It wasn’t there.
Of course, it wasn’t there.
With hate-filled eyes, he looked across to the dining table and could see the contents of his pockets gracing the top.
“What do you want?” Ryan ground out, beginning to feel the effects of the blood loss.
“I want this ridiculous game of cat and mouse to end,” Edwards replied. “It’s been fun, I’ll admit. Don’t think I haven’t enjoyed knowing that you were always a few steps behind me, plodding along in your interminable way, but I want to regain my freedom. A bird needs its wings to be able to fly freely.”
He smiled genially.
“Get out.”
“Tut, tut. After all the time you’ve spent hunting me, I would have thought you’d be rather more welcoming. If I hadn’t invited myself over, who knows when you might eventually have found me?”
“Oh, excuse me,” Ryan gritted between panting breaths as he continued his painstaking journey across the carpet. “Welcome.”
“That’s better.”
Edwards strolled across to one of the dining chairs and dragged it towards Natalie. He seated himself beside her, crossing one elegant, suit-clad leg over the other.
“Get away from her!”
Ryan tried to heave himself upwards and cried out in frustration when his body would not cooperate.
“Calm yourself,” Edwards snapped, trailing a finger over Natalie’s unconscious cheek. “She should be coming around anytime now, so we’ll have a nice little chat, the three of us.”
“Not her,” Ryan muttered, fisting his hands. “Please. Not her.”
Edwards raised an eyebrow.
“I bet that hurt your pride, just a little. The mighty DCI Ryan reduced to begging … on his knees.”
“I’ll beg, if that’s what you want. I’m begging you now. Don’t kill her.”
Edwards sighed dramatically.
“You don’t understand, do you? You must have known that I would be following your movements, just as closely as you followed mine. By having her here, you placed her in front of me like an offering. A challenge to the brave. You must have known I would not be able to resist her.”
Edwards trailed another finger over Natalie’s bare thigh, dressed only in short pyjamas that she had obviously worn for bed.
“She’s a real beauty, this one.”
Ryan felt bile rise in his throat.
“Take me, instead.”
“Oh, I will.”
Edwards turned to give Natalie a couple of sharp slaps. Her head lolled around her shoulders as she struggled to the surface again. He drew out a long, surgical knife and flicked the end of it, preparing himself for the next stage.
“No!”
Ryan dragged himself across the carpet and Edwards watched with the open-eyed stare of someone viewing a strange oddity.
“Save your energy,” he remarked. “You may need it.”
“My team are on their way,” Ryan shouted at him, but wondered where the hell they could be. It had been more than eight minutes, surely.
Edwards smiled, pleased with himself.
“I rang them again and explained there had been a false alarm,” he said. “We really do sound very alike, you and I, and you had given your passcode in such a helpful way earlier.”
Ryan felt hope drain from him.
Natalie’s large grey eyes flickered open, her long lashes sweeping upwards until her gaze locked onto Edwards’. Confusion and terror played across her features and she looked away, meeting Ryan’s desperate face across the room.
In that moment, Ryan knew. He read the acceptance, the dreadful knowledge of what was to come.
“No!” Frantically, he dragged himself forward again, like a dead weight.
“Say ‘Goodbye’, now,” Edwards chuckled.
The blood pounded in Ryan’s ears and a scream broke free as he watched the man tug Natalie’s long hair back, exposing the slim column of her throat. The silver knife swept a graceful line across it and a river of red gushed forth, fanning a warm arc over Ryan’s upturned face.
Ryan jerked upright in bed with a shout, his fists bunched in the duvet and the pillow soaked in a mixture of sweat and tears.
Anna sat beside him, fully awake, with a look of extreme concern on her face. She held his forearms firmly, to steady him.
“Ryan? I’ve been trying to wake you. It was a nightmare – a bad one, by the sound of it,” her voice was soft and mellow, barely above a whisper. She had turned on the small lamp beside the bed, so that he would not waken in darkness.
Ryan said nothing straight away, but rubbed a shaking hand over his face. He looked across at the bedside clock.
Three-fifteen.
Hours left of the night and he was awake, without any desire to return to the world he had just left.