The nurse pressed an alarm and flicked the light switch on. Jack grabbed his radio and pressed down on the square black button on the top. “We need some help up here.”
He pushed past Sally and went into the room, his voice floating out to Sally who still stood in the hallway. Dread filled her as she thought about the woman she had met, how sad and depressed she had been, and all of the consequences that might be waiting for her on the other side of the door.
Chapter Forty-Three.
Elijah.
Elijah waited in the hospital stairwell.
The dim lighting gave an overall creepy effect that would have been enough to give him nightmares if he would have allowed his mind to wander into that realm. But he didn’t, he wouldn’t. His only thoughts were on getting in to see Delores.
It had been easy enough to find a spare nurse’s uniform. His police badge had granted him that much at least. Michael had ordered a security guard on Delores’s door when he wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean that everyone in the hospital was privy to what was going on. Hospitals were big places, with lots of staff.
Sally had taken his cell phone with her, ready to show Delores the recorded message from Elijah and the short thirty-second video of her children playing in the sun, taken only yesterday. Surely, he hoped, it would be enough to at least make her stop and think. Enough for her to come and meet him so he could show her more pictures and try and talk some sense into her. Only Delores could overrule Michael’s order to keep Elijah away. Only she could help him find some small fragment of evidence of what Michael had been doing to her.
Elijah cracked his knuckles as he waited, the soft popping noise echoing down the stairwell. From somewhere up above he heard a noise; footsteps and a door opening. He tensed, waiting for a doctor or a nurse, or even a security guard to come down and ask what he was doing here.
But no one came.
Elijah remained alone in the stairwell, with nothing but his anxious dark thoughts to keep him company.
Five minutes had passed.
She’d be watching his video message now, telling her to come and meet him. Telling her that he couldn’t get in to see her, that Michael had forbidden it, but that he loved her and he desperately needed to see her.
Meet me in the bathrooms at the end of the hallway, he said to her in the message.The guard can’t follow you in there. I’ll be there, waiting for you. I’ll explain everything. I can make things better. Trust me,he begged,tears clouding his eyes.Trust me, Delores, like you’ve always done. Please.
If she wouldn’t come, if she refused, Sally was to show her the video of her children. But it was a last resort. It could send her over the edge again if it wasn’t done correctly. And he didn’t want to put any more of a burden on Sally than he already had done.
Elijah began to pace.
It had been ten minutes now.
Sally was supposed to come and meet him here and tell him what Delores had said. If she had agreed to come or not. If she had broken down or not.
He swallowed, nerves flooding his stomach and making it ache. He puffed out his cheeks, his footsteps scraping along the cold concrete landing. He dragged a hand over his mouth and swallowed.
What was taking her so long?he wondered anxiously?
Fifteen minutes.
Elijah dragged a hand down his face. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong. He puffed out his cheeks again before cracking open the door and looking out. He couldn’t see Delores’s room from here, but he was hoping to see Sally on her way to him. But only a quiet hush met him on the other side of the door.
He began to shut the door when from further down the hallway he heard a noise. Elijah pushed the door open wider and listened. Talking from further down got louder and then he saw Sally rushing towards him.
In the dim lighting, and from this distance, he couldn’t see her expression, but if her quick pace was anything to go by, she was worried. Elijah swallowed, the anxiousness that he’d moments ago had in his stomach clawed its way up his throat.
Sally looked back over her shoulder as she came closer, checking that no one was following her. Satisfied, she continued towards Elijah, and he held the door open wide, allowing her to slip into the stairwell with him.
“What is it?” he asked, thinking over a thousand probabilities of what might have happened.
Sally shook her head, the sound of footsteps running and people talking just beyond the door.
“Sally, what is it?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“What?” he asked, his frown deepening and a deep dread sinking in his gut. “Where is she?”
