Christmas Hostage (Christmas Romantic Suspense Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Christmas Hostage

  Jane Blythe

  Copyright © 2017 Jane Blythe

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Bear Spots Publications

  Melbourne Australia

  [email protected]

  Paperback

  ISBN: 0-9945380-6-5

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9945380-6-2

  Cover designed by QDesigns

  I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in bringing this story to life. Particularly my mom who is always there to share her thoughts and opinions with me. My awesome cover designer, Amy, who whips up covers for me so quickly and who patiently makes every change I ask for, and there are usually lots of them! And my lovely editor Mitzi Carroll, and proofreader Marisa Nichols, for all their encouragement and for all the hard work they put into polishing my work.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  DECEMBER 18th

  7:11 P.M.

  These long days were going to kill her.

  Well, not really, but Hannah was so tired. Running a business on her own was a lot more work than she’d ever thought it would be. And she had thought it would be a lot of work. Still, she wouldn’t change a single thing. She was living her dream. Work wise at least.

  Her personal life was pretty much a mess.

  “That’s everything in the safe, Hannah.”

  “Already? You guys are so quick. Thanks, Jeff; you’re a lifesaver.” Hannah smiled up at the older man. She was so grateful she had him; he worked hard and he’d filled in the occasional time she got sick and couldn’t make it in. If she didn't have Jeff Shields, she didn't think she could make her business the success it was.

  “You should go home early tonight,” he told her.

  “Maybe,” she nodded noncommittally.

  Jeff laughed. “You’re not going to, are you?”

  “I have so much work to do.” Running a jewelry store was busy enough as it was, but it was a week out from Christmas, and things had been crazy. She’d been working from six in the morning until nine or ten at night, every night, then driving home in a fog to eat and collapse into bed before getting up and doing it all over again. Still, there was only one more week to go until Christmas. Then, after all the holiday hoopla calmed down, things would quiet down a little before picking up again in the lead up to Valentine’s Day.

  “You’re going to burn yourself out.” Jeff’s brown eyes were full of concern.

  So, what? she thought to herself. There was no one to worry about her if she did. And besides, when she kept herself busy, she kept herself out of the dark place that used to consume her. She wasn't going back there. Ever. So, she focused all her energy on her work, and it was paying off. Her store was booming.

  “Do you want me to go pick up something for you to eat for dinner and drop it off before I go home?” Jeff offered.

  “That’s so sweet, but . . .” Hannah trailed off as movement on the CCTV screen caught her eye.

  Then she froze.

  Jeff’s gaze followed hers, and he gasped.

  Two armed men in balaclavas had just walked through the front door of the store.

  Hannah’s every instinct clambered at her to run and hide, to flee to safety. But she and Jeff weren’t the only ones here. Her other employee, nineteen-year-old Vincent Zimmerman, was still in the workroom. Her office was at the back of the store, but the workroom was between it and the main storeroom. If she didn't warn Vincent and get him back here where they could escape out the back door, then the armed robbers would get him.

  “Hannah, no.” Jeff grabbed for her arm as she ran past him.

  She shook him off. She couldn’t stay here and let Vincent get hurt. How would she live with herself if he was killed?

  Triggering the silent alarm that would bring the police running and ignoring the back door that led to safety, Hannah threw open the office door and froze again.

  She was too late.

  The two men stood in her workroom.

  Her vision tunneled until all it saw were the guns in their hands.

  She had a massive phobia of guns.

  They terrified her.

  Paralyzed her.

  She would have bolted from the room regardless of the consequences if only she had control of her body.

  “What's the code to the safe?”

  Hannah heard the words, but she couldn’t seem to make sense of them. In her head, they got all muddled up, then finally put themselves back together.

  The code.

  They wanted the code.

  If she gave it to them, then they’d just take what they wanted and leave.

  She tried to say the numbers, but her mouth refused to form the words.

  “The code,” one of the men growled, pointing his gun at Vincent.

  “I don’t know, man, I don’t know,” Vincent whimpered. “Only she does.” He gestured at her.

  “What’s the code, lady?”

  She wanted to answer.

  She really did.

  Her mouth moved but no sound came out.

  Her stock wasn't worth someone’s life. Diamonds, gold, rubies, emeralds, sapphires—it wasn't anything her insurance wouldn’t cover.

  Panic was swimming inside her, filling her up, growing exponentially by the second. They were going to shoot Vincent if she didn't say something.

  “What is the code?”

  The taller of the two men stalked toward her, and she began to shake in fear. Now was not the time to let her phobia of guns turn her into a mute. She had to tell them. Then they could take what they wanted and leave before anyone got hurt.

  “Do you want me to blow your brains out?” The man yanked her up against a chest as solid as steel and rammed the gun into her temple.

  She knew what the cold, smooth metal of a gun barrel felt like against her bare flesh.

  She had felt it before, barely making it through that night alive, and now, she feared this time she wouldn’t be so lucky.

  “Just shoot her,” the other man said.

  “Then how are we gonna get the code?” the one pressing a gun to her head snapped.

  “Shoot her in the foot, and see if that makes her talk.”

  Hannah whimpered and her shaking intensified.

  “You hear that, lady?” The man shoved the gun into her temple so hard she knew it would leave a bruise, which would be the least of her problems if they started firing it. “You don’t tell us the code in the next five seconds, I’m gonna shoot you in the leg. Then I'm gonna shoot you in the other leg. Then I'm gonna move on to your arms. Get the idea?” he snarled.

  “One,
two,” the other man started counting as though this were all just some big joke to them.

  Tell them, Hannah commanded herself.

  “Three, four.”

  Now, they were about to start shooting.

  “I’ll tell you the code.”

  Jeff appeared in the doorway of the office. She’d thought he had escaped out the back door and gotten to safety. Why hadn’t he gone? Now they were going to kill him, too. Jeff didn't know the code to the safe where they stored the most expensive jewelry overnight. She was the only one who did. That had always seemed like the safest option. Now that decision might cost all of them their lives.

  “What's the code, old man?” the robber holding her asked, digging the gun harder against her temple.

  “It’s seven, two, nine, five,” Jeff replied.

  “Open it.” The man finally moved the gun from her head, and Hannah sighed in relief.

  That relief was short lived.

  When they tried to open the safe and found the code Jeff had given them didn't work, they were going to start shooting.

  Why had Jeff come in here?

  He should have run when he had the chance.

  Now he was going to die, too.

  All because she couldn’t speak.

  “It didn't work.” The man at the safe turned back to his partner.

  “You think you can lie to us, old man?” The gun was shoved against her ribcage, and Hannah prepared herself to die.

  The bang was amplified in her head.

  She waited for the accompanying shaft of agony.

  Only it didn't come.

  Then she realized why.

  Jeff was on the floor, a bright red patch of blood blooming on his chest.

  They hadn’t shot her; instead, they’d shot her friend.

  He was dying.

  She had to do something or Vincent would be next.

  Then she heard the most magical sound in the world.

  Sirens.

  Growing louder.

  Getting closer.

  Help was coming.

  It would arrive any second.

  Seemingly realizing this, the two men cursed, and then she was released and they were fleeing through the office.

  With the gun out of sight, Hannah regained control of her body and flung herself down next to Jeff. Was he still alive? She pressed her fingertips to his neck and felt his pulse thumping steadily beneath them.

  “Get me something to stop the bleeding,” she screamed to Vincent who still stood in the same place he’d been in when the armed robbers burst in. “Vince, something to stop the bleeding,” she repeated, then added more gently, “they’re gone.”

  The teenager blinked slowly, his dark eyes two big saucers in his pale face. Then he nodded slowly and left the room.

  Hannah whipped her attention back to Jeff; he was paler than Vincent, and his breath was wheezing in and out. He couldn’t die. She would never forgive herself if he died because of her. Why hadn’t she just answered the robbers and given them the code? Her phobia could have gotten her killed. Her and two other innocent people.

  “Here.” Vincent dropped a coat at her side.

  She snatched it up and pressed it hard against Jeff’s wound. She was rewarded with a groan of pain and prayed that meant he was going to live. It had to be a good thing, right? He was conscious enough to feel pain. And help was almost here. They would rush Jeff to the hospital and fix him. Save him. He wasn't going to die. He wasn't. He couldn’t.

  “Move out of the way, ma’am.”

  Large hands gently clasped hers and pulled them away from Jeff’s chest, then moved to her shoulders and pulled her to her feet.

  She hadn’t heard the cops arrive.

  She was pushed carefully to the side as the two officers began to perform first aid.

  As she stared at Jeff’s still face, everything else faded around her.

  All she thought about was willing him to keep breathing.

  Her face was wet with tears. She could feel them falling like drops of ice down her cold cheeks. Her hands were wet and sticky with Jeff’s blood. Her entire body trembled.

  The wait for the EMTs felt like an eternity.

  Eventually, they arrived. They tended to Jeff’s wound, started an IV, checked his vitals, and bundled him onto a stretcher and out of the store.

  She stared after them.

  Maybe people were talking to her. Maybe they were asking her if she was all right. Maybe they were asking her what had happened. She wasn't really sure.

  Her legs could no longer support her, and Hannah’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor.

  * * * * *

  8:32 P.M.

  “Are you sure the owner of the shop’s name is Hannah Buffy?” Special Agent Tom Drake asked his partner.

  Chloe rolled her eyes at him. “Yes. Just like I was sure the last five million times you asked. Why? Who is Hannah Buffy?”

  Tom just shook his head.

  Hannah was long gone, no longer part of his life, and this woman had to be someone else who just happened to share her name.

  “This is the fifth burglary in the last month,” Chloe said, assuming he wasn't going to elaborate on who Hannah was.

  “They’re getting bolder,” he said, pushing all thoughts of Hannah from his mind. “This is the first time they hurt someone.”

  “It is. And they didn't even get hardly anything,” Chloe said. “First cops on the scene said they fled with only a handful of jewelry.”

  “Could mean they’re going to hit another store sooner rather than later,” he said as he parked the car among the many others outside a small jewelry store. If it weren’t for the half a dozen cop cars, crime scene truck, and ambulance, the strip mall would have been beautiful. It was full of high-end stores where a pair of jeans cost more than he made in a month, and with what you’d pay for even the cheapest meal at any of the restaurants, he could have fed himself and his entire extended family for the week. The stores were quaint, and the street was lined with trees, which had been strung with hundreds of fairy lights. Snowflakes were fluttering in the air, covering everything with a light dusting of snow.

  Hannah had loved Christmastime. He wondered if she still did or if, like with him, nothing had been the same since things between them ended.

  Deliberately, Tom ordered himself to stop thinking about Hannah. He hadn’t in months, it was just hearing her name that had brought back the memories.

  No, that was a lie.

  He thought about her every day.

  Every. Single. Day.

  But this wasn't about Hannah.

  He was here to do his job.

  Nothing more, nothing less.

  Then he walked inside.

  And came face-to-face with the woman whose grip on his heart he had never been able to loosen.

  He had known that it couldn’t be anyone else. He’d been clinging to the delusion that this had nothing to do with her, but how many women named Hannah Buffy could there be who owned a jewelry store? Of course, it was her.

  Hannah was sitting on the floor, in a corner of the room, her eyes closed, her head resting back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face was pale, and her long dark auburn hair hung around her shoulders. She was wearing a black dress that clung to her frame—which was thinner than the last time he’d see her—and black, knee-high boots.

  Even from across the room, he could see the blood on her hands and the tear tracks on her cheeks.

  Blood.

  His eyes zeroed in and locked onto it.

  The sight of blood didn't bother him.

  Unless it was on Hannah.

  That he couldn’t stand.

  That made him sick to his stomach.

  That made him want to tear his hair out and find who was responsible for putting the blood on her and then rip them to shreds.

  “Why didn't someone clean her up?” he demanded.

  “She won't let anyone go near her,”
the closest cop replied.

  Tonight would have been traumatic enough being held at gunpoint, but given Hannah’s history, it would have been infinitely more horrifying. Just knowing what she had been put through had his heart thumping painfully in his chest. “Has an EMT checked her out?”

  “No. They tried, she refused. She hasn’t done anything but sit there and cry.”

  “You know her,” Chloe said quietly.

  Tom nodded. He knew Hannah very well, indeed. And he wasn't letting her sit there and relive the trauma that had torn them apart any longer.

  He walked over and stood above her. She didn't notice him. Just sat there. Alone. Trapped in memories. He didn't have to ask her to know what she would be thinking about.

  “Hannah,” he said softly.

  Her eyes popped open, and she looked up at him, her mouth falling open in shock. Tom loved those eyes. Depending on her mood they could be as bright a blue as the sky on a hot summer’s day, green like the ocean, or a bleak, desolate gray. Right now, they were gray, representing the atmosphere around them. She stared at him for a long moment then squeezed her eyes closed and opened them again, apparently, wondering if he were nothing more than an apparition. As though she may have conjured him up right out of her mind. He knew seeing him again was as big a shock for her as it was for him to see her.

  Up close, Tom could see a bruise forming on her temple. A round circle of black and blue. It was the barrel of the gun. It may have been three years since they'd divorced, but Tom felt the familiar rush of protective rage flash through him at the thought of anyone hurting Hannah.

  Quickly, his gaze skimmed her body in search of any other injuries. She hadn’t been checked out by a paramedic so there could be injuries they didn't know about yet. He didn't see anything else other than the blood on her dress as well as her hands, but he assumed the blood was her employee’s. When the first cops arrived on the scene they had found Hannah on her knees beside the older gentleman, keeping pressure on his gunshot wound.

  Although she appeared to be mostly uninjured, what he was most concerned about was her going into shock. Tremors wracked her body in a constant steady stream. Tom shrugged out of his coat, but when he bent down to drape it over her shoulders, she shrunk away from him.