In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📕

wall and Jonathan makes a grab for my legs. I jump backwards, bringing my foot up and smashing it as hard as I can into his face. This time he goes down properly, grunting hard, blood streaming from his shoulder and from his nose.

I leap towards the bed, yank on the red emergency cord and start screaming for help.

Jonathan grimaces at me, one hand gripping his shoulder, blood seeping through his shirt and flooding down his arm. It was him. It was him all along. He was one of the men who broke into the house. Which one was he? How can I not have seen it? I’ve been so blind. He’s been standing guard on the door this whole time. He’s been hanging out with Hannah.

I train my gun on him. ‘Who else? Who else is involved?’ I shout.

He glares up at me, lips pulled back against his teeth, fighting the pain.

‘Tell me who else!’

I shove the muzzle of the gun into the bullet wound in his shoulder. He lets out a high-pitched scream. I press harder and sweat pours down his face. My free hand tears at the buttons on his shirt, ripping it open and pulling it away from his shoulder until I can see the top of his arm. It’s there. An angry red slash running the length of his arm. It was him I fought off in the kitchen.

‘Who was the other person?’ I ask. ‘Who else was involved?’ Was it Nate?

He grimaces, blood spilling down his lips, coating his teeth. He sinks to his knees. I sink with him. ‘My daughter. Hannah. Have you seen her? Where is she?’ Was she part of this? It’s impossible – another paranoid delusion.

‘Hannah,’ he grunts.

I squeeze his arm so hard his eyes fly open.

‘Where is she? Do you know?’

‘. . . Took her . . .’ he slurs.

‘Took her? What do you mean?’ I shake him. ‘Who took her? Where?’

In the background I hear an alarm start to blare, people starting to shout.

‘Where’s Hannah?’ I scream.

Jonathan’s eyes roll back in his head. His body slumps. I stare down at him and the spreading pool of blood around us. Is he dead? I shake him.

‘Wake up!’ I yell hysterically. ‘Tell me where my daughter is!’

The door crashes into the wall behind me and next thing I know I’m being shouldered roughly aside.

‘What the—?’ Nate, out of breath, looks at Jonathan on the floor and at me kneeling in front of him, holding the gun.

‘It’s him. It was him,’ I stammer, staggering to my feet.

Nate’s gaze flies from the gun in my hand to the bed, his eyes widening in surprise and shock at the situation he’s just walked into. ‘Where’s June?’ he shouts, noticing the empty bed.

‘She’s safe,’ I say. ‘But Hannah—’

Nate cuts me off. Striding over to Jonathan, he kneels down and checks his pulse. I’m about to ask if he’s dead when people flood into the room behind us, a swarm of them, police and nurses and doctors, uniforms everywhere, people yelling things, rushing to give aid to Jonathan, elbowing Nate out the way. Nate refuses to budge. He starts rooting through Jonathan’s pockets and finally pulls out his phone.

He rushes towards the door and I rush after him, quickly stashing the gun back inside my bag. In the hallway outside it’s utter chaos. The downed cop who was guarding the door is lying in a lake of blood as nurses and a doctor tend to him. Someone yells for a crash cart.

‘Lock the fucking place down,’ Nate yells at two hospital security staff, who startle and then start shouting into their radios.

Nate grabs another man in a police uniform. He points through the doorway at Jonathan who’s now surrounded by doctors and nurses. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ he shouts. ‘He’s under arrest.’ Then he takes off, running towards the elevator.

‘What for?’ the cop calls after him.

‘Attempted murder and that’s just for starters.’

Nate reaches the elevator and hits the button. I chase after him.

‘Nate!’ I shout, grabbing him by the arm. ‘Someone has Hannah.’

He spins to me, a look of alarm on his face. ‘What?’

‘That’s what I was trying to tell you. Jonathan said someone took her.’

Nate looks at me blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s missing. She’s been missing since last night. And—’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he interrupts.

I shake my head. ‘I didn’t know. She texted. I thought she was OK but—’

The doors to the elevator ping open and another wave of cops and doctors spill out and go swarming past us. I realize with a start that the cops will be wondering who shot one of their own. I need to get out of here. I can’t be arrested or held for questioning. Not now. Not with Hannah out there, God knows where. Nate darts into the elevator and I rush after him, jumping inside as the doors seal shut.

‘What are you doing?’ Nate asks.

‘Where are you going?’ I answer back.

‘To Jonathan’s place, to see if I can find anything there that might give us a clue as to who he was working with, or where Hannah might be.’ He has Jonathan’s phone in his hand and he tries to open it but it’s locked and he doesn’t know the code. Annoyed, he shoves it back in his pocket. ‘I need to find out who he’s working with. That’s our only shot right now.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ I tell him, still shaken from the realization that it’s Jonathan. This whole time he’s been guarding June, flirting with Hannah, maybe even dating her, acting all concerned. And he was the man behind it.

Nate shakes his head. ‘No, you’re not.’

He pulls out his own phone and starts scrolling through numbers.

‘I am,’ I say to him as he puts the phone to his ear.

‘I need an address,’ Nate says to the person on the other end of the line, who I assume is someone at the Sheriff’s department. Nate turns his back on me and pulls a pen from a