I jump out and intercept her before she can bolt toward the chaos. I grab her shoulders, stopping her short.
“Emma,” I say firmly. “You can’t just walk into an active crime scene.”
“I can if my family member is in that ambulance,” she snaps.
“Just… wait,” I say, forcing my voice low and steady. “Please. We’ll figure out what’s going on. Just wait. I want to look around first.”
She looks ready to ditch me and run anyway, but after a long second, she nods. I lift my hands off her shoulders and turn my attention to the scene.
The men in black are gone, like they were never here at all.
A coroner’s van pulls up. And that’s when I see it: a line of bodies laid out on the lawn.
My stomach twists. I squint and move a few steps closer to get a better look.
None of them looks like a woman.
None of them has the red-brown curls Talia has.
Thank God.
But the relief is fragile, because if she’s not here…
Where the hell is she?
I turn back to Emma with a look of hope on my face. “I don’t think she’s here,” I say. “She’s not among the dead.”
Emma steps forward, pushing a few paces ahead of me, stretching her neck to see everything she can.
I scan the rest of the scene, and then I see a tall, dark-haired man in a suit.
Nik.
He’s leaning into a conversation with a police officer, talking with a gloved hand. I watch as they speak, then shake hands.
Nik reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out an envelope. He passes it to the cop, who pockets it without hesitation.
The whole exchange takes seconds.
And it tells me everything I need to know.
I’m one-hundred-percent certain I want nothing to do with whatever I just witnessed.
The back doors of the remaining ambulance slam shut, and Emma jumps. The vehicle pulls off the lawn and makes a U-turn, facing back toward us as it slowly moves through the crowd of cars and gawking people.
As it nears, Emma flags it down. The driver rolls down the window.
“My sister,” she says, her voice hoarse from crying. “My sister is in there. Is she okay?”
“We need to get past, ma’am,” the driver says. “I can’t give you specific information, but you’re welcome to follow us. The hospital can share any relevant information once you get there.”
Emma sags, letting them pull her sister away.
We head back to the car, and I climb behind the wheel, pulling out fast but carefully, trying not to lose sight of the ambulance as it winds through the side streets.
When it reaches the main road, the sirens activate, and the lights flare to life. It picks up speed. I have to focus hard to keep up, weaving through traffic without crashing.
At the hospital, Emma tells me to drop her off at the ER entrance. She wakes Laddie, but he’s still groggy, so she lifts him into her arms and carries him inside.
