Worn Me Down (Playing With Fire, #3) (21 page)

“ELLIE!” I scold, craning my neck to see Emma’s lip quivering with emotion.

I turn back around and shoot Ellie an angry look, keeping my voice low so Emma doesn’t hear me even though I want to scream at my friend. “Why would you do that? She doesn’t need to know anything about this right now.”

Ellie huffs and shakes her head at me. “You can’t always sugar coat things with her. She’s a smart girl, she might as well find out now that men will always let you down.”

Ellie is so bitter and angry that I don’t know how to handle her, but I’m not about to let her hurt my child.

“Emma is my child and I will decide when and if she should know things. Please don’t talk to her about something she’s not going to understand,” I inform her.

The car is quiet the rest of the drive to Brady’s apartment and I’m glad for that. I always thought Ellie and I would be friends forever, but there’s a divide between us now that I don’t think we’ll ever be able to cross. She doesn’t know how to forgive me for insinuating that William didn’t really care about her, and I don’t know how to forgive her for falling in love with him.

When we get to the apartment building, I help Emma out of the car and Ellie follows along behind us as we make our way upstairs. I pass Karen in the hallway and she gives Emma and me a hug before hurrying out to run some errands.

“Alright, Emma, go on back and change your clothes, honey. I’m going to put our bags in my room and change then after that we have to go and meet some people, okay?” Emma nods and walks slowly out of the room towards her bedroom.

I don’t say anything to Ellie as I follow behind Emma and go into my room. I don’t know if I have anything left to say to her and it makes me sad – a lifetime of memories and friendship, gone in the blink of an eye. Throwing our bags on top of my bed, I decide to take a quick shower while Emma is changing, knowing that Ellie will keep an eye on her until I’m finished.

I shower quickly, throwing on a pair of yoga pants, tennis shoes and a long-sleeved shirt. I don’t hear any noise coming from the living room so I forego drying my hair to go out and see what Emma and Ellie are doing. When I step out from the hallway, what I see makes my blood run cold.

“Emma? Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, racing over to where she lies on her back on the carpet in the middle of the room with her eyes closed.

I fall to the floor next to her, grabbing onto her face and turning her towards me. “Emma, baby, come on, wake up.”

When she doesn’t respond, my hands start to sweat and a knot of fear makes my stomach clench. I can see her chest rising and falling so I know she’s still breathing, but it doesn’t make me feel any better right now. I don’t know if she fainted or if something else happened and it scares the hell out of me.

“ELLIE!” I shout, frantically running my hands over Emma’s body to check for injuries before patting her cheeks, trying to get her to respond.

Glancing around the room quickly, I don’t see her in the living room or the kitchen. Looking back down at Emma, I wonder if she hit her head again. Checking under the bandage on her head, I see that her stitches are still in tact and I don’t see any blood. I lean down over her and start places kisses all over her face. “Come on, baby, wake up.”

Reaching in my pocket for my phone, I realize I left it in the bedroom.

“ELLIE! CALL 9-1-1!” I scream, continuing to check all over Emma’s body for signs of some kind of trauma.

I don’t know where Ellie is and right now I don’t care. I quickly slide my hands under Emma’s body to pick her up off of the floor and move her to the couch. When I get my arms under her, my fingers brush against something on the floor on the other side of her. Pulling my arms out, I lean over her and see a hypodermic needle on the carpet. With a shaking hand, I pick the needle up and stare at it in confusion.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh my God,” I whisper, tossing the needle to the ground and pulling up the sleeves of Emma’s shirt to check for needle marks on her skin.

It doesn’t even register in my mind that I should be questioning how in the hell a hypodermic needle found its way into this house and anywhere near my baby. The only thing going through my head is getting Emma to wake up and look at me.

Running my fingers up and down the smooth skin of her arm, I see the red mark on the outside of her upper arm and a whimper flies from my mouth. “No, no, no, come on baby, come on!”

Wrapping my arms around Emma, I pull her to my body and rock back and forth, the tears falling steadily down my face as I pray for her to wake up. Maybe Brady is diabetic and never told me. Maybe that was just his insulin. Maybe she’s just in shock and she’ll be fine after a few minutes. It can’t be anything more serious than that… it can’t.

I’m so busy sobbing for Emma to wake up that it doesn’t even occur to me that I should be worrying about someone else bringing that needle into this apartment.

“Oh stop crying, she’ll wake up eventually, it was just a tranquilizer.”

Too late, I look up just in time to see a hand holding the heavy, crystal candy dish from the coffee table flying toward my face. I have just enough time to scream before the dish cracks against the side of my skull and everything goes black.

Austin

“W
hat do you mean
they never showed up?” I shout into my phone as I press down harder on the accelerator and fly through an intersection.

“I mean, I just got a call from my guy at the station in Nashville and he’s been waiting there for a few hours for Gwen and Ellie to show up and sign that report and they haven’t come in yet,” Mark tells me. “I called Gwen’s phone a bunch of times, but she hasn’t answered. Are you sure she was still willing to do this? The charges aren’t going to stick if I don’t get those signed forms immediately.”

I know Gwen was pissed at me about handing that file over to the police, but there’s no way she would flake out on this. She was on her way out the door to head straight to the police station the last time I saw her. She’s not the type of person who just wouldn’t show up when someone was expecting her. If she changed her mind about filing the report, she would have called the station.

“And you’re absolutely certain you have Stratford in your custody right now?” I question him, hoping that lines weren’t crossed and William somehow wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

“Actually, we couldn’t get a transfer that quickly for him to come back to New York. The department in Bowling Green did all of the questioning and video conferenced me in on it. I’m sorry, Austin, but he lawyered-up and they couldn’t keep him any longer since Gwen never signed the forms.”

The phone almost slips from my hands at Mark’s words and I have to fight to concentrate on the road while he continues talking.

“That guy is the biggest asshole I’ve ever seen. He adamantly denies ever being in Nashville or having any kind of contact with Gwen or Ellie. And I hate to say this, Austin, but the guy has a solid alibi. He decided not to go to the medical conference in Chicago and went to see his parents who live out that way instead. He’s been staying with them for the last week. They verified this with written statements and we also have eyewitness testimony from people who saw him out and about at different restaurants in the Bowling Green area. Even though he’s a pompous jerk, I don’t think he’s your guy that’s been stalking Gwen.”

That makes no sense. It can’t be right. Who the hell else would have done those things to Gwen? She didn’t imagine any of that shit. If it wasn’t Stratford trying to get under her skin, then who the fuck was it? It’s not just a coincidence that Gwen can’t be reached now that he’s no longer in police custody.

“He tried denying ever laying a hand on Gwen throughout their marriage until we threw that file you sent us down on the table in front of him. His face went completely white and I thought for sure he was going to throw up all over the table. His lawyer wouldn’t let him say another word,” Mark finishes.

“Something isn’t right, Mark. Gwen would never be a no-show. How long has it been since they let Stratford go?” I demand.

“I don’t know, maybe a few hours? Stratford’s lawyer told us he’d make sure to escort him immediately back to New York,” Mark explains.

“And you seriously fucking believed him? He’s been out on the loose for the same amount of time that Gwen hasn’t been able to be reached. That’s not a Goddamn coincidence. I’m going to her place now. Call your guy in Nashville and give him a head’s up,” I tell him as I change directions and head to Brady’s apartment.

“This lawyer is a top notch guy. There’s no way he’d let Stratford out of his sight.”

I scoff at Mark as I screech through another intersection. “You said so yourself – money talks and Stratford has a shit ton of it. Who the fuck knows how many people he’s got in his pocket doing his dirty work?”

Mark curses and I hear him shouting orders through the line. “We’re calling Nashville now and the lawyer. Call me as soon as you get to her place,” Mark informs me.

Ending the call, I weave in and out of traffic, hoping that this is all just a misunderstanding and Gwen and Emma are safe at home. Something doesn’t feel right about any of this though and I’m scared to death that they won’t be there. Even though I don’t like the guy, my gut is telling me Dylan doesn’t have anything to do with this. Better to be safe than sorry and needing to cross one last suspect off of my list, I scroll through my phone and find his contact information that I programmed there just in case when he stopped by the office.

“Dylan Callahan,” he answers.

“Callahan, it’s Conrad. Have you talked to Gwen at all today?” I ask him as I pull into Brady’s parking lot and find a spot right in front of the building.

“Yeah, she called earlier and apologized for you, saying you never told her I showed up looking for her. I guess I should have expected that. You looked like you wanted to rip my head off when I told you we had plans to meet while I was in town,” he says with a laugh.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” I tell him as I get out of my car and race into the building. “Are you still in town? I think something might have happened to Gwen and I need your help.”

Deciding to skip waiting for the elevator, I take the stairs two at a time.

“Jesus Christ, are you serious? No, I finished the job early and just left this morning, but I’m only a few hours away, I’ll turn around now and head back,” Dylan promises. “I’ll call the chief at the Nashville PD too, he owes me a favor.”

Even though this guy was most likely going to make a move on Gwen when he was in town, something tells me to trust him right now. I have a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get.

I end the call with Dylan right when I get to Brady’s door. Sticking my key in the lock, the door pops open before I even have a chance to turn the key. Dread overwhelms me as I push the door open and walk inside the apartment. Gwen would never leave her door unlocked, even if she was home.

Before I even have a chance to call her name, something on the floor in the middle of the room catches my eye. Rushing over to it, I bend down and see the ugly glass candy dish Brady had on his coffee table. Picking it up, my heart skips a beat when I see blood caked on the side of it. Even though I want to hurl the dish across the room in fury, I quickly set it back down where it was in case the police can dust it for fingerprints.

Standing up, I take off running through the rest of the apartment, calling for Gwen and Emma as I check each room. I know it’s silly, I know they aren’t here, but I have to do something. I keep having a fleeting thought that I’ll open up a closet door and they’ll both be in there laughing because they pulled a prank on me. It’s the dumbest fucking thought in the world, but I can’t stop hoping it will be true as I fling open the last door and find it empty.

As I run back out into the living room, my boot crunches down on something I must not have noticed when I first got here. Lifting up my foot, I see a broken needle crushed into the carpet and the airport food I had earlier threatens to come up.

No, no, no… this can’t be happening.

I stare in horror at the hypodermic needle broken in half. I feel like I’m living in a nightmare. I thought Gwen and Emma were safe. I left because I was sure they’d be okay and now look what happened? Stratford hurt them; he took them and I’m scared to death I may never see them again so I can tell them what an idiot I was. I should have told Gwen I loved her; I should have told Emma I had no idea how to be her dad, but that I hope she would give me a chance and teach me how. Right now, I would sit in a room filled with a thousand pink Barbies if it meant Emma was sitting next to me and I could hear her laugh.

Hearing the sounds of police sirens outside, I’m thankful that at least Dylan came through with help. We have to find them; they have to be okay. I’ve been on plenty of missions that didn’t go according to plan and lives were lost, but right now, failure is not an option. These girls are my whole life. If anything happens to them, I’ll never forgive myself.

Gwen

I
can’t believe what
a fool I’ve been. I let my guard down for the first time in months and now I’m going to pay the ultimate price – the one person in my world that I love more than my own life will be taken from me in the blink of an eye because of my stupidity. I did everything I could to keep Emma safe; I hid, I lied and I worked my fingers to the bone, but it was all for nothing. This precious little being that came screaming into my world six years ago and gave me a reason to breathe every single day since then – I had failed her.

I watch in horror as my baby struggles to breathe through the tears and the thick, silver tape over her mouth. Her muffled whimpers are like a knife straight through my heart and I fight with everything inside of me to get loose from the bindings holding me in place. I scream and cry with a pain I’ve never felt before as I try so hard to get free. The ropes cut into my wrists and ankles as I twist and turn, thrash and fight. I need to go to her, I need to wrap my arms around her and calm her fears, tell her everything will be okay, but I can’t. How does a mother sit tied to a chair on the other side of the room from her child and just watch her suffer? The years of mental and physical abuse, broken bones and shattered spirit are nothing compared to this.