Five

by Blythe, Jane

  “Are you sure you can handle it?” Eliza asked.

  “I'm sure. Are you having second thoughts, Eliza?”

  “No.”

  Maybe. Yes, she thought to herself.

  Was she crazy to try this?

  What if she did die? How would Maegan and Bethany and Hayley cope? What would happen to them? More importantly, what would Malachi do to them when she wasn't here to protect them?

  But what other choice did she have?

  “Let’s do it.” Eliza stood and headed for the stairs. It was Saturday, and Malachi was working in the garden. There were no lessons today, so it seemed the perfect time to do it. She had put Hayley down for her nap and instructed Bethany to stay with her. The girls were obedient, and she had no doubt that Bethany would do as she was told. She didn’t want them to see this. No need to traumatize them further.

  “I'm coming with you,” Maegan said immediately.

  “No, I don’t want you to see this, sweetie,” Eliza told the girl.

  “You can't do it alone,” Maegan protested.

  “I can, and I will.” She made her tone stern. “Go and check on the little ones and stay with them.”

  Maegan’s blue eyes were fierce, and she opened her mouth as if to argue, but then snapped it shut. “I love you, Eliza.” She threw her thin arms around Eliza’s waist, gave her a quick hug, and then ran up the stairs.

  Eliza, too, kept walking up the stairs, only at a much slower pace. She wasn't looking forward to this. It was going to be painful, but if it worked out, she could go home. She missed her family so much. And George, too. Did he ever think about her? Did he even remember her? Had he moved on? Was he dating someone else now, or was he hoping that one day she would be found?

  When she reached the third floor, Eliza went to her bedroom and opened the window. There were bars on all the lower floor windows, but Malachi hadn’t thought it necessary to put them in up here.

  Looking down at the ground below, Eliza’s stomach began to churn. She didn’t like heights.

  But she wasn't backing out.

  Before she could change her mind, she jumped.

  * * * * *

  8:52 A.M.

  Pain.

  That was the first conscious thought Eliza had.

  So much pain.

  Her body burned with it.

  Why did she hurt so badly?

  She couldn’t remember.

  In fact, she couldn’t remember much of anything right now.

  She didn’t even remember where she was.

  Was she at home? Sick, maybe?

  Was she in the hospital? Maybe she’d been in an accident.

  Eliza was going to open her eyes and try to get some answers, but a sickening wave of pain so intense she nearly wished she were dead flooded through her.

  Sleep was tugging at her mind, and she wanted nothing more than to give in to it. Indeed, she was about to let it wash her away into peaceful blackness when she heard a voice.

  “Nice try, Eliza.”

  The malevolent tone was enough to momentarily block the pain and somehow her eyes struggled open.

  A face hovered above her. The face was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Pale skin, blue eyes, curly black hair. She should know who this is.

  She was too tired to try and figure it out. Her temporary reprieve from the pain was over; it was back worse than ever. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t focus. All she could do was fade toward unconsciousness.

  Sometime later, Eliza awoke again.

  The pain was still there, but her mind was a little clearer. She remembered Malachi abducting her. She remembered him taking the other children. She remembered being locked up in his house. She remembered her plan. She remembered throwing herself out the window in the hope it would force Malachi to take her to the hospital and give them a chance to be around other people and tell them what had happened to them.

  She must be in the hospital.

  Hope flooded through her, working as effectively as a morphine drip, and her eyes snapped open.

  She expected to see a hospital room, doctors, nurses, and other patients. But she saw none of it.

  She was in her room at Malachi’s house.

  Turning her head hurt, but she did it anyway when she heard cackling laughter.

  Malachi was there.

  Grinning at her.

  “Nice try, Eliza.”

  He’d said that before. Malachi never used her real name. He always called her Ariyel. The glint in his eyes was different, too. Less crazy and more calculating.

  “I know what you were planning, and it didn’t work,” Malachi continued. “I didn’t take you to the hospital. You're still right here, and you are not going anywhere. Ever.”

  Eliza opened her mouth to speak, but her throat was dry, and she was tired and in so much pain that all that came out was a squawk.

  Chuckling again, Malachi held a cup of water with a straw to her lips. Despite how much she hated him, Eliza knew she needed the water and sipped a little of it. The cool, fresh feel of it in her mouth cleared away the feeling of cottonmouth, and she tried once again to speak.

  “I'm injured.” Her voice was weak, insubstantial, reminding her just how powerless she was when it came to Malachi. “I need a hospital.”

  “You underestimate me, Eliza,” Malachi said with fake disappointment. “I can take care of you just as well as any hospital. I am your father.”

  “You know you're not.” She could feel herself starting to pass out again and felt a twinge of fear stronger than the pain. Her injuries were obviously serious, and she needed proper medical attention. If Malachi refused to take her to the hospital, then she really might die.

  Seemingly reading her mind, he said, “You're not going to die. You have head injuries but you're obviously not impaired, so they aren’t too serious. You have a broken leg and a broken arm, but no neck or spinal injuries, and no internal bleeding. I borrowed some medical supplies, reset your breaks, gave you morphine and sedatives so you wouldn’t be in too much pain.”

  Malachi was truly insane. How could he think it was okay not to take her to a hospital? He couldn’t really have known whether she was bleeding internally. Nor could he have known the extent of her head injuries.

  A sharp prick in her arm refocused her attention. And she turned her head to see Malachi with a syringe in his hand.

  “Just some morphine, unless you'd rather I not give you any more?”

  Eliza knew she needed the drug; she was in too much pain to do without it. She gave her head a shake. The medication was already taking effect, dragging her back toward unconsciousness. She was almost out cold when she felt a firm grip on her arm. Forcing her eyes back open, she looked up into Malachi’s deadly serious face.

  “Just so you know, Eliza, I’ll never let you go. I'd rather see you dead first.”

  NOVEMBEr 3rd

  11:00 P.M.

  11:01 P.M.

  “So, all we know is that two kids and a baby are hiding somewhere in the hospital?” Paige Hood asked Jack as they systematically walked the hospital’s corridors. Her partner, Ryan, had called her and asked her to come and help with this—apparently unofficial—case that they had stumbled upon while at the hospital with Ryan’s wife, Sofia.

  “Yep, that’s it,” Jack agreed.

  “And there’s no chance of getting this girl to just tell us where the kids are?”

  “Nope, she wouldn’t budge. Xavier and I tried to convince her to let us take them somewhere safe, but she wouldn’t. Even Laura couldn’t get her to give it up.”

  If Laura couldn’t get the girl to tell where her little sisters were, then no one could. Laura was amazing at getting people to open up. Paige herself had talked to Laura numerous times, telling her things that she hadn’t confessed to anyone else.

  “How do we know these kids are even here?” Paige asked.

  “We don’t.”

  “This could be a wild goose chase.”

/>   “It could be,” Jack acknowledged.

  “You talked to this Maegan. Do you think what she told you is true?”

  Jack hesitated. “Laura thinks it is, and I trust her judgment.”

  “But?” Paige prompted, sensing there was more to it than that.

  “Xavier has some doubts,” Jack told her.

  “He does? Why?”

  “Something about a look in her eyes as she was talking to us earlier.”

  “What kind of look?”

  “Maegan told Laura that she was scared that the man who kidnapped her would try to convince us she was insane if we confronted him. Xavier’s concerned that she may actually be unbalanced and that this whole thing is just all in her head.”

  “If she were a kidnap victim, why would he leave her alone in a busy hospital?” Paige asked.

  “If she were crazy, why would her loving father Malachi leave her alone with two young children and a baby?” Jack countered.

  “All right,” Paige conceded, “either scenario could be true. Someone needs to talk to this Malachi and see if that helps us figure out what's really going on.”

  “Yeah, I plan to talk to him later. I wanted to see if I could find these kids first. Not only might it help us find out the truth, but I don’t like the idea of three little girls alone in the hospital.”

  “Whatever the truth, whether the girls are kidnap victims or Maegan is crazy, they aren’t safe in that house. Hey, Jack, what if these kids don’t even exist?”

  He considered it. “You think Maegan made them up?”

  “Well, no one has seen them, and she won't tell you their real names or her full name. If she’s unstable, maybe she just made them up, or maybe they’re like her imaginary sisters,” Paige suggested.

  “Maybe,” Jack nodded. “But right now, we have to assume they're here and I want them found.”

  “I don’t know where you could hide three kids in a hospital; there are too many people about. Plus, there are thousands of rooms. We can't possibly search them all quickly. We should be working on getting Maegan to give them up.”

  “We will,” Jack assured her. “For the moment, let’s just check out a few places, and then we’ll go back down to the emergency room.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. Paige could feel Jack’s eyes on her as they walked the hospital halls. He had been looking at her that way since she had come to help him look for the missing girls. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she finally asked when she could take no more of it.

  “Because I'm concerned about you,” Jack replied evenly.

  “Well, there’s no reason to be,” Paige snapped at him.

  “Ryan’s worried …”

  She stopped in her tracks to glare up at Jack. “I don’t care what Ryan is worried about.”

  “He worries because he cares about you. We all do,” he added.

  She sighed. “Which would be great if there was actually something to worry about. But there’s not. So it’s just annoying.”

  Jack grinned at her.

  “What?” she growled.

  “When you're angry, I almost believe that you're actually okay.”

  Paige sighed again. She and Jack had been friends for a long time. At one time, they’d even been more than friends. She’d met Jack through her friend Rose, when Jack had become Rose’s new partner. They’d dated briefly—for a month or two—but neither of them had been all that into the relationship. They had quickly realized they were better friends than anything else. She and Elias had started dating shortly after, and Jack had continued to date sporadically until Laura came back into his life.

  She was glad things had worked out well for both of them, but the downside to the fact that they’d dated and were still friends was that Jack worried about her, even when it wasn't necessary. The fact that she and his brother had become partners and were really good friends didn’t help.

  “Jack,” she groaned.

  “All right, all right,” he held up his hands in surrender. “If you change your mind and you want to talk, I'm here and Ryan’s here and Laura and Sofia and Xavier. Whatever you need.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she said adamantly, even though some of the conviction had gone out of her voice.

  She had turned to start walking again when Jack caught hold of her arm and held her in place. “Paige, I'm serious.”

  Her frustration fading away, she softened. “Yeah, I know you are. Thanks, Jack. Seriously though, I’ll be okay. Even if it doesn’t ever work out.”

  Despite her constant attempts to convince everyone that she would be fine if an adoption never worked out, she wasn't so sure she would be. Not long after her attack, when Elias had finally garnered up enough courage to tell her that her lifesaving surgery had left her unable to have children, her therapist had told her that she would go through a grieving process. At the time, she hadn’t understood how she could grieve for something that never even existed. But now she understood.

  It was true. She had grieved for the children she’d never be able to have.

  But now she was ready to have a family with her husband. She really wanted an adoption to work out, but so far, they’d been disappointed twice, and she had a bad feeling about this third one.

  Jack shook his head at her. “I knew you weren’t okay.”

  Ignoring that, she wasn't going to debate that with Jack all night. And debate it all night, he would. And then Ryan would jump in and Laura and Sofia and Xavier. She’d never win against all of them. “So, does Laura know we dated for a while?” she asked.

  Raising an eyebrow at her to indicate that he knew she was attempting an avoid and distract, he responded, “Yeah, she does. She thinks it’s funny; she can't see us as a couple at all.”

  Paige chuckled. She really liked Laura; they’d gotten to know each other well over the last few years, and Paige considered her and Sofia amongst her best friends. Thinking of her friends always made her think of Rose. She and Rose had been friends for years, and even though it had been four years since Rose had been murdered, the shaft of pain and loss that shot through Paige every time she thought of her hadn’t diminished.

  “You know, Rose had a crush on you when you two first became partners,” she said softly.

  Pain flooded Jack’s blue eyes. “She did? I never knew that.”

  “She thought you were hot, but bossy.” Paige attempted a smile even as she could feel her eyes fill with tears. “I still miss her, Jack.”

  “I know, honey. Me too.”

  “Sometimes I still go to call her and then I remember that I can't.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Paige brushed them quickly away, embarrassed.

  “Me too,” Jack put his arms around her.

  Paige allowed Jack to hold her while she cried. Sometimes life was so unfair. It was unfair that her best friend had been killed. It was unfair that now she couldn’t have kids just because some insane stalker was delusional and believed she had had an affair with her partner. And it was unfair that she had to live her life under the constant cloud of knowing that the stalker could come back and attempt to kill her again at any time.

  “Paige, go home, and try to get some rest.”

  Tugging herself free from Jack’s arms, she brushed at her wet cheeks. “No, I'm okay, Jack. I like to keep busy.”

  Even though he didn’t make a sound, Paige could practically hear his inward groan. At least he didn’t offer another protest and they quickly searched for several minutes before heading back down to the emergency room.

  Paige gave her own inward groan when she spotted her partner. She didn’t really want to see Ryan tonight. He was going to pepper her with questions she didn’t want to answer. Her hope that he wouldn’t spot her just yet was short lived when he looked over, his blue eyes narrowing directly at her. If she’d been able to come up with a legitimate excuse to disappear, she’d have done it. Now her only hope was that Ryan would just let it go and focus on these missing kids.
>
  “You’ve been avoiding me. Why? What’s wrong?” Ryan pounced on her as soon as she and Jack reached him and Xavier.

  “Nothing is wrong, and I haven’t been avoiding you,” she protested immediately, even though she knew she had. She hadn’t answered Ryan’s call earlier, but she’d listened to his message and come down here like he had asked her to. When she’d gotten here and spotted Jack, she had immediately offered to go with him to search for the kids so she could delay seeing Ryan for as long as possible.

  “Jack, did she talk to you?” He ignored her and turned his attention to his brother.

  “Jack,” Paige shot him a warning glance. She didn’t want him telling Ryan anything they talked about.

  “Look, I'm not getting in the middle of whatever is going on between you two. And, Ryan, even if she did talk to me, I wouldn’t tell you what she said. Paige and I are friends. Anything she tells me is confidential unless she says otherwise.”

  Ryan’s scowl included both of them, but he let it go. For now. Paige knew he’d be back at her soon. Other than her husband, Ryan was her best friend as well as her partner, but over the last four years, she’d thought a lot about whether or not they should remain partners.

  As much as she couldn’t imagine working with anyone else, perhaps it would be for the best. Ryan had found her beaten, covered in blood, and struggling to breathe after her attack. Maybe it would be better to start from scratch with someone who hadn’t seen her like that. Which was unfair, she knew. Ryan had saved her life that day. If he hadn’t turned up when he had, she’d be dead.

  Paige knew that Ryan and Sofia blamed themselves for her attack, but it was one hundred percent her own fault. She had been tired and distracted that day, and that was how the stalker had managed to sneak up on her without her noticing. She loved her friends, but she didn’t love that they worried about her. She was doing okay now—she didn’t need or want them worrying about her all the time. But she knew as long as the stalker remained at large it was inevitable that she would continue to be a source of worry for her friends.