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Rachel walked back into the bedroom she’d left only minutes before. With the fancy wood detailing, she hadn’t noticed the same grooves on the paneling in this room. “Bella?”
She opened the first door and sighed. The second cupboard was exactly the same. Empty.
“Rachel? You need to come here quickly.”
Rachel ran into the spare bedroom and stopped in the doorway.
Tess was kneeling in front of an open cupboard. Bella was lying inside the cavity, sound asleep. “She’s cold,” Tess whispered. “Do you think we should move her?”
Rachel unzipped her jacket and slipped it off her shoulders. “We need to get her warm. We can’t do that inside the cupboard. She knows us and it won’t be such a shock when she wakes up.”
Rachel gently shook Bella’s shoulder. “Bella, it’s Rachel. It’s time to wake up.”
Bella’s big brown eyes fluttered open, then closed again.
“Wake up, Bella.” Rachel nudged her arm again. She looked at the worried frown on Tess’ face. “I’ll lift her out of the cupboard. Can you hold her while I call for the police and an ambulance?”
Tess took her own jacket off and sat on the floor. “Of course I can. We could use my jacket as a blanket, too.” She held her arms out. “I’m ready.”
Rachel leaned down and carefully maneuvered Bella until her head and shoulders were out of the cupboard. “Here we go,” she said softly. Within minutes, Bella was sitting in Tess’ arms with two jackets wrapped around her cold body.
Rachel pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called 9-1-1. Bella’s brown eyes opened slowly. As soon as she saw Rachel, she smiled, then closed her eyes and fell back asleep.
With the police and an ambulance on the way, Rachel had one other person to call. Her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly hold the phone to her ear.
John answered his cell phone on the first ring. “John? It’s Rachel. We’ve found Bella. She’s in Tess’ old apartment above the café.”
His gruff reply was instant. He was on his way.
Within minutes of her first call, Rachel heard sirens on the street below. She walked into the living room just as the first police officer came inside.
The small apartment quickly became full of police officers, paramedics, and John’s security guards. After making sure Bella wasn’t in any immediate danger, two paramedics gently lifted her onto a stretcher. They replaced Rachel and Tess’ jackets with a foil survival blanket and made sure she was comfortable.
Rachel heard a noise on the back stairs and walked into the living room. John burst through the door, looking frantically around the room for his daughter. She pointed toward Tess’ spare bedroom. “She’s in there.”
John looked as though he’d aged ten years since she’d last seen him. Deep creases lined either side of his mouth and his eyes were full of worry. He rushed into the bedroom and she heard the relief in his voice when he talked to Bella.
She walked past the police officers and guards, and stood in the doorway, watching John. The scene in front of her was heartbreaking. He held Bella’s hand as the paramedics finished strapping her into a stretcher. His eyes never left her face, never wavered as tears fell down Bella’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry, dad. I shouldn’t have run away. Please don’t be mad at Rachel and Tank. They told me to be careful and I wasn’t.”
John leaned down and kissed the top of Bella’s head. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”
“Have you got Miss. Snuggles?” she whispered.
John reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an old soft toy. It looked as though the stuffing had been squeezed out of it years ago. “Here she is.”
Bella’s chin wobbled as she cuddled her small blue cat.
One of the paramedics glanced at John. “Would you like to travel in the ambulance with us? We’re taking Bella to the hospital as a precautionary measure.”
John nodded and followed the paramedics out of the bedroom.
Rachel moved out of their way, stepping straight into the path of a police officer. He waited until Bella and John were at the back door before talking to her.
“I’ll take your statements at the police station. Are you and Mrs. Allen ready to come with me?”
John stopped in the doorway. He looked at the police officer standing beside Rachel, then down at her. “Will you be okay?”
Rachel couldn’t look John in the eye. She’d let him down, and she’d let Bella down. She doubted she’d ever be okay again. “Can I visit Bella after Tess and I have spoken to the police?”
“Of course you can. I’ll text you if we leave the hospital before you get there. Tanner will stay with you.”
“I don’t need Tanner. I can look after myself.”
“It wasn’t a question. Tanner stays.”
The paramedics wheeled Bella onto the landing. Two police officers helped lift her stretcher down the stairs. John looked at her once more before disappearing from sight.
Rachel took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.
Tess walked across the room and wrapped her arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “Are you really going to be okay?”
She shook her head and glanced at Tanner. He was leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, staring straight at her. “Bella could have died, John hates me, and Tank will never trust me again. My life is a mess.”
“It could have been a lot worse.”
“I don’t see how.”
Tess held both of Rachel’s hands in hers. “We don’t know why Bella hid in my apartment, but we do know that she’s alive. No one got hurt.”
“I don’t think John would agree with you.”
The police officer stepped forward. “Ma’am, we need to go.”
Rachel pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and wiped her eyes. “Okay. I just need to get my…”
“Jacket?” Tanner had moved silently across the room. He held her jacket toward her.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with a grim smile. “We don’t know why Bella ran from the café. Until we do, you’re not going anywhere without me.”
Rachel followed Tess and the police officer out of the apartment. Tanner followed her down the stairs. He was so close that he could have been mistaken for her shadow. “Where’s Tank?”
“He’s working on some information we received.”
Rachel got halfway across the parking lot before a horrible thought crossed her mind. “He hasn’t been fired, has he? It wasn’t Tank’s fault that Bella left the car. It was mine. I should have locked the car door and kept her beside me.”
“With all due respect, you’re not employed as a security guard. It’s not your responsibility to look after Bella.”
Tess opened the rear door of the police car. “Come on, Rachel. The sooner we give our statements to the police, the sooner we can get to the hospital. Tank will be all right.”
Rachel wasn’t so sure about that. Just like she wasn’t sure she’d still have a job in the morning.
They drove down Main Street, passing vehicles with red noses attached to their front grills and reindeer ears attached to their windows. The boutique stores and restaurants were still open, happy to indulge the last minute shoppers. It all seemed so normal, so much part of what Rachel knew Christmas in Bozeman always was.
Except this year was different.
She leaned her head against the cool glass of the police car’s window. Thanks to Tess’ quick thinking, Bella was safe. But if they hadn’t found her when they did, today could have ended in tragedy.
***
John heard Rachel walking along the corridor outside the hospital’s family room before he saw her. The heels of her boots clicked against the vinyl floor with the same speed that she lived her life. Fast.
Up until today, he’d enjoyed the challenge of not knowing what she’d say or do from one minute to the next. Today had been different. Today, her impulsiveness could have killed Bella. His daughter meant the world to him and he wouldn’t tolerate anything that could cost Bella her life.
Rachel slowed down when she entered the family room. He wondered if she had any idea what she’d done by convincing Tank to visit a different store.
“You wanted to see me?” Her hands twisted her knitted hat in her hands. She looked nervous, worried, and so unsure about what was happening that it made him forget what he wanted to say.
“John? Is Bella okay?” A panicked look replaced the worry.
“Bella’s fine. She’ll probably be going home in the next couple of hours.”
Rachel sat down in the chair beside him. “I’m glad.”
“So am I.”
“I’m sorry, John. I never thought it would turn out like this.”
He almost missed the softly spoken words, the apology he hadn’t expected to hear. “Did you think that I asked Tank to go with you because he didn’t have anything better to do?”
She shook her head.
“I received multiple death threats. Oracom threatened my family. I wasn’t happy about you going into town in the first place, but Tank assured me that Walmart was safe. He had undercover guards in the store and an additional getaway car in the parking lot. When he was told that Walmart was too dangerous, you drove to another store that had no guards, no cameras, and no security clearance. Crafty Crafts was not an option.”
