He finally came to a painful stop at the bottom of the stairs and for a moment lay there, stunned and hurting, mentally yelling at himself to move. He noticed a young woman beside him, bleeding from a gash on her head.

Sarah. Gavin rolled to his feet and glanced at the top of the stairs. She was gone.

And so was the father of the missing child.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

The gun pressed into her side, and while fear was very present and real, anger burned a path through her gut. She was very tired of being shot at, kidnapped, held hostage, and threatened.

When Jonathan had given Gavin a kick in the ribs and sent him tumbling down the stairs, Sarah had started after him, only to have the man yank her back by the arm and jam the weapon into her still-healing side.

When he pulled her away from Gavin and she realized he had the weapon, she struggled for a brief moment until he twisted her arm hard enough to make her gasp.

“Try to get away and I won’t shoot you, I’ll shoot someone else. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said through gritted teeth.

They’d slipped away from the security guard and he’d led her back onto the floor, past the nurses’ station, down the hall, and to the next stairwell also flooded with people.

Sarah decided it was either a genius move or a brilliant color of stupid she wasn’t familiar with. Unwilling to risk him being serious about hurting someone, she didn’t try to resist, but one thing she was certain of—she wasn’t leaving the hospital with him. “How did you know we’d be here?” she asked, dodging a young mother and her toddler.

“We’ve been watching you for a while. We know everything about you. It was only a matter of time before you showed up to visit Wilmont in the hospital. Now, keep going.”

We? The firm grip on her upper arm didn’t hurt, but sure had the potential to do so. She was more worried about the weapon pointed at the base of her spine—and keeping her terror under control so she could think. “So, Wilmont was working for you?”

“No. He was just an idiot in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But how do you know him?”

“Because of his association with you.”

Her association with him? Her only association with him was when he held her hostage and put a gun to her head. Who were these people?