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Desperate, I shout, “Lucy! Come out this minute. This isn’t funny!”
I am fucking petrified and living my nightmare for the second time in my life.
“You’re scaring me, Luc—”
My shout of her name is cut short by a faint whimper. It is scarcely louder than the thumping of my heart but distinct enough for any father to understand.
My daughter is as terrified as me.
“Lucy…” I spin in a circle, confident the whimper came from Henley’s room.
I have no clue why. I’ve searched under the bed and in the closet.
There’s nowhere left to check.
“Except there,” I murmur when I spot Henley’s suitcase above the closet where I left it a week ago.
Baby pink fur is stuck in the case’s zipper I stripped as bare as Henley made me feel the first time I stood across from her. It appears as if someone zipped it closed in a hurry.
“Lucy,” I murmur again when I recognize the woolly material.
It is the color of Mr. Bunny’s fur—the toy rabbit Lucy is never without once the sun goes down.
The heaviness of the case when I yank it down fills me with relief, but nothing will ease the shake of my hands when I spot the combination lock on the zipper.
It could take me hours to work out the four-digit combination.
My breath catches in my throat when I remember Henley’s fight before she was lifted on a gurney. “Lu… Lu… Bir…”
“Lucy’s birthdate.”
My hands should be too big for the lock. I should fumble while placing in Lucy’s date of birth, but in less than three seconds, the lock pops open, and I drag apart the zippers keeping my daughter hostage.
The sobs Lucy can’t contain tell me she’s alive, but the amount of blood on the outside of the suitcase Henley hid her from a madman in means I can’t issue the guarantee for Henley.
“Lucy…” This time, nothing but relief fills my brief murmur. She’s huddled in the middle of Henley’s suitcase, clutching her rabbit, but ultimately uninjured.
“Daddy,” she whimpers when she realizes who’s hovering above her. She leaps into my arms, my shoulder knocking off the noise-canceling headphones far too big for her ears. “You came.” Her breaths quiver in my ear as I pull her in close. “He-Henley said you would. She said you’d find me.”
When she goes to peer in the direction Henley was last seen, I cup my hand over her eyes and then exit the room at the speed of a rocket.
She doesn’t need to see that.
Hell, I don’t want to see it either.
There’s only one person I need to see. She’s currently being pushed into the back of an ambulance at the front of the property I’ll no longer call home.
“Where are they taking her?”
When Macy spots Lucy in my arms, she sighs so heavily that it flaps Lucy’s hair into my face. “Mercer. Do you want a lift?”
I nod just as Thane comes to a stop at my side. “What the fuck?” he murmurs, his hand shooting into his hair as he takes in the scene. “What did I miss?”
“Where the fuck were you?” He doesn’t deserve my anger. Nothing happening is his fault, but when you’re drowning in grief, you take it out on anyone but yourself.
Thane’s hand drops from his hair to Lucy’s as he explains, “You called right on the end of the game. The streets were flooded with Red Sox fans. I called you. Numerous times. Traffic was gridlocked.” After dragging his eyes over every inch of Lucy to make sure she’s okay, he peers past her to the ambulance whizzing down the street lined with federal-plated cars. “Is she…?” He can’t say the words any more than I can.
“It’s touch and go,” Macy answers on my behalf, doubling my guilt. “They’re taking her to Mercer. You can follow us there.”
I adjust Lucy from my bad shoulder to my good as Macy slowly paces back into the waiting room of Mercer ER. Lucy isn’t asleep, but she is as unwilling to let me go as I am her. She hasn’t left my sight for a second. Not even during our somber trip to the hospital.
It was done in the back of an ambulance. She has no physical injuries, but since she wouldn’t quit shaking, Macy said it would ease her mind if we had her checked out by an EMT.
Shock was the diagnosis.
“Any news?” I ask, too impatient for Macy to make the final few steps.
Her brows furrow before she murmurs, “She isn’t here. The nurse at the station said Lucy’s ambulance was the only one directed here tonight.”
“What?” Surprise echoes in my tone. “You said they were bringing her here!”
With my temper rising, Thane moseys closer but remains quiet.
“Because that’s what they told me.” Macy’s eyes pop. She cusses, then yanks out her phone. “Have you got eyes on Marshal Levalley?” she barks down her cell once her call is connected. “Henley hasn’t arrived at Mercer. He told me this was where they were bringing her.” She flicks her eyes up to mine before shaking her head. “I told you I had a bad feeling about him.” After wetting her lips to loosen up her words, she asks, “What about the perp?”
