The day after the New York Times party, Tate was trying with all her might to put on a brave face for her – thankfully – last public engagement of her trip to the city. All she had to do was get through today, and then she was going back to the hotel, collecting her luggage and taking the first flight back to Boston. She no longer cared what happened to her, or to Josh, who had himself already flown home without so much as a text, or to a certain surly detective-turned-bodyguard. All she wanted was to go home and never have to deal with any of this nonsense again; the very first thing she intended to do once back at her apartment, aside from downing the strongest drink she could find, was to inform Helen that her services would no longer be needed. If Tate was going to continue to write (and after this, she wasn't sure if she would) it would be on her own terms, without anyone looking over her shoulder the whole time.

But that was something that would have to wait. For today's soul-destroying event, which she was left to get to on her own, Tate was giving a reading in Williamsburg at a converted violin factory (now an upscale nightclub which held functions during the day); apparently her book was proving popular with the local hipster crowd.

She had just read the opening chapter to a group of mostly housewives and college-aged women, something which she hoped to never have to repeat; her voice didn't sound like her own, her writing suddenly sounded stupid and juvenile, and she kept looking out into the crowd hoping to see a familiar face. When none came into view, she fought to keep her mask from slipping once more.

Stepping aside from the podium, unconsciously smoothing out her clothes as she did so, the event's host thanked her. "And now let's open the floor up for questions, shall we?" she said, gesturing Tate forward again. She groaned inwardly, forcing a smile out into the eager-looking crowd.

Would this day never end?

After about half an hour or so of questions – mostly generic and, thankfully, nothing about anything that may have been in that morning's paper about her assistant – Tate was finally allowed to leave. She was just checking an app on her phone, not entirely sure where the nearest subway station might be, when a man in a grey suit approached her.

"Ms Ellis?" he asked, smoothing down his sandy-coloured hair absentmindedly.

"Yes?" she questioned in response; he certainly stood out amongst her crowd of fans, surely he wasn't one of them?

"Mr Klein's office sent me. As a replacement for Detective Flack."

Exhaling with relief that she wouldn't have to try and make her way back to Midtown on her own, she smiled up at her apparent saviour. "Oh! Thank you for coming at such short notice."

"My pleasure."

Tate obliged when he held out his hand to take her coat and bag from her, unable to help thinking about how his predecessor had never offered to help her with her bags. But then, she surmised, that role was always filled by Josh. Now she was here alone, but thankfully Helen had thought to call Klein. "Thanks again," she replied, happy to be led towards his car. She felt a sense of familiarity, like she had known him for a long time, even though she knew that wasn't the case; she assumed this was just the hallmark of a caring, dependable bodyguard; one whose sole job was to protect their clients.

After her things had been stowed in the car's trunk and she was comfortably settled on the back seat, Tate willed the long journey back to her hotel to go quickly; she could hardly wait to take a leisurely soak in her suite's oversized bathtub. After all, she needed something to help her unwind after the stress of the past few days…

As they passed over the Brooklyn Bridge, Tate caught her replacement bodyguard's eye in the rear-view mirror. He smiled at her; for a reason that was worryingly unknown to her, his smile made her uncomfortable. She cleared her throat noisily, hoping to clear that thought from her mind at the same time.

"You know, I never caught your name, Mister...?"

"I don't recall giving you my name," he replied, tightening his grip on the wheel.

Tate had hadn't been an author for long, but she'd written enough disturbing dialogue to know it when she heard it; this was definitely her cue to be scared.

As the Manhattan skyline drew closer, the skyscrapers seeming to loom over them as they grew in size, Tate wondered if she would survive jumping from the car. Given the speed they were going, she assumed not, but they would have to slow down eventually. That was, unless the doors were locked; if he saw her trying to make a break for it but failing, he'd undoubtedly kill her.

She had tried to ask him the obvious questions – 'who the hell are you?' was her opener – but he hadn't responded, just kept looking straight ahead. Instead, she tried to formulate any kind of plan that might get her out of this situation alive; he hadn't answered when she asked what he wanted, either, so for now her assumption was that he was her stalker and wanted her dead. That was what all stalkers wanted, right?

As her panicked mind tried to piece together every kidnapping-related episode of Law and Order she had ever watched, she couldn't focus long enough to formulate anything better than her previous 'tuck-and-roll-and-hope-to-God-you-don't get-mowed-down-by-a-car-in-the-opposite-lane' plan. She took a deep breath, as quietly as she could without distracting him, and willed herself to think.

'OK,' her brain began, begging every cell in her body to concentrate, damn it. 'He put my bag and my jacket in the trunk, so even on the off-chance that there was an errant paperclip lying around back here, it's unlikely that I'd have anything else useful enough to MacGyver myself out of here.' She did a mental check of every pocket on the clothes she was wearing, thankful that today's engagement hadn't been anything more formal that smart-casual. 'I have a dollar. Seriously? I guess I could stab him with the underwire from my bra, but I doubt the kind of manoeuvring that calls for would go unnoticed…' And then a thought occurred to her, so obvious that if she hadn't been desperately trying to blend in with the upholstery of the backseat, she would have face-palmed herself. 'Stalker-Joe over here might have taken all my bags, and probably thought he was some sort of criminal mastermind when he did, but he's clearly a rookie – he seems to have forgotten that I'm a 27-year-old woman and I always keep my cell phone as close to my hands as is humanly possible. So close I don't even realise it, apparently…'

So now, the only thing standing between Tate and freedom was the sin of pride; no matter how much she tried, she had never found a pair of jeans that flattered her derriere as much as a well-cut pair of dark wash skinny jeans. She cursed the fact that those were the jeans she had chosen to wear today. Even if she could just reach into her pocket and pluck out her phone, she doubted she could do it without being noticed; she just wasn't that graceful. And in these jeans, she would have a serious tug of war situation on her hands.

It was now or never. She quickly glanced up to make sure his eyes were still firmly on the road. Confident that they were, she moved her hands swiftly from her lap to laying them crossed over across her stomach. She noticed his eyes flicker, but just as quickly as he had looked up, he was focused on the road again; he probably just thought she had a stomach ache (you know, possibly from being kidnapped? This guy clearly had no experience in 'napping people). Then, keeping the rest of her body as still as possible, she dropped her hands further down her hips, towards the seat, until she felt the characteristic shape of an iPhone in her left pocket, all the while silently thanking God or Allah or whoever that she hadn't been 'blessed' with her mother's hips. She worked the surface of her jeans, slowly and methodically, trying to nudge the phone closer to the pocket's opening so she could get a grip on it. This process seemed to take days, when in reality it could only have taken seconds, and she felt beads of sweat spring to the surface of her skin. She was so close, she had barely noticed that they were in Manhattan now, the Financial District she presumed, and in theory could be reaching their final destination any second. The traffic was stopping and starting now, and Tate finally felt the cold glass of the screen against her palm just as they pulled up behind a yellow cab at a red light.

"I'm not here to hurt you, Tatiana." His voice seemed to come out of nowhere, suddenly deafening in the otherwise silent car.

Tate was momentarily stunned, and lost her grip on her cell phone. "How do you know my full name? No one calls me that, not even my own mother."

"Helen told me."

"Helen?" It was suddenly falling into place; the reason this man's face was so familiar yet hard to place was because she'd seen it before, albeit briefly. Helen had a photo of the two of them on her desk – the two of them on their wedding day.

"She talks about you constantly. Tate this, Tate that… She thinks you're our ticket to a mansion in the suburbs."

Tate was unsure of why this was her fault; Helen was clearly excited at the prospect of having a successful client for a change. She tried not to let her confusion show, however, and chose to instead sympathise with him. "It's Alan, right?" He looked at her through the mirror, seeming both surprised and pleased that she knew his name. "That must be difficult for you; you must feel like there are three people in your marriage. Maybe if you talked to Helen, made her understand that you don't want to hear about me constantly…"

"But that's just the thing; the more she talks about you, the more I realise that you and I are soul mates!"

"Soul mates?" she replied, nervously, all the while trying to keep one eye on his face to show she was listening, and the other on his hands to make sure he wasn't about to kill them both. After all, he was clearly a few slices short of a whole pie, and the potentially terrifying thing was that he had no idea.

"Yes!" Alan replied with excitement. "You and I are both from Boston, born and raised…"

'Lots of people are from Boston,' she thought to herself, scarcely believing that this was really happening. If she wasn't so afraid of what he might do with a second's notice, the whole situation would be almost comical.

He continued. "We both grew up poor and are trying to make better lives for ourselves. We both have big families."

"You're right, Alan, we do have an awful lot in common. Maybe we could go and get a cup of coffee and talk about it? Just two friends, talking about ourselves, how does that sound?"

He smiled at her knowingly, but carried on regardless. "I'm not done, yet."

"Sorry. Go on, please."

"You just get me, you know?" He chuckled to himself, as if he had just remembered a particularly funny anecdote. "Helen let me read an advance copy of your book – well, she left one lying around the house – and when I read your words, it's like they are my own thoughts!"

As he rambled on about how the two of them meeting at the reading that afternoon was destiny ('destiny engineered by you,' she thought), Tate tried to remain calm; the last thing they needed right now was two nut-jobs in this car. They crept forward as the lights changed, and soon enough they were stopped again. Still with no idea where they were or where they were going, she went back to concentrating on getting her phone. 'Just a little more,' she kept telling herself.

Tate almost cried out in joy as she felt her phone being pulled free from its denim confines, but managed to keep a lid on her excitement; she had made it through the difficult part, but she was still nowhere near safety. She angled her body slightly, hoping to conceal the device as she slid it down onto the seat next to her. A quick glance up at Alan, still lost in talking about the two of them, told her that now was as good a time as any. She tapped out a message, thankful that she had a touchscreen phone and suddenly more sure than ever that trading in her Blackberry, with its keypad that sounded like nails being violently hammered, had been the best decision she'd ever made.

'KIDNAPPED' she wrote, and sent it to the one person she hoped would believe her.

A/N I apologise for the wordiness of this chapter, and the lack of dialogue. And I really hope you guys like the way this story is playing out - I get very nervous at this stage of writing, because I desperately want to please people!