“Bet you didn’t expect this, did you, Diana? It’s me. I’m back.” Antonette stared at Diana, every word she said full of hatred.
Diana looked at Antonette coldly. Brian had told her that it was Antonette who was responsible for the plan to attack her and Abby.
Thank god Abby isn’t with me now, she thought.
Antonette grabbed Diana’s jaw and forced her to face the window. They were directly opposite the Anderson’s Drugstore.
“Diana, can you imagine how disgusted I feel every time I see you from here?” Antonette hissed.
Antonette’s grip was painful, but Diana said nothing. Her silence made Antonette angry, and she slapped Diana in the face.
“That is for what you did to me before!”
Antonette could not forget how Diana had slapped her in front of everyone during the meeting.
“I thought you would have been trying to forget that day,” Diana sneered.
“Oh, I will never forget it.”
“Have you ever thought about why I hit you?” Diana asked.
Antonette was excited about the question and said ferociously, “Why? I don’t know why. Ever since I was born, I have lived in darkness. But what about you? You have only known to love your whole life. Everyone I ever loved loves you more than me. Why? Are you better than me?”
Diana looked at her with sympathy.
Antonette grabbed her around her neck and said with anger, “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity.”
“Antonette, I feel sorry for you,” Diana said emotionlessly.
Antonette suddenly burst out laughing.
“It’s all because of you. Diana, I won’t let you get away with it.”
After calming herself down for a moment, Antonette pulled out a long rope from a corner of the room and tied Diana up.
“What are you going to do?” Diana asked.
“You will know soon enough.”
“Antonette, I’m telling you, whatever you are planning, this is a mistake. You will regret it.”
Antonette was getting impatient with Diana’s backchat. She took out a piece of duct tape and covered Diana’s mouth.
“Shut up! Brian won’t let you stay here alone. He will look for you. And I will kill both of you.”
Though Diana’s mouth was covered, her muffled screams could still be heard as she stared wildly at Antonette.
“You are too noisy.” Antonette was fed up and hit Diana around the head with a brick, sending Diana tumbling to the floor, unconscious.
After the meeting, it was already dusk. Brian took out his phone to check with Diana what she was doing. However, he found several missed calls from the kindergarten. He called them back straight away.
“Hello?”
“What’s the matter with you? You are the parents of this child. It is one and a half hours after class. I called her mother, but no one answered. Neither did you.”
“Diana didn’t pick up Abby?”
“I cannot get in touch with her. Could you please come and take Abby home?” The teacher was not in a good mood.
Brian drove to the kindergarten as fast as he could. There, he found Abby, she looked tired and anxious.
The teacher should have been home hours ago, so she was understandably angry.
“I’m so sorry!” Brian apologized.
Since Brian looked well to do and apologized sincerely, the teacher didn’t say anything more.
Now, Brian was really worried. Abby was the most important thing in Diana’s world. She would never leave Abby alone in the kindergarten. Even if she had something on, she would ask somebody else to pick her up.
“Something bad must have happened to her,” Brian thought. He took out his phone and called her immediately.
Antonette saw there was someone calling Diana’s phone. She picked it up.
“Hello, Diana, where are you?” Brian asked with concern.
But there was no answer, what was going on?
“Diana, hello? Why don’t you say something?”
“Hello,” Antonette answered.
Brian frowned. “Who is this?”
“Hi, brother, don’t you remember me? You have been searching for me for such a long time.”
“Antonette, what have you done?!”
“Half an hour. If you didn’t find me in half an hour, I would kill Diana.”
Then, the line went silent; that was all Antonette willing to reveal. She had spoken in such an evil tone, she truly sounded scary, even to Brian. But he had no idea where she was! How could he find her in half an hour?
“Dad Brian, why didn’t Mummy come to pick me up?”
Brian tried his best to calm himself down and comfort Abby.
“Abby, Daddy, has an important thing to do, so I’m going to take you somewhere to stay for a while, okay?”
Abby nodded obediently and asked, “Dad Brian, will you bring Mummy back?”
“Of course,” Brian answered firmly. He would get Diana back if it was the last thing he did.
However, now he had a further problem. Who could he ask to take care of Abby?
Sybil received the call from Brian while she was watching cartoons with Aaron. She was a little surprised; he hardly ever called.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Sybil, I need your help,” Brian said in a hurry.
Sybil, with Ken by her side, went to the place that Brian told them.
“What’s wrong?” Sybil asked when she arrived, out of breath.
It was lucky that it was not far from where Sybil lived in kindergarten.
When Brian caught sight of them, he handed Abby to them, and hurriedly explained, “Please take good care of her. I will pick her up soon.”
Since Brian was so anxious, Sybil asked Ken to accompany him.
Ken had no idea what happened, but he followed Brian to the police station in silence.
“What are we doing here?” Ken finally asked.
But Brian didn’t answer. He kept going up the stairs, into the office of Detective Shields. The detective happened to be in the middle of an important meeting, however, Brian didn’t care one bit.
“Mr. William, what are you doing here?”
“Detective, I need your help, it’s urgent.”
The detective had known Brian for quite a while. Since Brian was evidently rather concerned, he knew something unusual must have happened. So without hesitation, he excused himself from the meeting and stepped outside.
“What happened?”
Brian grabbed him worriedly and said, “Detective Shields, please, help me track a phone number.”
Brian handed Diana’s number to him.
“The owner of this number was kidnapped. Please help me find her as soon as possible.” Brian had lost his usual cool; this was real panic.
The detective went straight to his computer, and after a short while, he located Diana’s position.
Brian was surprised to see the location was right by his company!