22. Found #2
“That’s a lot of damage to hand you,” he says, softer this time.
“I understand that Doc’s little girl is missing.” My throat aches. “But, if I make this about me, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”
“You can care about Ellie and admit you got hurt, too.”
“I know.”
“You better.” Jake’s expression turns serious. “And Annie, Ian doesn’t get to get away with doing this to you.”
“Oh, trust me. He won’t. But, tonight Ellie is missing.” My voice hardens. “I’m not putting Ian the center of it too.”
“He caused it.”
“Jake.”
Jake looks at me for a long second. “Okay, so then when?”
I stare past him, toward the rain, toward the town that somehow got itself tangled with a man that should have left buried in another life. “I have a plan and that will make sure he doesn’t get to dictate my future any more. But it’s not for tonight.”
The words come out small.
Not brave. They don’t come out as confidently as I feel them. But it doesn’t make them any less true.
Jake hears them that way. I can tell.
“Good,” he says.
A call goes up inside. A name. Not Ellie’s. Then radio static.
We both turn.
Nothing.
I let out a shaky breath. Then again.
“You ready to go back in?” Jake says.
“No.”
“Okay.”
“But, I’m going back in anyway.”
“Also okay.” He smiles and opens the side door and we step back inside.
The fire station swallows us back into the rhythmic movement of the night. Phones. Paper. Wet coats. Low voices. People trying not to lose hope.
After midnight a call comes in and the deputy answers. He keeps his voice low, writes several things and hangs up and then grabs his cell phone and makes a call. He goes into an office and closes the door.
Jake and I just look at each other.
A few minutes later, Alvarez comes bursting back into the station. The deputy picks up a phone and dials and hands it to Alvarez who promptly goes behind a closed door again.
The deputy goes outside. Jake looks at me and nods, and follows him out.
When Alvarez comes out, all hell breaks loose. The station alarm goes off and within minutes, firefighters are overrunning the area, donning turnout gear and jumping into trucks. As the paramedics jump into the cab, I hear one say waterfall. And then they roll.
A volunteer firefighter says that Doc was sent home. Someone else mentions the waterfall, then someone says no, that area is too dangerous in the dark, it’s flagged for morning.
The waterfall.
Jake comes back in and nods toward the side door. I meet him there and he drags me outside.
“Alvarez got a call telling him Doc was on his way to the waterfall.”
“Now?”
Jake doesn’t answer fast enough. “Yes, he’s on his way there now.”
My stomach drops.
“Alone?”
“I don’t know Annie.”
“But Jake, the falls are dangerous in the daylight with people who know the area.” I practically start hyperventilating and Jake makes me sit down.
“Annie, everyone is going after him. He’ll be okay.”
“Why? What the hell is he thinking?”
“I don’t know. He just went from what I can make out.”
I close my eyes.
The next stretch of time has no shape. Phones ring. People talk. Rain taps against the metal siding. The phones are quiet. The base station chirps back in the truck bay. But there is nothing.
Every few minutes, I look toward the door.
Every time boots sound outside, my body prepares for news.
None comes.
Then, the station phone at the central desk rings.
The room moves into slow motion before anyone says a word.
A deputy answers. “Fire station.”
He listens. He looks to the firefighter beside him.
“Repeat that.”
Every sound in the room drops away.
I push away from the table and stand.
Jake catches the chair before it tips and stands with me.
The deputy turns, hand pressed over the receiver. “They found her.”
My knees give out from under me as my hand flies to cover the sounds coming from my mouth. Jake’s arm comes around me before I fall. I grab his jacket with both hands and hold on.
Someone asks the question I can’t bring myself to.
“Condition?”
The deputy listens again. “Injured. Semi-conscious. Extraction underway.”
Semi-conscious is still conscious.
Injured, but found.
Safe.
“She’s safe,” I whisper and put my head in my hands. My voice doesn’t even sound like mine.
Jake picks me up and twirls me around. “She’s safe.”
All of my fears unpack and break open wide. I sob. Hard. Ugly. And I can’t stop it.
But Ellie is safe.
And that’s all that matters.
Jake turns me enough to put his body between me and the rest of the room. Just giving me a second.
The deputy is still on the phone. “Whidbey Health. Ambulance en route. Dad with her.”
Dad with her.
I pull back from Jake and wipe my face with both hands.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s what we have.”
He doesn’t argue.
More details start coming in. The phone bank starts lighting up again as word spreads through official channels and then through Coupeville’s veins.
Ellie’s been found.
Jake sits beside me, elbows on his knees. “You want to go to the hospital?”
Yes. The answer is instant. So clear it scares me.
I want to see Ellie’s face. I want to know if she’s cold.
I want to know what’s hurt, if she’s scared, if she remembers what she heard, if she thinks I used her.
I want to tell her none of Ian’s words were true.
I want to tell her I care about her. I want to tell her I’m sorry she ever had to hear any of it.
I want to see Doc.
I want all of it at once and know none of it is mine to try to ask for.
“No,” I say. “This is a family moment.”
“Annie. You know he was scared and didn’t mean it. You know that.”
“I know,” I say before he can say anything more. “I know he was scared. I know the world went very wrong for him very fast. I know he thought he’d lost her. I know he didn’t have room to be gentle with anyone.”
“It’s not the whole truth.”
“No.” I look toward the open bay doors, toward the street outside, toward the hospital I’m not going to. “The whole truth is that he hurt me, and I’m not going to be the one chasing an apology.”
Jake nods. “All right then. Let’s get you home.”
“Give me a second.” And I head back over to the reporting table, grab a piece of paper and a marker and scribble something.
Jake unlocks his truck as I’m walking up.
I stop before I get in and look down the road toward the clinic. “Stop by the clinic for me first?”
“You sure?”
I hold up the note and a roll of tape. CLOSED UNTIL MONDAY - EMERGENCIES PLEASE DIAL 911
Jake smiles. “Perfect.”
When he pulls into my driveway, he leaves the engine running.
“I can come in if you’d like.”
“No. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Really.” I open the door, then pause. “And Jake.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He backs out of the driveway as I lock the door. I don’t make it past the living room. I collapse on the couch and curl up, already falling asleep, but smiling.
Ellie Bie is safe.