Princess (American Princess #1)(29)
Author: Courtney Cole

Stephen stirred. Even in his sleep, he knew that something was different.  He snaked out his arm to draw Sydney back up against his body, but her side of the bed was cold.  And empty.

He opened his eyes quickly and sat up.  Ever since she had lost the baby, she hadn’t gotten up in the night to use the bathroom.  He guessed that she was pacing the house, unable to sleep.  With all that had gone on lately, he couldn’t blame her and instantly felt guilty for not hearing her get up. She needed his support now more than ever.

He didn’t bother pulling pants on, but instead strode out to the living room in his underwear.  He figured that if someone wanted to look in his windows at this time of night, they deserved what they saw. Streetlights shone weakly in through the windows, both illuminating and emphasizing the emptiness surrounding him.  He stood in the middle of the living room, staring around him at the empty chair, empty couch, empty desk.  Everything was empty.

“Sydney?”

His voice sounded hollow in the quiet house.  As he examined his surroundings, he decided it probably wouldn’t echo so much if they had more furniture.  He was abruptly aware of the sparseness of his home.  He had never really noticed before; but truthfully, he didn’t really care. He was never one to need things just for the sake of having them.

Sydney didn’t answer him, which was odd. The house was so small that normally he could hear a cricket breathing outside the bathroom window from the comfort of his bed. And that was only a slight exaggeration.  If Sydney were here, she would have heard him.

“Sydney?” he called again, louder and more anxiously this time, rapidly moving through each room. She wasn’t in the bathroom, the living room or on the front porch.  His heart was accelerating with each step that he took.  Surely she wouldn’t have gone out by herself at this time of night- not now.  As he stepped quickly into the kitchen, his heart lodged in his throat and stayed there, frozen.

The window in the back door was shattered… the glittering shards of glass scattered on the linoleum floor in haphazard disarray, a blatant signal that something was horribly wrong.  Nothing else was disturbed, but nothing else needed to be. It was clear what had happened.

He froze in place, trying to breathe…struggling to swallow.  His gut tightened up within him as though he had been sucker-punched.  The cool night breeze rustling in through the broken window drifted over his na**d body and formed goose-bumps, bringing him back to reality quickly.

Sydney had been taken.  He knew it without taking one more step.

He darted back through the house, quickly finding his pants on the floor in the bedroom. He dug through the pockets as quickly as he could, finding his cell phone.  He pulled it out and dialed Detective Daniel’s cell phone number with shaking fingers.  It was of little consequence to him that it was 3am.  He could literally taste the adrenalin in his mouth as he waited.

The detective’s voice was surly as he answered the phone on the fourth ring.

“This had better be important,” he growled into the phone.  Stephen knew the detective probably didn’t know or care who was calling.

“It is.  Sydney’s been taken.”

Stephen didn’t know how he managed to speak, because it felt like his entire body was frozen, completely numb. But his words came out normally, as though he was making a casual phone call.   As though the girl he loved hadn’t just been kidnapped from his house while he slept peacefully and blissfully unaware. His fingers betrayed him, though.  They shook as they held the phone to his ear.

“I’ll be right there.”

The phone went dead and Stephen held it motionless for a moment before snapping it closed and laying it down beside him on the empty bed.  The silence was deafening.  He gazed out the window mindlessly, not feeling capable of coherent thought, aware only of the loss and guilt that was consuming him already.  It was difficult to say which weighed more heavily on him.

Both things collided together in his mind and he groaned.  He had promised Sydney that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.  He was all she had… and he had failed miserably.  She was gone and he was to blame.  He dropped his head into his waiting hands.

*  *  *

A noise had wakened her.  And her head was throbbing relentlessly.

Sydney slowly opened her eyes and it took a moment for her to remember where she was.  She was lying on a musty carpeted floor curled up in a fetal position.  She unfolded her stiff limbs as she looked around the room. The darkness was startling.   The only light coming in was from under the door and the cracks around the boarded up window.  Everything else was bare…with only a stripped bed pushed against the back wall.

She sniffed at the air. It was still stale and smelled like mold.   Everything looked the same as it had last night when she had been tossed in here like a stray dog.  The memory flooded back to her and she shivered.  It had been real.  For a brief moment, she truly felt as though it had been a realistic nightmare.  

“Sydney?”

Her gaze flickered around the room to find the small voice that whispered her name and she zeroed in on the little boy hunched over in the corner.  Her little blonde neighbor.  His skinny arms were wrapped around his knobby little knees and he shivered in the heat.  Sydney decided that he must be in shock.  It had to be at least 90 degrees in the cramped room. The memory of watching his small body get bound, gagged and thrown in the van beside her turned her stomach.  Whoever did this clearly didn’t have a conscience and that made him dangerous.

“Are you okay?” she murmured softly.  He nodded silently, but his eyes glistened with unshed tears.  It tugged on her heartstrings that he was trying to be brave.   “I’m sorry.  I can’t remember your name right now.  Can you remind me?”

The longer she was awake, the more the back of her head throbbed from the blow she had received the night before.  She ignored it- and the dizziness that resulted whenever she moved.

“It’s Danny—after my dad, Daniel.”

She could hear the pride resonating in his small voice, even through the tenor of fear.

“Danny, why are you here?  Why did he take you?”

She scooted towards him so that they didn’t have to speak loudly.  She spoke in low, hushed tones.  She had no idea if their captor was on the other side of the door, but there was no reason to chance it.  She kept glancing at the crack under the door- trying to see shadows moving on the other side- any movement that would signal that someone was there.  But so far there was nothing.