“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Enough to come to me willingly?”
This time. The words hang in the air between us.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. Your threats against my family, they . . . your threats scare me. You scare me.”
There, I admitted my worst fear to my tormentor. His next words send a new wave of fear crashing through me.
“My enemy is my enemy, or is he my friend in disguise, drawing me out from beneath my guise?”
A riddle. Or is he speaking the truth? Am I Blaise McCabe, Cillian’s child? Is my kidnapper a mind-reader, or does he know and understand me better than I do?
“Do I know you?”
“At one point in your life, we knew one another so intimately you gave me the gift of time.”
Gift of time? I can’t recall knowing anyone so well that I gave them time. Time for what? God, this guy is off his rocker.
“When? When did we know one another?”
Silence, but I can feel him smiling on the other end of the line. The line goes dead, and I drop the phone onto the floor, too scared to throw off the covers, dress, and face the world alone.
