Page 46 of Good and Gone

I wait until dark before approaching the house again. This time, I go to the back door. There’s no one home, so I let myself in with a lock pick set. Once inside, I conduct a quick search of the premises but find nothing of interest until I get to Hailey’s bedroom and bathroom, where I discover all the blood. What a fucking mess. The boss is going to be so pissed, which is why I know I have to be proactive. All is not lost.

I place two cameras inside Hailey's house, one in her bedroom and one downstairs in the kitchen. I plant two off-brand, Chinese-made GPS tags on both her and her husband's cars, along with one in the bottom of her purse.

Now I'm ready to watch their every move, to see what they're up to behind closed doors. The thought of getting caught fills me with excitement and a sense of forbidden pleasure—like a voyeur who has just been given access to someone else's private world, where they think they can do whatever they want without anyone ever knowing. And that's exactly what I intend to do—spy on Hailey Adams and see what she has going on inside that twisted little mind. If only she had succeeded in her suicide endeavor; it would have saved us both a lot of trouble. I missed dinner for this, and it was pot roast night. Someone is going to have to pay.

33

Tyler

Istare at her lying in that hospital bed, and I don't know what to say. I don't know how to help her, or how to make her better, or how to bring her back to me.

She's already told me she thinks she remembers some of it. I wish she didn't. What has already happened to her is bad enough. It's bad enough that those bastards are still out there. It's bad enough that her memory has been stolen from her. But if she keeps remembering, if she remembers more, she might not ever be able to sleep again. Without sleep, she spirals. It’s a short cliff as it is. It leads to things like this. I’m not ready to lose my wife.

She's doing everything she can to help them find the men who did this to her. I know that if she can give them more information, they might be able to stop them before they hurt anyone else, but I don't want her to do it. I don't want her to keep talking about it, thinking about it, remembering it. No matter how much of a hero she wants to be, I don't want her to have to be one, not like this. That’s how we end up here. I just want my wife back.

I want to hold her, but she’s not big on affection these days. Who can blame her? I'll do anything to make her stop hurting.

Fury builds inside me, beating like a war drum as I sit next to her bed, taking her clammy, pale hand in mine. She looks so small and broken lying there, with an IV dripping saline into her arm and monitors beeping softly all around her.

"Tyler?" she says, waking.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Did I tell you I remembered some things?"

"You did."

"Well, now I've forgotten again."

"That's okay." I pat her arm. "That's to be expected. You just need to focus on getting well right now."

"Tyler," she says, tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm pregnant."

The words coming from her mouth hit me like a Mack truck. I know she didn't want anyone else to tell me, which is why her mother already has. Jeannie wanted to make sure I controlled my reaction.

“I don’t understand,” Jeannie kept saying. “What about the medication they gave her when she was found?”

I looked at her, half of her face twisted in rage, the other half full of sadness. As a pharmacist, I knew the answer. “Jeannie,” I said, interrupting her. “Plan B does not have a hundred percent efficacy.”

“Don’t be dense, Tyler,” she snorted. “I know that.”

“In fact, it is only sixty-one percent effective after seventy-two hours. From there, efficacy goes down.”

“I guess I hadn’t really given it much thought,” she told me, as though this were something she could have singlehandedly prevented. “There was so much going on when she was found, pregnancy wasn’t even on my radar.”

“I know,” I said. “It wasn’t on Hailey’s, either. Nor mine, to be honest.”

“Besides, didn’t the hospital test?”

“Yeah,” I said. “They ran several tests and they all came back negative.”

Jeannie shook her head. “Maybe it was too soon. But my tests were always negative too. And doesn’t Hailey have low HCG? With Mason and Lily, she did. Didn’t she?”

“Tyler?” Hailey says, bringing me back to the present. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” I say. “I did.” I take her hand in mine and squeeze it gently, feeling her skin tremble beneath my touch. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

“Is it?”

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