by Blythe, Jane
Only he had outsmarted her then and he would outsmart her now.
He was never letting those girls go.
They were his.
And yet tonight he had brought her here.
How could he have been so stupid?
This was a mistake.
A big mistake.
He had to leave. Now.
He’d round up the kids and then take Ariyel and get out of here. It might look a little suspicious if he carried his unconscious daughter out of here before she’d been discharged, but there was nothing he could do about that. Besides, he’d left fake contact information so no one would be able to find them.
Leaving Ariyel’s room, he scanned the waiting area in search of Alice and the little girls.
He couldn’t see them anywhere.
A slice of panic shot through him, but he shoved it down. They were probably just in the bathroom. He headed for the ladies’ room and was at the door when he realized he couldn’t go inside. Malachi was about to barge inside anyway when the door opened, and an elderly lady walked out.
“Excuse me, was there a teenager in there with two little girls and a baby?” he asked.
“No, there was no one else in there,” the lady replied before walking off.
Where else could they be?
Maybe Alice had taken them outside for some fresh air.
Hurrying out the doors, he scanned the area in front of the emergency room. A few people hovered about, but no signs of his girls.
They weren’t outside.
They weren’t in the bathroom.
They weren’t in the waiting area.
They were gone.
* * * * *
10:57 P.M.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
Giving up the pretense that she was sleeping, which she was only doing for Ryan’s benefit anyway, Sofia opened her eyes and gazed at her husband. “Every time I doze off, something startles me awake. I don’t know what. I just have this feeling that something bad is going to happen.”
Ryan perched on the side of her bed and took her hand. “Nothing bad is going to happen, Sofia,” he soothed. “Everyone we love is safe and sound.” She must have looked doubtful, because he continued. “You're just tired and sick and worried. If you'd just close your eyes and try to actually sleep, I'm sure you’ll feel a lot better.”
Despite her husband’s assurances, Sofia just couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that had been weighing down on her since they'd gotten to the hospital.
Was she being silly?
Was it really just stress and being sick and exhausted that had her feeling all apprehensive?
What Ryan said made sense. Not only was she sick, but she was worried about Laura, Paige, and Annabelle. Right now, Laura was topping her list.
Her sister-in-law was tossing and turning restlessly in her bed. “She shouldn’t have come. You and Jack shouldn’t have let her come.” Sofia shot Ryan a reproachful frown.
“How could we have stopped her?”
“Well, since you're both cops, and you and Jack are both a good foot taller than her, and even being eight months pregnant, you and your brother can bench press double her size, so it couldn’t be all that hard to make her stay home.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but Laura’s stubbornness makes up for her small size.”
She rolled her eyes, then sobered. “Do you think she’s really doing okay?”
“I think that she wants to keep challenging herself shows she is. And tonight, hopefully, helping this Maegan girl will keep her distracted and help her hold it together. She really attracts people in need. It’s like they can sense that she understands, like somehow they know she’s been through something horrible.”
“Laura hates that,” Sofia mused. While Laura loved helping people, she hated that people could read her so easily. “She wishes she knew how to hide it like she can hide all her physical scars.”
“It’s what makes her so good at what she does, though. Think of how many women and kids she’s helped at your women’s shelter. Think how many people’s lives she’s improved because she can truly get what they're going through.”
“I know,” she agreed quietly. “Sometimes it seems like it’s too high a price to have had to pay to help others.”
Beside them, Laura gave a small moan and began to whimper.
“Ryan, wake her up, she’s having a nightmare.”
Ryan was already moving toward Laura as Sofia said it. Grabbing her shoulders, he gave her a shake. “Laura. Wake up. Laura, you're dreaming. Come on, wake up.”
With a sob, Laura bolted upright, her fists swinging wildly.
Keeping hold of her with one hand, with his other hand, Ryan pinned her fists against his chest. “It’s all right, Laura. You're safe. It was just a nightmare.”
“Ryan?” Laura’s voice was shaky, and she was trembling all over.
“Yeah, honey, I'm here. You're safe,” Ryan assured her again. “You're in the hospital, remember?” he added in response to her disoriented gaze.
Laura nodded, then shuddered violently and rested against Ryan, his arms immediately wrapping around her and holding her. “Where’s Jack?” Laura asked.
“He and Xavier are interviewing Maegan. You fell asleep while Jack and Mark were still talking, and they brought you here, into Sofia’s room, to rest while they talked to the girl. You want me to go and find him for you?”
“No, Maegan needs help.” Laura was still breathing hard and lifted one thumb to her mouth to suck on.
Sofia knew that Laura had had the habit of thumb sucking since she was a kid. Her parents had worked hard to break the habit and had eventually succeeded, but Laura had picked it up again after her kidnapping.
She fought a surge of what she knew was unwarranted jealousy as she watched Ryan comfort Laura. It wasn't that she thought anything romantic was going to happen between them; she knew her husband loved her and that Laura was completely in love with Jack. Besides, Ryan and Laura were like brother and sister. Her jealousy stemmed more from the fact that Laura knew Ryan in a way that Sofia never could.
Because they'd grown up together, they were comfortable with each other. They'd spent summer holidays together, gone trick or treating together, waited for Santa Claus together, ridden their bikes together, played together, gone to school together, lied to their parents together, snuck out to parties together. Their whole childhood and adolescence had been spent together, and Sofia knew that, for most of that time, Ryan had had a crush on Laura. She knew it was stupid to be jealous that Laura and Ryan were such good friends, but sometimes it was how she felt.
“You all right?” Ryan was holding Laura at arm’s length and studying her face.
“Yeah,” Laura replied, but Sofia could hear the exhaustion in her tone.
“Yeah, you really look it. You know it was a bad idea to come here tonight, don’t you?” Ryan asked.
She rubbed wearily at her eyes. “I already got lectures from both your brothers,” Laura told him.
Ryan’s smile softened. “You're still shaking. I’ll go grab you another blanket. And here,” he reached for the paper cup of water and painkillers on the small bedside table, “Mark left these for you.”
“That’s okay, I don’t really need them,” Laura protested.
“Do you still have a headache?”
Laura looked like she was debating whether or not to lie, but then gave in and nodded, “Yeah.”
“Then you take them.” Ryan passed her the cup and set the pills in her hand. He pressed on Laura’s shoulders until she rested back against the bed. “You should close your eyes and try to go back to sleep. Both of you should.” Ryan shot her a pointed frown.
“No, I don’t want to dream again,” Laura said immediately. “I’m sorry I keep disturbing you, Sofia. You're sick; you should be resting. Jack and Mark shouldn’t have brought me in here,” Laura apologized.
“Of course, they should,” Sofia reprimanded her s
ister-in-law. “And I wasn't sleeping, anyway.” She didn’t tell Laura about her bad feeling; she didn’t want to add to her stress. “Why don’t we chat for a while, help to calm each other a little.”
“Yeah, okay,” Laura agreed, her violet eyes all watery.
“All right, I’ll grab you another blanket, and then I’ll be right outside the door. Laura, when I see Jack I’ll tell him to come and see you, and I'm telling him you had another nightmare,” he warned. “Sofia, I'm not planning on going far, but if Jack and Xavier need help, and I do, make sure that doctor doesn’t come near you or Laura,” Ryan ordered.
Sofia was more than happy to not have Dr. Daniels near her ever again. Ryan grabbed another blanket, spread it over Laura, then sat on the edge of Sofia’s bed and gave her a kiss. At the door, he paused. “I would tell you two to let me know if you need anything, but I don’t like my chances of either of you actually doing that.” Ryan shot them both irritated frowns.
Once he was gone, Sofia turned to Laura, who was looking lost. If she wasn't hooked up to an IV, she would have moved to Laura’s bed; instead, she said, “Come sit over here.”
Laura obliged, bringing the blankets with her and joined her on the bed. “I'm really sorry, Sofia. You should be asleep. You fainted earlier tonight.”
“I'm fine; I was just dehydrated. As soon as they started giving me fluids, I started feeling a lot better. Right now, I'm more concerned about you.”
“I'm okay.” Laura’s gaze dipped, and she began to fiddle with the blanket.
“Why did you come here tonight?”
“Because you were sick.”
“And you thought that by torturing yourself you could make me better?” Sofia asked gently.
“No,” Laura replied in a small voice.
“Honey, look at me.” Sofia waited until Laura’s violet eyes slowly rose to meet hers. “What is going on with you?”
Laura just shrugged fitfully.
“Come on, Laura,” Sofia coaxed. “Something’s been off with you for a few weeks now. If I hadn’t been sick I would have pinned you down and figured out what it was before now. Now, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Laura gave another shrug.
“Yes, you do,” Sofia contradicted. Not only was Laura a trained psychologist, but she was also extremely insightful. Sofia would bet anything that Laura knew exactly what had been bothering her.
“Pregnancy hormones are just making me emotional, I guess. I don’t remember being so sensitive last time.”
She wasn’t buying Laura’s excuse, but Sofia couldn’t help but smile. That was not how she remembered Laura’s previous pregnancy. “You were an emotional wreck when you were pregnant with Zach,” Sofia reminded her. “You cried about everything those last few months. Now stop giving me excuses, and tell me what’s wrong with you.”
With a sigh, Laura sank back against the mattress and closed her eyes. “I don’t know why, but I've been thinking about Matilda a lot lately.”
Matilda Warren had been Laura’s best friend in college. They and a couple of other girls had been roommates. Matilda had been murdered because she had been unlucky enough to be at home the day Laura was abducted.
“She died because of me, and I never even grieved her properly,” Laura said miserably.
“Of course, you didn’t. You'd just been through hell, and you were attempting to deal with that,” Sofia reminded her. After she had lived through Isabella’s murderous rampage, it had been months before she’d been able to even attempt to deal with anything else.
“And then so many people got hurt just because someone wanted to get to me. Including Rose.” Laura’s voice broke.
Sofia and Rose had become good friends in the year they’d known each other and even though four years had passed since she’d died, Sofia still missed her. Knowing where Laura was heading with this, she nipped it in the bud immediately, “You know Jack doesn’t blame you,” she told Laura sternly. “No one does. You are not responsible for that man’s actions. You were his victim.”
“I know. Jack’s told me a million times that I shouldn’t blame myself, but how do I do that? It was because of me that all those people got hurt. All because I didn’t see him for who he really was.”
“How could you have known? Being a psychology student didn't make you psychic,” Sofia pointed out.
“I should have seen it. I should have seen that he was unstable,” Laura protested. “He hurt so many people.”
“Honey, he hurt you, too,” Sofia reminded her.
She shrugged like that didn’t matter. “I worry that I could get it wrong again. What if I miss something or I say or do the wrong thing, and someone else ends up getting hurt?” Laura finally opened her eyes to stare dismally up at Sofia.
“You can't save everyone,” Sofia said gently. “If you put yourself under that kind of pressure, it’s going to crush you.”
“Working at the women’s center isn’t the same as working my old job. When I was a phone counselor, I never saw anyone, so I didn’t feel as connected—as involved. But now … now, everything seems so personal.”
Sofia had thought that working at their center was good for Laura, but maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe it was too much for her. “Honey, if you need a break, that’s fine …”
“No, I don’t need a break. I like my job. I'm scared I'm going to mess things up with Maegan,” Laura continued. “What kind of life is she going to have once she goes back home to her family? Being away from your family and suffering a trauma, it changes the relationship.”
Sofia knew that Laura still struggled with her own family relationships. She was more comfortable with Jack’s family than her own. “Having people around who love her will help her,” Sofia assured her. “Think how much you improved once you had Jack back.”
“Yeah, but even having him there some days was so hard. There were times when I didn’t even have the energy—physically or mentally—to get out of bed. I remember days where Jack would lie in bed with me all day, watching movies or reading, because I just couldn’t get up. And then, there were days when he pushed me to talk and made me get up even when I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t have made it through without him, but it was still hard. I had to fight for every inch of progress that I made.”
“But you got through it, and Maegan will, too. How could she not with you to help her?”
Laura offered up a small smile. “I really appreciate that you named your women’s center after Matilda.”
Laura’s friend had been intending to graduate with a degree in social work, so it had seemed only fitting that they name the place after both her and Rose. And thus, the Matilda Rose Women’s and Children Center was formed. “You're welcome, but it isn’t my center, it’s our center. You and Paige and Annabelle and I all needed something to focus on. We all needed a purpose. I'm just grateful that the center has been able to help so many people in need as well as all of us.”
“It’s really been a lifesaver,” Laura agreed. “Oh, who was the doctor that Ryan was talking about earlier? The one who he didn’t want to come near us?”
Sensing Laura needed the distraction, Sofia began to explain about Dr. Daniels and Ryan’s theory that he could be her stalker. Part of her didn’t want to think the doctor was her stalker, and the other part desperately hoped that he was.
She didn’t want to live in fear anymore, constantly wondering whether her stalker was going to break into her home again. Or even worse, whether he was going to make another attempt on Paige’s life or go after someone else that she loved.
She needed him caught.
FOUR YEARS AGO
2:35 P.M.
“How long has it been?”
“Almost a year,” Eliza replied.
“A year?” Maegan looked up at her with sad blue eyes.
Eliza hated the sad look in the little girls’ eyes. Maegan, Bethany, Hayley—the poor little things—were always so miserable.
Not just the
m.
She was miserable, too.
For almost a year, this house had been their home. Malachi occasionally let them out in the yard, but even that was a rarity. Their days were spent locked inside this place.
During the day, they studied. A lot. Malachi tutored them from eight in the morning until six at night. Apparently, despite being insane, he truly valued education.
And Malachi was insane.
He thought that they were his daughters. Ariyel, Alice, Angela, and Abigail had been killed in a fire. And after that, he’d lost touch with reality and kidnapped them all as replacements.
Eliza wasn't going to do this anymore.
She wasn't going to keep living in this house.
Spending her days studying and caring for the little girls, cooking, and cleaning. It wasn't that she minded looking after the girls. After spending the last year together, she loved those children like they really were her sisters. And despite where they were, she had enjoyed seeing some of their milestones. Like Bethany learning to read. And Hayley had taken her first steps just a month ago and was so close to saying her first word.
She would do anything to protect them.
She was about to risk everything in an attempt to save them all.
What she was planning was risky.
Very risky.
Risky enough that there was a chance she might die.
But she had to do it. There were no other choices. She wasn't spending the rest of her life here as Malachi’s prisoner. And she wasn't going to let those children remain trapped in this house.
This wasn't the first time she had attempted an escape.
It was practically all she’d done since Malachi had brought her here.
So far, nothing had worked out, but this one had to be foolproof.
“Now, you know what to do, right?” she checked with Maegan.
Eliza knew she was putting a lot of pressure on a little girl who was only eleven years old, but there was no other choice. She needed Maegan’s help. They were only going to have one shot at this.
“I know what to do,” Maegan stated firmly. “You can count on me. I won't let you down. I know what’s riding on this.”