who knows?” another man said. “They told us to watch her and let them know when she was awake.”
One of the men nudged me with their foot and I allowed my body to go limp, rocking as they tried to rouse me from the drugs they pushed into me. I heard a sigh above me as the footsteps started to retreat out of the room.
“We’ll come back in an hour and see if she’s awake,” one of them said. “If she’s not, maybe we can take a few minutes while she’s passed out.”
“She told us not to touch her, and I don’t want to piss her off,” the other one said as I couldn’t understand the last part as they got too far away to comprehend their conversation. They closed the door and I felt my heart beating rapidly in my chest.
Peeking again, I didn’t see anyone in the room with me, and carefully, opened my eyes and swung them around, trying to make out where I was.
I had to figure out who took me and where so I could get out of here.
Whoever took me might not want anyone to touch me now but might not always be the case.
And I didn’t know if I couldn’t endure anyone touching me other than Devlin.
The room was dim, but as I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, I started to see things in the shadows. Quietly, I pushed myself up and touched the painful spot on my neck where they injected me. The drugs gave me a headache, and my mouth was dry, but otherwise, I think I was okay.
So far.
Carefully, I pushed myself to stand and tested my legs. They felt weak, but if given the chance, I had to fight so I held onto the wall and began to move them, hoping to push the drugs from my system faster.
My dad, Chuck, had taught me how to fight, how to escape, and how to kill.
I’d used the skills once before with his brother Cameron, who thought it was okay to kidnap me.
I swear I will use the skills again and if it means getting my hands bloody to get back to my family, then I was prepared to do whatever I had to do.
Slowly, I moved around the room, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. I found a plastic spook and shrugged before pushing it into the waistband of my pants. Anything was a weapon if you tried hard enough, Chuck used to say, and if the spoon was all I could find, it would have to do.
I heard footsteps coming again, and as quickly as I could, I returned to my spot on the floor.
But I didn’t lay down, waiting to be a victim.
I sat on the floor with my back to the wall and waited for whoever was coming to arrive.
A minute later, the door opened, and I saw a man standing in the open doorway.
“It’s good to see you awake, Elise,” the man said, and something about his voice was familiar.
He reached in and turned the light on, bathing the room in brightness. I squinted against the harsh light and used my hand to block to shine from my eyes as the man entered the room and approached me.
I looked up and didn’t recognize the man standing over me. He smirked and squatted in front of me, keeping his hands folded in front of him.
“Are you going to cooperate or are we going to have to punish you?” he inquired.
“Who are you?” I asked through a scratchy voice.
He smiled but didn’t answer me as he reached out and offered me his hand. I looked around, waiting for something else to happen and he sighed loudly as he stood. “I was trying to be helpful, but I can see your mistrust.” He shook his head and remarked, “You need to come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
I didn’t want to go somewhere else, but I couldn’t stay here either. The man was wearing a nice suit and expensive shoes and when he reached down and gripped his hand into my hair, wrenching me from the floor, I grabbed ahold of his hand, trying to stop him from ripping strands out of my head.
When I was on my feet, he looked at me and something about his eyes was scratching at the back of my brain, but I didn’t have time to decipher the memory as he began to drag me from the room. I struggled to keep up with him as he walked out of the room and started to climb a set of stairs.
A few times, I tripped, and he didn’t stop climbing, causing me to knock my legs against the wooden stairs as I scrambled to climb with him. When we got to the top of the stairs, he unlocked the closed door at the top and it opened into a kitchen.
He pulled me behind him and tossed me into a chair at a table in the corner.
Faint light shone through a window, telling me it was either very late, or very early.
A plate was placed in front of me with a sandwich on it and a bottle of water beside it.
He looked at the plate and instructed. “Eat. You’re going to need your strength. ”
I took his words as a warning and reached for the sandwich as he took a seat across from me. He watched as I ate the food and took sips of the water, praying it wasn’t poisoned or drugged. I wanted to look around, but he was watching me so closely that I was afraid to investigate my surroundings.
When I finished with the food, I lifted my eyes to him.
He kept his eyes on me, and I started to question who he was and why they took me.
I didn’t have time to ask him as someone entered the room behind me.
The man smiled and stood from his seat, but I kept my eyes locked on the empty paper plate in front of me, slightly terrified of who was behind me.
“Has she said anything?” A woman asked and I shifted my eyes, trying to see anything about where I was.
“Not yet. I just got her fed,” the man responded.
“Bring her into the study,” the woman instructed, and I heard her heels clicking against the floor as she left the room.
The man returned to the table and placed a hand onto my shoulder, asking, “Are you coming willingly, or do I have to drag you?”
I stood, not answering him and felt his fingertips digging into my shoulder as he pushed me ahead of him.
The house we were in was large, but mostly unfurnished.
Heavy curtains hung over the windows, blocking out the light from outside.
Our hollow footsteps echoed in the empty room as he maneuvered me across and down a hallway until we got to a closed door.
Knocking once, he reached around me and opened the door, showing a fully furnished room.
With a slight shove, he pushed me into the room, and I had a chance to look around as I stumbled in.
There was a huge wooden desk along one wall with two leather chairs in front of it, an overstuffed sofa along the side wall, and bookshelves lined the other two walls, each one filled with books.
The chair behind the desk was turned away as the man shoved me into one of the leather chairs before he took the other. Crossing his leg over the other, he sat and waited. Watching the chair, I waited for whoever it was to make themselves known.
Eventually, the chair turned, and a beautiful woman dressed in an expensive-looking outfit with perfectly styled blonde hair made her presence known.
The smile on her face told me she thought she was better than me, and maybe she was, but if given the chance, I would kill her just the same as anyone.
Everyone bleeds red and dies in the end.
“Elise, it’s good to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” she remarked, but her words had a condescending tone to them.
“Who are you?” I inquired, and her smile faltered.
“Of course, you don’t know me,” she remarked. “Why would Devlin tell you about his wife?”
“Wife?” I repeated with shock in my voice. “How could you be his wife?”
She chuckled. “I guess he kept secrets from you, huh?” Shaking her head, she continued, “I’ve been married to Devlin for close to ten years, but he’s been ignoring me, so I had to take drastic steps.”
“By kidnapping me?” I asked, and her smile disappeared.
“I didn’t kidnap you, you stupid bitch. I did exactly what Devlin asked me to do.”
“And what’s that?”
She smirked and leaned forward, linking her fingers together as she responded. “I made you disappear so he and I can have the life we’ve been planning from the start.”
I shook my head and replied, “You’re lying. There’s no way you’re his wife.”
She laughed as she pushed out of her chair and rounded the desk. I didn’t expect the back hand and it caused my head to whip to the side as she grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer to her. I felt blood trickle down my chin from my painful lip.
“I’m going to show you that your precious Devlin has been playing you from the start,” the woman said, then she looked at the man sitting beside me. “Bring me the folder.”
He stood and retrieved a folder from the desk before handing it to her. She released her grip on my shirt and opened the folder. Pulling something out, she handed it to me, and my world tilted on its axis as I looked at the paper in my hand.
A certificate of marriage between Devlin Callahan and who I now knew to be Kendra Mills. The signature on the certificate was identical to Devlin’s, and tears filled my eyes. I looked up at Kendra as she smiled down at me with her eyebrows raised in mock surprise.
“There’s . . . there’s no way this is real,” I reasoned. “Devlin loves me.”
She started laughing as she dropped the folder onto the desk and stepped to the side with her hand extended toward it, offering me the chance to look at the content.
Carefully, I reached out and took the folder in my trembling hands, thinking this was a sick joke.
One document at a time, I went through the folder, seeing pictures of a young Devlin and a younger version of the woman in front of me standing at an altar, smiling as they held up their hands, showing rings on their fingers.
I examined pictures of them on vacation, a deed to a house, and a few other documents that seemed to prove she was telling the truth.
But how could all this be true?
Kendra retook her seat, and I fell back into mine as the reality of what she told me began to sink in.
She really was Devlin’s wife. And if they’d planned on kidnapping me, what was the end game?
Was I ever going to escape?
Was anyone looking for me?
What about my sons?
And where was Devlin?