Alec Hardy goes to Gracepoint

Chapter 10

Alec is on his own

After Rose had left his room to get changed and speak to her step-dad, Alec had a quick wash and shave and had just got dressed when a tap came on the door. He thought it was Rose that had been unable to stay away from him but it was a man at the door. Alec of course didn't recognise him but the man appeared to know him or think he did know him as Alec unceremoniously got shoved back through the door being called Carver. The man had a gun pointed at him and told him to stay quiet and Alec just stood there as the man looked around to make sure no-one else was in the room.

"Where's your girlfriend Carver? I know you have one, that blonde dame with the English accent, I saw the two of you enter the hotel last night so where is she?" The man shoved the gun into Alec's abdomen and he was just glad he'd not pointed it higher, at his heart.

"She's gone back to her room but listen, I'm not Carver so put the gun away and I'll show you my passport, I'm just a British citizen on holiday here with my girlfriend, I'm writing a book." He was glad his Police ID was still in the bedside drawer, it wouldn't do to show this madman he was also a cop.

"Don't lie to me Carver, I know who you are and you're fooling no-one with that accent. Now get your jacket on and walk in front of me to the back stairs and don't try anything funny, I'll have you covered." The man motioned with the gun for Alec to open the door and waved him to go through it.

Alec couldn't think of anything else to do, except follow his training for these kinds of situations so he walked slowly towards the other set of stairs, not even passing by Rose's room but he'd glanced the man holding the gun on him hadn't quite closed the door properly and Rose would notice it and start raising questions after she found out he wasn't in his room, she would get worried and call Carver or Miller so as they made their way downstairs, Alec kept quiet knowing that antagonizing the man would only make things worse. Once outside, Alec was bundled into the back seat of a waiting car and once the doors were locked then the man turned around and produced a pair of handcuffs with one hand and held the gun in the other. Alec didn't dare try anything with a gun pointing at him so he was biding his time for the right opportunity as the man put one part of the handcuffs on Alec's right wrist and reached that arm over and fastened the other part to the door handle.

The man turned around again but as Alec was about to test how strong the handcuffs were he saw him looking in the rear-view mirror and decided against it. Now he was surveying the situation since the man no longer considered him a threat and the car began to move off but instead of going back past the hotel the car turned the corner. Alec had no idea where he was being taken, he didn't know the area and had barely made it to where Rose was yesterday using the satnav built into his rental car but he was taking note of the route. He just hoped Rose had got to his room by now and found out he wasn't there. She was clever, he knew she would notice things weren't right and get some help but he couldn't rely entirely on her but what worried him most was that he hadn't told her yet that he loved her.

Alec counted the minutes they had driven until the car came to a stop, it was around ten, good, it meant they were still fairly local and Carver would still be in charge but he and Miller still had a murder to solve so someone else would be assigned to finding him. Still, one good thing was they wouldn't have trouble with his description and the kidnapper had made one huge mistake, if he wanted Carver then he was out of luck because Carver was still very much at large but Alec knew now that even if the man did discover that he'd got the wrong person, Alec could identify him so he would keep him as a hostage or kill him and he looked too nervous to do that so he didn't think he was dealing with the murderer of the child that had been found, it was more likely this man had a personal grudge against Carver himself – either that or the death of the boy had been accidental and the man was panicking.