Page 10 of Deserving Ryleigh
Henley smiled. “You saved Jasna, Ry. What you did…I have no words. I don’t even knowallthat you did, just the basics, but still. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. You risked your life for my daughter, and it meant something. Meanseverything. You haven’t let me thank you, not really, and I wanted to make sure you knew how important you are to me and Tonka. And Jas. Without you, we…” Her voice cracked.
Ry’s chest felt tight. She hadn’t even thought about what she was doing more than a year ago, when she’d gone out looking for Jasna. She’d just acted. Had done what was right. What she’d needed to do to atone for all the sins of her past.
“Will you tell me the story? All of it?” Henley asked.
“I’m not sure?—”
“Please,” Henley interrupted. “I need to know what happened to her. What she went through. What you saw, what you did. How you found her. I haven’t pushed before now, but today, on Elizabeth’s birthday…I find that I want to know. If Tonka knows, he would never tell me because he wants to protect me. I don’twantto be protected. Not when it has to do with Jasna. Please, Ry. I need to know.”
Ry nodded. She understood that need. She felt it every day of her life. If there was information out there, she had to find it.
“First, you should know—I knew you were having a girl before today,” she blurted.
Henley chuckled. “I’m not surprised.”
“You aren’t mad?”
“No. You didn’t let the secret out. Didn’t let on that you knew. To anyone. I don’t care that you hacked into the hospital records to find out. Not in the least. Just as I don’t care if you broke laws to find Jas, or Reese, or to do anything else you did. You’re a good person. To the core, Ry. No matter what’s happened in your past, or how you came to be at The Refuge, I won’t believe anything else.”
Ry was overwhelmed yet again. What had she done to deserve this woman’s support and loyalty? Yes, she’d found Jasna, but anyone would’ve done what she had, if they had the skills.
Taking a deep breath, Ry began talking.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tiny stood quietly outside the hospital room, leaning against the wall. He wanted to be nearby in case Henley or Ryleigh needed anything. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t pry himself away now if his life depended on it.
Hearing Henley’s support for Ryleigh made him feel even more guilty than he did already. She didn’t sound in the least worried about what Ryleigh could do, about the hacking. And her words about how she thought Ryleigh was good to the core…
She was right.
With that knowledge slowly sinking in, Tiny needed to hear the story about how Ryleigh had found Jasna as much as Henley did. He’d gone over the incident in his head again and again, and because he wasn’t some computer genius, he couldn’t figure it out. How she’d discovered where Jasna was, who had taken her.
He held his breath as Ryleigh began speaking.
“As you know, we were in my car when you got the callthat Jasna was missing,” Ryleigh said. “You mentioned Christian Dekker’s name. So after I dropped you and the others off at The Refuge, I went back to my apartment and immediately started looking into him.”
“Looking into him?” Henley asked.
“Yeah, hacking into the police database and seeing if he had any kind of record, first of all.”
“He was a minor,” Henley said, sounding confused.
“And?”
There was silence in the room for a beat, then Henley snort-chuckled. “Right, sorry. Continue.”
“There had been some complaints against him, but nothing that the cops could arrest him for. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but…what I do isn’t exactly a secret anymore. I also readyourreports on him, and your boss’s thoughts on him too. Read all the things his parents had said when they were in therapy. I realized that you had averygood reason to be worried about him. To think he might be behind Jasna’s disappearance. So I tracked his phone.
“And before you ask, yes, I thought about calling the police, but they need probable cause and a search warrant. By the time they got all that, Jas could’ve been hurt, or worse. So I did what I do best, and I found him. Discovered he was at that cabin out in the middle of the woods. And I went to check it out.”
“Ry! That wasn’t smart or safe!” Henley exclaimed.
Tiny agreed. His fists clenched, and it took all the control he had to not burst into the room and…he wasn’t sure what. He wasn’t mad at Ryleigh, per se, but he couldn’t believe she could be so stupid! To take such reckless risks…
Ryleigh didn’t respond for a long moment, and Tiny wished he could see her face. She sucked at hiding her emotions, and if he could see her, he’d have a better idea of what she was thinking.
“Oh, Ry,” Henley finally said, her tone full of emotion. “Hasn’tanyoneworried about your safety before?”
