Chapter 25 – Presley
PRESLEY
When the unit secretary paged me for a phone call, I assumed it was the lab calling with the results I was waiting on for one of my patients. So, I was caught off guard when Dice’s voice filled my ear.
“Hey, Presley. It’s Dice. Is Ariel with you by chance?” he asked urgently.
“No,” I said as my heart started to pound in my chest. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know the details, but she called Ink for help with a flat tire. That was about two hours ago. The police just called Phoenix saying they found his truck on the side of the road with another car, presumably Ariel’s,” he said and paused.
“What else?” I demanded.
“There was a lot of blood on the ground. I’m sorry, they just called, so I don’t know anything else, but if that was Ariel’s car, I expect the police will be contacting you any minute now. Jake’s been trying to call Ariel, and she’s not answering her phone either.”
I braced my hand against the counter to steady myself. It felt like the whole world was caving in around me, and I found it hard to breathe.
I’m not sure how much time had passed when I finally realized someone was calling my name. “Presley!” Jennifer demanded.
I blinked a few times, and her face came into focus. “I have to go,” I managed to say. “My daughter is missing.”
“I know,” she said sympathetically. “But I can’t let you leave—”
“You have to!” I insisted. I didn’t care if they fired me. I didn’t care if I lost my nursing license. My daughter and my man were missing, and I was leaving to find them.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said calmly. “You’re in no state to drive. I spoke to your friend on the phone. He’s sending someone to pick you up. You can leave as soon as they get here.”
“He said the police might come to speak to me,” I said as tears ran down my cheeks. “I need to be out there looking for my baby. There’s nothing I can tell them that will help find her.”
“Clock out,” she said firmly.
“What?”
“Clock out. If you’re not on the clock, you’re not working, and that’s all I have to tell them.”
“Thank you,” I breathed and clocked out.
“Let’s go to the locker room. You can give me report on your patients while you get your stuff together.”
Inhaling deeply, I pulled myself together long enough to tell her about my patients. I was almost finished when Elizabeth walked into the locker room. “The police are here,” she said quietly. “They’re at the front desk asking for Presley.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jennifer said and turned back to me. “We need to figure out who is coming to get you so we can have them pick you up out back by the dumpsters.”
Before I could respond, the door opened again and Tonya stepped inside. “There’s a woman at the front asking for the charge nurse. She’s very insistent and seems a little frantic.”
“I bet that’s my ride,” I said.
“Got it,” Jennifer said. “Elizabeth, talk to the police. Tell them Presley had a family emergency and isn’t working. Be careful not to say she isn’t here. Say she isn’t working. I’ll talk to the other lady and join you when I’m finished. Tonya, walk Presley to the back door.”
“Thank you,” I said again and quickly hugged Jennifer.
“You’re welcome. Go find your girl and let us know when you do.”
A few minutes later, a black SUV came to a stop beside the dumpsters. The window rolled down, revealing Ember behind the wheel. “You ready?”
“Yes!” I shouted and darted forward. “Thanks, Tonya,” I called over my shoulder.
“Keep us posted!”
“I will,” I promised as I hopped into Ember’s vehicle.
She stomped on the gas before I was fully seated, throwing me back in the seat. “Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t apologize. I appreciate the urgency. What do you know?”
“Not much,” Harper said from the back seat, causing me to scream and grab my chest.
“I’m so sorry! I thought you saw us.”
I turned in my seat to see Harper, Harlow, and Moose. “No, I missed all of you. Please tell me what you know.”
“Ariel had a flat tire on her way home from school. She called Ink because she couldn’t get the lug nuts off, and he went to help her.
After an hour passed, Dice called Ink to see if they needed help.
Ink didn’t answer. After several unanswered calls, Dice called Jake to see if he had Ariel’s number.
While that was happening, the police showed up at the garage saying they found Ink’s truck abandoned on the side of the road with another car.
They said there was a lot of blood on the ground,” she said gently.
A lot of blood.
Whose blood was it? Hers? His? Theirs?
I covered my face with my hands as I began to sob.
“We track our kids with apps,” Ember said. “Do you and Ariel have something like that?”
“Yes,” I nodded and reached for my phone.
With shaking hands, I pulled up the app I used to track Ariel’s phone, hoping it would give me her location.
Hope filled me when her blue dot appeared on my screen, but that hope quickly disappeared when I realized her phone had been at the same location for two hours. “Where are the cars?” I asked.
“Union Street. About two miles from the high school,” Harper said.
“Damn it,” I swore. “Her phone is in her car.”
“Yeah, Ink’s phone is there, too,” Harper said.
At my confused look, Ember said, “My dad had Byte track their phones. I should’ve worded it better. I was asking if you had another means of tracking her.”
“I don’t, but I probably will after this.”
“Byte can find anything,” Harper said confidently. “He’s checking the traffic cameras now to see which way they were taken.”
Taken.
She said the word I had been trying to keep from entering my mind. They thought my man and my child had been taken. “No,” I whispered, and covered my face again. “No, no, no.”
Harper placed her hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I know it doesn’t help much, but we’re going to do everything we can to find them. Phoenix called everyone in. The entire club is looking for them.”
“That’s what we’re doing, right? Going to look for them?” I was prepared to jump out of her car if she said anything other than yes.
“Yes,” Ember said. “We’re meeting Carbon, Jake, and Mason near where the cars were found, and we’ll see if Moose can pick up a scent trail.”
“I don’t have anything with Ariel’s scent on it.”
“That’s okay. Jake has something,” Harlow said.
“What? How?”
“I didn’t ask,” she said in a way that made me think her answer was calculated, but I didn’t have time to address it.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad he has something. Will Moose be able to track her scent if she was in a vehicle?”
“No, not completely, but he should be able to give us an idea of which direction they went,” Harlow explained.
Ember made a sharp turn and came to a sliding stop. “We’re here,” she announced.
“Does your husband know you drive like that?” Carbon asked.
Ember shrugged. “I didn’t know it was a gravel road.”
“Are we ready?” Jake asked impatiently, and I wanted to hug him for it. I couldn’t look for both of them at the same time, but I needed to be actively looking for one of them.
“Yes, we are,” I said firmly.
“Here’s my hoodie,” Jake said, handing it to Harper. “Ariel got cold, so I let her wear it when I was helping her with her science project. She was the last one to wear it.”
“That should work,” Harlow said. “But you need to stay behind Moose, so he doesn’t pick up your scent and follow it.”
Jake nodded in understanding. “I’ll stay here if that would be better.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Harlow said. Then she held the hoodie in front of Moose and let him smell it. I didn’t hear her give him a command, but the big dog suddenly took off at a fast pace. To my surprise, he headed away from the road and into the trees.
As we walked, the woods got thicker and harder to navigate, but Moose continued forward. Meanwhile, I wondered if we were wasting our time. They could be anywhere, and I was traipsing through the woods following a dog who may or may not have a lock on my daughter’s scent.
“Have the other dogs found anything?” Jake asked.
“Diablo lost Ink’s scent half a mile down the road,” Carbon said. “Shadow was tracking the blood and lost the scent around the same place Diablo lost Ink.”
Logically, that meant the blood belonged to Ink.
It was a thought I couldn’t bear to think about.
Not at that moment. I needed to focus on the task at hand.
Because I was going to fall apart if I stopped to think about what happened to either of them.
My whole world was out there, lost and probably hurt, maybe dying if they weren’t already dead.
A broken sob escaped from my lips, and I quickly slapped my hand over my mouth.
I could fall apart later.
I would fall apart later.
Inhaling deeply, I squared my shoulders and pushed it all to the back of my mind so I could continue forward. For them.
I don’t know how far we walked or for how long, but I was internally spiraling when Moose finally barked and turned in a circle. Then he howled, long and deep.
“Ariel!” Jake shouted and ran forward. “Ariel!”
We spread out, yelling her name to no avail. Then, through the various calls of my daughter’s name, I heard the one that was different—Jake’s broken guttural cry of her name.
He found her.
And it wasn’t good.
“Ariel!” he screamed. “Oh, fuck, no. Ariel! Please, please, please.”
I turned and sprinted to where he was kneeling by a large rock. In front of him, my unconscious daughter rested on the ground, curled in the fetal position. “Ariel!” I cried and dropped to my knees.
“She’s alive,” Jake said. “She’s breathing.”
Still, I placed my fingers against her neck and felt for a pulse. I sagged in relief when my fingers met warm skin, followed by the steady thump of her heartbeat.
“What do you want to do?” Ember asked from my side. “We can carry her out of here, or we can call for help and wait for emergency services to get here.”
“We should wait for the paramedics,” Jake said and sniffed. “She could have injuries we can’t see.”
I looked up to see him wiping his cheeks as he stared down at my daughter with worry-filled eyes.
“Presley?” Ember asked.
“Uh, yeah. He’s right. She obviously has a head injury, so her neck could be compromised.”
“If they can’t get back here, call my dad,” Jake said.
“They can get back here,” Carbon assured him. “If they can’t, we’ll meet them to get the neck brace and backboard. Then we’ll carry her to them.”
Jake nodded, seemingly satisfied with Carbon’s answer.
Harper called it in while I tried to examine Ariel without moving her.
I couldn’t see any obvious injuries from the way she was positioned.
Her hands and the sleeves of her shirt had a significant amount of blood spatter, but it didn’t appear to be her blood.
“Jake, do you know if her knife was in her car?” I asked.
“Her knife?”
“She keeps a large knife under the seat in her car. I was wondering if it’s still there.”
“Carbon, do you know if they found a knife in Ariel’s car?” Jake asked.
“I haven’t heard anyone mention anything about a knife. Why?”
I pointed to the blood spatter on Ariel’s sleeves and hands. “I’m wondering if she had to use it. If she did, then that blood isn’t Ink’s.”
“I’ll find out,” he said and stepped away as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
I tried to listen to what he was saying, but Ariel groaned, and I became solely focused on her. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. Try not to move.”
“Hurts,” she mumbled.
“What hurts?” Jake asked.
“Head.”
Before either of us could stop her, she rolled onto her back and turned her head, revealing hair matted with blood and dirt.
“Oh, fuck,” Jake hissed. “That’s a lot of blood,” he said shakily.
“Here,” Mason said and pulled his shirt over his head. “Use this.”
Jake took it and immediately held it out for me. I took the shirt and pressed it against my daughter’s head, causing her to cry out in pain. “I’m sorry, baby. We have to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.”
“Ink,” she mumbled. “Help Ink.”
Ink.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked, but she didn’t respond. “Ariel?”
“Is she okay?” Jake asked, not bothering to hide his panic.
As a mother, I wanted to scream no, but I inhaled deeply and answered as a nurse.
“She lost consciousness again. It’s common in head injuries.
She’s breathing, and her color is good. I need you to keep a check on her pulse while I’m holding pressure.
It may fluctuate in speed, but let me know if it changes from the normal thump, thump, thump. ”
Jake gently held her arm in his hands and kept two fingers pressed against the pulse point in her wrist until help arrived, which was sooner than I expected. I later learned it was easier to reach us from the opposite direction.
They had her stabilized and ready to move within minutes of arriving. “Mom, are you riding with us?” one of the paramedics asked.
Ink.
“Yes,” I answered automatically.
Ink.
There was no way in hell I was letting them take Ariel to the hospital without me.
Ink.
“Ink!” I shouted and promptly burst into tears. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “You guys need to find Ink! He’s out there somewhere, and he’s hurt. I know he’s hurt. He wouldn’t have left her. He wouldn’t.”
Unfamiliar arms surrounded me before Carbon spoke.
“Phoenix told me to stay with you—President’s orders.
Ink would want someone with you and Ariel, and Prez sent me because it only takes one of me to scare off the amateurs.
I’ll be with you, and everyone else will be looking for him.
You can’t be in two places, and neither can I. So let’s get moving.”
I nodded and inhaled deeply, trying to compose myself.
“Also, the answer to your other question is no. Nothing was found,” he said quietly.
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Ariel’s knife.
“Thank you,” I said, though I didn’t feel the relief I thought I would.
I was assuming that if the knife was missing, it meant the blood wasn’t Ink’s, but it could have been.
It also likely meant my daughter had to stab someone.
Either way, the absence of the knife wasn’t the good news I thought it would be.