Chapter 30
thirty
SKYLER
“I owe you big time,” Autumn tells me as she ruffles Ayda’s hair, grimacing because she hates asking for help as much as I do.
“No you don’t. I’m happy to help.” I give her a beaming smile. “Seriously, go home and take care of Parker. I’ve got this.”
“You’re a lifesaver. Thank you. I’ll be over before the evening rush starts to take her home. He’s just being such a damn baby, and I don’t want Ayda catching anything from him.”
Parker has the flu that everybody’s been suffering from over the past month. And Hudson is in New York for a meeting.
Autumn spoke to Hudson and asked if it was okay if I took care of Ayda for the day. He agreed it was fine. It was something he and Dr. Methi have been talking about – me spending more time one-on-one with her.
I’m pleased that he trusts me enough to let me step up.
Autumn runs back to her car and I turn to Ayda. Barney isn’t with us – Autumn left him with Parker because she didn’t want me to have to take care of the dog, too. So for now – until customers start to flow in and the rest of the staff arrives – it’s just me and Hudson’s daughter.
And she’s beaming up at me like I’m some kind of Fairy Godmother.
“Want to color?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
Hmm. I try to think of something else.
“Want to listen to some music and do silly dances like we did at your party?” I suggest as an alternative.
She nods vigorously, so we head inside the bar and we walk over to the jukebox, and I show her how it works. Then she presses the buttons herself, bringing up “Mamma Mia” by Abba. As soon as Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s vocals begin, I grab her hands, and we start to dance around the tables. I sing out loud and she grins like she’s enjoying herself.
After we’ve exhausted all the tracks on the jukebox, a few customers start to trickle in. I put Ayda on a stool at the bar with her coloring book, though she keeps jumping down to change the music then walking back again.
Maud comes in right after one. After she walks behind the bar and puts her apron on, I take my break because it’s past lunchtime and if there’s one thing I know about kids it’s that they get hungry, so I take Ayda back to the apartment and let her choose what she wants in her sandwich by pointing at some meat and cheese.
“Milk or orange juice?” I ask her, holding up both cartons for her to choose from.
She points at the sink. “Water?” I ask and she nods. I fill up two glasses and put them on a tray along with the sandwiches I’ve made for us, then we carry them out to the front deck because it’s way too nice a day to be eating lunch inside.
I’ll never get tired of this view. It’s constantly changing. Today the ocean is a blue-green as it laps against the golden sand. There are some tourists walking around the beach. There will be even more later. The ferry has switched over to its high summer timetable, sailing twice an hour each way.
Though the bar is already busy, there are some tables left. Ayda chooses one by the door and sits down on the chair and daintily takes a bite of her sandwich. Seagulls squawk in the sky above us, a woman walks out of the bar with a soda and takes a seat a few tables down from us, and I go to take a bite of my own sandwich, only to be interrupted by the shrill sound of my phone.
Thinking it’s probably Hudson, I grab it and look at the screen.
But it’s Dr. Methi’s name written in black beneath the glass.
He probably wants to know how it’s going with me and Ayda since we talked in his office, so I accept the call, smiling at Ayda who’s already halfway through her sandwich.
“Hello?”
“Skyler? It’s Dr. Methi.” He sounds almost solemn. “Are you able to talk for a moment?”
“Yes, of course.” I glance at Ayda. She’s looking around at the people sitting on the deck.
“I got your results back. They sent them to me because I wrote the original script. They should have gone to your primary physician.”
“No problem.” I smile because I finally managed to make my appointment earlier in the week, and I’m feeling like a real grown up. “I can send you the details for my primary if you want to send them on. Unless it’s bad news, in which case…” I trail off, waiting for him to laugh.
But he doesn’t.
“There’s no bad news, right?” I ask softly. My heart starts to speed. No, no, no. Not when I’m finally happy, finally settled.
“It depends how you look at it,” he replies.
This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all. Ayda is drinking her water and looking at the birds flying overhead. I ignore my sandwich, because suddenly I feel sick.
“Tell me,” I whisper. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Strictly speaking, I should send this to your primary physician.”
“You’re also a doctor. You’re allowed to tell me, right?” I lower my voice, half an eye on Ayda who is completely distracted by the birds. “If I’m sick, I need to know.”
He clears his throat. “It’s not like that,” he tells me. “You’re not sick, Skyler. The blood test shows positive HCG levels. You’re pregnant.”
* * *
I’m on birth control. That’s all I can think when Dr. Methi ends the call, after checking that I’m okay and telling me to call him once I’ve absorbed the news if I need to talk things through.
But it’s not the kind of news you can absorb. Not when you’re sitting next to your boyfriend’s daughter, who’s tugging at your hand because she wants to eat your sandwich, too.
I push it toward her, trying to smile. And then, while she’s distracted, I start searching for answers on my phone.
Chances of getting pregnant while taking a birth control pill – one percent. Then I see the caveat, that’s if it’s taken perfectly . Imperfectly the chances run up to five percent. It’s still low. So low this shouldn’t be possible.
I google again. Chances of getting pregnant while on the progestin only birth control pill – eight percent.
That’s not far off from ten percent. Why didn’t I know this?
I click open the webpage, frowning as I read on. The reason for the increased chances on a mini pill – the progestin only pill – is because it has to be taken at the same time every day to be effective. I vaguely remember the doctor telling me that when I was prescribed it.
And yet it’s so obvious that I must have missed a pill. I need to count them. And then count them again. It’s like if I can prove that I’ve taken them this whole thing has to be wrong.
I can’t be pregnant. There’s no way I missed a pill.
I’m the new, in control, reliable Skyler now. She wouldn’t do something like this.
And yet I can still hear Dr. Methi’s voice echoing in my ears.
You’re pregnant.
“We should go inside,” I say to Ayda, looking over at her. She’s distracted again. I thought it was the birds but I realize she keeps looking over my shoulder, not toward the sky.
She stands and I do too. Then she leans toward me and opens her rosebud lips.
“A-mother.” Her voice is raspy, but I hear her all the same. She spoke. Oh my God, she spoke. She said mother. Did she over hear my conversation?
My eyes widen. “What did you say?” I ask her, somewhere between jubilation at hearing her voice and fear of the word she said.
She shakes her head, refusing to say it again and I try to work it out in my mind.
“Ayda, you just spoke,” I whisper.
She says nothing, just looks at me, then over my shoulder again. The fucking birds. “Say it again,” I whisper.
But she doesn’t.
Okay, first things first. I’m going to count those damn pills and then I’m going to call Dr. Methi back. Or call Hudson. They both need to know that Ayda said a word. I start to pick up our plates, layering them on the tray. “Follow me,” I tell her. “We’ll get some ice cream once these are all cleaned up.”
The bar door is open – Maud must be feeling the early summer heat – so I walk through, carrying the tray to the bar. I put it on the counter, taking a deep breath because I swear my head is swimming right now. For a minute I rest my elbows on the wooden bar top and try to inhale to the count of eight, just to get my heart to slow down.
“It’s beautiful, huh?” Maud says, when she finishes serving the only customer at the bar.
“Glorious.” I don’t return her smile. Because I wish it was raining. I wish I hadn’t taken that stupid blood test.
I wish I had taken my pill.
“Want me to clean that up for you?” Maud asks, pointing at the tray. “So you can get back out to Ayda?”
“Ayda’s here,” I say, looking down to my left, where I swear she was standing a moment ago. But there’s nobody there. I look over at the tables, at the jukebox, at the dance floor where we got our groove on earlier. “Where is she?” I say quickly. “She was just here.”
“She wasn’t with you when you walked in,” Maud says.
“Yes she was.” My voice lifts an octave as I look right and left for her. “She was following me. I saw her.” Leaving the tray on the bar, I run back out of the front door onto the deck, looking around the groups of people drinking and laughing, for a little girl with dark hair. But she’s not there.
“Have you seen the little girl I was with?” I ask a group of men at a table nearby. They shake their heads.
“Did you?” I ask a couple who are looking through photographs on her phone.
“I’m sorry, what?” The woman looks up.
“I was here with a little girl,” I say quickly. “I can’t find her. Have you seen her?”
“The little dark haired girl wearing pink?” she asks, and relief immediately washes over me.
“Yes.” I nod quickly. “That’s her.”
She gives me an uneasy look. “She went that way,” she says, pointing at the stairs. “She was holding a woman’s hand.”
And I run.
* * *
HUDSON
I’m halfway through death by PowerPoint when my phone vibrates and I see Skyler’s name flash across my screen.
I have to reject the call, even though I’d much rather be verbally battling with her than listening to this interminable dross.
For good measure, I turn the thing off. I’ll call her when I get out of here. She’s done me a big favor by taking care of Ayda today and I owe her at least a huge bouquet of flowers and half a dozen orgasms.
Just as we’re getting to the part of the presentation I’m actually fucking interested in – the cash flow – there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I bellow and Carleen, my assistant, pushes it open. She looks at me, ashen faced.
“What’s up?” I ask, checking my watch. This meeting is set to finish at two, when my car is scheduled to pick me up. I need to be at the helipad by half past if I want to make it back to Liberty for dinner.
And I really fucking do.
“Can I have a quick word?” Carleen asks, looking nervous.
“Can it wait?” I ask. “We’ll be done in what?” I glance at the deputy finance officer. “Half an hour.”
“No, it can’t.” Carleen shakes her head. “It’s your daughter.”
My blood freezes at her fear filled tone. Before the final syllable is out of her mouth I’m standing up, waving at the finance team to wait. I stride across the room and follow Carleen out of the office.
“What’s wrong with Ayda?” I ask. It has to be that fucking flu. It’s working its way through everybody and she’s bound to get it.
“I just got a call from your sister,” Carleen whispers, shifting her feet. “Ayda has disappeared. Nobody knows where she is.”
Panic pulls at my stomach. “What the hell does that mean?” I ask her. “Somebody has to know where she is. She’s probably gone for a walk or something? Give me that phone,” I say, seeing it off it’s cradle on Carleen’s desk.
“Autumn?”
“Hudson.” She starts to cry. “You need to come home. We can’t find her.”
It takes ten minutes for the driver to get to the office building to pick me up. Another twenty before I’m at the helipad waiting on the helicopter to take me back. I spend most of it on my phone, first to Autumn, then to the police, and then I call Skyler right as the helicopter is coming in to land.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask, fury rushing through me. “You were supposed to be taking care of her.” I should never have let this happen. Never.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Skyler lets out a sob. “She was here. I swear she was. Then she just disappeared.”
“You left her out on the deck alone?” I say, not able to keep the fury from my voice. “How could you do that?”
“I know.” She inhales raggedly. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t you cry on me,” I tell her. “Don’t you do that. Have the police scoured the water?”
Ayda can doggie paddle. I made sure of that as soon as we moved here. But her tiny body is no match for the tides around Liberty. The thought that she could be in the water… I take a deep breath, trying to push it away.
She’s so fucking tiny. She can’t talk. The thought of her being alone and hurt… Christ.
“The police are doing everything. They’re scouring the water, they’re questioning everybody who was at the bar. Two separate witnesses saw her go off with a woman,” Skyler says quickly.
“A woman? Who?” I don’t know if that’s worse or better than her being near the water.
“They don’t know. They’re taking descriptions. And checking footage on the ferry to see if she’s been taken to the mainland.”
The helicopter comes into land, the overwhelming beating noise of the rotors drowning her out. I end the call, waiting for the pilot to let me know it’s safe before I practically run over to the helicopter and climb in.
It’s impossible to make calls from the helicopter. The pilot won’t let me remove the ear protection he insists I wear, and even if I could I’d never be able to hear voices over the sounds of our flight. So I spend the time messaging Autumn, Parker – who’s dragged himself from death’s door and joined in the search – and Skyler, desperate for some kind of update, devastated when I don’t get one.
A police cruiser is waiting for me when the helicopter lands at the helipad on the mainland just over from Liberty. They take me to one of their speedboats, driving us over to the island, as they debrief me, telling me everything they’ve found out.
“We believe a woman in her fifties took her,” the detective tells me, pulling up a grainy photograph on his phone. It’s from the security cameras that overlook the approach to the ferry. You can almost make out a woman driving and a tiny head in the back passenger seat.
“That’s Ayda?” I ask, staring at what looks like a dark ponytail. I swallow down the bile that’s rising in my throat.
“We believe so, from the reports people have made. They didn’t get out of the car once they were on the ferry.”
“Didn’t somebody notice that my daughter was with a stranger?” I ask.
“No, sir. I’m sorry.”
And of course Jesse isn’t working today. He’s heading to the bar this evening. My jaw tightens. “Do you know who this woman is?”
“We’re trying to get a better photograph of the car so we can run the plates. We’re currently working on tracking their movements once she drove off the ferry. We do have a description of her though.” The detective pulls up his notes on his phone. “Around five-four, a hundred and twenty pounds. Gray hair, well dressed in a pink trouser suit. Oh, and two different people said she has a British accent.”
As soon as he says the last words, my eyes pretty much pop out of my damn head. “Ayda’s grandmother,” I say. I can’t fucking believe this.
“I’m sorry?”
“Turn the boat around,” I shout, trying to stand up. “I think Ayda’s grandparents took her. I have to find her.”
The detective puts his hands on my shoulder. “Sir, we need to take you to the island. Try to calm down and tell me who you think it is.”
“Ayda’s mother was British. She died, but her parents have been contesting custody for the past two years. They refused to let me bring her home from England until a court forced them to.” My blood pressure is so high I think I’m going to explode. “Now can we turn this fucking boat around?”
“You need to calm down.”
My eyes widen. “My daughter is missing,” I thunder at him. “If they’ve got her, I’ll fucking kill them.”
“And I can’t let you do that. Which is exactly why we’re going to the island,” the detective tells me. “Do you have an address for these people?”
I reel off the address of the house they bought on the mainland and the detective radios it through right as we arrive at the dock. The ferry is there – they’ve stopped crossings while they search for Ayda – so there’s a huge crowd milling around the dock and the bar. I climb off the boat, closely followed by the detectives and search for my family.
I see Autumn first. She’s running toward me. “Hudson,” she cries, throwing herself at me. “This is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her as she sobs against my shoulder. “You weren’t even there. I think it might be Catherine Clarke.”
“Ayda’s grandmother? Really?” She frowns.
I nod. “They’re sending an officer to their house now.”
“I thought she and Dennis were in England.”
“So did I,” I say grimly. “I guess they decided they couldn’t wait and took the law into their own hands.”
The detective is talking into his phone quickly. He ends the call and looks at me. “There’s no sign of them at the house,” he says.
Fuck . I put my head in my hands. I was so damn sure they’d be there.
“We’re putting out an Amber Alert,” the detective tells me. “And we’re working with Homeland Security to find out if your ex’s parents are in the country.”
“Skyler and Parker are on the beach,” Autumn tells me, sliding her hand into mine. “They didn’t know what else to do. They just want to find her.”
“It would have helped if Skyler hadn’t lost her in the first place,” I say. I’m trying to keep my fury from rising up, but it’s a struggle. I’m a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
“Here they are,” Autumn says, and I follow her gaze. Parker is there, looking like he’s about to keel over. He’s wearing a pair of joggers and a t-shirt, but the man looks like death. Barney is on a leash, looking as dejected as I feel. I can’t help but think that if he’d been with Ayda none of this would have happened.
And next to him is Skyler. The woman I trusted with my daughter. The woman who lost the one thing I love more than life itself. She looks as pale as Parker. Her eyes are red rimmed, her hair is a mess, and as she walks toward me I have to curl my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching for her.