Page 99 of Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad World

“They must have sedated her,” Noah said, more to himself than his partner. “Wouldn’t have been able to get her out of the building if they hadn’t. She’d have screamed the place down.”

“Sedation would be the most efficient way of dealing with the situation, yes.” Rochelle sped through traffic like a Formula One driver taking curves.

Noah remembered, yet again, that she’d once been in medicine. “What are we talking here? An injection? A pill?”

“Could be as simple as something slipped into her coffee.”

He swallowed hard. “Is it possible they could have accidentally given her too much?”

She glanced his way before concentrating on the road again. “You mean an accidental overdose?”

“Yeah.” It was stupid and irrational, but part of him just wanted Rochelle to reassure him that Annabelle was indeed alive and well.

“Unlikely,” Rochelle said. “Think about all the people dosed with date rape drugs every year. One pill is all it takes. Same with most sedatives. A hefty sleeping pill could knock her out in a minute or two. All you’d have to do is grind one up and slip it into her food or drink.”

“Wouldn’t she taste it?”

“Not if it was in that crap coffee the boys make.”

Noah could barely see the road in front of them past the images in his head—Annabelle drugged and bound, or squashed into that small, dark space, or worse still, her coming round to find she was no longer in the warehouse. That her worst fear had come into being. That she’d been kidnapped—again—and taken away from the safety she so desperately needed.

“She’s still alive, Noah,” Rochelle said quietly. “If he’d wanted her dead straight away, we’d have found a body. No matter how eager the mole is to stay undiscovered, I can’timagine they’d have said no to Eddie Hanson if he’d ordered them to kill.”

“Yeah, but how long will she stay alive once he gets his hands on her?” His stomach knotted until all he could taste was fear. “You heard Rodrigo and Abasi—they’re the gang experts. Eddie can’t afford for his case to go to trial. Heneedsto eliminate the witness.”

“There’s a lot going on for him,” Rochelle said as she gripped the wheel tightly. “He may not be thinking straight. We have no idea what his priorities are or what he’ll do next. Right now, Annabelle is alive, and we’re not that far behind her. That’s all that matters. Concentrate on that.”

He nodded, once. But the dark thoughts filling his head wouldn’t go away.

“I’ve only just found her,” he whispered. He couldn’t lose another woman he loved… he just couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Noah lifted his chin, staring out at the road. “Wewillget her back,” he vowed.

“Hell yes, we will,” Rochelle agreed.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Annabelle’s head was filled with syrup, her thoughts sticky and hard to grasp in the thick, gloopy mess that coated her mind. But her instincts were working slightly better. And they were screaming that something was wrong.

Her limbs felt encased in lead, her body contorted into an almost fetal position. All she wanted was to sleep, to sink into that glorious marshmallow place where everything was fuzzy and soft and safe.

But that wasn’t right.

Now wasn’t the time to sleep. And this need to succumb wasn’t natural. In fact, it was frightening. And familiar. She’d felt this way before. She scrunched up her eyes and tried to recall when she’d felt like this. The medicine! She’d been sick. That had made her feel dopey, she remembered, but as soon as the thought rose to the foreground, it sank back beneath the syrupy thickness in her mind. Below that thought swam another. One buried far deeper. Of a time, long ago, when she’d been forced to sleep…

It was so hot.

The air was dense and hard to breathe. Annabelle wrestled for control of her body, trying to find a position thatmade breathing easier. But her limbs refused to move. All communication between her addled brain and the rest of her had been cut.

With Herculean effort, she managed to crack open her eyes. All she could see was darkness. Thick, inky, black darkness.

It made no sense.

A spike of panic assailed her before, just as quickly, she succumbed to the syrupy miasma that dulled her senses.

There were voices. Far, far away, in the back of her foggy mind, she heard voices.