“Why would he?” Walt asked, but his eyes were pinched with worry. “I mean, we don’t know anything about him yet, right?”
“Maybe her stalker. But no, he didn’t follow her when she went to that academic conference.” Jakob shook his head. “No, not him. If it was, he would have had to follow us from Frankfurt and…” Jakob let his words trail off. “But his letters have been getting more deranged. She gets at least three a week, but don’t tell her that. And this is the first time in months, a year, Annalise has been anywhere besides her heavily secured house or office at the university.”
“Maybe he’s desperate and he followed her, hoping you would slip up—”
Jakob jerked away from Walt.
“Wait, wait. I didn’t mean it like that.” Walt put a hand on Jakob’s shoulder. “I misspoke. I’m not blaming you.”
“You should. She should. I’m not good enough for her. I should never have touched her.” Jakob was haunted now by the feel of her body under his hands. Could hear the soft sound of her demanding moans.
“Don’t say that.”
“I never kissed her,” Jakob said. “I was going to, but I didn’t…didn’t get to kiss her.” And now he never would.
“Okay, there’s a lot of emotion going on that we need to unpack, but we might have to set some of this aside.” Walt was using his doctor voice again.
Jakob hadn’t kissed her. Why the fuck hadn’t he kissed her? He’d dreamed of kissing her for so long, there was a small part of him that believed he already had. It was as if his dreams of her had morphed into memories of things that had never happened.
He couldn’t lose her. It would kill him.
Vadisk opened the door, holding up a thumb drive. He paused, looking back and forth between them, but before he could say anything, Jakob jerked away from Walt. He grabbed his computer, took the thumb drive from Vadisk, and plugged it in.
He scrolled through the footage. Watched people file out, the sidewalk filling. He saw himself emerge, followed by Annalise and Walt.
And then he saw the blond man. He wore a heavy leather jacket and had a thick winter scarf wrapped around his neck and chin—overkill given the relatively mild daytime weather.
He stood still and focused amid the milling crowd, one arm across his chest, cupping his shoulder. Covering, protecting whatever mechanism he was about to use to incapacitate Jakob.
Then he moved, walking quickly. Just before he reached Jakob, he dropped his hand, and there was a glint at his shoulder, like something metal or…? He angled toward Jakob, crashing into him. Any doubt as to the intentionality of what had happened was gone.
“Get his face,” Vadisk said.
“We need to see if he takes Annalise first,” Jakob countered.
“Get his face and I can start running facial recognition.”
That was a good point. Jakob took a screenshot, quickly transferring it to Vadisk. It wasn’t a full frontal shot. The camera angle meant they had a three-quarter profile shot that showed most of his face, with the bottom of his chin obscured by the scarf. Jakob stared at the screenshot.
Did he recognize the man? Was this the stalker? The serial killer? Someone else? Perhaps someone holding a grudge from Jakob’s past as a BND agent?
Shoving those questions aside, he started the video again. They watched as Walt went to help the injured woman, and then as Annalise guided Jakob to the corner, her body language radiating concern.
She’d said she loved him.
But how could she? Annalise was everything that was good in the world, and he’d done things in his past that would forever leave a black stain on his soul.
“Is there another angle?” Walt asked.
“No,” Vadisk replied. “This camera covers the entrance and is the only one on the front.”
Damn it. He’d picked this place because it had good security, but he’d been looking for physical security in the room setup and access, not checking how many security cameras they had.
The corner was just barely in frame, but it was enough to see as the blond man, now wearing a sweater with no leather jacket or scarf, approached Annalise. She turned to talk to him, then quickly whipped back around to face Jakob when he started to slide down.
That was when the blond man grabbed her. The classic grab, one hand around her middle, the other clamped over her mouth. He was fast, efficient, yanking her backward into the lane. She was gone before Jakob finished collapsing.
She’d been right there, and he hadn’t helped her. Hadn’t even seen her be taken.
A moment later, a tiny Skoda Fabia drove out of the alley, going too fast. It went past the front of the hotel and then disappeared from camera range.
“Partial plate,” Vadisk said. “I’ll run that, and I’ve already started the facial recognition.”
“You’re a police officer?” Walt asked.
“No. But I have access.” Vadisk tapped his phone.
“Check passport control,” Jakob said. “Any German passport holders who entered Poland in the last thirty hours.”
“Oh, you’re a knight, then,” Walt said.
“No.”
Walt sighed. “Do I want to know who you are or what you do?”
“No,” Jakob and Vadisk said in unison.
Ten long, tense minutes later, Vadisk’s phone beeped. He looked at it and grinned. “Got him.”
Chapter Twelve
“I’m so sorry. I don’t want it to be like this.” Her kidnapper’s brow was creased with worry as he put the car in park.
They’d only been driving for thirty minutes, and yet the wooded area where he’d stopped the car felt remote and isolated. They’d traveled on a highway before turning onto a smaller road, and finally this dirt track that took them deep into the woods, where he’d stopped in a large clearing. The sun beat down, warm and happy, but all around them the shadows in the forest were dark. Drifts of snow in those shaded spaces were a stark reminder that it was winter.
That she was alone in the forest with this man.
A caravan, on the other side of the clearing, was hooked to a black compact that looked as new as the shiny silver caravan.
When her kidnapper opened the driver’s door, Annalise took a deep breath and threw her own door open. She’d been quietly plotting and planning during the drive, focusing on that to hold back her panic.
And yet, when he got out, all her careful, calm, rational planning evaporated as her fight-or-flight response clicked firmly into “flight.” It didn’t matter how remote and secluded this place seemed. Didn’t matter that there was still snow on the ground and she didn’t have a coat. They weren’t that far from the highway. All she had to do was make it there and flag down a car.
Her escape attempt was over before it started.
She barely had one foot out the hastily thrown-open door when he was there, looming over her, his brow furrowed. “I would have opened your door for you.”
Annalise nodded slowly, her heart hammering so hard, she felt slightly light-headed. She needed to calm down and remain in control.
His hands were in his pockets. The knife was probably in one pocket, the lancing device in the other. He’d used the knife to get her into the car—there was a hole in her shirt and possibly a small cut to go with it.