But when there was no ransom asked for back then I’d given up on that angle. We looked for a stalker, combed through her online activities, but nothing panned out.
For two years there was nothing but dead ends and false starts. The sickos had wasted a lot of my time and money with false sightings but I didn’t care. I followed up every lead that came my way through the P.I that I’d hired after the cops started to get on my nerves.
We’d exhausted all angles and came up with nothing. She’d literally disappeared into thin air without a trace. The only thing I knew was that she’d been taken from home.
The table had been set and the food still warm on the stove when I walked in. At first I didn’t panic because I thought she’d had to run to the store for something she forgot.
But as the hour grew late and she wasn’t back and wasn’t answering her phone that’s when dread set in. That’s when I’d gone into full-blown panic.
Now as I look back at the situation I allowed myself to ask a question I’d been shying away from for the past two years.
Could it be someone in my life that had done this and why? I had no real enemies to speak of except men in the business world. But I wasn’t the type of businessman to evoke this kind of retaliation from my rivals.
Our beefs were played out in the boardroom. I didn’t do business with shady characters and never undercut anyone in my life. So that angle, like all the rest, was a dead-end.
She didn’t have any real connections to speak of. When we met she was a sophomore in college. A transplant, who was working tables to help pay her way in one of the restaurants I frequented for business meetings.
After she became mine her life had pretty much revolved around me, and the life we’d built together. We spent every spare moment together when she wasn’t in class and me at work.
The few people she’d interacted with were classmates that she’d share a paper with once in a while or a study group here and there.
But she’d never formed any real attachments and had never complained that anyone there was bothering her.
I’d had them all investigated as well. Anyone that had ever come in contact with her had been subject to an intense background check from the PI and I’m guessing the cops had done their bit there as well.
There was no one from her past that threw up any red flags, nothing. Just complete emptiness everywhere we looked. Each dead end had been like losing her all over again. Little pieces of myself just dying slowly, bit by bit.
I’d gone for days without eating or sleeping. Some days I’d even given thought to ending it the shit was so bad. But the only thing that kept me sane was the thought of her returning to find me gone.
I’d held out hope even when things were at their bleakest. Until I was the only one in the world who still believed that if she was alive somewhere that I’d find her one day.
Now here she is and I still have no answers. I’m still no closer to the truth than I was that first day. Did that mean she was still in danger? That whoever had taken her was still out there and could come back again?
I’ll level this whole fucking city if that shit should happen. But I knew it wouldn’t, I would never make the same mistake twice. I’d like to see the motherfucker who could get through me to get to her.
It never entered my mind to doubt her words, not at this very moment. Maybe because I’d always suspected something along those lines, or maybe because it’s what I want to believe.
Cade
I looked around the nurses at her lying there motionless on the small hospital bed and my heart twisted in my chest; my gut rolled with sudden fear.
Once you’ve faced such horror once, what’s to stop it from happening again? Especially when there’re still no answers. How do I protect her when I don’t know who or what I’m protecting her from?
I can and will stand in front of her always, but it would help if I know where the danger lays. As it stands I’m gonna have to have eyes in the back of my head for the foreseeable future.
I fought back the depressing thought and shored myself up. Whatever it takes is what the fuck I’ma do. I looked at her little face, pale, ashen, gaunt, against the washed out sheets of the hospital bed. I won’t ever lose you again baby, no matter what, I’ll keep you by my side.
I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling, but there was no stopping the bleeding of my heart. She looked so hurt, so lost laying there and there was nothing I could do about it.