“You’ll keep me updated?” Evan asked.
“Of course,” Chief Cummings replied.
At least Nick, Davis and Daniel hadn’t left town yet. His next phone call was to Davis. “Unpack your bags, we’re not out of here yet.” He explained the situation and told him to update the other two agents and then wait for further instructions.
They needed to find Jacob quickly and get him off the streets before he managed to kill somebody else. Who knew what kind of resources he could get to with a simple phone call to one of his followers? Most of them would do anything to help their leader.
He put his holster back on and then opened his bedroom door, surprised to see the living room lights on. Apparently Annalise hadn’t been able to sleep.
He thought he heard a deep male voice. Was she listening to the television? He stepped into the hallway and pulled his gun, the hackles on the back of his neck standing up.
Gripping his gun firmly, he slowly walked down the hall and stepped into the living room. He swallowed a gasp. Annalise stood before him, her face radiating sheer terror. Jacob stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other pointing a gun at her head.
“Ah, the man we were just coming to find,” Jacob said with a smile. “Put your gun down.”
“Why are you here, Jacob? What do you want?” Evan asked, his heart beating an unsteady rhythm. He did not obey Jacob’s command. There was no way in hell he was going to put down his weapon.
In a million years he couldn’t have foreseen Jacob coming here. How did the man even know where Annalise lived? How had he gotten here? He had assumed Jacob would want to get as far away from town as possible.
The utter terror shining from Annalise’s eyes made a red hot rage well up inside him. He tamped it down. He had to keep his cool in this situation, and drew in several breaths in an effort to regulate his racing heartbeat.
This wasn’t like facing a frightened Phil who he had assumed wasn’t likely to use his gun. Jacob had already proven that he could kill in cold blood.
“Put your gun down,” Jacob repeated, and yanked Annalise closer to him. She gasped, and tears began to run down her cheeks.
“I can’t do that,” Evan replied. “Just tell me why you’re here. What is it you want from me?”
“I want you to bring me Sadie.”
Evan looked at him in surprise. Did Jacob really believe he could still get the little girl to break into the banking system and steal a bunch of money? Was he so far out of touch with reality that he truly believed he could still follow through on his scheme?
“You need to let Annalise go before you and I can have a serious talk,” Evan replied.
Jacob caressed her cheek with the barrel of the gun and then brought it back up to the side of her head. “I’m not letting her go until I get Sadie.”
Evan wanted to rip the man’s throat out for what he was doing to Annalise. “Don’t you get it, man? We all know what your intentions were, and it’s over. All your men are either dead or in jail.”
“It’s not over,” Jacob screamed. “All I need is that kid, and then when she does what I want, I’ll leave the country. I’ll be someplace where nobody can ever touch me.”
“Even if I bring Sadie here, it’s still all over,” Evan replied. “You’ll never be able to board a plane. Officers all over the country will be looking for you.”
“Money talks, and with enough money I can buy a plane and my own pilot. Now, if you don’t bring me Sadie, then I’m going to shoot your girlfriend.”
Evan’s stomach tied itself in knots. In all the hostage negotiations he’d ever been through, his emotions had never been so out of control as at this moment. “She’s not my girlfriend. She doesn’t mean anything to me. If you kill her, then I’m going to kill you. She’ll be dead but so will you. Now, let her go and put your gun down,” Evan demanded.
As he was talking, he was seeking any kind of weakness he could exploit to either talk the man down or take him down physically.
At the moment he saw absolutely no weakness, and that scared the hell out of him.
ANNALISE’S HEART BEAT frantically and so fast it felt like it might explode right out of her chest. She’d never been so frightened in her entire life.
She’d awakened and had been unable to go back to sleep. She’d gotten up to get a drink of water, and Jacob had come up behind her in the kitchen.
The cold barrel of his gun now dug into the side of her head, and she was terrified with each moment that passed that Jacob would pull the trigger. At this point he certainly had nothing to lose.
She understood that while Evan would not want her to be killed, his ultimate goal had to be to stop Jacob here and now. If he did his job, he would never give into Jacob’s demands and she might be another...she might be the last tragic victim to Jacob’s madness.
The burly man smelled of rancid sweat and complete evil, and all she wanted was to get away from him. But with the gun to her head there wasn’t much she could do except weep silent, helpless tears.
“Jacob, put the gun down and let her go,” Evan said calmly.
“Get me that kid,” Jacob bellowed, and tightened his arm around Annalise.
“That’s not happening,” Evan replied. “You need to end this now, Jacob. You need to put your gun down and face the consequences of
