Guarding Hearts (Living Again #3) (26 page)

“Sean,” Sam sobbed. “I don’t know what happened or why you’re doing this. We’ve been friends forever!”

“Friends,” Sean laughed. “Sure, maybe you’ve been my friend. You’ve never given me the time of day, Samantha. You always just saw me as ‘Sean’. I’ve never been good enough for you. But all that’s going to change now. You’ll learn to love me just as much as I love you.”

Sam watched him, and knew she was in really big trouble here. They were probably in the middle of nowhere, which meant that she had no way to get to anywhere. She would bet that he took her phone also. “What do you want from me, Sean?”

“Want from you? I want to be your partner, Sam. We’re going to have a great life together.”

“You know that everyone is probably already looking for me. We can’t stay here forever. I have a tour to do, fans that have paid a lot of money to see my show! Please, don’t do this!”

“Sam,” Sean said, reaching out to touch her. She recoiled, and his mouth tightened into a fine line. “Your fans will move on to someone else once you don’t come back. People are fickle like that.”

“But what about my family? What about your family? They’re going to come looking for us.”

“They won’t find us,” Sean said confidently. “My dad may figure out what I’m doing, since his nosey wife did, but it won’t matter. It’ll be too late.”

Sam started shaking, her teeth chattering. “W-what do you mean? Amelia knew?”

“Dumb bitch let herself into my apartment and saw my plans. She called me to come over to their house and she confronted me. Of course, this wasn’t long after the Nashville PD fired me for misusing my role as a police officer. I had no choice. She was going to turn me in.”

Sam gasped as the tears blinded her. “What did you do, Sean?”

“Well,” he said, leaning so close she could smell his breath. “She had to be taught an important lesson. Unfortunately for her, that was the last lesson she would learn.”

Sam scrambled back, trying to get to the other side of the bed so she could get away from him, but he was fast. He grabbed her leg and pulled her back, holding her so tight she cried out. “Y-you killed her! You killed your own mother?”

“That bitch was never my mother,” he roared. “Things were just fine just me and Dad. She ruined everything. And she was going to get in the way of me being with you, and no one gets in the way of my soul mate. Ellis is lucky that he bowed out before I taught him a lesson, too. Though doing my due diligence and finding out about him and then leaking it to the press was easy peasy. He did the hard part for me, and I didn’t have to get my hands dirty.”

She was dead. She knew it. He had fooled everyone. It had been him all along. Her lifelong friend, her bodyguard. He had known so many inside details, and then once he was with her full-time, he had everyone right where he wanted them, especially with Ellis gone. He was a mastermind. He would never let her go home. She absently wondered if anyone realized she was gone yet. If Ellis had been there, she knew he would already be on the trail. But he wasn’t. And even if he ever called her back, she’d never get it.

She rolled away from Sean, her body shaking from sobs. She could feel him moving behind her, and she stiffened. God, she’d never survive if he forced himself on her.

“You’ll be happy,” he whispered in her ear. “Maybe not right now, but I’ll make you happy. You’ll see, Sam. We’re meant to be. Oh, and you know I can’t let you contact anyone. I have your phone, and there’s no phone in the house. The closest house or store is over twenty miles away. So if I were you, I wouldn’t try anything. I love you too much to hurt you, but I’ll have to teach you a lesson if you don’t listen.”

He got off the bed and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. She curled into a ball and wept, knowing it was a matter of life or death for her to find a way out of there.

It had been over twelve hours since the last time anyone saw Sean or Sam. The story had hit the news, but for once he was grateful. The Baton Rouge police had been wonderful, but there were no leads. The car Sean was driving hadn’t been abandoned or spotted, and there had been no pings from either of their cell phones. It was essentially like they had both vanished. Lacey and Gage had spent the entire night with them as well, trying to think of anything they could all do to find out what happened.

He had been on the phone with Devin and Andrew most of the night. There were a few different scenarios they were working with. One was that Sean and Sam had been abducted by someone, two was that Sean had abducted Sam, and three was that they were in some sort of accident somewhere outside of here with or without an abductor. They had no idea which one could be the right one, but Ellis had a gut feeling, one that he was sure to tell everyone.

“So tell me again exactly what Sean said to you,” Ellis asked Lacey and Gage again. He had found out that Gage was Sam’s high school boyfriend who now lived in Baton Rouge and had only recently started talking to her again after four years without any contact. That made him think suspiciously of him, but he hadn’t shown any signs of having any ill will towards her, and Lacey knew him very well, also.

Lacey wiped her eyes. “Sam was about to come off the stage, and Sean came up to both of us and said that he wanted to surprise Sam at the hotel, asked if we would go back ahead of them and set things up for him. We didn’t think much of it, so we agreed to go ahead and leave. Gage drove, since I came with Sam on the tour bus. When we arrived at the hotel, we were confused because Sean had told us that everything was in her room that needed to be set up, except nothing was there. I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. Gage and I went back to my room to wait for them to arrive.”

“Interesting,” Ellis considered. “So, he sends you ahead before you can even see her after the show, and once you get there, nothing he said was there.”

“Definitely sounds out of place,” one of the detectives said from across the room. “Are you sure he isn’t the perp here?”

Lacey shrugged her shoulders. “We’ve known Sean forever. I just can’t see him doing anything to harm Sam.”

“Is he in love with her?” Ellis asked.

“I think everyone has been in love with Sam at one time or another,” Gage answered, looking at him pointedly. “Lacey, what do you think? Was he in love with her?”

“I hadn’t seen him in quite a while until we left last night and I joined them. He was very attentive to her, but I don’t know…”

“I saw pictures of them that the news took, after I left,” Ellis said. “I know what a man looks like when he’s in love. Sean had it bad for her.”

Lacey stared at him. “Is that so.” He knew that she saw right through him.

The phone rang, and the room full of detectives jumped to attention, ready to trace the call. They figured that if someone really had her, it was only a matter of time before someone called asking for something. Mike, the head detective, nodded, and Samuel answered the phone.

Ellis could hear the loud voice from across the room, and saw Samuel’s brow furrow. “Brian? What’s the matter? I can’t understand you.” Brian had been kept up to date on the situation all night, and was planning to arrive in Baton Rouge later that day to help with the investigation.

“Hold on, Brian, I’m putting you on speakerphone. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can.” Ellis had never heard someone’s voice sound so terrified.

“What’s going on?”

“I-I think I know what happened to them,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “I just broke into Sean’s apartment. Samuel, I’m so sorry…”

“What the hell are you talking about? Brian, talk.” Samuel commanded, and Ella immediately started crying.

“This is all my fault. Everything is my fault. I don’t know what told me to go over to his apartment, but oh my god, Samuel. He has pictures, newspaper articles, magazines of her
everywhere
. It’s like he has a shrine. He has the locations, times, and travel details of all of Sam’s stops, as well as the layouts and security areas in all of the arenas. He must’ve hacked into my computer and gotten them. I swear I would never give anyone anything…”

“What else did you find?” Ellis broke in. He felt like he was going to throw up. It was him all along. He had made them look like incompetent idiots. He had spent hours around this freak, and never figured it out. Ellis had
walked away and left her in his arms.
How many more things would he screw up in regards to her?

“I searched the history on his computer. I found information on you, Ellis, and your ex, Mandy, your son, and Carl. He had information on dosage for drugging someone unconscious. I also found correspondence between him and Tanner Bauer. I have no idea why he would’ve left all of this unless he wants us to know what he did. I think he’s proud of himself.”

“He was part of everything,” Ellis said.

“It looks like he was let go from the Nashville PD several months ago,” Brian continued. “I’m going to call over there and see what I can find out about why. He’s been lying to all of us, all this time. I’m so sorry, Samuel. I had no idea, and I had him take over for me when Amelia was sick…”

“Amelia,” Ellis and Samuel said at the same time. “Do you think he had something to do with that?”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” Brian admitted. “I’m going to see if I can find any more information on where he may be. I’m taking his hard drive to my buddy who’s a computer whiz. I’ll keep you updated on anything I find out. What’s your plan? Are you staying in Baton Rouge?”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Samuel’s voice cracked. “My daughter has been
taken by him!
What if she’s hurt? She
trusted him!
We all trusted him,” Samuel paced, his eyes looking wildly at the people in the room. “We need to see if we get any leads before we decide to travel anywhere. And I have to deal with calling Oklahoma and telling them she’s not making it. I may have to call a few of her tour stops and do some explaining. I’m really hoping we get to the bottom of this and get her back by then.” Samuel buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with the sobs he had tried to contain. It was all Ellis could do to contain his own tears. They had to find her.

Ellis paced the room, wracking his brain. There had to be something that he left as a clue. “Samuel, what about Tanner?”

“What about him?”

“Well, it seems like he took the fall for Sean. So what’s to stop him from rolling over on him now? It could be a lot better for him if he cooperated.”

Samuel thought for a moment. “Call the Knoxville PD. Let me see if I can find that card that the detective gave me when Sam was done with her statement.” He handed it to Ellis. “Worth a try, I guess.”

“We have to try any lead we can,” Ellis explained. “If we ever want to see her again.”

He got on the phone, waiting to be transferred several times before he got the lead detective on the phone. “Vince, Ellis Warner, representing Samantha Kerrigan. Have you heard what’s happened?”

“Yes, I have Ellis. Anything I can help with? Do you have any leads to where she is?”

“We think it’s her bodyguard, Sean, who has her. There are some things about him not adding up, and it starts with Tanner Bauer. Is he still in your jail, or has he been transferred out yet?”

“He’s still here. You mean he was in on this with her bodyguard? Wow, this is the kind of stuff you see in a movie.”

“I’m in Baton Rouge, but I’m going to fly into Knoxville as soon as I can with her dad and the rest of our security team. Can I see him as soon as I arrive?”

“Absolutely. I’ll do whatever I can to help. Just call me when you know times and we’ll arrange to pick you up at the airport.”

Ellis thanked him and hung up. “Let’s get a flight to Knoxville as soon as possible. If Tanner Bauer knows anything, we’re going to find out.” He turned to the detectives that had been so helpful here in Baton Rouge. “I guess we’re moving out, guys. Thanks so much for everything.”

They shook hands, each of them saying that if there was anything they could do here in Baton Rouge, to let them know. Sam’s team quickly packed up. Lacey was arranging flights for everyone, including herself. She wasn’t going home with her best friend missing.

His phone rang and he saw it was Carl. “Carl.”

“What’s the latest?”

“We’re heading to Knoxville to try to get Tanner to roll over on Sean. We’ve gotten some intel that says it’s him that took her.”

“Her bodyguard? Brian’s son?”

Ellis sighed. “Yes. I was so stupid, Carl. I hung out with this guy. I never had a clue.”

“He’s probably a sociopath,” Carl reasoned. “I’m going to catch a flight there if that’s okay with you.”

“That would be great. Samuel and I can use all of the brainpower we can. Andrew is waiting until we get some idea where Sam might be, then he’s going to get a team together.”

“I’ll call you once I know when my flight will be there. We’ll find her, El.”

A lump formed in his throat, and he struggled to work around it. “I can’t lose her,” he whispered.

“You won’t,” Carl declared. “You’re going to have a whole team looking for her. And one man in love is better than twenty regular men.”