We just saw her a few days ago, and she wasn’t doing great then. The possibility that she’s worse sickens me. “Let’s go see her now,” I say, squeezing his hand. “The food can wait.”
His tongue slides over his lip—his tell, the thing he does when he’s worried and thinking something through. “Okay,” he says. “Let me just get a wheelchair.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t need a wheelchair.”
“It’s a long walk and you’ve had a heavy sedative,” he says. I open my mouth to argue and he continues. “It’s also hospital policy. So you’re getting the wheelchair. I need to make sure she’s awake anyway.”
I love the bossy, no-bullshit doctor side of Nick. If I didn’t have about fourteen wires attached to me I’d suggest he lock the door so I could show him just how much I like it. “Fine,” I groan. “You win.”
He kisses my forehead. “Be right back.”
The truth is he’s probably right. The sedative still must not be out of my system because I feel like I could sleep for days. Except each time I allow my eyes to close, I see Ryan’s coffin being lowered into the ground and the grief on Nick’s face. I remember my thoughts and my guilt, but I have no memory of actually time traveling. I just see two different experiences that occurred on the same night—one in which Ryan kisses me at a party, and another in which Ryan dies.
Am I really going to admit any of this to Nick? Am I really going to tell him that the version of Ryan’s death he remembers is a result of the version I was responsible for? I can’t. But I hate that he’s hinting he loves me when he has no idea who I am and what I may have done. Nick is going to make me do a bad thing, I told the psychologist. Was Ryan’s death that thing?
A searing pain in my arm sends my thoughts scattering. My eyes open and go first to the needle pressed into my skin before jumping to the person who wields it.
I suck in air, begin drowning in panic before I can call out.
It’s a face I’ve seen in a thousand nightmares, always with that long blond braid hanging down her shoulder. She has the face of an angel, but she couldn’t be further from it. Words I mean to say stumble over my lips and vanish. The drug…it’s slipping through my veins like a heavy blanket, smothering my ability to react.
She smiles. Sweetly, as if she actually cares about me. “Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”
My arms hang limply against my sides, refusing my commands to move as she pulls down the saline dripping into my IV and hangs an identical bag in its place. She speaks again, but I can no longer hear what she says. The fluid from the IV is so cold it seems to burn. And then everything goes black.
19
NICK
Darcy is asleep. Maybe it’s for the best…as soon as I suggested a visit it occurred to me Quinn might see herself in Darcy’s pale face, in the way she now struggles to form words and falls asleep mid-speech. She’s gotten so much worse since that Connect Four tournament just a few days ago.
Since I’m here, I do a quick check of her vitals. Her blood pressure is low. I take a subtle look at her hands, examining their pallor, looking for the hint of blue beneath the nails that means the end is near. Nothing yet, but soon there will be.
I glance at Christy. “If there’s any way her father can be transported, I think he might want to get here soon.”
She blinks away tears. I’m not telling her anything she doesn’t know, but it’s no less hard to hear. “He’s still in bad shape. They think it’s another week at least,” she whispers. “How’s Quinn?”
I close my eyes. “Not good.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Misery may love company but there’s little solace in it for me. “I know it’s wrong,” she finally says, her voice rough, “but it makes me glad they’ll be together, her and Darcy. I know Quinn will look after her.”
I flinch. I’m not at a point where I can discuss what happens to Quinn after she’s gone, but even if I were, I wouldn’t picture what Christy does—a heaven of clouds and harps and people walking hand in hand. She imagines Quinn taking Darcy to some heavenly zoo, buying her ice cream, tucking her in at night. I envy her belief, but I’m unable to share it.
Quinn has to survive. No other option is acceptable.
The halls are quiet as I head back, typical for a Sunday afternoon. A nurse is in Quinn’s room when I push open the door, shaking down her saline as if she wants it to run faster, though the fluids were fine when I left.
I step inside. “Was there something wrong with the…” I begin, my words trailing off when I see her face.
The second our eyes meet, I know. I know who she is and why she’s here. I can grab her, or I can get the line out of Quinn’s arm. I don’t even need to debate it—I lunge for the IV. The woman is long gone by the time it’s out. I hit the alarm and the code team rushes in with security on their heels. But despite all the noise, all the chaos, Quinn lies there, unmoving, completely still.
20
QUINN
The doctor conducting the sonogram sees something. I can tell by the way his brows go up, and my heart starts to race.
“Is there something wrong?” I whisper.
He glances back at Nick, who is staring at the image like it’s about to step off the screen and offer him the secrets of the universe. “Do you want to tell or shall I?” he asks Nick.
Nick swallows and points to one tiny dot of flickering light on the screen. “There’s one heartbeat,” he says, sounding awestruck. He points to a second light. “And there’s a second one.”
Twins. We are having twins, when we hadn’t even planned on one baby just yet.
The doctor laughs at the look on my face. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the idea.” I nod, grinding my teeth to hide my panic. He has no idea what this means, and Nick doesn’t either. But I do.
It means the predictions are coming true.
It means we have to hide this, or she’s going to take it all away again.
* * *
My eyes blink open. It takes a moment for the bright lights and the beep of the alarm to sink into my brain.
Hospital. I can’t remember why.
Nick sits beside me with circles under his eyes and a day’s worth of stubble, the only man alive who could make exhaustion look this good. “Hey,” I whisper.
He startles. “Oh thank God,” he says with a choked inhale. His lips press to the back of my hand.
I frown, trying to figure out why I’m here again. I remember Ryan’s memorial service and waking up here. My stomach takes a nosedive as I recall Nick’s news about the MRI. But everything after that is a blank. “What happened?” I ask. “I remember being here, but…”
And then I remember her face, her long blond braid, her pretense of care. I gasp, struggling to sit up. “It was her. The woman who—”
He places a gentle hand on my arm. “I know. She was here when I walked into the room.”
“You caught her?”
His face falls. “No. I’m sorry. She changed out your saline with something, so I grabbed that first, and by the time I turned around she was gone. Security has her on camera and they found her scrubs in the closet around the corner.”
I deflate immediately. “So we have nothing.”
“No,” he says. “This time we might have something.”
* * *
Nick had the foresight to go through the pockets of the scrubs she left behind before security got to them, and in one of those pockets he found a receipt. It has no name on it, but there was a note: Deliver by October 11. And if there’s going to be a delivery, it means that somewhere at Green Thumb Plants, just up the road from the hospital, there’s an address for this woman. All we can do now is wait, impatiently, for the manager to return Nick’s call.
I’m chomping at the bit to get out of the hospital and see what we can find out, while Nick is infuriatingly adamant that I stay right where I am. It’s been nearly an hour and I’m completely fine—well, mostly fine—but he won’t li
sten to a word I say. “You were just drugged with something we can’t even identify,” he says. “Until it’s out of your system, you’re not going anywhere.”
I groan and throw my head against my pillow like a child. “But we need to investigate.”
“They’re closed by now,” he says, “and we aren’t going to be investigating anything. She just attacked you. I want you as far from this as possible.”
I sigh. I’ll deal with that little objection later, but first I just need to get out of this damn bed. “Fine, but I don’t need to stay here. I feel great now. And I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but my boyfriend happens to be a doctor.”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “A doctor, huh? He must be brilliant.”
He is, I think to myself, and it’s unbelievably hot. That assessing look he gets on his face when he’s mulling something over and his decisiveness during my time here would do it for me no matter what he looked like. “I don’t know about that. I’m mostly with him for his body.” I look at him from under my lashes. It’s a longshot, but sex is the only strategy that might possibly overcome his irritating professionalism. “A body I could thoroughly explore if we were home.”
He laughs, which means I’ve failed miserably. “Nice try. But you’re staying here. It’ll be fun. We’ll order in dinner and watch a movie.”
My lower lip juts out. “I’m not even vaguely interested in dinner or a movie right now.”
“Well, our options are pretty limited otherwise,” he says. “Connect Four? I’m no Darcy but I’d do my best.”
I should probably give up and admit that I’m staying in the hospital tonight, but I’ve seen Nick when he’s turned on plenty of times—rational thought abandons him when he’s pushed far enough. I slide out of the hospital bed and climb into his lap, which would probably be sexier if I weren’t still attached to a heart rate monitor. “There is only one thing I want to do,” I reply, whispering the words into his ear. “And with that security guard right outside my door, I know for a fact it’s not happening here. You know how loud I am.”
He hardens underneath me. This attempt at seduction was more about manipulation than lust when it started, but at the feel of him there it no longer is. I’d forgotten that rational thought abandons me too. I lean in and tug his lower lip between my teeth and there’s this ragged noise in his chest in response.
“Please don’t tempt me,” he pleads, sounding a little desperate. “I just need to know you’re safe before we go home, okay? We’re still waiting on the toxicology report, and at least here I know no one is going to walk in and kill you the second my back is turned.”
“If this woman wants to kill me she doesn’t have to walk in. She can just apparate or whatever.”
He laughs. “Are you using terms from Harry Potter?”
I kiss his forehead. “I’m not sure what’s dorkier… that I accidentally invoked a term from Harry Potter or that you recognized it as such. But anyway, you see my point.”
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. She went to some pretty extreme measures to get in before. She stole scrubs and a security badge and brought in her own drugs…she wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if all she had to do was wish she was in your room and wish her way back out.”
“I hate when you’re right,” I mutter, returning to my bed.
21
NICK
We get through a night in the hospital, barely. Quinn says something dirty to me pretty much every hour we’re awake, and it’s working. I’m so keyed up it hurts. But they still have no idea what was in those fluids she was given, and she’s safest here no matter how badly I’d like to take her home.
I wake in the morning in the chair next to her bed and sneak out to my office to call the nursery again. Perhaps I’m investing too much hope in what we found, but I need this, something to focus on, something to help me believe there’s even a chance she can survive.
I’m intercepted by Ed Philbin just as I reach the door. He can barely meet my eye as he asks if we can “have a word.” I already know what he’s going to say. I’ve been expecting it since I threw that first punch yesterday.
We walk into the office. I’m not sure if I should bother sitting down for this or go ahead and pack my shit. “I assume this is about Quinn’s former fiancé?” I ask, taking the seat behind the desk.
He blows out a breath. “He’s claiming you seduced a dying patient, Nick. It doesn’t look good.”
A few months ago, I’d be sick to my stomach right now. Instead, I’m numb. I can barely summon the effort to lie on my own behalf. “Quinn and I dated in college,” I say flatly. “We picked things back up when she came to the hospital.”
“Then you should have transferred her case,” he says, leaning forward with his hands clasped. “Do you have any proof you dated before?”
Does a psychiatrist’s interview with a five-year-old count? I imagine it does not. If our past was erased, all the evidence of it must be erased too, but if I admit I’ve got nothing I’m dead in the water. “Maybe. I can probably find some pictures.”
“Look,” he sighs, running a hand through his thinning hair. “You’re a good doctor and I don’t want to let you go. We’re already understaffed as it is. But this guy is making a huge stink. He called board members at home yesterday. I’m going to have to put you on administrative leave until this is resolved.”
This, too, is not the blow I’d have anticipated. I’d rather be home with Quinn right now anyway. “How long will that be?”
He averts his eyes. “I looked at her file,” he says. “I think under the circumstances they’ll let this go once…”
I wait for him to finish the sentence until I realize he’s not going to. Once she dies. Those are the words he’s not saying.
He rises. “Go home with your girlfriend. See if you can find some pictures. And…I’m sorry. We’ll be here for you once this blows over.”
I stare bleakly at the door when it shuts behind him. I don’t give a fuck about my career right now, but Ed’s certainty that Quinn is going to die soon opens this jagged wound in my chest. Am I being naïve, hoping we can track down the woman and stop this? Probably. But I am drowning, and this is what drowning people do: they grasp at any goddamn thing they can hold onto, even the things that don’t float.
I pull the crumpled receipt from my pocket and dial Green Thumb’s number. When I finally get ahold of someone in charge, I emphasize neurologist and Georgetown. Saying you’re a doctor can be a lot like saying you’re a cop—people almost feel like they have to hear you out. “We had a customer of yours come in,” I tell him. “We only know because she left a receipt here. We’re trying to get contact information for her.”
“Ummm…she didn’t give you her information?”
“Unfortunately, she took off before we could get it, but we just got results from her blood work, and there is a very serious issue we need to discuss with her. We’re hoping you can help us out.”
“So you just need a phone number?” he asks slowly, uncertainly.
I take a quick breath and try to rein in my eagerness. “Yes. That or an address. If you can even give us a name, we might be able to find her from that.”
“Look,” he says, “I don’t know if I should just be giving out a customer’s information. How do I even know you’re a doctor?”
“You can look me up online.” I spell my name, direct him to the Georgetown website. “You can send the information there if you’re more comfortable.”
He takes the order number off the receipt and then tells me he’s only the assistant manager. “I’ll have to talk to my boss when she comes in and let you know.” Which is precisely what I heard from the person I spoke to yesterday.
“And when will that be?” I ask, straining to keep frustration out of my voice.
“She’s at the beach this week,” he replies. “She’s back next Friday.”
Six days from now. He wants me to wait six fucking days.
I’ve always thought of myself as an honest person. It’s funny how the qualities you value in yourself go out the window when you really need something. “Look,” I reply, “I don’t want to pressure you, but this might be a bit of a public health hazard, so the sooner the better. And if any of your employees came into contact with her I think they’re going to need to be quarantined.”
I wait, holding my breath, until the guy gives a long, exaggerated sigh. “1649 Avon Lane,” he says quietly. “But it didn’t come from me.”
“Okay. And what’s her name?”
He tells me, and the pen falls from my hand.
I expected a name. I just didn’t think it would be a familiar one.
* * *
Quinn is awake when I return to the room, showered and grinning at me. “Now can we leave? Look how healthy I am. I could go run a marathon right now. That’s how good I feel.”
My mouth curves despite myself. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”
“Well,” she says, “I could go run a marathon if running didn’t suck.”
My hand clasps hers and I pull her toward the end of the bed and have her sit. “I called the nursery. They told me who placed the order.”
She freezes, her face gone pale beneath her tan. “That should be good news, but it obviously isn’t,” she says, watching my face carefully.
I flinch and then open my eyes to meet hers. “Quinn…her name is Sarah Stewart.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “That’s impossible,” she finally says. “My aunt? The woman in here wasn’t old enough to my aunt. She barely looked older than me.”
I press my mouth to her forehead. “Rose told us they age slowly, remember?”
“But—” she begins, swallowing, and trails off as she comes to terms with the possibility that the hero of her childhood—the woman who exchanged a dreary life on the farm for a glamorous one in Paris—is the same person who now wants her dead. “Why? Why would my own aunt want to kill me? She’s never even met me.”
Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2 Page 13
