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“Well, I didn’t do more than note that the car was coming in and parking so far from the elevator. If they were picking someone up, they’d be in front of the elevators. Or at least closer. I was distracted by a car honking in our parking lot, and when I looked back, the car was gone.”
“Thank you, George,” Ryker said sincerely, clapping the older man on the shoulder. “You’ve been a big help.”
“Oakley,” he whispered as if speaking her name could somehow bridge the distance between them. “Hold on. I’m coming for you.”
***
IT WAS HARD TO FOCUS. Her head hurt, and everything was blurry. God, she felt so awful. Oakley tried to think. She didn’t know what was going on. She was hot then cold. Maybe she had the flu, but then there were psychedelic shapes and animals, even people. Fever?
“Think, Oakley, what were you doing?” Her head hurt, and it was hard to corral her thoughts, but it seemed she had a little more clarity right now than she had earlier. Whenever earlier was.
“Think, woman.”
She smelled and felt disgusting, and her head hurt, but then smatterings of memory were flashing across the edges of her consciousness. She had had a strange session with a new client who said she was trying to ruin people’s lives. There was more, but she couldn’t remember what.
Oh, right, she went towards the car, then someone came up to her and stabbed her with something like a needle. Then she saw someone familiar before everything went black.
That was all she could remember except sometimes waking up, and the world was super crazy all around her before food appeared next to the bed she didn’t recognize. Maybe she had a bad flu or something. She’d tried to eat then threw most of it up, making her feel sicker, and her headache grew worse. At some point, she drank some water and there was blessed darkness.
Now panic. Oakley was caught in a head game, her eyes darting back and forth, unable to focus, and she was frightened, her mind racing. She smelled like vomit and sweat.
Somehow she could smell the salt of the ocean and the harshness of cheap cleaning products being used somewhere. Chaos, her mind was chaos. Thirsty. She needed to drink something. She reached out, her hand grasped a glass on the nightstand, and she tried to get more liquid inside her mouth than dribbling down her shirt.
Oakley heard something. It was thin, as if measured, a clock ticking; the world outside was louder than she expected. There was too much happening. She tried to focus on something, but her eyes couldn’t make sense of anything.
That incessant pounding in her head. Did she have a fever? Her skin was cold and clammy to the touch, or was it?
The sheets on her bed were soft and cool. Her whole body felt like that usually, instead of rough. Hot. Why was it suddenly so hot? She was on fire. Her skin was hot, her body hot too, and she felt sweaty and disgusting. Her headache raged like a forest fire, and it hurt to blink.
She needed Ryker. He’d know what to do. He’d help her.
“I just want to go home to Ryker,” she whispered. “Please come get me, Ryker. Please.”
Chapter 8
Ryker awoke with astart, his heart pounding. For a brief moment, he thought he heard Oakley’s laughter drifting through the apartment. Then her desperate pleading for him to find her. But when he opened his eyes, the room was empty. It had only been a dream. He hoped it was a sign.
