“Look, I just want to see her for a few minutes. I won’t stay long. I just want to make sure she’s okay.” The nurse wavered, and I forced out a near-desperate “Please.”
She pursed her lips. For a second, I thought she would refuse, tell me to get out before she called the policeman back. But then she gave a short nod toward the hall. “Very well. Ms. St. James is in room 301, on your left. Just keep it short.”
Relieved, I thanked her and hurried down the hall, checking the number beside each door frame, passing identical rooms full of beds and sick people. As I wove around a janitor’s cart, a woman and a young girl, maybe around nine or ten, came out of one of the rooms ahead of me. I stepped aside to let them pass, feeling a jolt of recognition as they walked by without glancing at me. I didn’t know the tall blonde woman, but the little girl I’d seen before. She had been in a key-chain photograph with Kenzie, both of them smiling at the camera.
Mackenzie’s stepsister. Alec or Alex or something like that. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she wore a blue-and-white school uniform as she trailed beside her mom, heading back toward the waiting room. I watched until they turned a corner and disappeared, wondering if Kenzie’s sister really knew what was happening to her stepsibling. When I was her age, I didn’t understand why I never saw my older sister; I only knew she wasn’t home, wasn’t part of the family, and I missed her. I hoped Kenzie’s sibling never had to go through that—the pain of knowing you had a sister, and then you suddenly didn’t anymore.
The doorway they’d exited shone with a faint blueish glow. Peeking into room 301, I swallowed hard. Against the far wall, Kenzie lay in a white hospital bed surrounded by softly beeping machines. Her black hair was spread across her pillow, and her eyes were closed. A round table overflowing with flowers and get-well-soon balloons hovered next to her.
Guilt stabbed at me, raw and painful, but it was nearly smothered by the worried ache that spread through my chest when I saw her. The Kenzie I knew was never still—she was always bouncing from place to place, smiling and cheerful. To see her like this, pale, fragile and motionless, filled me with dread. Ducking into the room, I crossed the floor to her bedside, gripping the rails to stop myself from touching her. If she was asleep, I didn’t want to wake her, but as I approached the bed, she stirred. Dark brown eyes cracked open blearily, confused as they focused on my face.
“Ethan?”
I forced a smile, even as I cringed at the sound of her voice, so faint and breathy. “Hey, you,” I said, sounding a little faint myself. “Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. I didn’t know you were in the hospital.”
Her pale brow furrowed. “Oh, crap. M’fault. Phone was dead when I got back.” Her words slurred together, either from exhaustion or whatever drugs they were giving her. “Was gonna call you when it charged, but I got sick.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I dragged a chair from the corner and sat down next to her, reaching through the railing to take her hand. “Are you okay? Is it...?”
I trailed off, but Kenzie shook her head. “This is nothing. I just picked up some nasty virus or something while tromping around ‘New York.’ My immune system isn’t that great, so...” She shrugged, but that didn’t stop the guilt that continued to gnaw at me. Kenzie smiled weakly. “I should be out of here in a day or two, at least that’s what the doctors say.”
Relief swept through me. She would be all right. Kenzie would be home soon, and then we could get back to “normal,” or whatever passed for it with me. I wanted to try for normal, give it my best shot at least, and I wanted to do it with her.
I reached out with my other hand and stroked her cheek, feeling her soft skin under my fingers. She closed her eyes, and I asked, “What did your dad say when you came back?”
Her brow furrowed, and she opened her eyes again. “He actually had the gall to be upset that I didn’t call him. He said he had the police looking for me for days, and was angry that I never told him where I was. He never took an interest in my life before. Why bother now?”
“Maybe he was worried about you,” I offered. “Maybe he realized he made a mistake.”
She sniffed, unappeased. “I vanish for a few days and now he’s interested in being a dad? After ignoring me for years and not caring about anything I did?” She wrinkled her nose, bitterness coloring her voice. “Too little too late, I’m afraid. I don’t need him looking out for me.”
I didn’t answer. It would take a lot of talking, tears and forgiveness for Kenzie and her dad to settle their differences and start to heal old wounds, and I didn’t want to be that mediator. Not with my own screwed-up family. As if reading my mind, Kenzie asked, “What did your parents say when you got back? Were they very mad?”
“No.” I shrugged. “They...sort of had a visit from the Iron Queen before I got home. She talked to them, told them where I had been, that it wasn’t my fault I disappeared.”
“Have you talked to Keirran since New York? Or your sister?”
I shook my head, my mood darkening at the thought of Keirran and Meghan. “No. I don’t think I’ll see either of them for a while.”
“I’m worried about him,” Kenzie muttered, sounding as if she was fighting sleep. “Him and Annwyl both. Hope they’re all right.”
A nurse peeked into the room, saw me and frowned, tapping her wrist. I nodded, and she ducked out.
I stood, wishing I didn’t have to leave so soon. “I have to go,” I told her as she blinked sleepily up at me. Reaching down, I gently brushed the hair from her face. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”
Her eyes closed once more and didn’t open this time. “Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring chocolate? The food here sucks.”
I laughed quietly, bent down and kissed her. Just a brief, light touch of her lips to mine, and she sank back into the pillows. Already asleep. I watched her for another heartbeat, then turned and left the room, vowing to come back as soon as I could.
As I stepped into the hall, a shadow pushed itself off the wall and moved toward me, blocking my path. I blinked and stumbled to a halt as a tall, dark-haired man loomed over me, cold black eyes regarding me with suspicion. He wore a business suit that probably cost more than my truck, a large Rolex on one wrist and an air of aggressive superiority. He didn’t look distraught. In this corridor of rumpled, haggard-looking people, he was tall and clean shaven with not a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his clothes.
We stared at each other, and I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like the way this guy was looking at me, like I was a stray dog wandering around and he wasn’t sure if he should call animal control. I was about to shove past him when his lips twitched into a cold, unamused smile, and he shook his head.
“So.” The man’s voice wasn’t loud or even hostile. It was cool and pragmatic. “You’re him, aren’t you? The boy that took my very sick daughter away from her family, and her medicine, and her doctors, to go gallivanting up to New York for the week.”
Oh, crap. You had to be kidding me. This was Kenzie’s father. Kenzie’s very rich, very powerful lawyer father. The father who, by Kenzie’s own admission, had had the entire police force searching for his missing daughter all week.
I was in trouble.
I didn’t answer, and Kenzie’s dad continued to regard me without expression. His voice didn’t change; it was still perfectly reasonable, though his eyes turned steely as he said, “Explain yourself, please. Tell me why I shouldn’t press charges against you for kidnapping.”
I swallowed the challenge on the tip of my tongue. The unfairness of it all burned my throat. He wasn’t making idle threats. I’d dealt with my share of lawyers, though they were all public defenders,