"I'm going back to see her to get her statement so we can catch this guy," Rowland said. "If she had been kidnapped, we need to know right away."
"I doubt she would have jumped out of a moving vehicle for the fun of it," Grayson said.
"Right, but I need to get a description of the guy. We know it was a black pickup truck. I’ll be right back."
Grayson hurried to fill out the rest of the paperwork and turned it in at the admissions desk. "Where is she?"
"She'll be in room three when they're done with her," the admissions clerk said.
He headed down the hall to see her, and Kendra hurried after him. He glanced at her. "Are you sure they'll let you see her since you're not family?"
"It's a shifter clinic. They're more relaxed about family and friends seeing patients in the clinic. Unless, of course, the family says they don't want people to visit who might upset the patient."
When they arrived in the room, Rowland was waiting for Ivy to arrive.
Grayson was glad Rowland hadn't already spoken with Ivy yet because he wanted to learn everything he could about what had happened to her. He had every intention of continuing to chase down the kidnapper himself.
Then the nurse wheeled Ivy into the room. Ivy was wearing a bandage around her head, the center of it sporting a spot of blood, and her arm was in a sling.
The doctor walked in and said, "Ivy was lucky. The truck had just started to roll down the road and hadn't picked up speed yet. She made a break for it at the right time. Even at that, she banged her head pretty hard and has a hairline fracture on her radius. She didn’t have any concussion. She's young, healthy, and a shifter, so she'll heal up in no time."
"That's good news. Thanks, Doc," Grayson said.
"I'll leave you to talk to her about what happened." Then the doctor left the room.
"I'm Deputy Sheriff Rowland Smith,” Rowland said to Ivy. “I need to learn what happened."
"I met Billy, though he preferred I call him Big Bear online, and I was telling him how sad I was about my mom dying, and he told me he lost his mom just a year ago and how he felt the same way. He said he was sixteen also, and his picture was really cute."
"Hell, Ivy, we all lost Mom, you, Marcus, and our dad."
"You're always busy working. All of you. It's like you've gotten on with your life and forgotten all about her. And about me."
"Everyone grieves in different ways," Kendra said.
"Did you lose your mom, too?" Ivy asked, snotty like.
Grayson was about to say something about her attitude, but Kendra said, "I did. I lost both of my parents. But I also had a twin sister who, at the age of sixteen, was killed by her kidnapper."
That shut Ivy up.
“And?” Rowland prompted Ivy to continue with her story.
"Big Bear asked me to meet him. He sent me the money to buy a bus ticket." Then she looked over at Kendra. "You shot my brother."
"I thought he was trying to kidnap you."
Ivy's facial expression changed as if she realized her own twin sister's kidnapping had been the reason. But then she got snarky again. "Where were you when I was being kidnapped?" Then she turned her attention to Rowland again. “At first, Billy was supposed to pick me up at the bus station. Then his father called and said his son's car had broken down, that he would come pick me up instead, and take me to his son's place, and that he would be late getting there. He wanted me to walk to the location where my brother caught sight of me."
"And you believed him," Grayson said. "He didn't want anyone to witness you being picked up at the bus station. Security cameras are located all over the place there."
"Yeah, I figured that out later," Ivy said. "We stopped at a grocery store because I hadn't eaten for so long. But he wouldn't come in, and he parked a long way from the entrance. I thought it was odd because there were so many parking spots up close to the store."
"And none of that seemed peculiar to you?" Grayson asked.
"He let me go into the store alone. I figured since he wasn't afraid I would run away that he was on the up and up."
"And he told you to get rid of your phone?" Grayson asked.
