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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I’ve been searching for 15 minutes without any sign of Lilly. No pink mittens. No candy wrappers. No stuffed animals.

“Dammit, Lilly, give me something.” I say it aloud as I scan the ground with the flashlight. “Give me a sign that you’re out here. Anything.”

I yell her name even louder. I’m so scared for her. So worried that someone bad has her and that we’ll never see her again.

My voice is getting hoarse, but I continue to yell her name. I’m starting to lose hope as reality sets in. There’s no way she’d be out here. It’s way too cold, and way too dark and scary.

“Lilly! It’s Jade. If you hear me, yell really, really loud!”

I can’t see very far ahead, but I’m guessing I’m only halfway to the end of the property. I’ll keep going, but I really don’t think Lilly’s tiny legs could even make it that far. I get my phone out to call Garret and see where he’s at.

“Jade.” I hear my name but it’s very faint. The voice sounds far away.

“Jade.” It’s the same voice, still very faint. I put the phone in my pocket and start running toward where I think it’s coming from. The crunch of dead leaves under my feet is making it difficult to hear, so I stop for a moment. I hear it again. It doesn’t sound like Garret. It sounds like a little kid voice. It’s gotta be Lilly. It has to be.

“I’m coming, Lilly! Keep yelling, okay?”

I hear my name again and again as I get closer. As the voice gets louder I run faster, because I know Lilly’s here somewhere in front of me and I have to get to her to make sure the voice isn’t just my mind playing tricks on me.

Just as I hear my name again, my foot catches on something and sends me crashing to the ground, my knee banging and sliding against a large rock and my head hitting a fallen log. I see stars for a few seconds and my knee is seething with pain that shoots up and down my leg.

“Jade?” I hear a tiny voice as a little hand touches the side of my face. The hand is icy cold.

“Lilly!” I flip over on my back and the pain in my leg grows even worse. I sit up and pull Lilly into my arms. She has a sleeping bag wrapped around her but she’s shivering. “What are you doing out here? Everyone’s been looking for you.” I hold her close to my body, trying to give her my warmth. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m scared.” She shivers in my arms. “It’s too dark. And there’s monsters out here and they—”

“There’s no monsters. They all left. I told them to go home and never come back here again.”

“You did?” I see her looking up at me in the light of the flashlight which landed on the ground when I fell. She looks relieved, like she actually believes my monster story.

“Why are you out here, Lilly?”

“I’m running away.”

“Why?”

“Because Mom and Dad fight all the time and I don’t like it.”

“I know, but you can’t run away like that. You can’t—” I stop because it’s not the time to lecture her. We both need to get inside. I lie back slightly to get my phone from my pocket, still holding on to Lilly.

“Garret, I’ve got her,” I say when he picks up.

He lets out a huge sigh of relief. “Where are you?”

“I’m not sure.” I reach over for the flashlight and move it around. A few feet away I see a clearing and the top of a small hill. “We’re by the hill where we took Lilly sledding.”

“Okay. Wait in the clearing. I’ll meet you there.”

“Hold on.” I cradle the phone between my head and shoulder and reach down to my throbbing knee. My jeans are soaking wet and from the pain I’m feeling I know it’s blood. “I can’t meet you there. I fell and did something to my knee. And I hit my head, so I’m kind of dizzy.”

“Shit! Okay, I’ll go to the clearing and when you hear me just start yelling.”

Within minutes he finds us, out of breath from running so fast.

“Lilly.” He kneels down, taking her from me and hugging her tightly against his chest.

“I think she’s okay,” I tell him. “But she’s freezing. She needs to get inside.”

“Jade’s hurt,” Lilly says.

“I’ll be okay,” I assure her. “Garret, take her inside. I can wait here.”

He shines his flashlight along my body. “Jade, what the hell happened? There’s blood everywhere!”

“It’s not everywhere. It’s just my knee. I tripped over Lilly, but I’m fine. Just take her in the house.”

“Your head is bleeding, too.” He reaches up to touch it.

I wince. “Ouch! Don’t do that!”

“I barely touched you. I need to get you inside. Can you put weight on your other leg?”

“I don’t know.” I try to get up but can’t do it on my own.

“Lilly, I need to help Jade.” Garret sets her beside him. “Hold the flashlight and don’t you dare run off.”

She nods, taking the flashlight and letting her sleeping bag fall down around her.

Garret helps me stand up on my good leg. The pain in my other leg is now excruciating and my vision fades to black.

When I come to, Garret is carrying me in his arms and walking fast toward the house, Lilly at his side.

“Did I just pass out?”

“Yes.” Garret says. “You need to get to a doctor. Fast.”

“No, really. I’m fine. I just need to clean my leg up.”

“Your leg needs stitches, Jade, and maybe a cast. And you probably have a concussion.”

“But I don’t have insurance.” As I say it my head feels dizzy again and my vision blurs. “I can’t—” Everything goes black.

* * *

I wake up in a bed, but it’s not mine and it’s not Garret’s. I’m wearing a hospital gown and I’m hooked up to an IV. But I’m not in a hospital bed. It’s just a normal bed in what looks like a normal room with wood floors, a patterned area rug, a leather chair off to the side, and beige curtains on the windows.

“Jade.” Garret appears next to me.

“Where am I?”

“You’re at a private medical clinic. The same one I went to when I was shot.”

“But where? Are we by your house?” I sit up, suddenly remembering what happened in the woods. “How’s Lilly? Is she okay? What happened with your dad? And Katherine?”

He takes my hand. “Hey, one question at a time. And lie down. You’re making me nervous.”

I rest back on the stack of pillows behind my head.

“I can’t tell you where we are,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re taking good care of you.”

“But I don’t have—”

“It’s all paid for, Jade,” he interrupts, knowing my concern.

I’m not sure what he means. Is his dad paying for this? He must be. All I have is the college health plan, which only covers visits to the health clinic on campus. I don’t have insurance for any other type of medical care.

“And Lilly’s fine,” he continues. “She just needed to warm up from being outside for so long. It sounded like she was out there for a couple hours.”

“What happened with your dad?”

“He’s back at the house taking care of Lilly and keeping an eye on Katherine. I’m sure he’ll have her followed now to make sure she doesn’t end up back with Stephen. But Katherine was right. She and my dad aren’t getting divorced and they’re no longer separated. I have no idea why, but I’m not going to ask.”

He rubs his thumb along my knuckles, still holding my hand. “How do you feel?”

I take a moment to figure that out. “Okay, I guess. My knee doesn’t hurt anymore.” I pull the blankets away and see that my knee is bandaged up and I have bruises up and down my leg.

“What happened? Did I get stitches?”

“Yeah. You really busted up your knee. They said it’ll be fine. You just can’t go running for a while.”

“Then why am I here? Can I go home now?”

“You hit your head pretty hard. You have a concussion, so they kept you here to make sure you’re okay. They said you might be able to leave later today or tonight.”

“How long have I been here?”

“It’s Saturday, so about a day and a half.”

I sit up again. “I missed Friday classes? I had assignments due! And a quiz!”

“Jade, relax.” He eases me back down on the pillows. “We let your professors know you’d be out.”

“When did you get here?”

He looks confused. “What do you mean? I came here with you. I never left.”

“You missed class? But, Garret, you—”

“Why are you so worried about school? It was only one day.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to sit here with me, especially if I’ve been asleep the whole time.”

He sighs. “I love you, Jade. I’m not going to leave you when you’re hurt.”

I glance down, smoothing the blanket with my hand. “I thought you were mad at me about the whole list thing.”

“I’m over it.” He squeezes my hand to get me to look at him. “Are you?”

“Yes. I never should’ve asked you to do that. And I knew you weren’t messing around with Ava last semester, so I never should’ve accused you of that. I’m sorry. About all of it.”

“Jade, I only kept that stuff from you because I knew it would hurt you. I know how shitty I would feel thinking about you with some other guy, even if it was in the past, and I didn’t want you to feel that way. None of those girls matter. I only want you.” He picks my hand up and kisses it, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’ll always only want you.”

I don’t know if it’s the painkillers I’m on or what, but his words have me tearing up. “Come here.” I pull him in for hug. “Let’s not do the fighting thing again.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ll fight again. It’s normal. We just can’t let it go on for two days or however long that was. It seemed like two weeks.”

“Yeah, I know.” I let him go. “I should’ve talked to you sooner, but sometimes I can be a little stubborn.”

He laughs. “A little?”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, a lot. Whatever.”

Garret’s phone rings. “Yeah, she’s right here,” he says when he answers. He hands me the phone. “Frank.”

“Hi, Frank.” I look at Garret, unsure what to say. Does Frank know what happened? Does he know where I am?

“You’re finally awake,” Frank says. “Feeling any better?”

“Um, yeah. I feel okay.”

“Listen. No more running on those trails in the woods, especially by yourself. You see what can happen? You trip over a log and end up almost splitting your head open.”

It must be the made-up story Garret told him. I’m relieved Frank doesn’t know the truth. The less he’s involved with the Kensington drama, the better. “Yeah, I know. I’ll make sure not to go alone anymore. Or I’ll stick to paved roads from now on.”

We talk a few minutes more before we hang up.

Garret takes his phone back. “I’ve been updating him. And my dad talked to Frank, too, and told him you’re okay.”

“So you told him I fell when I was running on the trails?”

“Yeah. And I told him you called me on your cell and I was there right away, so he wouldn’t think you were lying in pain for hours.”

It’s another lie and I hate lying to Frank. But telling him about Lilly would cause him to ask too many questions. I’m still trying to understand it myself. It’s still hard to believe that Garret and his family just assumed Lilly had been kidnapped. Like she’s not even safe in her own home.

“Garret, remember when you were talking about having kids?”

He seems surprised. “Yeah. Why?”

“I was just thinking. If you ever have kids, will you have to worry about them the way you worry about Lilly? Always worried someone’s going to kidnap them? Because I think it’s sad that Lilly has to be locked away in her room and can’t even play outside.”

“I’m not going to live my life the way my dad does. I’m not going to do the bribes and the blackmail and whatever else he does to put his daughter at risk.” He smiles. “Our kids will be able to play outside.”

I ignore the “our” reference and move on. “What about the company? You’re not even going to be involved? Don’t you have to be? Aren’t you expected to take over the business some day?”

“Lilly can run it. She’s only 6 and she already likes bossing people around. She’ll make a great CEO some day.”

“I’m serious, Garret.”

“So am I. I don’t want the company. I don’t want anything to do with it. I’ve already told you that. I’m getting a business degree so I can start my own company. Something totally different.”

“Does your dad know that?”

“Yes. He doesn’t accept it, but that’s not my problem. He can’t force me to take over the business. Besides, my dad’s only 48. He’ll be running the company for at least the next 30 years. And in that time he can either train Lilly to take it over or find someone else.”

The door opens and a man walks in wearing dark pants, a white dress shirt, and a tie, with a stethoscope around his neck. I do a double-take when I see his face. It’s the doctor who’s been helping Frank. The one who also helped Garret the night he was shot. This guy really gets around.

“Jade, I’m glad to see you up and alert.” He comes over to my bed. “I’m Dr. Cunningham. We’ve met before. Do you remember me?”

“Um, yes.”

Garret steps aside as the doctor takes my wrist and checks my pulse. Then he checks one of the machines next to my bed.

“Any headaches? Vision problems?” he asks.

“No. Nothing.” I shouldn’t be surprised seeing him there. I know he works for this secret medical group, but I still don’t know what that means. I wish someone would just tell me what’s going on with this guy and explain more about this group and what they do.

“Well, everything looks good. I think we’ll go ahead and send you home.” The man turns to Garret. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“What about overnight? Can someone stay with her? Does she have a roommate?”

“I’ll stay with her.”

“Then I’ll give you this.” He hands Garret a sheet of paper. “Look it over and let me know if you have questions.” He turns back to me. “I’ll send you home with some crutches. You’ll probably only need them for a couple weeks, if that. But even if your knee feels better, don’t run on it. Walking only for now. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Um, am I supposed to come back here to get the stitches out?”

“No. I’ll see you at a clinic near campus. Garret knows where it is. We’ll call you to set up an appointment. If that’s it, I’ll let you two head out.” He starts to leave.

“Wait. Can I ask you something?” My palms get sweaty as he walks toward me again. I’m sure I shouldn’t be asking this and I consider chickening out, but I feel like I owe it to Frank. I need to know the truth.