Page 75 of I Found You
Groaning, I pressed my face into Wyatt’s chest. “Tellwhoever it is to go away,” I grumbled.
Wyatt’s arm stretched behind me, and he fumbled for the charging cord.
His brow furrowed. “It’s Kara,” he said just as the phone stopped vibrating.
I took the phone and sat up. Why was Kara calling first thing on a Saturday morning? My eyes locked on Wyatt’s as I called her back.
“Oh, thank God I caught you. We have kind of an emergency,” Kara started.
“What kind of emergency?”
“It’s Sunshine. She’s at the hospital.”
I scrambled to put my phone on speaker while still talking to Kara. “What do you mean? Is she sick? What happened?” My heart was beating too fast, and my hands were instantly clammy.
“The doctors think she ingested something, some sort of drug residue, most likely. They had to pump her little tiny baby belly.” Kara’s voice sounded absolutely devastated. “The doctor said they didn’t like to do that if they could avoid it, but Sunshine was so weak they didn’t want to induce vomiting.”
“Jane,” Wyatt all but growled.
“Huh, oh… is someone with you?” Kara asked.
“Yeah. Wyatt’s here. You’re on speakerphone now.”
“Oh, okay. Listen, I’m going to be honest here. We’re lucky that she even got to the hospital. I don’t think anyone at that house was going to bring her in, but Angela was talking to a neighbor with Sun—ah, Jane on her hip, and I guess he told her to call an ambulance for that baby, or he would. Maeve, no one even came in with her. From the report that I received, Angela said she would be right behind them and just neededto grab some shoes. But she never showed up at the hospital. I can’t send her back to that house.”
Wyatt had jumped out of bed, throwing clothes on from whatever he could find on the floor. I threw on a pair of jeans, also from the floor, and was frantically trying to get my arms in the sleeves of a shirt when Wyatt wrapped his arms around me. He plucked the shirt from my hands and passed me my bra while he righted the inside-out shirt I was trying to put on. “Oh, my bra, good thinking,” I mumbled.
A chuckling sounded from my bed. Shoot, I forgot about Kara.
“Sorry, Kara. We’re on our way,” I told her before disconnecting the call.
“Crap.” Stopping in my tracks, I looked at Wyatt. “I forgot to brush my teeth,” I said as we were exiting the house.
With his hand in mine, he pulled me forward into his arms. Grabbing my face in both hands, he kissed me hard. “You can brush them when we get back. Let’s go see our girl.”
Wyatt fidgeted the entire way to the hospital, tapping his hands against the steering wheel constantly. He turned the radio off, then on, lowered the volume, changed the station. The muscles in his jaw were so tight I was surprised he hadn’t cracked a tooth yet. I wanted to hold his hand and tell him it was going to be okay, but he didn’t need me to placate him with false securities. We both needed to see Jane for ourselves before we would believe that she was alright.
“I should have dropped you off at the door so you could go in. I wasn’t thinking,” Wyatt said as he pulled into a parking space in the lot across from the emergency room.
“No. This is better. I would rather go in together.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything more. We held hands aswe crossed the street and into the hospital. I wasn’t sure if I was his lifeline or if he was mine at this point.
The lobby was bright, really too bright, with fluorescent overhead lights throughout the space, and clean, but did they have to use so many chemicals with those terrible cleanser smells? The floors were outdated and scuffed, same as the paint on the walls. It was a good hospital with a good reputation in our area, and I hated every second of being here, knowing that Jane was in this building by herself.
After waiting a few minutes while the reception clerks helped other people, it was finally our turn. Wyatt stepped up and asked where we could find Jane.
“What’s her last name?” the clerk snapped.
“Doe,” Wyatt answered.
The woman’s eyes narrowed like she thought Wyatt was just screwing around with her. Before she decided to jab her pen into Wyatt’s neck, I rushed to help clarify.
“Her name is Sunshine. Sunshine Stuart. She was a Jane Doe up until a few weeks ago. We’re her foster parents. Or at least I am. Or was. Maybe again. Although he was just as involved. We got a call this morning that she was brought in last night. She needed to have…” I trailed off as Wyatt’s hands closed over mine. “Sorry. Her name is Sunshine. We were called in by Kara Dawson at DCF.”
“She’s in pediatrics. Floor 4. Elevators are down this hall and to the left.” Looking over my shoulder, the reception clerk yelled for the next people in line.
The walk down the hallway to the nurses’ station felt like déjà vu, bringing to my mind that night not all that long ago when Jane was in the hospital with meningitis, when Wyatt stayed in the waiting room, sleeping on the far-too-small sofa.I squeezed his hand, and he replied in kind.
