The Unseen Enemy Series

Chapter 259

“Yes. About eight years ago, right at the beginning of the whole divorce, Gus flipped out. He – he started to follow me home from the grocery store and the park. He stood under the apartment window and shouted at me. He called me a thousand times a day.”

“He stalked you.”

“Basically. The police said that they couldn’t do anything until he actually did me harm – this was before the anti-stalker laws had any real teeth, you know.”

Sully tensed up. Yeah, he remembered those f*****g days all too well, back when stalkers were considered jokes, and being stalked was even thought of as a twisted form of flattery. Jessica and his baby had died because the police had underestimated the threat against them.

And so did I.

Wrenching his mind away from his wife and unborn child, he listened to Cordelia.

“Anyway, Gus broke into the apartment at about two o’clock in the morning and took Sean out of his crib. I heard him and tried to stop him, but…” She stopped talking and looked away.

He held her closer. “But what?”

“He hit me hard enough to knock me to the floor. I didn’t pass out, but I couldn’t seem to get up, either. All I could do was lie there paralyzed, and watch him walk right out the door with Sean.” She swallowed hard. “He was screaming for me, just screaming like I’d never heard him before. I thought that would be my last memory of my son.”

“How long did Gus have him?”

“Nine days.” Cordelia glanced up at Hunter. “Oh, I know… it’s not that long. I mean, so many kids have been missing for months, for years. Look at the fifty-three kids the cops found in that bust, right? Most of them had been missing for six months, at least.” She was running her fingers over his chest now, just absent-mindedly tracing the curve of the muscle. “But I can tell you, Hunter, I didn’t breathe for those nine days that I didn’t know where my baby was.”

He nodded, his whole body tight with anger for her. “I know, sweetheart.”

“They tracked Gus down, obviously, and they got Sean back. I’ll never forget that moment when they told me that he was OK. I’d been so sure that Gus was going to kill him and then kill himself, to punish me for the divorce. The relief, Hunter, you just – you wouldn’t believe it. My legs gave out under me, and I started to cry like a crazy woman.”

“Yeah.” He’d seen that same reaction in clients that he was protecting when they were told that their stalker had finally been caught. Relief and hysteria and disbelief.

She was quiet now, her head on his broad chest, just touching him. He let her, not seeing any need to push. She’d talk more when she was ready.

“That was when I got the gun,” she said suddenly. “Gus was out on bail and waiting trial, and I just couldn’t f*****g believe it, you know? Like, what did he have to do to get the cops to take our safety seriously? So I decided to protect myself, to protect my child. I promised myself that if he ever came near me or Sean again, I’d shoot him in the d**k and take my time calling the cops.”

Sully actually laughed out loud. “Did he ever come back?”

“No. No, he stood trial and was sent away for twenty-five years.”

Sully was stunned. “For one count of child kidnapping?”

Cordelia gave a bitter laugh. “Oh. No. The whole reason that I divorced Gus in the first place was because I'd discovered that he was involved in drugs. Turns out, he’d also killed a competitor. So that’s what he went to jail for, in the end… drug dealing and murder.”

“s**t, Cordelia. When you said he wasn’t a great guy, you weren’t kidding.”

“Yeah. He’s eligible for parole in ten years, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave one second before he’s served his full sentence.”

“Good girl.”

She smiled at that; she hadn’t thought of herself as a ‘girl’ in ages. It was endearingly cute when Hunter said it, though.