Chapter 26
Ethan paced the small hospital room, Maggie still in the bed less than a foot away. The helplessness drowned him. Made him want to hit something, anything, to feel something other than this pit in his gut.
Someone had hit Maggie over the head with a vase. Then they heard him knock and ran out the back. That had to have been the retreating footsteps.
Who? And why? Was it the same person commenting on her socials and breaking into her homes and taking things?
He wanted some damn answers, and he wanted them now.
His gaze returned to Maggie for what had to be the hundredth time. She was so still. Too still. And the bandage on her head was a stark white, making her skin look pale.
He closed the small distance between them and lowered into the chair beside the bed. Gently, he took her hand and set his forehead against her palm. “Come on, Maggie. Open your eyes for me. I need to see those beautiful browns.”
The door flew open, and Polly gasped when she laid eyes on Maggie. Then she raced across the room and dropped into the seat on the other side of the bed.
“Oh my God.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “How is she?”
He’d called Polly once he’d reached Maggie’s room, knowing her best friend would want her to be here. “A concussion. Just waiting for her to wake up now.”
A tear slid down Polly’s cheek, and she scrubbed it away. “You weren’t with her?”
“No.” A vein throbbed in his temple. “She saw Jay kiss me at the bar and ran. I went after her and found her on the floor in your living room.”
Polly’s jaw dropped. “Jay kissed you?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. I pushed her away, but Maggie didn’t stick around for that part.”
Polly shook her head. “Maggie’s never seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“That she’d be someone’s first choice.” Anger cut across Polly’s face. “I’ll never forgive Lilith for that.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Connor stuck his head in. “Hey. You got a sec?”
Polly swiped another tear from her cheek. “Go. I’ll stay with her.”
Ethan pressed one long kiss to the back of Maggie’s hand before rising and stepping into the hall. All four guys were there waiting.
“Did you beat Ward to the house?” Ethan asked, the second the door closed behind him.
Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Barely.”
“No signs of forced entry,” Zac said.
“Based on how upset she looked when she raced out of the bar, it’s possible she left the door unlocked,” Connor said.
A muscle ticked in Ethan’s jaw. Connor hadn’t said it to insinuate it was his fault, but fuck, it felt like it.
“So they followed her in?” Ethan guessed. “Then I knocked and they ran.”
“The back door was also unlocked,” Joel added.
Ryan unlocked his phone and passed it to Ethan. “This photo was on the floor.”
Ethan frowned. It was a photo that had been torn in half, and only Polly remained. He assumed, based on the arm around Polly, the woman who’d been torn out of the photo was Maggie.
“Why?” The question was more of a growl than anything else. “Why is someone stalking her? Why is someone out to get her?”
Connor gripped his shoulder. “We’re going to figure this out.”
Ryan looked at something down the hall and cursed.
Ethan followed his gaze. “Why the hell is he here and not at Maggie’s house?”
Ward stopped in front of them. “Evening, boys. I need to question Maggie Sinclair.” He moved around them.
Ethan stepped in front of him, blocking his way into the room. “She hasn’t woken up yet.”
“Huh. Okay. Guess I’ll get a Cinnabon and wait in the cafeteria.”
“Why aren’t you at her house looking for evidence that could tell us who did this?”
Ward almost looked amused. “It’s okay, son. My boys are there. We’re doing our job.”
“Shouldn’t the sheriff be leading that investigation?”
“I know how to run my station. Call me when she’s awake.” He started to turn.
“Have you found Priya Tan’s killer?” Ethan knew the answer. He asked anyway.
Ward paused for a moment, and for some goddamn reason, a sick feeling churned in Ethan’s gut.
“We’ve put it down as an accidental drowning.”
Ethan’s entire team was so silent, you could have heard a fucking pin drop.
“How the hell could that have gone down as an accidental drowning?” Ryan growled. “Someone holding a knife jumped out in front of her car and dragged her out.”
“We heard her scream over the line,” Ethan pushed, voice low and dangerous.
Ward rubbed his chin. “Tan was on some medication for her mental health. This isn’t the first time she’s had an…
episode. Her family confirmed it. Blood tests show she took too much.
Crashed her car. A head wound caused her to have some…
delusions. She was disoriented. Injured. She fell into the river and drowned.”
“So that’s it?” Zac asked incredulously. “The investigation’s over?”
Ward lifted a shoulder. “Some people just shouldn’t be around water.”
Then the sheriff left. The asshole just walked away like he wasn’t the biggest piece of shit in Deep River.
Ryan shook his head. “How that asshole can put on the uniform and pretend to defend a town of people every day is beyond me.”
“What a scumbag.” Connor scowled, running his hand over his face.
“He doesn’t care,” Ethan said, almost under his breath. “He’ll never care.”
A text came through on his phone.
Polly: She’s awake.
Something tugged Maggie from the darkness. A voice. It was soft and familiar and made her want to reach out and touch the person behind it.
She breathed—in and out—trying to turn the hum of the voice into words.
The tone was sad. She knew that without having to understand anything.
Focus, Maggie.
“And you get me, you know? You’ve always been the only person in the entire world to really get me. So if you insist on staying asleep, I’ll have no one. And that’s something that will haunt you forever. Do you want that? I don’t think you do.”
Maggie’s lips twitched.
“Hey. Did you just smile? Can you hear me?”
With a frown, Maggie opened her eyes. Jesus, it was bright in here.
“Maggie!” Polly gasped. “You’re awake! Thank God!”
Maggie blinked. Once. Twice. Slowly, the room came into focus. “Am I in the hospital?”
Polly blinked back visible tears. “Yes, um, you went back to my house and someone hit you in the back of the head.”
She closed her eyes, the memory coming back to her. The deafening sound of smashing glass. The pain that shot through her skull.
When she opened her eyes again, Polly was typing something on her phone.
The door opened and her breath caught at the sight of Ethan. At the fire in his eyes. The concern and anger and maybe even a bit of fear on his face.
He closed the space between them in three long strides before taking her hand in his large one. “You’re awake.”
The kiss between him and Jay flashed in her mind, but she pushed it back. Now wasn’t the time for that. “How did I get here?”
“I followed you back to Polly’s house. I found you on the floor surrounded by broken glass.”
Her brows flickered. “Did you see the person who hit me?”
“No.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “They ran out the back door.”
So they were still out there. The person who’d followed her inside her home. Hurt her. Left her bleeding on the floor.
She felt sick.
“Hey.”
At the deep rumble of Ethan’s voice, she looked back up at him.
He cupped her cheek. “We’re going to find this person.”
He spoke with such conviction, his words felt like a vow. Like there was no possibility of him not following through.
She nodded, still not sure she fully believed him. She wanted to. But fear was too thick in the air.
Polly squeezed her other hand before rising. “I’m going to head home and grab you some clothes. Do you need anything else? Bodywash? Deodorant?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Of course I do.” She bent and kissed Maggie on the forehead.
“Take one of the guys if you need someone with you,” Ethan said softly. “Deputies might still be there.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be okay.”
“Polly—”
“I’ll be okay,” she pushed, cutting Maggie off.
Maggie sighed, and when her friend left, she and Ethan were alone. And the expression on his face—God, it was intense. Like there was a mountain between them and he was ready to climb it to get to her.
Neither of them had time to say anything before a knock sounded at the door. It opened to a man in a white lab coat. He looked to be in his mid-forties and there was no smile on his face. He closed the door behind him.
“Miss Sinclair, it’s good to see you awake. I’m Dr. Martin. You took quite a knock tonight.”
“But I’m okay?”
“You’ve been unconscious for about two hours. Fortunately, there’s no internal bleeding or skull fracture.”
She nodded, not sure if she was supposed to feel grateful for that. Probably. But the dread in her belly from everything that had happened was overpowering.
“We’d like to keep you overnight for monitoring,” the doctor continued. “After that, if you have someone at home, we’d be happy to discharge you tomorrow.”
“Polly can—”
“I’ll be with her.” Ethan cut her off, his fingers tightening around her hand.
The doctor dipped his head. Once he was gone, she looked back to Ethan. “You don’t—”
“You’re staying with me, Maggie. That’s non-negotiable. Someone attacked you. I need eyes on you.”
She swallowed, and even though so much had happened tonight, she wanted to be with him too. She opened her mouth to tell him that, when the door opened without even a knock and Ward and a deputy stepped into the room.
“Goddammit.” Ethan rose. “I told you—”
“That she wasn’t awake,” Ward finished. “Now she is.”
“She has a concussion. Give her a damn minute.”
Maggie touched Ethan’s arm. “It’s okay. The quicker I talk to them the faster it will be done.”
Ward nodded. “Smart girl.”
Maggie’s nose wrinkled at the condescending tone, but she didn’t respond. There was no good that would come from it. She pushed a button to adjust the bed to a sitting position.
Ward stood at the end of the bed. “You were found unconscious in the living room of Polly Mack’s home. Can you tell me what you remember?”
“I left the bar. I was upset—”
“Why were you upset?”
Ethan tensed.
She touched his arm, speaking before he could. “With all due respect, that’s my business and not related to what happened in Polly’s living room. I ran inside the house and closed the door.” She frowned. “I can’t remember if I locked it.”
“There were no signs of forced entry,” the deputy said, not looking up from his notepad.
Great. She may as well have left the door wide open and told them to come right in.
“I went to my bedroom but heard a noise in the living room. I thought it was Polly, but when I went out there, a framed photo was sitting face down. I lifted it, and the photo of me and her was out of the frame and torn in half. The half with me was gone.”
Ward turned to look at his deputy. “Cross-check that with the others.”
“That’s when someone hit me,” Maggie finished.
Ward nodded. “Do you know who might have done it?”
“No. But…there have been other things that have happened. I’ve reported some of it. A couple of items went missing in the apartment over Polly’s garage while I was staying there. And before coming back here, things like that happened in LA.”
“You reported some of what happened?” Ward asked.
“Yes. And I also told Ethan and his team.”
Ward visibly tensed. “Ethan and his team are not law enforcement.”
“Hey.” Ethan stepped toward Ward. “Not here. She’s just been assaulted—have some bedside manners. Is there anything else you need?”
Ward took the book from his deputy and snapped it shut. “No. We’ll look into it.” He looked back at Maggie. “Next time something happens, you tell me first. If you’ve brought trouble to this town, I need to know about it.”
Then he left. And Maggie absolutely would not be holding her breath for him to solve what had happened to her tonight.