Page 48 of Forever Mine

CHAPTER 20

DAKOTA

“Hi,this is Jay. I can’t get to the phone right now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

I had a strong feeling of reverse déjà vu when I slammed the end button without leaving a voicemail. It would be ignored just like all the others. Was this what Jay felt like when I wasn’t answering after his car was destroyed? No wonder he almost assaulted the guard. This felt awful. Where the fuck was he?

I was about to hit call again when I remembered the damn tracking we all had. Even when we got the new phones, we made sure to turn the tracking on immediately. I hadn’t looked at it, it felt wrong, even if I knew Jay watched me with it sometimes, but desperate times and all.

I paced the locker room and pulled up the tracker. Jay’s phone was…off. No, that wasn’t possible. We didn’t turn our phones off. Ever. For this exact reason.

“Think, Dakota. Fucking think.” But it was really hard to think rationally when a thousand different worse-case scenarios ran through my head. I stormed out of the locker room, already calling Diego, who we’d all added to speed dial after all this crap.

“This is Diego…”

He sounded distracted. “Diego, it’s Dakota.”

“Sorry, to be an asshole, but I’m in the middle of an emergency here, is this urgent?”

My stomach churned. “Emergency? Is it Jay?”

“Jay? No….it’s…it doesn’t matter. What’s wrong?” I could tell he was only half listening, and I felt like shit, but I needed to see if he could track him.

“Jay’s phone is off. I can’t see the tracking, and he’s not answering.”

“Shit. Let me see if I can track him, but Dakota, I suggest calling the cops. I’m—fuck no! It’s a fucking trap Brooks, get your ass out of there! Dakota, I gotta go.” And the phone hung up.

I sat there feeling helpless. Obviously, he was dealing with an emergency, and I was now just as worried for Luca’s team. I remembered Brooks from the cookout. He was a young guy, wild, and covered in tats. I hoped he was okay.

It left me on my own, though. Unsure of what to do, I did what Diego said and called the police. Then Beck and Wes. Beck answered, cursing up a storm and said he was on his way. I got Wes’ voicemail, but a text came through a few minutes later telling me he was leaving his meeting and coming. I just had to stay calm.

According to Beck, he was somewhere in the hospital, and I had no intention of just sitting here waiting. I was going to find him. I sprinted down the hallway.

Another text came through. I glanced at it, hoping it was Jay, but it was only Wes.

Wes: Just stay put, don’t go looking for Jay. I’ll be there soon.

I heard him, got why he said it, but it didn’t mean I was going to listen. I was usually more rational than this. I was always theone yelling at the people in horror movies not to go investigate that noise or not to run away from the doomsday prepper that was trying to save your life. But that was before the love of my life was missing in my hospital.

I tried to think about where Jay might be. He wasn’t at the nurses station, or the ICU waiting room. He hadn’t been near the locker room either. The cafeteria? Outside somewhere?

I froze right by the elevators as a thought occurred to me. I automatically assumed Jay was in danger, but if it was something else? Waiting around on the floor he spent hours and days on, watching his mother die, was bound to do something to him, right? Even if he swore he was fine and not struggling with her death anymore. It had to make him feel…I didn’t know what. But Jay had been hurting for a while, and the stress of the last few weeks probably hadn’t helped at all. He had talked about going to the therapist, but with everything going on, it got pushed to the side and now we were kind of stuck, and…my thoughts were all over the place, but I still ran down the hallways, dodging pissed-off nurses and aides until I was standing in front of the room that Jay’s mom died in all those months ago.

Another woman sat in the bed. She wasn’t my patient so I wasn’t familiar with her. Sitting in a chair next to her was a man, and judging by his age he was probably her son. He looked up when he saw me and nearly fell out of the chair. He clambered to his feet and held his hands up in front of him like I was going to attack him as he pushed his back against the window.

“Listen, I don’t know what your boyfriend told you, but like I said to Dr. Kiley, as long as he leaves me the fuck alone, I won’t press charges. He obviously needs help and had me confused with someone else. I get it. I have a cousin with mental illness and…”

“Wait.” I cut off his babbling. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked familiar, and it clicked. It was the cashier from the grocery store. The one everyone thought was a suspect but he was cleared. “You saw Jay?”

He scowled. “Yeah, the crazy fucker tried to kill me.” The guy rubbed his neck like it was painful from his memory. I squinted, and maybe I could see the beginning of bruises. Shit. “Said I was stalking you? Which, believe me, I’m not. Yeah, I thought you were cute or whatever. But once you said you had a boyfriend I backed off. I have no fucking clue where he got that idea.”

I stumbled backward, trying to make sense of his words. From what I understood, Jay attacked this guy, and I probably should have cared more than I did, because I was starting to believe he really was just some innocent guy at the wrong place atthe wrong time. But my worry for Jay superseded everything else, including any oath I took as a nurse or my general sense of decency.

“You saw Jay?” The guy narrowed his eyes at me, pissed. But he did answer.

“Yeah. Like I said, he was fucking trying to kill me, but Dr. Kiley walked in.”

“When was this?”

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