Noah left for work the next morning while I slowly got up and started my day. As I stretch I reach over and grab my phone from my bedside table then head for the shower. I have to have music when I’m in the shower. When I start drying off my phone rings. “Hello,” I say after pushing the speaker button so I can talk while I get dressed. “Hey, beautiful, are you busy today,” A familiar voice asks. Automatically I recognize the voice as Caleb’s, but it wasn’t his number he called from. “No, I’m free all day what do you need,”
“I was going to get Lacy a necklace for Valentine’s Day but I’m not good with jewelry can you help me,”
“Yeah, sure I don’t have anything planned for today,”
“Great! Thank you I’ll be over to pick you up in a few,”
An hour later, Caleb pulls up in his white Ford pickup truck. When I climb inside I get a bad feeling that I shouldn’t be going with him but I just brush it off. “Thanks again for coming with me. I have no clue what Lacy would like,” He admits as he shifts
the truck into drive. “No problem,” I smile. “So where do you want to go,”
“I was thinking about heading to Beautiful Dreams in River Acres,”
“Sounds good they have some beautiful jewelry and decent prices,”
We ride in silence for a while until Caleb asks. “So did you tell Noah that you are going out with me today,”
“No, I didn't. It's not like I’m going to be gone all day and besides I’m just going to help you,” I replied, giving him one of my questionable looks.
He looks over at me with a big creepy smile on his face that makes me nervous.
I reach into my purse and pull out my phone. I realize that telling Noah where I’m going and who I am with might be a great idea. Except when I get it out Caleb snatches it out of my hand. “Hey, give that back,” I shouted at him. “I’ll give it back to you later, besides, we both wanted to be alone with each other right,” He declared a little too sweetly. The bad feeling I had hours ago crept right up. In my mind, I am cursing myself for not having the forethought of telling Noah or somebody what I was doing today.
Two hours later we pulled into the jewelry store parking lot. Caleb climbs out of the driver’s seat except I’m frozen in my seat. He looks at me from the front of the pickup. He glares at me as he opens my door and growls. “ The sooner you help me as you promised, the sooner you can get back to your precious Noah,” With a shiver, I climbed out of
Caleb’s pickup. He grabs my arm and leads me into the jewelry store. “How can I help you?” The saleswoman asks as we walk into the store. “I’m looking for a diamond necklace for my wife,” Caleb replied as he let go of my arm. The sales lady turns her attention to me. “So what kind of style do you like,” She asks me. “Oh no I’m not his wife I’m just a friend here to help him,” I responded shocked by the accusation.
She gives me an apologetic look, then sets out showing us some beautiful necklaces. My eyes set on the one I would love to have. It was a white gold chain with a stunning round center diamond surrounded by an interwoven swirling design of diamonds. “This one is perfect,” I declared, holding up the necklace. “Lacy would love this,”
“You think so?” Caleb questions me.
“Yes, I do, this is definitely something Lacy would choose for herself,” I say defending my decision. “Okay, if you're sure,” Caleb agrees as he pays for the necklace.
“So are you going to give me my phone back?” I ask as we climb back into the pickup. Instead of answering me Caleb started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. Instead of turning left towards Herber Springs, he turns to the right. “Where are you going, Caleb? You're going in the wrong direction,” I exclaim. Still, Caleb didn’t say anything. He just kept on driving. After about an hour he turns down an old dirt road. I slowly get up my nerve to open my door and jump out. As I reach for the door handle Caleb
locks the door. I click the unlock button multiple times trying to get it to unlock when I finally realize he turned on the child locks. As I glare over at him I notice an evil smile on his face.
“Oh my god, He is kidnapping me,” I tell myself trying not to freak out. I will myself to not show any fear. Forgetting that Caleb still had my phone I reached into my back pocket looking for it. Then I dug into my purse, still not there. “Did you forget that I still have your phone,” Caleb smiles, holding it up so I could see it. Right before he throws it into a pond that is beside a run-down cabin that he pulls in front of.
He comes over and opens up my door with a rag in his free hand. In one swift move, he had it on my face before I could even react. When I woke up I found myself on a dirty old mattress tied up to a wall. In an ominous tone, Caleb sneered. “You wanted us to spend some time together well here we are,”
“Caleb, please let me go,”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to be with me,”
“Yes, I did, but you know as well as I do that, it was just a joke, I didn’t mean it,”
“I don’t believe you, I think you meant every sluty word you said to me,”
He kneels down in front of me, smells my hair, then kisses my neck. Which at an earlier time, I might have enjoyed every bit of it, but at this moment it felt dirty and wrong. An abusive act on his part.
I can’t believe that the once sweet-natured Caleb is capable of doing this to me. I started crying, finally
coming to the realization that he isn’t going to let me go so easily or at all. “Cry, scream all you want, no one can hear you. Make yourself comfortable I’ll be back,”
“Caleb please,” I begged. “You can’t leave me here,”
“I can and I am,” He says as he shuts the door behind him.
I hear his pickup start-up and then the tires on the gravel as he leaves me there in the cold damp cabin. I scream for help over and over until my throat is sore. I even tried getting my hands out of the handcuffs like they do in the movies, but all I managed to do was make them bleed.
I hear tires crunching on the gravel again. I knew that Caleb had returned. I dreaded to know what he was going to do to me next. He came in the door carrying bags. “Here I brought you some food and water, I also got you a blanket,” He comes over and drapes it over me. “That’s not funny, what am I supposed to do? Stare at the food,” I say sarcastically. “You have my hands handcuffed above my head,”
“Like this,” Caleb replied as he put a shackle around one of my ankles, then undoes the cuffs from my wrists. “There, now you can move around, but not far,” He smiles creepily. “Did you know that you are completely insane,” I yelled at him. He bends down in front of me and kisses my lips. I in return bite his bottom lip hard. “Oh, you like to play rough I see,” He snapped. “But unfortunately I don’t have time to play right now. I have to get home and give Lacy, her present,” He chuckled. “I promise I’ll be back
tomorrow and we can play then. I sit completely still until I hear him leave. Only then do I allow myself to break down.
As promised Caleb showed back up the next day. “Did you miss me,” He said as he strutted through the door? “How could I miss someone as awful as you,” I vented hotly. He continued as if he hadn’t heard a word I had said. “Anyway, my dear, I can’t stay long I have to help your family search for you,” Caleb chuckled. “They’re searching for me? That means they will find me and you will be arrested for kidnapping me,” I said, choking back tears. “Oh no my dear, they will not find you. You see, you are in another state and in a remote part of a forest. So you see no one is coming to rescue you, so just accept your fate,”“Never! Someone will find me,” I yell at him as he heads for the door. I still refuse to cry in front of him. I can’t let him know that he is slowly breaking me down slowly.Caleb is right on one hand though nobody will find me all the way out here so I need to figure out how to get myself out of here. I start looking all around me to see if there is anything I can use to
Noah’s friends didn’t believe that he just up and left without telling anyone nor did his family. They all met up at our old house in Herber Springs so they can figure out if Noah actually moved if not what to do next. His parents had a key so they entered the house first and looked around. They noticed that all of his personal items plus all of mine were still in the house. Caleb’s parents somberly stepped out onto the porch. ``Noah didn’t move all of the things he would have taken are still in there. We need to call the police and get them over here,” Ms. Hastings told us as her husband is already on the phone with the police. “They’re on the way over,” Mr. Hastings advised us.When the police finally show up one of the officers stays outside and questions all our friends while the other officer goes inside the house with Noah’s parents. One of Noah’s friends tells the officer that the last time he had heard from Noah was the day before he had disappeared and told the Officer that
I make sure Caleb is gone when I wake up the next morning before making a call to the Herber Springs police department to let them know where Noah’s body was. Not only that, but I also told them who I was and where Caleb was holding me hostage. I had realized that night I couldn’t save my baby, but I could save myself. Caleb was the reason I had lost my child, not mine. I had tried to get him to take me to see a doctor multiple times and he wouldn’t. “Okay Hanna I need to know where you are at,” Detective Lancaster asked me. “I believe I’m in the next town over I’m just not sure what the address is,” “It’s okay, we can trace this phone number and figure out where you are but you need to stay on the phone until we get the location. Can you do that?”“Yes,”I hear him telling the other officers what he needed them to do. “I promise Hanna we will find you and get you out of there,” He promises me. Then he starts talking to me getting all the information about what happened to me and w
I was in the hospital for almost two weeks until Dr. Drevits said that the infection was gone and I was cleared to go home. Only I didn’t have a home and my drug-running husband who had let his brother kidnap me was still running free. So guess where I got to stay? Yep, a so-called safe house. All it was was a room at a hotel granted it was a suite in a fancy-ish hotel. I of course got the bedroom, but the officers guarding me had to fight over who got the cot or the couch. They also had an officer posing as a front desk clerk so they could watch who came in and left. The only bad thing about this place is that I wasn’t allowed to leave, of course, or order room service. I’m dying for a juicy cheeseburger. I have to ask them like a little kid if I can have this nice juicy cheeseburger. But on to other things I’m still having nightmares. Dr. Drevits thinks I should see a psychiatrist. He believes that will help me with the nightmares. Detective Lancaster thinks that they are getting c
Movie night with some friends from my Law class. We are off to watch the new Conjuring movies. I have always loved scary movies Noah never did so I could only watch them when he was gone. My security detail is sitting a couple of rows behind us and looks like they are on a date. “I have seen all of the Conjuring movies. The creepiest character for me is the nun. What is yours,” I asked my friends Melanie and Allie. “Oh my god definitely the nun,” Melanie whispers as the movie is about to start. Allie leans over and whispers “Definitely the nun hands down,” We went from screaming to laughing as one of us jumps at a suspenseful part. After the movie ended, we decided to go next door to Ollie's bar for a drink and do our own review of the movie about what parts we liked, which parts were stupid, and which parts scared us the most then post them on our mutual Twitter page. My two friends do know about me being in witness protection after the FBI did a vigorous background search on them a
“So where are we exactly, I mean this isn’t a normal safe house,” I asked Liam the next morning as I was making breakfast like I always do in the morning. “I figured that Allie would have told you last night, you are at my parent’s house,” He confessed after a deep breath. I raised my eyebrows “No we’re not, you wouldn’t take me to the house that you were raised in,” I said incredulously. “Well I hate to prove you wrong yet again but yes it is,” He admitted pointing to a picture sitting on the mantle. I hand him the spatula that I had in my hand as I walk over to the picture. There standing in front of this fireplace were two proud parents with their young college graduate holding his diploma standing in between them. “Yea I took that picture I tried to get my brother to smile but all he did was a smirk,” Allie laughed as she came out of her bedroom. “I think he was a little hungover from partying the night before,”“Hey no I wasn’t I just felt a little tired standing there after mom
It takes me three cups of coffee for me to feel halfway human. When I can finally move my head side to side and back and forth without it feeling like it’s going to fall off my body I go and take a shower hoping that it will help me sober up some more.Thank goodness I don’t have to go back to school or work until tomorrow so I can just lounge around the house and relax plus start to feel better after my loving, crazy friends got me drunk just to pierce my ears. After my shower, I head to the kitchen not for my normal coffee but for a nice cup of herbal tea then head back up to my room and I slide back into my nice comfy bed where I plan to stay all day. Thanks to my new buddy Liam I don’t get that chance. “Come on, beauty queen, get up we have work to do,” He says, opening up the curtains letting the sunshine in as he tries to get me out of bed. I flipped him a double bird and pulled the covers over my head. Liam bends down, grabs my ankles, and pulls me out from under the covers. “
If nobody ever told you that if you want to keep the guy you're messing around with a secret from your friends, never give them a key to your house.Allie and Melanie showed up around seven this morning wanting to know all that had happened after we left the restaurant. They decided to wake me up by storming into my room and jumping on me in bed. When they opened my bedroom door ready to pounce they saw Liam and me snuggled up together. “Oh my god,” Allie freaked out. “Did you guys actually hook up last night,” I sat up in bed, pulling the blanket up to my neck? “Allie let me explain please,” I said, trying to find the right words to explain what happened. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m tickled,” Allie interrupted. “It’s just is this the actual reason you didn’t want us to come over last night,”“No sis, I promise this wasn’t planned at all, Noah was sitting outside the house in a white Tahoe and I didn’t want him to catch you two coming into the house,” Liam chimed in sitting up in bed ma