Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
Cool, wet leaves cake my hands and arms as I turn around on my knees to get a closer look at her.
Is she okay? Nothing about this makes any sense.
I just spoke to her. She was home. She was…showering. Then driving. I suspected she had someone at her house. A date. She was vibrant. She was fine.
And now? She’s lying on her side in the cold rain, in woods where she has no reason to be.
Lewis squeezes my shoulder gently, his wild eyes full of fear as lightning flashes in the sky. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” I shove his hands away, turning her onto her back. “What happened?”
“We shouldn’t move her.”
I’m not listening. “Is she…” My hands search her face, and I place my head against her chest, listening for a heartbeat.
“She’s alive,” he says.
A wave of relief washes through my body, white-hot. He’s right. Her chest is rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.
I run a hand over her tenderly, searching for injuries, my fingers shaking as I wait to feel blood. There’s no sign of any.
“It doesn’t make sense. It’s like she’s sleeping. She’s not hurt.”
“The injuries could be internal.” Lewis’s response is quiet, but it seems to reverberate through the woods. My eyes fall to her stomach, imagining a black-and-purple bruise spreading across her stomach the way I’ve seen on the medical shows Taylor loves.
Gently, I lift her shirt, just enough to ease my fears.
We hear footsteps and heavy breaths, and my heart ricochets in my chest. I can’t leave her. There is no time to think, to process. I can’t hide, even if I wanted to, so I wait. I sit still as a stone, silent, as I watch.
A figure appears through the rain, then another. I release a breath of relief.
“You found her?” Conrad asks, dropping down next to us. “What happened?”
“We don’t know,” I say. “She’s unconscious.”
“We need to get her up,” Conrad says, his hands hovering over her body as if he’s afraid to touch her. “Get her to the hospital.”
He looks over at the other man, who nods.
In agreement, we each grab hold of her. Lewis and I take an arm, a shoulder. Conrad’s friend slides his arms under her back, bearing the brunt of her weight, and Conrad keeps her legs from dragging the ground.
“Careful,” I warn as we take hold and lift. The second she leaves the ground, her eyes flutter, as if awakening from a long sleep. “Greta?”
We pick up speed, hurrying through the forest. The slick mud makes it impossible to stay steady. She turns her head and rests it on my chest, and I hold her tighter against me, wanting to protect her from the rain smacking her face.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promise.
Her eyes open as we reach Conrad’s car, and she jolts, screaming. She flails, trying to escape our grasp.
“It’s me. It’s me. It’s me,” I rush out, one hand up to defend myself from her swings.
It takes a second for her eyes to find focus on me. “Corinne?”
Lewis pulls the car door open, using his foot to push it back farther, and we slide her inside. I sit down next to her and shut the door. She wipes the rain from her face, eyes searching and scanning in a panic.
“What are you…” She jerks her head this way and that. “Where are we?”
I turn toward the window as Lewis opens the door on the other side, sliding onto the seat. Conrad and his friend are next. Once we’re all safely inside the car, all eyes are trained on Greta.
“We’re in the woods outside of Foxglove. We…we found you out there.”
Her eyes find mine without urgency, still dazed and afraid. When they land on me again, a sort of calmness washes over her expression. “What’s happening?”
“You’re okay,” I tell her, desperately hoping it’s true. “Do you remember what happened?”
She squeezes one eye shut, looking around, but doesn’t answer. “Do you remember coming here? We spoke on the phone. You were supposed to be looking for Taylor. I don’t understand why you’re here. Or how.”
She opens her mouth slowly, eyes lost and dizzy. “I…I don’t remember. I was at the cabin. At Foxglove visiting you…”
She’s lost an entire day’s worth of memories. “She needs to go to the hospital,” I say, not breaking eye contact with her. “We need to go. Now.”
“No. No. I’m okay,” she argues. Because of course she does. She wouldn’t be Greta if she wasn’t stubborn and pigheaded, even when she can’t remember where she is or why. “Really, I’m okay. I just…I need to sit down.”
“You are sitting down. You’ve been sitting down,” Lewis argues with her. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
She gives him a stern look, and I’m grateful, at least, that she still has her fire. “What the hell are you talking about? Foxglove? I’ve been here.”
“No. You left yesterday.” I touch her cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She looks at me with confusion swimming in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You left Foxglove to go back to work, remember? We’ve spoken. You did showings, and you were supposed to be looking for Taylor. You said you stopped by my mom’s house.”
She looks between us. “That’s impossible.
I don’t remember anything past leaving the cabin.
I was…” She pauses. “I’m sorry. I don’t really remember that.
The last thing I remember is hugging you in the yard.
And then…I was driving and someone was…” She pauses again, thinking.
I can practically see her scraping the cobwebs from the hazy memory.
“Someone was standing in the road. They flagged me down.”
“Who?” I lean into her, like she is a soft song I’m trying to hear better. “Who was it?”
She pauses, rubbing her neck. “I… I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I… Maybe I’m imagining all of it. It feels hazy.”
“Your phone.” I want to prove my story to her. I need her to remember. “I’ll show you.” I reach for her pockets. “It wasn’t in the car, so it has to be…” But as I check her damp jeans, I realize it isn’t there either. “What the…”
That’s when I remember someone else answered her phone before. When I called, there was only breathing, but someone did pick up.
“Someone stole it.” Her words are almost a question as she looks at me with an expression of perfectly mixed fear and confusion. She lifts her hand to her neck again, massaging it. I brush her hair back, examining her neck in the light from the dashboard in the front of the car.
I slap Lewis’s arm, and he and Greta both startle. “Look at this.”
He leans over as Greta turns her neck for him to see. “What’s wrong?” she asks, eyeing us both.
“A bruise.” Lewis touches his finger to the bruise there on her pale flesh.
“It’s sore,” she agrees, rubbing it again.
“It’s not a bruise.” I pull my phone out and turn on the flashlight. Greta squeezes one eye shut, blinded. Lewis leans toward me again, looking. “It’s a needle mark. Someone injected her with something.”
Greta tenses against me. “What?” Her voice shoots octaves higher, out of breath.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promise her. Promise myself. My mind is working overtime, hunting for an answer to this mystery, the missing piece to this puzzle, but I keep turning up empty.
“Someone has your phone,” I say, thinking aloud. “If we can figure out who it is, that’ll be a start. It’ll lead to answers. It has to.” I tap her name on my screen and hold my breath, waiting.
When the line connects, I hear it again—the breathing, but nothing else.
“Who is this?” I demand, my voice low and shaky. “Who are you?”