CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cherry
Warm. Oozy. That’s how my body felt as Caleb put the car in drive after nearly kissing me into a coma. I barely held back a deep sigh.
He had no obligations to me personally, and plenty of better things to do, and yet he’d spent the day with me and my brother then had chosen to join us for dinner, which he’d had brought in. He’d completely charm my family. If that wasn’t enough, now he had me thinking of romantic ice cream dates in March.
I’d never had anyone who wasn’t family look out for me so thoroughly. It filled me with an uncertain sort of happiness that I didn’t know what to do about. For now though, I wouldn’t question it further. I thought that for the moment I’d just enjoy this warm contentment and see where it took me.
Caleb had completely changed my life. Not just with the job, or the money. But in the way he was helping me trust, the way he brought out emotions in me that I’d clamped down on before. I felt more open with him than I’d been with anyone, and while I didn’t know what to do with that, I wasn’t going to ignore it.
I had spent far too much time fighting my feelings. My dad’s death had taught me that tomorrow was never promised.
As Caleb drove, I turned to study his profile, this man who seemed so cold to the rest of the world but who was actually the most giving person I’d ever met.
As if he felt my gaze on him, his hand found mine, our fingers entwining together. A floaty feeling enveloped me, and even as I tried to talk myself out of letting the feeling take over, I couldn’t keep the smile off my lips.
“Where are we going?” My words sounded almost slurred, as if I were drunk on happiness.
“This great little place, they use local ingredients. Like near the Kentucky Derby, they make a bourbon-based ice cream from Old Forester Bourbon.”
I couldn’t keep my lip from turning up. “I’ll stick with strawberry, thanks.”
Caleb laughed, a light, full sound I hadn’t heard from him before that made me laugh along with him.
Then the seatbelt snapped tight across my chest, knocking the breath from me as he slammed hard on the brakes, narrowly missing rear-ending the car in front of us.
“What the hell.” Caleb unhooked his seatbelt as the driver of the car in front of us got out and went to the front of his own car.
“What’s happening?”
“I think the guy just hit something. You stay here.” He jumped out, slamming the door.
“Like hell.” I popped open the door, wondering what the man had hit. A dog? A deer was possible. They lived in the sparse sections of woods throughout the city but were rarely seen in the more populated areas.
Getting out, I started to the car in front of us and almost changed my mind, thinking maybe Caleb’s order to stay in the car had been a good idea. I stopped when I reached the other car’s passenger door and was about to turn around.
Until I saw Caleb’s face. An expression that was a thousand expressions in one. But mostly…
Disbelief.
Oh, god. What could it be?
A woman in a dingy gray, shapeless coat stood up from the ground in front of the car.
A woman! The car had hit a woman?
But the way Caleb was looking at her…
He reached out, grabbed her arms to steady her when she swayed. His face changed to an expression I’d never seen before, a mixture of love, torture, relief. This strong man was fighting back tears. Then he said her name as he pushed the hood away from her face, strands of shaggy dirty-blonde hair falling to her shoulders.
“Lillie!”
My knees went weak, and I sagged against the car. His sister? Lillie?
A reunion played out in the middle of the street, lit by the car’s headlights, one that was mostly on Caleb’s part with his sister shrugging off his concerns. It was soon joined by police and ambulance lights.
“Please, Lillie, you’re not well. Let me help you.”
She was shaking her head for the second time, her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. “I’m fine.” But she was agitated and getting more so. And so skinny I wondered how she had enough energy to stand.
A police officer stepped in, speaking low in her ear. Whatever he said convinced her, because she let the paramedic closer, and they and Caleb guided her to the stretcher. Soon, the doors were closing on the ambulance and it was pulling away.
Without looking at me, Caleb turned, walking briskly to the car. I followed and before I had my door shut, he was stepping on the gas, following the ambulance as they turned their sirens on.
“Jesus Christ.”
I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. Had something happened to make Lillie deteriorate since they took off, or were the sirens standard procedure?
I reached over and clasped Caleb’s arm, trying to give him some comfort.
He unclenched his hand from the steering wheel and grasped mine, gripping tightly.
“I can’t believe it’s her.” His voice cracked, and he drove in silence for a moment.
“It’s unbelievable, Caleb.”
The light in front of us turned red and the ambulance skated through, and Caleb was about to follow but the opposing traffic took off through the intersection, making it impossible.
Caleb’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel as he stared at the rapidly disappearing ambulance.
“You know which hospital they’re taking her to?”
“Jewish.”
When he took his hand from mine and placed it on the steering wheel, gunning it as the light turned green, I patted his leg. “We’ll be right behind them.”
At Jewish Hospital, we found the ambulance bay and parked nearby, heading in the EMS entrance when the door slid open as a nurse exited.
Caleb looked around and went directly to the nurse’s desk. “Where was Lillie Birchmeir taken?”
The nurse looked up and frowned. “Sir, you aren’t supposed to be back here. Patient’s family will be called back when needed. We do not yet have the name you mentioned.”
He leaned over the counter, splaying his hands on the edge and gripping it. “She just came in.”
“Like I said, sir, we don’t have that name.”
“Check your system,” he demanded.
The nurse frowned menacingly.
“Please,” I added as Caleb’s knuckles turned white. I was afraid he might lunge over the counter and yank the nurse up by her Vera Bradley scrub v-neck.
She glanced at me, back at Caleb, sighed, then rapidly punched some keys on her computer. “Nope. Sorry.” She shot us a glance that said she wasn’t really, but that we would be if we didn’t leave.
“I don’t understand.” Caleb’s fingers went to his forehead.
I took ahold of his arm and pulled. “The ambulance is still outside. Maybe she’s there. Let’s go talk to the EMS.”
He let me lead him back out the sliding doors, where the guy who had loaded Lillie into the ambulance had one back door open and was busy changing the sheet and wiping things down with disinfectant.
“Where is she?”
The man looked up, recognition on his face. He jumped out of the back. “I’m sorry, man. She left.”
“Left?” Caleb stilled, maybe didn’t even breathe. I was reminded of the HBO series, WestWorld, where the people who were robots were turned off, and life ceased to exist for them until that switch was flipped again.
“We can’t hold them if they walk away.”
“Them.” Caleb’s soul seemed to snap back into his body. “You let her leave?”
“I couldn’t—
Caleb grabbed his jacket lapels and slammed him against the ambulance door. “Where did she go?”
The man’s eyes were huge in his face. “How the hell should I know?”
“Caleb!” I stepped forward, intent on getting him to let the man go before he ended up in jail. Then there would be no hope of finding his sister.
“She’s my sister. She disappeared ten years ago.”
“I know,” the man spat, “she told me.”
“She told you?” Caleb loosened his grip.
“Yeah. Get the fuck off me.”
Caleb stepped back and looked in the direction the man pointed. “She went that way. It was less than five minutes ago.”
Caleb took off, jogging in that direction. After shooting the pissed EMS guy a quick, “Sorry,” I ran after him. He was already turning the corner when I caught up, and he stopped at the next intersection, looking around frantically. “I don’t see her. It’ll be faster to get the car.”
I ran after Caleb to the car, where he threw it in drive as he called Hunter on the Bluetooth.
Hunter had barely answered when Caleb blurted, “I found her, and she’s gone again.” His voice broke, and I thought he would break down, but he pulled himself back together when Hunter’s voice shot through the speakers.
“Where?”
“I’m at the intersection of Abraham Flexner and Floyd. Meet me.”
“Five minutes.”
The call disconnected, and it was like Caleb just realized I was in the car.
“I’m going to have Hunter take you home.”
“Caleb, I can—”
Caleb turned to me and practically snarled, “I think it would be best if you weren’t involved.”
Not involved? I was already involved. Just moments ago, we were in bliss land, holding hands and going for ice cream. Now, Caleb was an unrecognizable entity. Cold. Stiff. Almost threatening.
I started to argue then sat back in my seat. “Okay.”
Hunter arrived only moments later. He opened my door and escorted me out, as if they had prearranged the whole thing. That was when it struck me that they’d done this before. Found her before, and she’d probably taken off again just as quick.
I hung out on the sidewalk while Hunter leaned down and spoke in hushed tones with Caleb, but while I was curious to know what they were discussing and would have liked to have been included in helping Caleb locate his sister, I knew it was none of my business. Plus, Hunter had an edge to him now like I’d never seen. He was usually so easygoing, but now he was buttoned up as tight as Caleb.
So when Hunter shut the door and gestured toward his car, and Caleb took off with a screech, I got in and didn’t say a word except to direct Hunter to my house.
The house, always so warm and full seemed empty when I walked in, even though it was filled with the sounds of the kids getting ready for bed.
Caleb’s presence was missing, the Caleb who had shown me a warmer side of himself. I wondered if he’d be like that again after tonight.
A shiver slipped through me as I headed to my room.