Page 39 of Ruthless Riches
“We’re going to do everything we can to find her.”
“That’s not a real answer,” I said, nostrils flaring. “Are you going to search the park or not?”
“Like I said, we’re going to do everything in our power to find her. That’s all you need to know.” Fernandez rose to her feet. “Now, I need you to listen to me. After you’re done at the hospital, we need you to go home and get some rest. Okay?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, eyes narrowing. “You think I can actually go home and rest after this shit?”
“It’s the best thing you can do right now, Nate. Trust me.”
With that, the conversation was over. Rader led me out to his car and took me to the hospital, where a nurse made me piss in a cup before taking a sample of blood from my left arm. Then they gave me an electrolyte drink and told me to go home and sleep.
Rader dropped me off at my house afterwards. I didn’t bother going inside to shower or sleep like Fernandez and the doctors had ordered. Instead I went straight to the garden shed and found a shovel. Then I threw it in the back of one of the spare cars on the estate and headed up to Avalon City.
I parked as close as I could to Central Park, got the shovel, and started digging in the nearest garden bed.
It was a cold, blustery day, so only a few other people were in the park. They gave me strange looks, but none of them asked what I was doing or told me to stop.
I knew how crazy I looked. I was drenched in sweat, hair sticking to my forehead like a second skin, and my hands were beginning to blister from digging and scraping dirt away from the gardens in the hope of finding the fabled Satan’s Penthouse entrance.
After a few hours, my hands were bleeding and stinging, but I didn’t stop. I had to find this fucking entrance. Had to find Alexis.
“Nate!”
I turned my head over my shoulder at the sound of my name being shouted across the park. Laurel and Ruby were hurrying toward me.
I turned back to the garden I was working on and brought the shovel down, testing the ground to see if there was anything hard buried just below the surface.
“Nate! Stop!” Laurel said. She was only a few feet away from me now. “You won’t find her like this!”
“I can try,” I muttered, scraping at another patch of soil.
“You can’t dig up two hundred acres,” Ruby said, laying a tentative hand on my arm. “Not by yourself.”
I shook her hand off and cast a suspicious glance at her. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“I heard what happened from Alexis’s sister, and I went to talk to the police about it,” she said. “I was there last night, remember?”
“We told the detective that we wanted to check on you,” Laurel added. “She said she had a feeling we’d find you here if we couldn’t find you at home.”
“Okay. You’ve checked on me, and I’m fine,” I said in a caustic tone. “You can go now.”
I resumed my digging. Ruby’s eyes widened. “Nate, stop,” she said. “Your hands are bleeding!”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t give a fuck. I have to find her.”
“You aren’t the only one who cares about her, you know,” Laurel said frostily. “We want to help.”
“I’m not stopping you,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
She tried to grab the shovel and wrestle it away from me. “This isn’t helping!” she shouted. “You need to fucking listen!”
I lifted a palm. “Fine. What do you want, Laurel?”
“Have you eaten today?” she asked, raising a brow.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. You look like you’re about to pass out. How long have you been out here digging?”
