Page 77 of Jaylen

"I gave you something to make you cooperate. So that I could bring you here."

"Who are you?" Her voice was scratchy and her mouth felt like cardboard. "What the hell am I doing here?"

"I am the pregnant woman in the parking lot. Anna." She laughed a little hysterically. "You fell for it. Not so smart after all. Don't you know that you are supposed to be on the lookout for people who would want to do you harm?

You are a celebrity now and should act like one." She nudged the butt of the .22 pistol to Anika's cheek hard enough to cause a twinge of pain.

"You are not pregnant," Anika noted dully, as the darts of fear came. "And you are blonde. I know you."

"Yep. We attended some of the same functions. I followed you into the ladies' room that time at the winter's ball."

"I knew someone was watching me."

Joelle's eyebrows lifted. "How clever of you. I thought I was very discreet."

"What do you want?"

"Your husband."

"You were involved with Jaylen?"

"No." She waved the gun. "We grew up together. I have known him since kindergarten." Her expression turned dreamy and Anika felt the fear blossoming. The bitch was unhinged.

"He was the most beautiful little boy there and all of us were enchanted by him. Then he went to an all-boys school, but they would have competitions, cross-overs to ours and I would get to see him. I decided from then on that he was going to be mine." Her eyes sharpened as she focused on Anika. "You came along and spoiled it."

"You were never involved with him?"

"No!" she screamed. The slap took Anika by surprise and was hard enough to draw blood.

She saw stars as she fell back against the dusty worn sofa. "I hate repeating myself. Anyway. " She smiled, that mad vacant smile that had Anika cringing inside. "I went to Europe to school and he went to Harvard. I thought that when I got back that he would see me.

We danced several times and it was magical. I wanted him to kiss me, but he didn't. And I waited and waited for him to notice me and then you—" She slapped Anika again, viciously. "You took him away and now you are pregnant. Is the brat even his?"

Anika's ears were ringing and she could feel the nausea churning inside her belly. The woman was obviously crazy and delusional. She was going to have to try and find a way to work her way out of this.

"Yes." She gritted against the pain and tasted her own blood. "Look I am sorry Jaylen did not notice you. You are a beautiful woman—"

"Shut up!" She screamed, kicking the sofa and turning it over. Anika felt her head hitting the board floor.

"I am going to kill you and that brat." She aimed the gun at Anika's head and for one terrifying moment, she thought it was over for her. "But not yet. I am leaving you here. Get up. I am going to tie you up and leave you here in this cold dank place to think.

You are miles away from anywhere and I switched your car and left it in a vacant parking lot. No one is going to find you. I am going back to allay suspicion and when Daddy is asleep, I am coming back to finish the job. When you are dead, Jaylen will realize that he has made a mistake, and I will be there to comfort him. Get up!"

*****

"Who the hell is she?"

"No one we know. It appears she is wearing a wig, and she knows where the cameras are angled," James pointed out. The police had been called when it was determined that Anika had been abducted.

"This is because of me." Jaylen felt sick to his stomach. It had been going on for five hours since his wife was missing. They had found her vehicle at a vacant parking lot a few miles away and the trail had grown cold.

Every minute she was missing means that there was less chance of getting her back alive. And there had not been a ransom call. Which meant that it was personal.

"You cannot think that way, son."

"How the hell am I supposed to think?"

"We have men out trying to pick up the trail." The detective in charge told him.