Page 29 of Holiday Loss

His stalker was there.

In his building.

Possibly already up in the penthouse.

As he ran toward the lift, it felt like he was trapped in a dream, one of those ones where no matter how hard you tried to move your feet seemed like they were encased in concrete. It took too long to reach thelift. Too long to punch in the code to get to the penthouse. Too long for the lift to go up past all those floors.

When the doors finally did open and he was standing in the lobby too many things struck him all at once.

The door to his home was standing open.

Scattered in the doorway was a pile of gift boxes.

Shoved off to the side was the still body of one of the guards.

Running quickly toward the body, a quick check of the guard’s pulse told him the man was still alive. There were no injuries he could detect, and he assumed the man’s attacker had drugged him.

Donovan shoved to his feet and ran inside his home.

It was quiet in there.

Deadly silent.

As he ran from room to room, finding them all empty, his fear continued to grow.

Where were they?

What had happened?

How had a stalker everyone was on the lookout for managed to not just get into the building but all the way up to his penthouse, and get the drop on an armed guard?

It didn't make sense.

He was missing something.

Only it was hard to think of anything other than his fear for Jessica and Freddie.

The sight of her phone lying discarded on the floor by the door caught his attention and he bent and scooped it up. She’d told him her passcode, and when he typed it in the phone immediately opened to a view of the security camera.

Could finding answers be that simple?

When he looked through the recent history his mouth dropped open when he saw who had knocked on his door this evening.

“No,” he murmured aloud.

It couldn’t be.

How could he have gotten things so wrong?

As he watched he saw his secretary, Jana, approaching the guard. Not suspecting her to be a threat he wasn’t prepared for her to jab aneedle in his neck. Once the guard had passed out, Jana knocked on his door and had an exchange with Jessica before producing a weapon and marching both Jessica and Freddie into the lift, which then headed up to the roof.

The smart move would be to stay there, wait for the cops, share what he’d learned, tell them where he believed they were, and let them handle it.

But that meant waiting.

And he couldn’t do that.

So smart move or not, Donovan headed for the stairs that led to the rooftop garden. They were slightly off to the side so when he got up there Jana might not realize, and he could assess the situation and figure out how to get Jessica and Freddie out of there alive.

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