“Do not come up here. Do you understand me? I could lose my license for calling you. Besides, the cops won’t let you see her. They still have to question her, and I’ll be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if they placed her under arrest, either.”
“Arrest? She’s been missing for almost a week. Those sons of bitches wouldn’t even help us look for her, but now they’re going to arrest her? For what?”
“She was found with heroin, Bowen. Heroin. Depending on the officer, he might brush it under the rug, but he could just as easily take her in. I’m sure the cops will notify her family. Wait to hear from them before you come up here. I’m not even supposed to be in the ER today. A buddy did me a solid when he heard they brought her here. I’d really rather not thank him by getting him fired.”
I gritted my teeth, not slowing as I stomped outside. “Look, I don’t know your friend, and this call never happened. But you have to tell me where she is. I’ve spent too long in absolute hell, terrified something happened to her. I don’t give a fuck what the cops say. They can arrest me too for all I care. But I have to see her, Tyson. So either you tell me what hospital or I drive to every fucking emergency room in the city until I find her.”
“Jesus,” he hissed. “Can you give me, like, five minutes to think before you dive off the deep end here?”
“Tyson,” I warned as I reached my truck.
“Chill. She’s safe, okay? You barging in here like a madman won’t help anyone. Not even her.”
He was wrong. Seeing her was the only thing that could help me. I’d been drowning in what-ifs. Mainly because we couldn’t actually convince anyone she was missing in the first place.
It had taken two days of begging to even get the police to acknowledge her disappearance. When they’d shown up to search her place, there was no sign of anything amiss. Her suitcase was nowhere to be found, but it explained why a few of her drawers had been emptied. Her car was gone. Purse and cell phone too. But in my gut, I knew that something wasn’t right. She wouldn’t have left without telling me. Without saying goodbye.
However, once it was discovered that she’d left a message at her office explaining how she was taking the rest of the week off, law enforcement had written us off altogether. According to them, a woman who had obviously decided to go on vacation hardly constituted a missing person.
I’d never stopped looking though.
I’d just never expected to find her like that. Fucking hell. Heroin?
It didn’t matter. My love for her was not conditional. I wasn’t a praying man, but I’d done my fair share of it on my knees that week, and her being okay was the answer to every single one of them.
“I’m not asking again, Tyson. What. Hospital?”
He let out a low groan. “Grady. But just…give me a minute.”
“I don’t have a minute!” I yelled, but it did me no good. He’d already hung up.
I tore out of my driveway like a man on the verge of destruction, and in a lot of ways, it was exactly who I was.
Tyson spent the majority of his time at Grady, but it wasn’t unheard of for him to be at one of the other area hospitals. Grady was the biggest though, so I figured it was safest to start there.
Much like my life, traffic was a nightmare. Even without the slow-down, it was going to take me well over half an hour to get there, but I didn’t get more than a few miles from my house before my phone started ringing again, my brother’s name showing on the screen.
Lifting it to my ear, I answered with, “I swear to God, if you don’t give me—”
“Bowen?” she cried, her voice weak but still the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
“Sally,” I breathed, barely able to speak around the emotion lodged in my throat. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she rushed out. “You have to believe me. I didn’t do this. He…he drugged me.”
My head snapped back as I steered to the shoulder of the road, hell-bent on getting to her but not trusting myself behind the wheel anymore. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” A sob tore from her throat.
“Shhhh. It’s okay. Just breathe.” I wasn’t following my own advice. My lungs burned like a wildfire was raging inside them as I asked, “Are you saying someone took you?”
“Yes! The last thing I remember is going for a run at Grove Hill, and after that, it’s all blurry. He kept me in a dark room, and it was so damn cold. There was another girl too, and she cried the whole time. I think she might have been hurt, but…I don’t know.” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s all flashes. I have no idea how to sort them out.”
