Page 85 of High-Priority Asset

She shut off her TV. “Will? Is everything all right?”

Something was wrong.

Under the door, she saw a shadow move up to the bedroom.

“Will?”

The door burst open. A man loomed, wearing a hotel jacket and holding a gun with a suppressor pointed at her.

A chilling, mind-numbing fear speared her. The man with scraggly hair, a mustache and glasses seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Hello, Isabel,” he said.

That voice. Chad!

Her skin prickled, her jaw coming unhinged as she pressed back against the headboard.

“If you scream, I’ll kill the US marshal and anyone else who comes running to help you, and when I leave here, I’ll pay Brenda a visit in the hospital. Nod if you understand.”

Isabel’s breath snagged in her chest, but she nodded.

As Chad walked up to her, getting closer, she noticed he wore gloves and the suppressor was homemade—two PVC pipes, one inside the other, with some sort of end cap, attached to the barrel of the gun with a...hose clamp?

He pressed the gun to her temple. “Get up. Put on your shoes.” His voice was deadly calm.

Trembling, she did as he told her, holding on tight to her purse.

“Come on. Walk.” He nudged her forward.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“Not unless you make me.”

She stepped out of the bedroom and he pushed up against the back side of her, pressing the gun against her kidneys.

“When did you get a gun?” she asked, feeling cold down to her bones.

He hadn’t owned a firearm before.

“When I found out Dutch used to be in Special Forces. I have a bullet with his name on it. I’d expected to find him in here with you. Not that one.”

Isabel looked down at Will. Flat on his stomach, knocked out, but alive.

“Behave. If you don’t and draw attention, I’ll be forced to hurt others.” Chad opened the door, keeping her close to him, and they walked down the empty hallway toward the stairwell.

Fear raced through her bloodstream. “How did you find me?”

“I suppose I can tell you since it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Why? God, why didn’t it matter anymore? Was he going to kill her?

No, he wouldn’t.

Chad wanted to be with her in a sick, abusive relationship that mirrored Brett and Mindy’s, where she played the doting partner, tending to his every need, subjected to his every whim. He didn’t want her dead.

“I found you through your phone,” he whispered in her ear, his voice dark and pure evil. “I’ve been tracking you,” he said, “listening to your calls, reading your emails and texts. I knew you were at this hotel, but not what room until you told Brenda’s mom.”

Isabel’s heart nose-dived. How could she be so stupid? How could he be so twisted? So insane?