by Blythe, Jane
Laura arched a worried brow. “Normally I'd agree with you, but you're so stressed out right now, I think your judgment is skewed.”
“I just need this to be over.”
“Have you thought about how Sofia is going to feel if you throw yourself at the stalker and no one can get to you before he hurts you? Or kills you?”
She flinched. “That’s not fair.” Paige would never intentionally do anything to hurt her friend.
“I know,” Laura agreed unapologetically. “But I'm not playing fair. I'm playing hardball. I'm trying to save your life.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t do anything stupid,” Paige reminded her.
“I know you did, and I believe you. The problem is, I think we have a completely different opinion on what stupid is right now.”
Paige looked down at the little girl asleep in her arms. “I was pregnant,” she said quietly.
“What?” Laura sounded confused.
“Four years ago, when he tried to kill me, I was pregnant. I didn’t know at the time, but I found out later. I was only five weeks along.” Elias had broken the news to her while she’d still been in the hospital. It had come as a major shock. She and Elias had not been planning on getting pregnant. They hadn’t even been married two years and had decided to wait at least another year before they began trying.
“Oh, Paige, I'm so sorry.” Laura wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Does anyone else know?”
She shook her head. “Only Elias, and now you. He took so much from me, Laura. I lost my baby, and I lost the ability to ever have kids of my own. I can't lose anything else. What if he did something to Elias? Then I'd have nothing. I have to stop him. Surely, you can understand that.”
Laura was wavering. Paige could see it in her eyes. She needed to convince her to keep quiet. If she couldn’t and Laura told Jack, then there was a very real chance that she would find herself put into protective custody against her will.
On the desk beside them, her phone began to buzz. Unable to reach it with Hayley asleep in her arms, Paige asked, “Can you pass me that?”
“Sure. It’s Ryan,” Laura informed her as she picked up the phone and handed it over.
“Hey, Ryan,” she answered. In the background she could hear sirens and shouting. Instantly, she was concerned. “What happened?”
“Malachi rigged the house to explode,” her partner answered. His voice was hoarse, and he sounded a little breathless.
“With you inside?” Her tone must have conveyed something was wrong because Laura tensed beside her.
“Yep.”
“Are you okay?”
“What happened?” Laura demanded. “Is Jack okay? Is Ryan okay?”
Paige waved her quiet as she awaited Ryan’s response.
“I'm fine, extremely mild smoke inhalation, but Jack was injured.”
“Is he all right?”
“Paramedics are checking him out. He was knocked out, but he seems okay. Firefighters are putting out the fire, but the house is gone. We won't be getting anything from it. As soon as the medics are done with him, we’re heading back to the hospital.”
“Ryan, Laura’s with me. She knows something’s up. I'm going to have to tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Laura was sounding completely panicked now.
“Jack’s going to be mad that she’s not in bed. Just make sure she knows that he’s okay. Really, Paige, he’s fine and I'm fine. I have to go, but we’ll be there soon. Xavier told us about the stalker following you earlier, so please be careful. Don’t go anywhere on your own.”
As Paige hung up her phone and prepared to tell Laura what had happened, Hayley sighed in her sleep and shifted closer, and Paige wondered whether making herself bait for the stalker was a good idea after all.
* * * * *
1:44 A.M.
“Laura, try to calm down.” Xavier took her arm and tried to push her into a chair.
“Calm down?” she all but screeched at him. “I can't calm down.”
She had been in a complete panic since Paige had told her about the explosion at Malachi’s house.
Jack had been injured.
Just like in her dream earlier.
Only in her dream, he’d been dead.
What if he was more seriously injured than Paige had told her?
Paige had said that Ryan had told her that Jack was okay, but was he really?
Had Ryan been lying?
Wanting to protect her?
Apparently, Jack had been knocked unconscious, so how okay could he really be?
“Laura, now, sit!” Xavier barked, his tone stern.
She allowed him to guide her into a chair.
Maybe she did need to sit.
She wasn't feeling so great.
Fear over Jack was even overriding her agoraphobia.
Every single part of her felt wobbly.
Including her mind.
She couldn’t lose Jack.
She couldn’t survive it. It was as simple as that.
Fear was clogging her body.
Almost literally.
White dots began to dance in front of her eyes, and she realized that she was gasping for breath.
“Laura?” Xavier’s voice had jumped from stern to concerned. “You need to calm down. Now. You're hyperventilating.”
She struggled to calm herself but thought it was probably a losing battle.
“Laura, listen to me.” Xavier was kneeling beside her chair. “I spoke to Jack on the phone. He really is okay. He doesn’t even have a concussion. Just a bump on the head and three stitches. That’s it. He’s fine. Now if you don’t calm down, I'm going to get someone to sedate you.”
She fought to get control of herself. She didn’t want to be sedated. She needed to see Jack for herself before she could believe that he was okay.
“Okay, that’s better,” Xavier nodded approvingly as she managed to marginally calm her ragged breathing. Then his gaze shifted to something behind her and he bounded to his feet. “What are you doing out here? It’s not safe for you.”
“I wanted to see Ryan and Jack when they get here,” Paige replied.
Going to her and shielding her body from the majority of the room, Xavier escorted Paige to the seats where Laura was. “Like they couldn’t have come and seen you in the office,” he scoffed, pushing Paige into a chair and then positioning himself so he both blocked her from any potential threats and could monitor everything happening around them.
“I didn’t want to scare the girls,” Paige explained. “Plus, I promised I wouldn’t go anywhere alone, and I'm not. I'm sitting here right beside you, bodyguard.”
Xavier glowered at her. “You're going to make guarding you a nightmare, aren’t you?”
Shrugging fitfully, Paige didn’t respond, and Laura made up her mind immediately to tell Jack what Paige was planning. She understood where Paige was coming from, she had suffered an enormous loss and almost died, but she was going to get herself hurt or killed if she tried to make herself bait. Laura didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship or Paige’s trust in her, but keeping her alive was more important. If need be, she could work on rebuilding trust later.
“There they are,” Xavier announced, gesturing to the door.
Both she and Paige stood and hurried toward them. Xavier muttered something and caught up to Paige, remaining at her side as she threw her arms around Ryan.
Laura froze a few feet from Jack. Her eyes traveled his body, trying to convince herself that he was alive. That he was here and in one piece. Other than smelling of smoke and a darkening bruise around a white square bandage on his forehead, he looked fine.
And yet, she still couldn’t believe it.
“Laura, I'm okay.” Jack closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest.
She breathed in deeply, trying to inhale his scent as though that might convince her stressed out mind that her husband was really all right
. She shuddered violently in Jack’s arms, wrapping her own arms around his waist and clinging to him desperately.
“Shh, angel, I'm right here.” Jack’s hand cradled her head, his warm fingers threading through her hair and gently kneading the back of her head. “Are you okay?”
For a long time, she just rested against him, letting him hold her up, and letting her fears slowly trickle out of her head. Jack was okay—warm and strong and solid. Aside from a scratchy voice, he sounded normal, like his usual strong, confident self. “I'm okay,” she whispered at last.
At her acknowledgement, she felt Jack relax. Kissing the top of her head, he told her, “You're supposed to be in bed.”
“And you,” Ryan was saying to Paige, “are supposed to be in the office with a cop on the door so the stalker can't get to you.”
“I'm not a prisoner, Ryan, and I stayed right here with Xavier, just like I promised,” she retorted. Then she shivered and hugged Ryan again. “I'm really glad you're okay.”
“Right back at ya,” Ryan hugged her back. “I freaked out when Xavier said the stalker had been following you.”
“I'm really glad you're okay, too.” Laura tugged herself out of Jack’s arms to hug her brother-in-law. She didn’t want to lose anyone she loved and tonight had been a bad night for all of them.
Paige turned to Jack and hugged him, too. “I'm glad you weren’t hurt worse. Are you sure you're okay?”
“I'm fine, Paige, really. No concussion. All I have is a mild headache,” he assured her.
“Did you at least find anything helpful at the house before it blew up?” Paige asked.
“Before we discuss that, can we please go somewhere that isn’t a security nightmare?” Xavier was still looking at Paige in frustration and constantly surveying their surroundings. “Out here, there are too many people, too many doors, too many windows.”
“He’s not going to come back tonight,” Paige protested.
“Do you want to be safe or do you want to be sorry?” Ryan asked her.
She groaned but didn’t protest as Ryan and Xavier flanked her as they walked back to the office. Laura took Jack’s hand and hoped that he wasn't going to try to order her to go back to bed. Not that she had to accept his orders, of course, and usually she didn’t, but she didn’t want to stress him out when he’d been injured. And he would stress if he was worried about her. But she didn’t want to sleep. She was probably too wired to anyway, but if exhaustion did take hold and she slept, she would almost definitely have nightmares. Which would almost certainly feature her husband’s near death experience.
Jack must have been preoccupied because he squeezed her hand but didn’t say anything as they followed the others to the office. Inside, Xavier remained at the door while the rest of them sat.
“The house was a bust,” Ryan informed them. “We got Malachi’s name, and thankfully we sent off some bank account information before we lost it all in the fire.”
Laura shuddered again at the mention of the fire.
She had come so close to losing Jack.
And to lose Jack would have been to lose her life.
Jack had been knocked unconscious in the explosion. If Ryan had been, too, then both of them would have perished.
Somehow, Jack sensed her increasing anxiety levels and reached for her hand, pulling her onto her feet and then down into his lap. She pressed against him, hoping his strength could seep into her. He was the one who’d been injured, she should be comforting him instead, once again, Jack was the one to comfort her.
“I don’t think the house was ever going to give us the answers we need. Eliza is. I don’t think Malachi or Maegan was the one to drug her. And I don’t think it was a suicide attempt or an accident. I think she deliberately overdosed herself so that Malachi would bring them all here,” Ryan was saying.
“I started making progress with her, but then when I told her Malachi had run, she shut down again,” Xavier explained.
“She knows Malachi brainwashed her. He had to have told her things about the real Ariyel to make her believe that she was Ariyel. If we can get her to open up, we’ll know where Malachi went,” Ryan said.
“You stay with Paige, and I’ll try talking to her again,” Xavier said.
“Actually, I think we should send in Maegan and Laura.” Ryan cast her a careful glance, attempting to gauge whether she was up to it.
“No,” Jack said immediately.
“You really think it’ll help?” Laura asked.
“Yes,” Ryan nodded emphatically. “You need to push her hard though, and since you're a psychiatrist, and she’s extremely emotionally vulnerable right now, I think you’ll do better than the rest of us. Maegan should help to ground her, make her feel safe, and act as additional motivation to talk, and you’ll know what’s best to say and how and when to say it.”
“I’ll do it.” Laura wanted to end this for Maegan and Eliza and the other girls. She didn’t want them living with the threat of Malachi still being free. Then she wanted to go home with her husband and her son, curl up in bed, and sleep for about a week.
“No, you won't,” Jack protested. She could feel the tension rippling through him. “You can take yourself right back to Sofia’s room and hop back into bed. And you can take Paige with you, so she stays out of trouble.” Her husband shot a glare Paige’s way. “Xavier can continue to work on Eliza; he’s already built trust with her.”
“I agree. Eliza trusts Xavier, so we want him as a backup in case Laura pushes her hard enough that she cracks. He can then come in and see what else he can get out of her. I don’t want to sound harsh. I feel sorry for her, and we’ll make sure that she gets the very best counseling, but right now we need to get Malachi off the streets, and she’s our best chance of achieving that,” Ryan reminded them.
* * * * *
1:55 A.M.
“Is Eliza okay?” Maegan asked Laura as they stood outside Eliza’s hospital room.
“She’s very fragile right now,” Laura replied.
“Then why are we doing this?” Maegan didn’t want to put Eliza through anything more than she had already endured.
“Because Malachi needs to be stopped,” Laura answered.
“But that’s your job. Well not you specifically,” she corrected herself, “but your husband and his friends. They should be the ones out looking for Malachi.”
“They were, and Malachi blew up the house with my husband and my brother-in-law inside. He could have killed them.” Laura drew in a shaky breath and looked like she was struggling to calm herself.
“I'm sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Maegan disagreed. She had messed up; she knew she had. “I should have told you everything from the beginning. Then Jack could have arrested Malachi and he’d be in jail. Your husband wouldn’t have nearly been killed, no one else would be in danger from him, and Eliza wouldn’t have to go through this.”
“What’s done is done, honey.” Laura took her hand and squeezed supportively. “Malachi messed with your head, too. He abducted you and kept you locked away from the rest of the world. You were scared, but you still came forward; don’t beat yourself up.”
Well, Maegan was beating herself up, and she didn’t know how to stop. “Let’s just get this over with,” she muttered, putting her hand on the door handle.
Laura stopped her. “Maegan, she’s already stressed out. She needs you to be calm.”
She held her breath and counted to ten, then Maegan slowly let it out again. “Okay, I'm ready.”
When she opened the door, Eliza immediately turned toward them. Her blue eyes were hopeful and then disappointed. “I thought you were Xavier,” she whispered.
It seemed Eliza liked Xavier a whole lot more than Maegan did. She studied the woman she would always think of as her sister. Eliza looked even thinner and paler than she had earlier. Her eyes were tormented and seemed too big for her face. Laura was right; Eliza was so fragile.
/> Maegan was overwhelmed with apprehension. She didn’t think she could do this. She couldn’t push her sister when she seemed in no shape to handle it.
Laura, however, seemed completely at ease as she crossed to the bed and took a seat. “Hey, Eliza, I'm Laura. I think you met my husband Jack earlier this evening.”
Eliza gave a wary nod, her eyes on Laura’s pregnant belly.
Laura followed her gaze. “Do you want to see Arianna, Eliza?” Laura asked.
She shook her head. “No, thank you,” Eliza answered dully. “But she’s okay, right?”
“She’s fine. And so are Hayley and Bethany,” Laura continued. “Bethany’s parents came and got her, and she went home.”
It was odd, Maegan thought, that she was both excited and terrified at the prospect of seeing her family again. She had thought of them every day since her abduction. She had dreamed and daydreamed about being reunited with them, but now that it was almost time to see them, her stomach was a nervous mess of anxiety.
Why was she so anxious?
She wanted to see them.
She was dying to see them.
So much so that she could hardly concentrate on anything else.
She’d spent every day of the last five years with Eliza, Bethany, and Hayley. How would she feel without their constant presence?
Laura’s tone grew serious. “Eliza, Xavier said he told you that Malachi disappeared. We need to find him. I know you know how important that is. But we need your help.”
Eliza shrunk back into the mattress. “I can't help you.”
“Yes, you can,” Laura contradicted firmly. “I know you're scared. Believe me, Eliza, I know what that’s like. Even once he’s caught, it will take a lot of time for that fear to fade. I know what hell it is to have to relive everything while it’s still so fresh in your mind, and I hate to have to put you through it, but I need to know everything.”
“I can't help you,” Eliza repeated desperately.
“You remember your abduction. You don’t want to, but you do. I know I wish I could forget mine.” Laura paused as Eliza’s eyes grew wise in surprise. “I wish I could forget everything that happened during that time, but it’s seared into my brain forever. I know it is for you, too. Malachi tried to brainwash you, but you're so strong, Eliza. You remember everything.”