She was the one meant to pick up Hannah. She was the one who’d driven to the campus and come back empty-handed.
Where was she? Where was she? Please, God, someone answer that question.
She wanted to scream it, cry it. She sucked air through her nose, realizing she’d been holding her breath.
Nick stood with his back to her, talking to someone just outside the door. She knew he hadn’t slept, either. She had no idea what time it was but was pretty sure it was night. Night two.
A uniformed cop and two detectives also sat in the room. Nick’s partner at the bureau, Carl, stood leaning against the wall. They’d put in a call to Luke. Dallas was on his way. Zach and every fireman not on shift were out looking.
Nick turned and moved toward her at the table. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to comfort and be comforted, but he didn’t come close enough, didn’t touch her. His eyes hadn’t met hers in hours.
Another man joined them, and they went over it all again.
“What time did you get there?”
“Four.” She stared at the man’s hand scribbling on a yellow steno pad. Was that regulation? Was that thorough and professional? She didn’t know anything about police work. It shouldn’t matter what they wrote her answers on. It didn’t.
“What did you see?” Nick asked.
It went on. Asking, answering, repeating. He was doing his best to keep his cool, drawing on his professional habits, but she knew he was dying inside. They’d both known immediately this was bad, neither needing to wait the full twenty-four hours to cross over from simple worry to soul-gripping fear.
As they worked through the series of questions, his voice rose, his body loomed over her almost like he’d forgotten who he was talking to. Maybe he was trying to distance himself from the missing person being someone he loved.
Minutes turned into hours, and he questioned her, alternately soft, then hard, and harder still when he couldn’t distance himself. He ran his hand through his hair, paced the room like a caged animal. Poured cups of coffee he never drank.
Carl straightened from the wall he’d been holding up. He laid a hand on Nick’s back. “Come on, Walker. Let’s take a break.”
“No.” Nick jerked away. “We’re missing something. Go over it again.”
She wanted to leave this place, but where could she go? If she left the building, Hannah would still be missing, and she wouldn’t know where to go. Her eyes burned and filled with tears. Someone pushed a cup of water toward her, not Nick.
She sipped. “I got there at four,” she repeated and laid her heavy head in her palm. “Maybe two or three minutes after and—”
“You said you got there at four,” Nick said, changing his stance. “Not after.”
“I… it was four when I pulled onto campus. I pulled up to the spot where I always picked her up. I waited a couple of minutes.” Just a couple of minutes. She hadn’t thought anything of Hannah not being right there waiting. She’d checked her phone, removed accumulated trash in her purse. “I wasn’t looking at the time. Then I did look. When I looked, it was fifteen minutes after. But I was there. I’d been there.”
“But you were late. Why didn’t you say this before? Why didn’t you tell me this hours ago?”
“I was there. I was there at four or right after. I know I was.”
“Goddamn it.” He strode around the room, his fingers pulling at his hair like he’d just been given the key piece of information. “The camera footage, the people we’re interviewing, the… what the hell!” His fist pounded the desk, making the cup of water jump.
She tried to swallow and couldn’t. “It was two minutes. It was…”
“A minute, two minutes, that’s nothing, man,” a detective said softly. “The difference in people’s clocks.”
Nick blew out a rough breath and scrubbed his hands roughly over his face. He stood like that for several seconds before his hand came down on her shoulder. She almost cried at the contact. She needed to touch him. But it wasn’t a squeeze or caress of comfort. He gave her an awkward and unfamiliar pat then moved away. “You should go home.”
A fresh wave of tears fell as Nick turned and left the room.
“He’s just upset,” Carl said.
She nodded, but more tears fell. It was more than that. She already knew it was much more.
AFTER A MONTH, SHE went back to the hospital and her work as a trauma surgeon. Nick was consumed with finding Hannah. The helplessness on both their parts was almost unbearable. On the rare nights they found themselves in bed together, they turned to each other. They tried to fill each other up with something, hope or strength, but they were both nearly empty of both. They didn’t have enough for themselves, let alone for each other.
So they did what they could—came together in the night, in the dark. But whatever sliver of peace was wrenched out never lasted.
One night, they lay beside each other in the silence, an inch of space separating their bodies like a line of police tape.
“I never should have let her take those classes,” Nick said.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered softly, reaching for him.
“Don’t do what?” he shot back, not a whisper, not soft. “Don’t say the truth? The truth hurts.” Then he was up and dressed, poring over a witness report or a map or just standing outside, staring at the sky.
Either way, whatever he did, whatever he needed to do, it wasn’t with her.
Chapter 14
NICK KNEW MORE THAN anyone the likelihood of finding Hannah alive diminished after three days. He’d been the one to talk to parents. He’d moved missing persons files to the cold case section and told families when they should assume their loved one wasn’t coming home. Had he really thought that they went on with life? How in the hell did a person do that?
He never let himself think it, gritted his teeth against the thought when it tried to slither in. She wasn’t gone. He would find her. He would and did use every resource at his disposal, and he wouldn’t stop. They could fire him, ban him from the building, from the case.
He was a driven, dying man. Every second an eternity in hell. He knew ninety-four percent of recovered children were found within seventy-two hours. That left only six percent after that. And he knew more deadly facts. That seventy-four percent of those found dead had been killed in the first three hours after being taken. Ninety-one percent in the first twenty-four hours.
But there was no sign of foul play with Hannah. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. No blood. No struggle. And not a single sign of Hannah. No backpack, no book or paper she might have been carrying. Not a single hair. She was just gone.
And then she was found, alive. And he found himself in a new kind of hell.
* * *
PIECES OF NICK DIED every day, every minute. And then Hannah was found, and she was so broken and so lost, Mia figured he died the rest of the way. Functioning, working, tending to Hannah as best he could, but still dying on the inside where no one could see. Except her. With her, he didn’t even try to hide it.
Mia took a leave of absence from the hospital after Hannah was found, and she never went back. The blood, the scalpel…she just couldn’t do it anymore. Didn’t know if she’d ever be able to and it didn’t even matter. Hannah needed her. Nick needed her, even if he didn’t know he did or didn’t want to.
There were early moments when Hannah was still undergoing surgeries that he’d let her hold his hand, rub his back. Even gave her a tight smile when she brought him stale hospital coffee. But as the months turned into a year, they didn’t even have that anymore.
Nick had two roles: gently coaxing Hannah back to life and pouring himself into his work. She figured the latter was to take his mind off the former. There was nothing left over for her. She understood, but she wished she could do that, give him some measure of peace. For whatever reason, she couldn’t, didn’t. She didn’t equal peace for him anymore.
When Hannah was in the
room, Nick was soft as a bird. And when she wasn’t, he couldn’t contain the anger as surely as a switch had been flipped. He snapped at everything. The coffee was cold; the house was too hot. Maybe she was too close. They were like a father and a mother who only reminded each other of the pain their child was going through. There didn’t seem to be anything between them other than Hannah. Did she eat? Did she speak? How was physical therapy? What did the doctor say? That was it for days and weeks and months. They existed.
After more than a year, she mentioned cautiously that maybe they should get away, just for one night, not even twenty-four hours, as much for him as for the two of them. Nick’s response had been a wry laugh. When she pushed, he looked at her with utter disbelief that she could even consider it.
“Maybe just for dinner and a night away at a hotel. Zach’s great with her. He could get her breakfast and—”
“Are you kidding me? Zach can’t even take care of himself!”
She knew Nick took responsibility and always had, that it had fallen to him, but she was surprised to hear his mistrust of his brother. Not as much as Zach, who stood in the open doorway looking shocked. No, stricken.
“Zach,” she said softly, ready to smooth things over. But Zach just turned and left, leaving her and Nick in the ever-growing silence between them.
“That wasn’t fair, Nick.”
“Don’t tell me about fair. None of this is fair.” He ran his hands over his face, tears in his eyes. It was the most emotion she’d seen in months.
She went to him, wrapped her arms around him, seeing the pain and guilt had etched lines in his handsome face. Several seconds passed before his arms finally came around her, crushing her against him as he once had. Her heart soared, the tension eased as she relaxed in his arms. It had been so long since Nick held her, she almost cried. He drew in a sharp breath, and she could feel his emotions gathering like a storm. But then, as always, he shut it down.
“I have to go.” He dropped his arms way too soon, and when she held, he gently took her hands from around his back and stepped away.
She sighed, her pain and frustration louder tonight.
“What? Now you have a problem with my job?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No.” She wouldn’t add to what was already so tenuous. She knew he was hanging by a thread, but still, it felt like more, and that’s what scared her. That’s what she thought about as she watched him leave, when she lay in bed at night, alone. That maybe the more was that he didn’t love her anymore.
He was barely there, so lost in his dark cage of anger and guilt he’d built for himself. He’d locked himself in and locked her out.
Hours later, Nick slipped into bed beside her. They made love, but there was no love. There were no words. He didn’t even notice her tears.
* * *
NICK DIDN’T KNOW WHAT woke him—he barely slept anymore—but he pulled on a pair of running shorts and went to Hannah’s room. With the light in her closet, he could see her eyes were open.
“Hannah?”
She didn’t answer. She never did. She heard them, they were sure of that. She got up now when they said dinner was ready. Even if she only ate a few bites, it was something. She’d sit on the couch if you told her to. She held books he didn’t know if she was reading or just staring at. Sometimes she didn’t turn the page for hours, and it killed him thinking of where her mind had slipped off to. His own slipped there often enough.
She gave yes or no answers to most questions. Beyond that she didn’t talk, didn’t engage. The most she’d ever said was, “I want to be alone.”
He sat on the side of her bed. “Hey.” Slowly, he lifted his hand to brush back her hair.
She jerked away so hard, she moaned at the pain the movement caused her. After nine surgeries, her bones intentionally broken had healed. Her delicate skin, ruthlessly sliced, had been stitched and cared for. But what could he do for her soul after forty-two days with a sociopath?
“I’m sorry. Hannah…” His voice caught in his throat. “I’m so sorry. What can I do? Do you want me to read to you?”
A tear dripped from her eye then across her nose. “No.” Her voice was so hollow, he wondered what was left of her spirit.
He didn’t think he could feel more empty, that his heart could hurt worse. But it did. Every fucking day.
What can I do? What the hell can I do for my sister who lays here crying in the dark?
With that question hanging over him, he embraced the bitter wind of January. It slapped at his face and arms as he ran. And ran and ran and ran, but the images were still there. He couldn’t go fast enough to turn back time.
You let this happen. You let this happen.
Over and over. Was it his own mind repeating it or his parents? Were they weeping tears in heaven over the horror done to their baby? Were they wishing him to hell for letting their baby be taken by a madman?
Well, he’d go to hell. Gladly. He wouldn’t reach out for a god who’d let something like that happen.
But it wasn’t God who’d failed Hannah, it was him. She shouldn’t have been on that campus. If Mia had been there early, been there waiting … But he should have picked her up himself. He should have been there early, been there waiting, then it never would have happened.
His legs and lungs burned, and still, he ran.
He got back to the house but didn’t go inside. Instead, he stood on the back porch, digging deep to pull himself together. His eyes burned. He didn’t want to remember his baby sister lying still like a broken doll the day he’d found her. He didn’t want to see anything or feel anything.
He heard the door open then close. Didn’t need to turn to know it was Mia. Mia, always with her soft voice and gentle hands. Her attempts to coax Hannah out of her shell when he wanted to scream.
“Hey.” She reached out, touched his back where his T-shirt clung to his damp body.
He didn’t flinch away from her hand, but he wanted to. And it made him feel even guiltier, even darker, until he couldn’t breathe.
“What are you thinking about?”
What I always think about. What I’ve spent every damn second looking at the dark sky and thinking about. “What I should have done. What I shouldn’t have done. Every single step I’ve taken since that funeral. All the way back to when I should have let her go.”
“Nick.”
He stepped away from her and she didn’t follow. He’d moved away from her touch so many times, he didn’t blame her. But if Hannah couldn’t be touched or comforted, why should he?
“You can’t question yourself, second-guess yourself,” she said in that gentle tone he’d once loved. Now, the more gentle she was, the more he hated it.
He rounded on her, always his closest available target. “Why the hell not? Why the hell can’t I? Shouldn’t I? All the way back to that first decision. I should’ve let her go to my aunt. I shouldn’t have thought I could do it.”
“You don’t mean that. Your aunt was a stranger.”
“Oh, but I do. I do.” His voice was barely audible, the things he was thinking almost too much to say out loud. But he did it anyway. “And take it back even before that. If I hadn’t been born.”
“Nick, please don’t say that.”
He had to say it, wanted to because he thought it often enough. “If I hadn’t been, then there wouldn’t have been a legal adult to take custody. She wouldn’t have been in this fucking town, on that fucking campus.”
He was aware of Mia’s soft crying, but he could do nothing for her. There was a time he would have cut off his arm before he left her standing alone and crying, but now… He couldn’t comfort her, and he couldn’t take any comfort from her. There was no comfort for Hannah in the night when she woke screaming. There was no peace.
“You have to think of her getting better for her to get better. You have to picture her whole instead of only seeing her like the day you found her. She’s alive.”
“Stop saying th
at! Stop saying it like I’m a shit for not being grateful! I can’t look at her and feel fucking grateful!” He just felt angry and bitter and cheated and so, so guilty he couldn’t breathe. “It’s killing me, Mia. It’s tearing me in two like she’s been torn in two, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”
“You’re doing everything you can. Everything. But… maybe she needs more help than either of us can give her. You’re both stuck, Nick. It’s not good for her.”
He looked at her. “I’m not good for her?”
“I didn’t say that, but there are places she could go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sending her away.”
“Just listen.” Mia moved to stand in front of him. “There are good places, places she could get more intensive therapy. They have all kinds of things—mountains, animals, horseback riding. Things they can do and new experiences to draw her out of herself. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you can’t do it all, that you don’t know what to do. Nothing wrong with asking for help.” When he said nothing, she kept going. “I talked to her doctor last week, and he agreed.”
“You talked to him about this in front of Hannah?”
“No, Nick. Give me some credit. He told me about a rehabilitation place he’d recommend.”
Nick stared at her, and for a long second, the shock overrode his fury.
“What?”
“What? I can’t believe you. You want to send her away.”
“My God, Nick. You know that’s not true. I want to help her.”
“I’m helping her!” He spun on her, knocked his fist against his chest. “I’m taking care of her. If you think I’d send her away… she’s my baby sister!”
“It’s a place where she can find herself again. Not like a hospital, but a new setting with other people who’ve had similar experiences.”
Worth the Wait (McKinney/Walker #1) Page 11