Page 29 of Beauty and the Nerd
“The small one that doesn’t open?” the fire chief asked, and Ben nodded. “There’s no way through that one, we’d have to go in through the bedroom window and if she’s locked herself in the bathroom, we won’t know the level of effort it will take to get to her without alerting whoever else is in the house to our presence there.”
“She has a spare key to the bathroom in her desk drawer,” Ben said stopping them as they went to check on their options. “It’s taped to the bottom of the right-hand side top drawer. If you pull out the second drawer down, you’ll be able to find it.”
“How do you know that?” Simon asked, shaking his head at his son.
“Emma and I talk, a lot, about anything and everything,” he said as his dad patted his shoulder seeing the worry in his eyes growing. “You won’t be able to get through the first window closest to the tree though,” he added as the men began to map out how to get someone into the house to find Emma safely. “Her dad painted it shut and put a half-sized bookshelf in front of it after some guy tried to climb the tree to get her to go out with him. The other one is a double-hung type.”
“Then that will have to be our entry point,” the fire chief said, and Ben stood back watching as they moved to the side of the house as quietly as possible. His heart raced watching one of the men climb the ladder, using a special tool to get the window open without breaking it and as smoke billowed out the window his heart stopped as panic wracked his body.
“We don’t detect any heat signature from a fire in the room. Whatever it is isn’t reading as toxic,” came over the radio Jeffery held.
“Copy that. Get the gas masks, it’s likely knock-out gas or something similar,” Jeffery told the officers waiting for the go for entry. “It’d explain why we couldn’t get in touch with any of the officers.”
“But not about Emma’s phone not working,” Ben said as the first person moved into the bedroom.
“No sign of additional smoke or heat from a fire around the door to the hallway,” he heard through the radio but all he cared about was Emma.
“Have the key and it looks like the bedroom door is still locked,” another said as his dad tightened his hold on his shoulder.
It seemed like an eternity before they said anything else, and his hands tightened into fists trying to stop himself from rushing over to the ladder.
“Bathroom door was still locked. We’re in and we have the girl. She’s unconscious, has a contusion to her head, but she’s breathing normally. Found her phone as well, looks like it fell in the toilet when she went down,” the man stated, and Ben sagged a bit as relief flooded him.
“Get her out and then we’ll go in,” Jeffery said turning towards Ben with a nod before going to speak with her parents who were on the line and frantic.
Ben saw the fireman hand Emma out to another on the ladder, and he hurried over as a paramedic waited with a stretcher for them to get her down. He wasn’t about to let anyone stop him from seeing her and took her hand into his as the paramedic slid an oxygen mask onto her face. She looked tiny as she laid on the stretcher, a mark on her head that was growing darker, and he sent up a prayer that she’d be okay.
Jeffery turned to find Ben, let Emma’s parents speak to him but he stopped seeing him already beside her. He moved over towards Simon and relayed the Watkins’ question to him. Simon nodded, assuring him that his son wasn’t about to leave Emma’s side now and he stood back to see what happened.
“Ben is currently sitting with Emma as the paramedic checks on her, they just gave me a thumbs-up, which is a good sign,” Jeffery told Jack Watkins before adding, “Ben’s father drove him over after he received a text from Emma about the alarm. He said Ben wasn’t likely to go anywhere before you got home Mr. Watkins.”
“Thank you, we’ll be there as soon as we can,” Jack said before hanging up to get to the airport to find a flight home.
Jeffery watched the paramedic moving the stretcher towards the ambulance and headed to reach them as his men entered the house. He stopped next to Ben and put his hand on his shoulder. “Her parents are headed to the airport now; they wanted to know if you’d stay with Emma.”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere else right now,” he stated, looking over at his dad.
“Didn’t think you would,” he said before they heard a shout from the doorway.
“Let’s get her to the hospital,” Jeffery said as the second group of paramedics moved over to get the officer being brought out of the house.
“I’ll follow behind in the car,” Simon said, and Ben nodded before turning towards Jeffery with a request.
“If at all possible, can someone see if they can find the Anne of Green Gables, The Sequel dvd? We were going to watch it in the morning, and I don’t want whatever happened tonight to stop that,” he said, and he saw the surprise on all of the faces that’d overheard. He didn’t give a damn what it looked like to any of them, he was watching the movie with Emma because she was going to be perfectly fine. She had to be.
“I’ll see what we can do,” Jeffery agreed letting him slip into the ambulance holding Emma’s hand in his as he brushed the hair from her face.
They were nearly to the hospital when she began to finally rouse, and he squeezed her hand tightly seeing the panic in her eyes. He shook his head when she reached up to take off the oxygen mask and leaned over kissing her forehead.
“Take it easy baby, just leave it on,” he said gently as the paramedic checked on her.
He hated being apart from her and moved into the bay once the doctor left to speak with the officer who’d accompanied them to the hospital. He saw the line for oxygen she still had on and took her hands into his, kissing them as her eyes opened to meet his. “You scared the hell out of me, baby. I was so worried when you didn’t respond, didn’t get my messages. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I remember waiting for you to text me, talking to the dispatcher at the police department,” Emma said keeping hold of his hand as he brushed the hair from her face, pressing a kiss to the bruising on her temple. “I put the flashlight up in the window but after that…”
“They found the flashlight on the floor, your phone fell in the toilet they think when you passed out, hit your head on the edge of it or the sink,” Ben said gently. “Whoever broke in usedsome sort of gas through the heating system to make you and the police who’d come in to check the house over pass out.”
“Who was it?” she asked, and he shook his head unsure.
