My Heart Belongs To You: A Psycho Thriller (30 page)

‘
Hold
,
John
.’

Hanson paced across the room pulling out drawers.

‘
Negative
,
nothing in that area
.’

‘
What are the chances of
a
Police chopper
?’

‘
Nothing available, already tried when Holt set off.
Best I can do is alert Richard to put out an alert for both vehicles.
If they flag up
,
we can track them.
’

‘
I’m going to search the house
to
see if anything gives us a lead as to where the
y’re
holding Tom and Karen
.’

‘
Richard is attempting to access all of the files on Holt
’
s computer
,
but it’s proving difficult.
I’ve sent out some of our people to assist, it’s just taking time
.’

‘
We haven’t got a lot of that
,
Sir
,
’
snapped Hanson checking his watch,
1
.09 p
.
m
.
,
5
hours and 51 minutes of life remaining.

‘
Hold it together
,
John
.
We
just need one break, everyone is working flat out
.’

Hanson sighed in frustration,
‘
I know
,
b
ut I can feel Tom and Karen
’
s lives slipping from my grasp
.’

‘
Fat lady’s not clearing her throat just yet
,
John
.’

‘
No
,
but she’s walking towards the mike
.’

‘
Well
,
let
’
s see
that
she never makes it
, stay positive
.’

‘
Roger that
,
Sir
.’

The beep told Hanson
that
Blue
e
agle had
g
one
.  H
e began a systematic search of the property
,
looking for any shred of information that would lead them to where they
were holding
Tom and Karen
.
They
just needed a break.
If Black were here now
,
it would be his neck
breaking
.

Chapter Twenty
Six

14 February
-
14
:
38

(
L
ife
r
emaining 4 hrs 22 mins)

‘Wakey
wakey
,
people, time to get you spruced up.’

At precisely 2.38 p
.
m
.
, Adam Black opened the security gates at the rented airfield and parked his Jaguar in one of the parking bays just out
side the dilapidated hanger
.
On the journey over
,
he had
fantasi
z
ed
about washing down Karen
.
He
also considered taking her
,
while Tom bucked and screamed at his side
,
his hand glued to the fiancé
e’
s as he ploughed into her
,
but he quickly discounted that.
As much as he would love to bring his fantasy to life
,
C
upid would kill him
.
He
had no doubt
o
f
th
at
, not one single doubt.
The coupling to him was like the
H
oly
G
rail
.
A
nything
that threatened the purity of that moment would face his displeasure.
Black had no wish to face Cupid
’
s displeasure.

As Black entered the cold
hanger,
he could hear gentle snoring coming f
r
om the large table.
Flicking on the lights
,
he called out to Tom and Karen,
‘W
akey
,
wakey
,
people, time to get you spruced up
.’

Tom blinked rapidly
,
as he tried in that first few seconds of awareness to convi
n
ce himself that the whole exp
e
ri
e
nce had been a nightmare, that he was at home in his warm soft bed with Karen
beside him,
but
then he heard it, the whis
tl
ing.
The animal
that
had t
aken
them,
and
had
trapped them here was back.

Tom could hear the man moving about behind him,
and he
heard the hose being
dragged across the floor
.
He
knew what was coming
,
but even
so,
he still gave a strangled gasp as the first spray of
ice-cold
water cascaded over him.
The hose down lasted for at least a minute and the man had made sure that a long blast had hit him in the face
,
making it impossible to catch his breath
,
so that he ended up choking and gasping for air.

‘
Sorry about that
,
Tom
,
but we have to have you looking your best for Cupid.
Now
,
I think I will use a bowl and sponge for Karen
,
rather than the hose, bit more of the personal touch
,
’ Black leaned over Tom
,
his lopsided
leer
taunting him
,
‘
K
now
what I mean
,
Tom
?’

Tom squeezed his eyes shut and began to shout inside his head
.
T
he
same word
repeat
ed
over and over again,
‘
N
o
,no,no,no,
n
o
.
’
He
knew that the  man was trying to torture him, knew he was gaining some sadisti
c joy out of his frustration, his
impotence
,
so he shut himself down as the man
stroked
the sponge over his
fianc
é
e
.
Throughout,
she
never made a sound, remaining
trapped in a place far beyond here, a pla
ce of safety deep inside of her
self
.
He
had to find a similar place
, because
the only thing he could control
was
the denial of outward suffering to the
brute
who worked the sponge back and forth over Karen
’
s naked b
ody as he attempted
to
goad Tom,
and
inflict maximum
mental agony
.

‘
My
G
od
,
Tom
,
what a fine piece of meat this woman
is;
such firm breasts and what about
…’

Tom shut down
,
repeating the word
,
like a mantra inside his head denying the
animal
his pleasure, creating a barrier to the external world,
the world inside this building.

‘
No,no,no,no
…’

Cupid walked into the airfield hanger at precisely 4.00 p
.
m.
‘
Is everything ready
,
Adam
?
he
asked
,
his voice slightly husky
,
as he walked around the table
,
looking closely at Tom and Karen.

‘
Everything is ready
,
Sir
.
They
have been cleansed and the
c
amera is running
.’

‘
Please, please
,
let us go
,
’
croaked Tom,
‘
Y
ou
don’t have to do this
.
It
…
it’s not to
o
late to just let us go
.’

‘
Oh
,
but it is
,
Tom
,
’
hissed Holt
,
bringing his face down close to Tom’s
.  ‘
You and Karen are heading for eternal unity, the purity of your love
.
The
sanctity of your promise to each other is about to
be
wrapped and protected in
the folds of
death.
You should be thanking me for bestowing this on you
.
Don’t
fight it, accept and embrace it, your
destin
y cannot be altered
.’

For
the first time
,
since they had been snatched
,
Tom felt death
’
s shadow fall across him
.
His
dogged belief that John would come began to slip from his
grasp,
as he looked deep into the unblinking eyes of Cupid
,
for there he saw death and all hope fade.
 
Closing his
eyes,
he tried to block out the
v
oice in his head that kept repeating the same thing, over and over again,
‘
Jo
hn
’
s not coming, he’s not coming, he’s not coming
…’

………………………
……………………………………………………………………………

At 5.38
p.m.,
Hanson stood amongst the shambles of what had been Adam Black
’
s home
.
A
home he had virtually ransacked searching for clues.
For the last hour and a
half,
he had trawled through a laptop he found in a small bedroom
,
clearly used as
an office, searching through it
s internet history and countless files that revealed not one lead, not one scrap of information that would point to where his friend was.
Black
’
s main interests were sites dealing with hard
c
ore
bodybuilding
,
suppliers of supple
ments and
anabolic
steroids.
Hanson had nowhere to go until he had some direction to head for
.
Constant
contact with headquarters at the office
of Hanson S
ecurities brought the same response each time,
‘
N
othing
yet
.’
Each second that slipped by taking Tom and Karen
’
s life with it
,
cut
ting
into his soul
like
a razor
, each increasing the inner agony he was going through.
His
Bluetooth
beeped once
,
making him jump
, ‘
John
,
it’s
B
lue
E
agle
.
We’ve
had a break.
Richard traced a
m
obile number for Adam Black while he’s been trawling through Holt
’
s office
.  W
ould appear no
on
e
t
here amongst the staff were aware of it.
We managed to get access to the account and went through the log of calls over the last
twenty-four
hours
.
It
would also appear that he calls and receives from one mobile only, another number unknown to the staff here.
We suspect it belongs to
C
upid
.
It’s
a top up phone
so
we can’t trace ownership
,
and it is
possibly stolen.
We triangulated the last call made on Black
’
s mobile
.
I
t
came from a deserted airfield approximately forty miles from your present position.
We contacted the owners of the land who informed us the entire airfield, complete with several buildings and an old hanger,
has been rented to a company based in Panama for the last six months, contr
a
ct runs out tomorrow, 15
th
Fe
b
ruary
.’