to want to stop asking for things right now,” Beckett ground out.
“Where is she?” I asked, trying to keep up.
Hotch? Annabelle’s neighbor? The guy who kept trying to ask her out?
Dear God, it made no fucking sense. There was no way Hotch would do this. Would he?
I didn’t know the other man, though, so maybe he would. And the other guy always seemed to show up at weird moments, was constantly watching, wanting to know more about Annabelle and me. But I’d always chalked it up to random curiosity, maybe a little jealousy. Not this.
“Where is Annabelle?” I asked, sirens sounding in the distance.
“The ambulance should be here soon,” Clay said. “What are we doing?” the other man asked.
“I don’t know where he took her.” Susan started crying harder. I didn’t move her in case she’d hurt her back, but I didn’t know what else to do other than seething in front of her.
“Where did you two meet? Other than in front of my house,” I asked, trying to connect the dots but failing.
“I don’t know. It was just two places near here. He might’ve taken her there. I don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. You were supposed to come back to me. You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
“I don’t really give a fuck about you right now,” I said. “Tell me the places you met.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I just glared at her, not sparing a single look of sympathy for her. This wasn’t the woman I had married. Something had twisted her, and I hadn’t recognized it. I would mourn that loss later, but first, I needed to find the woman I loved.
Because, Jesus Christ, I loved Annabelle. And nobody was going to stand in my way.
“I don’t know. They were just small places we used to visit. In the woods.” She rambled off two addresses, and Beckett tugged at me.
“You go to one. I’ll go to the other.”
“You need the cops,” Clay said as if Beckett and I weren’t making sense. Maybe we weren’t.
“You tell them what’s going on,” I said to the other man.
“Beckett and I will go see what we can do. We’ll meet the police there.”
“Y’all are insane,” Clay said but cursed. “But I agree with you. Because I’d do the same for my kids. Go. I’ll keep an eye on her,” Clay said, jerking his chin in Susan’s direction, derision in his tone.
I met Beckett’s gaze. I took one address and he took the other, and we left.
I knew the cops and the ambulance would arrive soon, and they’d probably want to question us. Hopefully, one of us would find Annabelle sitting and drinking tea with Hotch, waiting for us, and we could set the record straight with everyone.
Because if he harmed a hair on Annabelle’s head, I’d kill him.
I couldn’t lose her, not after I had just found her.
Chapter 21
Annabelle
My eyes blurred as I opened them, my body sore. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, my hands were secured behind my back. I pulled at my wrists, trying to lever myself up, but I was tied.
Why was I bound? And why did my head hurt so badly?
Bile filled my mouth, and I blinked away some of the blurriness, trying to process what was happening.
I was down on the floor, my legs tied, and my arms pulled tight behind me. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t have a gag over my mouth, but everything felt like I was two steps behind, everything moving too slowly for me to fully catch up with what was happening.
Where was I? What had happened?
Flashes of the car coming at me came back, and I resisted the urge to scream. Someone had tried to hit me with a car, and as I’d dodged out of the way, I’d hit my head. And then Hotch was there.
Hotch with a funny smelling cloth, saying weird things I didn’t understand.
Oh my God, Hotch had kidnapped me.
No, that had to be a dream, right?
And yet, here I was, lying on the ground, in pain. Tied up.
Hotch had done this? No, it couldn’t be. Or could it?
“You’re awake,” Hotch said as he walked into the small room. He wiped his hands on a towel and tossed it over his shoulder as if he were a waiter in a restaurant. I didn’t know why that was funny to me. Maybe I had a concussion.
Or maybe this is what hysterical felt like.
“What’s going on?” I tried