Page 83 of Secrets Bared
She leaned away, her face scrunching up, which was the wrong thing to do. Sean grabbed onto her arm, hard enough she knew there would be bruises. She tried to wrench her arm away. “Let me go!”
“I don’t think so,” Sean said with a hum.
“How’d you even find me?”
He leaned back in, smiling wickedly, either at her discomfort or his victory. “You’re not as clever as you think,whore.” She tried to duck away from the spittle that flew from his disgusting mouth, but he held on tight. Maggie used her free arm to wipe it off her face.
He held on for another moment, reminding her who was in charge here, then released her. Maggie swayed on unsteady feet, the shock of seeing her husband and being put back in that awful headspace catching up to her. Then she heard the unmistakable click of a gun safety. Her eyes widened, and she looked up to find she was staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Now, you’re going to come with me, Margaret. And if you care about Virginia downstairs, you won’t make any noise. I won’t hesitate to kill her if you don’t cooperate.”
Fuck. She couldn’t let anything happen to Virginia. And Maggie knew best just how violent her husband could be, though this was quite a leap from waving his gun around their house. She gulped and nodded, the wheels turning in her head for how she could get away.
He followed her into the hallway, but when she turned right towards the staircase, the cool metal of the gun pressed against her head. “Ah, ah, ah. Can’t have anyone seeing us leave, Margaret.”
“But the stairs are—” She cut off her train of thought when the barrel pressed harder.
“Fun fact about these old Victorian houses.” Sean leaned in close, and she fought not to react. “There’s a second staircase in the back.” He pushed, forcing her to turn with the weapon. “Now, move.”
The back stairs were particularly steep, and Maggie understood why Virginia never used them. She nearly tumbled down headfirst, but just barely managed to keep her balance. They emerged into the kitchen, where Sean marched her through the back door in broad daylight.
Right to the car that she’d noticed when she’d come in.
No! She couldn’t go to a second location with him. Maggie shifted her weight to the left to run, but pain erupted in her temple and she fell, the gravel digging into her palms.
She was dimly aware of Sean lifting her and tossing her into the backseat. Hitting her somewhere visible could only mean one thing.
He didn’t intend for her to survive this.
Her last thoughts were of Luke and how worried he’d be when he returned to find her gone.
At least I got to know what it was like to be cared for…
“Night,Katya!”Lukewavedas he locked The Busy Bee behind them. He zipped up his jacket and whistled as he headed for his car.
He cruised to the Haven with the window rolled down to dry off the sweat of the kitchen. Stars twinkled in the blue velvet sky. Hmm. Maybe he and Maggie could go star gazing in someone’s field one of these days. He could make her see two kinds of stars.
Luke chuckled to himself as he entered the Haven. His libido hadn’t been this strong since his twenties. Something about Maggie just brought it out of him.
Or he just needed to find the right person.
He took the stairs two at a time and speed-walked down the hall to her room. But he paused when he saw the door wasn’t pulled shut. That wasn’t like his Maggie.
Luke’s instincts screamed that something was wrong. Ignoring his training that told him to go back to the car for his gun, he pushed the door open. And came face to face with absolute carnage.
The room was a disaster. Shredded clothing lay strewn over the floor, “Maggie?” he called out. Her purse and phone lay on the entry table, where she always left them.
It took no time to sweep the room. He bent under the bed, just in case she was hiding underneath. The bathroom door stood wide open, and he saw her few pieces of makeup smashed to smithereens. Her laptop sat at the bottom of a tub filled with water, and lipstick covered the mirror.
Luke didn’t see the message in it at first. The numbers and symbols didn’t make sense right away. He took a picture with his phone, and the little computer chip recognized latitude and longitude coordinates. It automatically prompted him to pull up a map.
Shit. Fuck. The cabin in the satellite photo looked abandoned. Whoever took Maggie had her in the middle of nowhere. And if she’d come right home, he was hours behind them.
His stomach sank as the realization hit him. He knew who’d done this. Now he just needed to figure out how long she’d been gone.
“Virginia!” He called out, racing down the hall to the back staircase. Her apartment was on the top floor, taking up whatused to be the attic. She’d had a stairlift put in for when her knee got bad, but he took the ancient steps as if they were nothing.
“Virginia!” He pounded on her door.
