CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Hardy
W here the fuck do I even start?
I stare at the stacks of papers on Whitney’s desk, the filing cabinet full of drawers, the corkboard full of a million Post-it Notes, and my stomach churns. This is so confusing.
“No word from her still?” Martin asks as he pops his head into Whitney’s office.
“No. None.”
“This isn’t like her,” he laments.
“I’m well aware.” I’m short with him, but only out of worry.
“I’ve been begging for her to let me take the reins here for years so she can chase after a coaching job.”
“Your point?” I snap at him.
His face pales. “Nothing. It was stupid. I guess just that she does everything herself, keeps it all close to the vest, so I don’t know where anything is.”
“Right. Sorry.” I look down and then back up at him. “This isn’t like her. Or at least the Whitney I’ve come to know. I’m worried.”
“She wasn’t at her house?”
I glance up at him as I begin to rifle through the papers on her desk. How do I explain to him that she doesn’t live where she told me she lived? That I woke up the fucking apartment manager and told her I knew Whitney lived there because I’d dropped her off there last night only to be told I was fucking crazy?
Or that now I’m freaking the fuck out, worried over where she is while being equally pissed off that she lied to me.
“I think I had the wrong address.” It’s as much of a confession as I’m willing to give. “I’m trying to see if there’s anything here with her address on it. Are you good handling the players?”
“Yeah. Should we call someone?” he asks.
“I’ll figure it out.”
I shuffle through the stacks at lightning speed, not stopping long enough to process the enormity of the numerous bills and late notices sorted in what looks like most to least urgent status. More important is finding a fucking address for her.
I rifle through the shit in her drawers. I thumb through her hanging files and don’t give a shit about her privacy when I see the one labeled “personal.” Something is wrong. I can feel it. There’s no fucking way she’d not show up for her kids without calling someone. None whatsoever.
That’s not her at all.
I sort through the items in the personal folder, scanning the papers for any type of return address. There are handwritten notes she’s saved. A faded letter from years ago rescinding a full ride scholarship. A letter folded up in an envelope from Patrick. A bank statement that has absolutely fucking nothing in it—but it has a return address that’s not the club’s.
I type the address into my phone with one hand while shoving all the stuff I went through back into place with the other. I can’t get out the door fast enough.
“You’ve got it covered?” I yell to Martin as I jog out to the car park. His shout back is lost in the crazy thoughts going through my mind.
I force myself to drive slowly through the neighborhood streets, but I don’t have to go far. The address on the bank statement takes me less than four miles from the academy. The neighborhood is the same—run-down and low income—and I immediately groan.
What did I say about this neighborhood last night?
That it was dangerous and not safe for her? That she shouldn’t go out?
I insulted where she lived without ever thinking once that she might, in fact, live here.
But I saw that personal bank statement. I sorted through all those bills.
No wonder she had me drop her off somewhere else.
Guilt weighs heavy and unwanted as I pull up to the curb of a tired-looking complex of what one might call ... tiny bungalows. There are two rows of these unattached studios that face each other. Each one has a small porch with steps leading up to a clapboard that’s in desperate need of repair and paint. The pavement between them is cracked but clean.
All of this I see but don’t properly absorb as I jog between them looking for unit number twenty-two.
I find it at the very back and know it’s hers simply because while it’s still as old and worn as all the others, there are a few bright pots of flowers brightening up its sagging stoop. I pound on the door with a heavy dose of concern behind it as the locks lining its right side rattle with the sound.
“Whitney? It’s Hardy.” Another few knocks with my fist. “Open up.”
I stand there and listen for any kind of movement behind the door. Maybe she won’t answer because she’s embarrassed for me to see this.
Then again, maybe she’s hurt.
The second thought only heightens my panic and has me moving around the short perimeter of her place. Without caring who sees me, I enter through the back gate to her postage-stamp yard, hands cupping my eyes to try and see anything that I can inside.
A small kitchen. A made bed on the far side of the room.
Did she not come home last night?
I move to the back door that has a windowpane in the top and that’s when I see her. She’s lying on the floor in the tiny space between the kitchen and what looks like a bathroom.
“Whitney,” I shout without thought. The brokenness in my voice is the only sound I hear.
My heart drops.
How long has she been here like this? Is she bleeding? Did someone hurt her?
I don’t think.
Just act.
Within seconds I have the lock splintering and the cheap door kicked in.
Her body jolts with the noise, and I get a very brief respite of relief. She’s alive .
But it’s short-lived because when I drop to my knees to her side, her face is gray in pallor, her skin is burning up to the touch, and whatever sounds she can manage are slurred and incoherent.
“Whitney. Hang in there. Please.”
But there’s no blood. No stab wounds. No gunshot wounds. No one came in here and hurt her.
9-9-9. I need to call— oh bollocks . What’s the American equivalent?
9-1-1.
I grab my mobile out of my pocket and dial.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” a woman asks.
“Hi. Uh, I need an ambulance. She’s on the floor. She’s completely out of it. Please. Help.”
I cradle her in my arms, shaking her to try and get a response.
“Sir, is she breathing?”
“Yes. She is.”
“And what seems to be the problem?”
“I—I don’t know. She didn’t show up for work. I found her on the floor. She’s—burning up. I need help. Something’s not right.”
“Okay. I have help on the way. You’re at 3356 Pinwheel Court?”
“Yes. Unit twenty-four. No. Twenty-two.” I can’t think straight. All I can focus on is how her head lolls to the side.
“It’s twenty-two, sir?”
“Yes. Twenty-two.” What happened to her? “How long till they get here?”
“They’re on their way, sir.”
“Her name. It’s Whitney Barnes. You need to know that, right? Female. Twenty-five. I think. The back door is open. I ... hurry. Please.”
“They’re coming. Stay on the line with me as we wait.”
“Okay. Yes. I—C’mon, Whit. Wake up. Please wake up.”
Minutes feel like hours. Like days. But sirens grow closer and within seconds I’m being shoved out of the way as two paramedics push their way into the small space with their bags and equipment.
“Drugs?”
“Huh?” I ask as a pair of competent blue eyes meet mine.
“Any history of drugs that we need to be aware of?”
“No. Of course not. She’s . . . is she going to be okay?”
“That’s why we’re here,” she says before I’m pushed farther outside so they can work on her.
They call out numbers for vitals. They push some kind of medicine. They throw terms around that make this seem even scarier, if that’s even possible.
And before I have time to process the events, she’s loaded into their ambulance with a crowd of people looking on and rushed off to the hospital with me staring after it and with my heart in my throat.
It only takes a few seconds for the adrenaline to hit. For my body to shudder and shake and my teeth to chatter as I stand there utterly helpless and lost.
I need to go after her.
I broke her door. Her things. This neighborhood. Fuck .
“Is there anything you need to get for her in there?” a woman asks softly at my back.
“I—oh—I ...” I turn and meet her eyes. She’s middle-aged with a pair of green-framed glasses and house shoes on. Her eyes are kind and her expression sympathetic.
“I don’t know.” It takes me a second to process what she’s asking me.
“Hey.” She points a finger at me as her eyes narrow. “Aren’t you that big soccer—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m mistaken for him all the time.”
She squints her eyes as she studies me and clearly debates whether to believe me or not. “I’m Frieda. I manage this complex.”
“Nice to meet you, Frieda. I’m ... Max.” No idea where that came from, but I go with it.
“Nice to meet you, Max . I wasn’t aware that Whitney had a boyfriend.”
“She does. I am.” Am I? I laugh nervously, my body still riddled with the aftereffects of the adrenaline.
“Hmm.” She motions to the apartment even though her eyes continue to study and assess me. “The door’s broken.”
“It is. I broke it. I can pay for the repair. A new door. I just ... I need to get to the hospital.”
“Yes. Fine. I’ll get my maintenance guy to board up the door until I can get it replaced.”
“Thank you. I ...you have a key to do that?”
“I do. Yes.”
“Great.” I run a hand through my hair and stare at where the ambulance was. The last time I felt this helpless was ... was when I was ten and staring at my dad in the hospital. The tubes and the sounds and ... Christ .
“Is she going to be okay?” she asks gently, her hand patting my back.
I shrug and for the first time since the sirens faded, it hits me that I don’t know what is wrong with her. “Yes. I don’t know. She has to be .”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. She was on the floor. Incoherent.” I hate that tears well in my fucking eyes. I don’t cry. I haven’t since boarding school, and yet here I am. “Septic? That’s what I thought they said.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat.
“She’s going to need some things most likely,” Frieda says, putting a hand on my shoulder in comfort. “Why don’t you go collect some of them to take her while I call the maintenance guy?”
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks. But what do I ...” But by the time I turn to look at her she already has the phone to her ear.
I enter her flat, feeling out of place and like I’m invading her space that she clearly wanted to keep private. It’s small but tidy, sparse, but feels loved and lived in, if that makes sense.
It’s a typical flat. One that feels so minuscule compared to the vastness of my penthouse here in Miami and at my place back home. And yet somehow, it feels more homey than both of them combined.
In my house in England, my walls are lined, and shelves are decorated with designer paintings and art. There are a few framed photos of exotic trips and thrill-seeking missions I’ve been on—sky diving, heli-skiing, diving with sharks—and that’s about it. It’s all for show, now that I think about it.
Especially as I stand here in the middle of a flat that has so little in it but that feels like so much more. There’s a framed black-and-white photo of a woman holding a little girl in her arms. They are mirror images of each other. No doubt it’s Whitney and her mum. Then there’s a picture of a teenage Whitney in soccer gear being hoisted on her teammates’ shoulders as she holds a finger in the air to denote number one.
There is a small shelf of books next to the bed, some mismatched dishes in the rack by the sink, and a closet rack with the definite wardrobe of a soccer coach.
Little pieces of a woman I thought I had pegged but clearly don’t quite understand in the least.
“Stuff. She needs stuff,” I mutter into the silence as I see her handbag thrown haphazardly onto the couch—the only thing that seems out of place.
But I can’t bring myself to figure out what it is she needs, nor do I want to invade her privacy any more than I already have.
There’s a reason she didn’t want me to see where she lived. The last thing I want to do is go through her stuff at home and make her even more uneasy.
Anything she needs, I’ll buy it for her.
Because right now, I don’t want to be here. I need to be with her .