Page 65 of Two Favors Repaid

It’s happening again. If we don’t find her …

But he couldn’t let himself think like that. He had to believe they could find Emma. She wasn’t dead. He’d know somehow if she were. He just had to stay calm and think.

We’ll find Emma. We must.

#

Rob

At three in the morning, Rob sat in his car. He felt ready to collapse yet knew there was no point in trying to sleep. His mind wouldn’t let him rest.

By seven p.m. they had confirmed that the abduction had taken place at the hospital itself, somewhere around the ER entrance. It had all happened in the five minutes while Susan was moving the car.

Rob was sure by now that Ford had a partner. Emma was smart, and she would have been on her guard. There was no way Ford could have convinced her to go anywhere with him. But how could some other unknown man—

Rob rubbed his eyes, ineffectually trying to ward off a threatening headache.

He wasn’t a praying man, but he prayed hard. He prayed for some bit of good luck, the kind that every investigation needed. He’d already spoken to everybody he could find at the hospital, but so far nobody had seen anything. The cameras at the hospital exits had turned out to be dummies just for show. Rob remembered how close he’d come to punching the hospital administrator when he’d heard

At midnight Hunter had dragged Natalie out of the station and taken her home, promising to drive her back first thing in the morning. The fact that Natalie had acquiesced told Rob all he needed to know—she hadn’t had the easiest pregnancy and needed to take it easy now.

Rob had driven to the Mermaid Inn with the two government agents. They’d gotten three rooms—the third one for himself, since his boat was currently a charred crime scene. He’d taken a quick shower, changed into blue jeans and an incongruous white dress shirt he’d found in his locker at the station, and gotten back into his car.

He’d been driving around for hours now. Not because he didn’t need the sleep—God knew he did—but because the thought of sleeping when Emma was missing, certainly afraid and possibly hurt, was more than he could bear.

He’d never told Emma how he felt for her. In order to protect himself, he’d allowed her to think he just wanted to sleep with her. But, while sex with her had been amazing, it hadn’t been just sex for him. He realized now that he loved her. Had loved her for a long time, just hadn’t wanted to rush into things, lest she feel differently. So he hadn’t told her.

And now I might never get the chance to tell her.

Rob punched his fist into the steering wheel, welcoming the pain.

He hoped she knew he would look for her until the ends of the earth for as long as it took. He filled the patrol car with gas and drove back to the hospital. He’d already traced the ways out of the ER on the map, but now he did the same thing in person. There were two options at the start, and he chose to go east, away from the town. Sharp’s Cove didn’t have too many traffic cameras, but Ford wouldn’t have wanted to get caught on any of them. So Rob headed in the opposite direction.

At the first intersection, he went straight, thinking Ford and his partner would have wanted to get away from the hospital as quickly as possible. He passed a few outlet malls, all of them deserted at this time of night. For a little while there were no other choices, no other directions they could have gone in, so Rob kept on driving.

And then he came across the real decision point, the same one he’d traced with his finger on the map hours earlier. Rob braked hard, putting on his blinkers so somebody driving up behind him wouldn’t ram into him, and sat down to think. Right was the way to the highway. If Ford had gone this way, there would be no way to find him. Not unless Lorraine’s speed cameras turned up something there—they were still waiting for her friend to get back to them on that. There was also the choice to go straight for a little while longer. In the distance, Rob could see the well-known yellow arches of a fast-food restaurant and knew there was yet more scattered commercial real estate ahead. Left was the way to the forest. The road was carefully maintained all winter and cut through the large New England forest, a favorite with hikers year-round.

Where are you, Emma?

He drove around for a while longer. Finally, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep, he went back to the inn. He couldn’t make himself go inside, so he parked right across the street and pulled the seat back as far as it would go, making space for his long legs. He made sure the backup phone he’d gotten was on and charging on the dashboard then closed his eyes.

Chapter 21

Emma

Emma woke up in the dark. Her head throbbed and her mouth felt dry as sandpaper. She felt a phantom pain on her elbow and remembered the IV drip. For a moment she thought she might still be in the hospital.

Suddenly all her memories rushed back. She remembered being released from the hospital and going outside to wait for Susan. Then the slim, distraught woman and the crying child. No—there’d been no child in the car.

How could I have been so stupid?

Emma swallowed a sob. She touched the spot on her neck where the needle had gone in. She wondered what the woman had injected her with.

That’s probably the least of my problems right now.

Lying very still, with her eyes closed, she ran her right hand down her body, trying to learn as much as possible about her environment before opening her eyes. Only her right arm was free. The other one was handcuffed to something solid on the wall. It was round, metallic, and cool to the touch.

Some kind of a pipe?