Devoted to Her (Dream Date Book 2) (28 page)

It took some time for Amanda and her friends to digest
the doctor’s words. She couldn’t believe it. Kellan, so strong, was now
fighting for his life in a hospital.

“When can we go to see him?” Emmy asked.

“I’m sorry, but he won’t be conscious anytime soon.
The next twelve hours will be critical to determine how the patient’s condition
will progress.”

The doctor looked at each in the group, his expression
sympathetic.

“For now, that is all I can tell you about the
patient. I will keep you updated.”

Judith nodded, thanking the doctor. He walked away.

“We need to call Kellan’s family.”

Amanda sat back down. She pulled her smartphone from
her purse, checking her list of contacts. Kellan had given her his family’s
number just in case it was ever needed. The time had come.

Christopher tried to hold Amanda’s free hand while she
spoke to Kellan’s parents. She pulled away, not wanting to upset Judith. When the
call ended, Amanda leaned against her seat.

Another set of footsteps approached. Emmy turned to
look. She saw Detective Sutton. An officer accompanied him.

“Ms. Tilley,” Sutton said. Amanda stood up to shake
hands with him. “We need to take your statements.”

Amanda wiped tears away from her face. She gave a nod
to the Detective.

“Okay. Here?”

“We would rather question each of you individually.
All of you are witnesses, correct?”

“Christopher is not,” said Amanda. “He came because
he…I called him.”

“Okay. I’ll speak to you first, Ms. Tilley. Follow
me.”

The interrogations took an unknown amount of time.
Amanda felt sure it was already past noon, because her stomach was growling.
When she told Sutton that she had caught a glimpse of the driver, he asked Amanda
to stop by the station and speak to the sketch artist.

“We’ll be there shortly,” Amanda told him. Sutton left
with the officer.

“We should go take a break,” Judith said to her. “You
need to eat. There’s nothing we can do here right now.”

Amanda didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she was
hungry. On the other, her fear for Kellan’s condition outweighed her hunger. He
had been in terrible shape before the ambulance took him. Amanda didn’t want to
leave the hospital waiting room.

“I would much rather stay here in case the doctor has
more to tell us.”

“You heard him,” Emmy said. “He won’t wake up for a
long time. The doctors are taking care of him. You need to take a break, get
some fresh air.”

“They’re right, home girl. If you stay here, time will
feel like it’s not moving at all.”

Amanda took a deep breath. She nodded.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Christopher helped Amanda stand up. Their friends and
Caldwell followed them out of the hospital.

When they were outside, Caldwell asked Amanda for a
word.

“You need to be ready for when Mr. Dillingham gets
here tomorrow. See, Hughes was able to say a few words to me before he passed
out.”

Amanda gasped. She’d thought that Kellan was
unconscious by the time she could get up from the ground.

“He said to tell you to get out of here, and not to
worry about him. The sooner you are away, the sooner you’ll be safe.”

“And what? We’re just going to leave Kellan here?”

“His parents will be with him when we leave. You need
to worry about yourself, Ms. Tilley. It’s dangerous for you here with the perp
still at large. It’s clear that they wanted to kill you.
Why
is the
question of the day.”

Amanda stiffened. She thought the same, but hearing it
from someone else made the hairs on the back of her neck stand.

Who could possibly want me dead?

Caldwell first took Amanda and her friends to have
lunch. He used the time to call the personal security agency he worked for,
letting them know about Kellan. They regretted the vicious assault, and agreed
to let Grayson know.

“The agency is sending another guard to replace
Hughes,” Caldwell told Amanda. She looked up at him from her seat. “It most
likely won’t be Grayson, as he’s still on assignment.”

Amanda nodded halfheartedly. Caldwell noticed she was
only picking at her food.

“I’ll be sure to send Kellan’s family some money. That
way, they can take care of the expenses and whatever else they need.”

Moments later, Caldwell drove Amanda to the police
station. He dropped off Judith and Emmy at the former’s apartment on the way. Amanda
met with Detective Sutton, who introduced her to the squad’s sketch artist.
With her aid, they had a rough idea of the woman’s appearance after little over
a half hour.

Amanda waited some time for the officers to review the
sketch. Then, Sutton called her to his office.

“Sit down,” Sutton said. Amanda and Caldwell sat on
the chairs in front of the desk. “We have the finished sketch of the perp. Here
it is.”

Amanda took the printout Sutton handed her. The sketch
was of a woman in her mid-to-late twenties, with dark hair and pale skin. She wore
sunglasses and a gray—violet in real life—dot-patterned head scarf.

“We had the artist try to make a version of the sketch
without the disguise,” said Sutton. He handed Amanda a second printout. It
depicted the possible appearance of the woman with the sunglasses and scarf
taken off. Her hair fell in waves down her head, reaching past her shoulders.

“She seems vaguely familiar,” said Amanda, squinting
at the sketch. Caldwell looked at her.

“You’ve seen this woman before?”

Amanda turned her head slowly.

“I’m not sure. Right now, I can’t remember.”

Sutton cleared his throat.

“You can keep those copies. We’ll distribute them
around town. Chances are someone’s seen this woman. If she’s still around,
we’ll get her.”

“Caldwell thinks he was able to hit her,” Amanda said.
“He shot at the truck as it drove away.”

“Hmm. In that case, we’ll look for young women with
gunshot wounds checking into hospitals.”

Amanda and Caldwell stood up. She shook hands with
Sutton.

“Thanks, Detective.”

“You take care, Ms. Tilley. I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks. By the way, I’m going to travel out of town
during spring break.”

Sutton raised his eyebrows.

“That’s no problem for us, Ms. Tilley. We’ll track
every lead that might help us find this woman.”

“I hope you catch her.
Have a good day, Detective.”

Amanda didn’t sleep easy that night. She kept tossing
and turning in bed. When Amanda did manage to fall asleep, she had nightmares
of Kellan dying. On one instance, she woke up screaming. Caldwell and Emmy
burst into her bedroom to see that she was all right.

The next morning, Caldwell took Amanda and Emmy to the
airport. Brad would be arriving shortly.

“I’m nervous,” Emmy told Amanda. “What if he doesn’t
like my new look?”

“Nonsense, friend. You look gorgeous.”

They waited another ten minutes. Finally, the
passengers from Brad’s flight began showing up. Emmy eagerly scanned the crowd.
Amanda spotted Brad walking towards them. She waved at him.

“Hi, girls!” he said, approaching them. Brad embraced
Emmy first. “What have you done to yourself? You look like a Covergirl ad.”

Emmy blushed bright red, smiling.

“You think I’m that beautiful?”

“You are. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing chasing
pretty girls all over the world.”

Amanda laughed. Brad turned to her.

“It’s great to see you again, friend,” he said,
hugging Amanda. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

They broke from their embrace. Brad noticed that
Amanda was upset, but chose not to mention it there. Emmy offered to help Brad
with his luggage. He handed her one of his lighter suitcases. Amanda took
another, and Caldwell decided to help with the rest.

“My parents called earlier,” Amanda told Brad on the
way to her apartment. “They said Ryan wanted to go with us to Arkansas. He’s
boarding a flight there.”

“That’s cool. Just be sure to call him to let him know
which hotel to find us at.”

Amanda put off telling Brad about the recent events in
her life…the bad ones, at least. She told Brad that she was now retired from
modeling and had started working at Best Buy. Brad asked why she’d quit.

“I didn’t. They let me go. After the night I got
attacked, I suffered pretty nasty bruises. I have a scar on my temple, too. My
agent thought I wasn’t beautiful enough to grace a billboard anymore, so he let
me go.”

“Pompous jerk,” Brad murmured, shaking his head. “If
you hadn’t told me you have a scar, I wouldn’t even have noticed.”

Brad reached forward to touch Amanda’s temple. He
could feel the line. It was short, and faint pink.

“It takes certain lighting, and you have to look
close.”

Brad looked at his watch.

“Our flight takes off tonight,” he said. “That way
we’ll get there next morning. I need to take some rest.”

“You can use my bed,” Emmy suggested. “Let me show you
to my bedroom.”

“Thanks.”

Amanda watched Emmy and Brad go, smiling. She hoped
that they would finally be together. Standing up, Amanda went to her bedroom to
get a few more things ready for her trip.

Emmy came back a few minutes later. She sat on
Amanda’s bed.

“You didn’t tell Brad about yesterday.”

Amanda pursed her lips.

“I didn’t want to worry him. He was tired from his
flight. We’ll let him know later, when he’s rested.”

There was a knock on the front door. Amanda went to
answer before they woke up Brad. She saw that it was Christopher outside.

“Hi,” she said gravelly, letting him in. “Are there
any updates?”

“No. Kellan’s in much the same condition. The doctors
think he’ll be out of danger by the end of the day.”

“That’s great. I hope he gets better.”

Amanda and Christopher sat down in the sofa.

“So, you’re leaving?”

“Yes. It’s dangerous for me here. With luck, the police
will catch my attacker while I’m away on my trip. She can’t hide for long.”

Christopher frowned.

“You’re sure it’s a woman?”

“I saw her. Right then, in those two seconds of time
that the truck was coming at me, I got a look at her face. It was only for a
split second, before I was pushed, but it’s burned into my brain.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“No. After seeing the police sketch, I thought she
seemed familiar.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was wearing a head scarf, and sunglasses. I
remember because I found it strange for anyone to wear shades in winter. The
sky was overcast that day. Obviously she didn’t want us to see her face.”

Amanda reached into her purse. She handed Christopher
a copy of the first version of the printout. He looked at it.

“That’s the woman’s sketch.”

Christopher stared at the drawing. The woman was even
more familiar to him than to Amanda.

It can’t be.

“Have you seen her?”

“No, of course not,” said Christopher, blinking twice
before turning to Amanda. “I also find the sunglasses weird. Why would this
woman be after you?”

“That’s what I wish I knew.”

Christopher handed the printout back to Amanda. She
looked at the woman, trying to place where she might have seen her.

“I think you need a distraction now,” he proposed.
“How about hot chocolate?”

Amanda mulled it over. Hot chocolate reminded her of
Nathan. She shook her head, telling herself not to forget that she was angry
with him.

“I’m not very hungry. Let’s just watch a movie.”

Christopher nodded. He
browsed through Amanda’s movie collection, as she didn’t feel well enough to
stand.

It had been several weeks since Nathan last heard
Amanda’s voice. He was hardly able to take it anymore. Nathan would talk to Amanda,
even if he had to knock out her bodyguards to get to her.

Nathan looked up at the building where Amanda lived.
He looked around, wondering if Caldwell or Kellan were in the shadows. Not
caring, Nathan walked up to the building. He ascended the stairs to Amanda’s
floor.

Outside the apartment, Nathan knocked on the door.
There was no response. He put his ear against it. No sound came from inside.
Nathan looked around. It surprised him that the bodyguards hadn’t showed up to
kick him out already.

Nathan knocked again.

“Amanda! We need to talk. Open the door, please.”

Still, no response. There wasn’t even the sound of the
AC inside. Nathan thought that was weird.

Just then, the door from the apartment to the left
opened. Nathan knew that the bodyguards occupied the one to the right of
Amanda’s door. A girl walked in his direction.

“Hi. Are you looking for Amanda?”

“Yes. Do you know where she is?”

“Amanda’s away. She’s going to be on a trip for the
whole week.”

Nathan raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know about that.
Of course Amanda would have left. Spring break was the perfect excuse to get
away from him. Nathan hadn’t made any plans, except to follow Amanda wherever
she went. He wouldn’t give up.

“No wonder. I found it odd not to see her bodyguards
on my way up here.”

The girl’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You haven’t heard?”

Nathan looked at her, concerned

“Heard what?”

“Amanda was almost run over last Friday. One of her
guards was seriously injured. He’s in the hospital now.”

Nathan froze. Amanda had been in danger again, and he
didn’t know? How was it possible?

“Aren’t you Amanda’s friend?” the girl asked, eyeing
him suspiciously.

“Not really. She’s kept me at arm’s length lately.”

The girl looked puzzled at that answer.

“Do you know where she went?”

“She didn’t tell me.”

Nathan took a deep breath. He thanked the girl and
left. He was deep in thought all the way to his car. How could he find out
where Amanda was? Nathan doubted Judith and Emmy were still around.

Just outside the building, Nathan bumped into someone.
He vaguely recognized the man now standing in front of him.

“Mr. Ferland, isn’t it?” the man asked. He was
carrying a suitcase in one hand.

“Yes, sir,” Nathan replied, shaking hands with him.

“I’m Patrick Hayden, private investigator. You may
remember me from last year, when I helped in the capture of Hilbert Melendez.”

Nathan nodded, remembering that evening.

“Ms. Tilley’s bodyguard, a man named Caldwell, asked
me to assist the Ithaca police department. I’m told they have a new case that
concerns her. I was just going to stop by and talk to her. I assume you’re back
from seeing Ms. Tilley.”

“She’s not here. Amanda’s away on a trip. I don’t know
where.”

Hayden found that odd.

“Aren’t you her boyfriend?”

Nathan pursed his lips.

“We’ve had a…misunderstanding lately.”

“Oh. In that case, I gather you still live nearby. May
we take this conversation to your place, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure, Mr. Hayden.”

Nathan led the investigator toward his apartment.
Inside, Nathan offered him a drink. Hayden thanked him, saying that water was
fine.